Favor

Dear All,

I really love reading other people's blogs but lately, considering the sudden boom in the blog-universe, it's been more difficult than usual to spot a gem of a blog.

So if you have your own favorite(s), please post the address in my comment section and do save me the trouble of this incessant (and usually fruitless) bloghopping.

Good karma awaits you if you do :)

Sincerely,

Jillsabs

P.S.

Feel free to go through my links. I'm not one to brag, but I have been known for my discriminating and good taste :)

Picture Talk

They say that a picture is equivalent to a thousand words (so can five pictures be submitted in lieu of a 5,000 word essay? I didn't think so.) But I can think of just several things when I look at this picture. I call this pic "The trouble with...".

The trouble with--

--- long hair is that people punctuate what they say by pulling on your tresses. Can I just say how much physical pain this has sometimes brought me? So stop.

--- again, long hair, is that friends project their hair-induced fantasies on to yours. Let me just say for the record and for the nth time that NO, I will not: curl, dye, get Kristine Hermosa nor Claudine Barreto bangs, put streaks, get dreadlocks or sell my hair to make a wig. Capisce?

--- a camera phone is that it induces the camera whore in me.

--- again, a camera phone, is that it is more or less hit and miss when you're taking your own picture

--- for the third time, a camera phone, is that it's not a digital camera.

--- this picture is that, for some bizaare reason, it reminds me of Norah Jones. And she might not like it.

--- Norah Jones is that the tickets to her concert are sooo expensive! I think I'll just buy her CD because hearing her live is next to impossible for this poor student.

--- my background is that it's the curtain in my room and I'm once again reminded of the need to have them washed.

--- Sunday is that I still have cotillion practice for the Portia Ball later this afternoon and if I hear Moon River or Blue Danube one more time I'm gonna scream!

--- the Portia Ball is the cotillion (Glide! Feel the music! One and two!). I thought that reaching your 20s meant immunity from this sort of torture. I guess not.

--- the cotillion is that it's really not that bad, so my penchant for theatrics (read: ka-OA-han) is once again displayed.

--- this post is that it's getting a life of it's own and I initially just wanted to tell my friends to "Lay off the hair already!". Mission accomplished, so I'm off. Toodles!

P.S. (7:37 pm)
During this morning's mass, Rizza kept on tugging at my ponytail and when I'd look behind, she'd say: "C'mon let's curl your hair!". This happened around 3-4 times. Finally, on the fifth time that she molested my hair, I finally said: "Okay, I'll get my hair curled IF you get your head shaved. Deal?". Surprisingly, she didn't bother me anymore afterwards :)

It Has Begun

The deluge leading up to finals week has officially begun and to make matters worse, summer didn't slowly creep in as hoped. Rather, it stunned everyone with a full frontal invasion. The city is hot! And it's not the good kind.

The long weekend was rudely interrupted by Saturday's Loc Gov class, so there goes my Bora plans (yeah right :).

Anyway, I'd love to make a longer post but I'm already sooo tired (but obviously not too tired to blog. It's a disease I tell you...) and so if I continue, I'd probably end up bitching about everything and nothing. And what would that do to my choir girl priss image?!

Enjoy the long weekend folks! Mwah!

P.S.

Congratulations to the newly-elected UP College of Law Student Government! Now, about those water dispensers President Enconado... :)

A Fervent Prayer

I try, God knows how I try!

I spend hours at night just to please you.

My hands are now a calloused mess all for you.

But you don't see any of these because in your presence I turn to slush. A blubbering, mindless, incoherent idiot.

So instead of your good graces, I find myself incurring your disapproval.

You don't know how you hurt me so.

I ache for you and that one shining moment...

When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
you know I can do anything
When I see you smile
I see a ray of light, oh oh,
I see it shining right through the rain
When I see you smile
Oh yeah, Sir Leonen when I see you smile at me

Unsolicited Advice

Him: Uy, I haven't seen you in a long time.

Me: I've been busy.

Him: I miss you do you know that?

Me: Talaga lang ha?

Him: Seriously, you're special to me.

The above would have been meaningful had it not been punctuated with girlish giggles, FROM HIM.

So the next time, try to smother your happy thoughts or calm your nerves (or whatever it is that caused you to be freakishly happy) and try a mellower less-giggly approach. Maybe then I could believe you and then we could get down to business *wink*

Purist

I'm usually not very picky (those who say otherwise have no business reading this... :) but I just cringe whenever I see these, for a lack of a better term, mutations. I mean I'm all for creativity and such, but there are just some things which should be off limits if only in deference to their sacred nature. The things that rile me up are:

1. shampoo and conditioner in one- shampoos and conditioners have diametrically opposing functions in life. A shampoo is meant to clean the hair (strip the nasty oils and gunks from your tresses) while the conditioner is meant to coat the hair with amino-pro-v goodness and other what-have-yous. So how can one product remove and replace something at the same time?! And how does your "shamditioner" know which to remove and which to retain? Does it have some sort of guiding mechanism which enables it to differentiate the bad oils from the good oils? Are the amino acids/pro-v mini capsules set on time release so as soon as the hair is squeaky clean they can do their thing? Is this where our defense budget goes to?

2. flavored tikoy- we now have around 5 boxes of tikoy in our fridge and not one of them is the regular white kind! There's two boxes of ube, two of sweet corn and one of pandan. Regular white tikoy best exemplifies the saying that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

3. macapuno, buko salad, durian etc ice cream- although I'm more adventurous when it comes to ice cream, I still can't stomach the fruit salad flavor, it's just too surreal for me. I wonder if the ice cream mob even conducted research when it came to the fruit salad variety, or perhaps some prankster just inserted it into the line-up in an attempt to derail the normal flow of society.

So there. It's back to Specpro for me. Saturday night down the drain.

Here are some pictures of happier times. These were taken in Cebu last semestral break.

WithTessa, Aaron and Fran at some bar in The Village.

With Ariane at some bar in Crossroads. I could be wrong, but I think I'm holding a long island iced tea. Three of those babies in one night made me veeeeery happy.

All right already! It's back to the Rules of Court for this one. I'm so wawa... :(

Interesting

In the spirit of Valentines, let me just say that something might be brewing but I'm not sure yet if that will turn out to be Something. But considering the fact that I'm not sure if I WANT it to be Something does that mean that it's nothing?

Hmmm...I think I'd better stick with Special Procedure for the moment, at least that's one thing I'm bound to understand.

Have a great weekend everyone!

ARGH!

As the title suggests I'm mad, annoyed and on the verge of throwing a tantrum. I was toying around with my template, trying to add both haloscan and the blogger commenting system, all along thinking that I had saved the html code from my pink template, but apparently I hadn't.

Considering that the past template was just a patch-up job from various templates, I now have no idea how to put it back up! I've tried to rebuild it from scratch but to no avail. I guess my powers just don't extend to the cyber world.

So now I'm using this green template (with a little tweaking here and there) and consoling myself with the thought that even if it is a generic template, it's still a very pretty generic template. Sniff! Yeah I know, I have such big problems :)

Moving on from the mundane, Fairster2 was last night and I still have no idea if we broke even, but judging from the crowd last night, I think we did pretty well (cross your fingers). I left the fair at around 11pm because I still had an 8am class the following day (today), so I didn't get to see Sugarfree, Stonefree and Rivermaya (boooo!). Anyway, my consuelo de bobo is that even if I had stayed for their performances, I probably wouldn't have seen them perform because I was assigned to the service entrance stamping on arms and writing on booth handler's passes, definitely not the best place to be to see a concert. It really was better that I just went home to get my 4 hours of sleep. Right.

I'm really hungry and sleepy but still I am doggedly trying to recreate my past template. However, judging from my twitching eye, I think it's about time to call a temporary truce. Looks like I have to give up on the impossible and just focus my attention on something I can actually do. So happy eating and good night.

Shameful

I don't understand. I don't want to understand.

And to think that I was infuriated when it was announced on the MRT that the train wouldn't be stopping at the Ayala station. All I could think of was that someone screwed up again, much to MY inconvenience.

I got off at Buendia and the couple in front of me talked about a bus exploding yadda-yadda so many people died blah-blah. That's such a lame plot for a movie.

But when I began waiting for a bus, the sound of sirens alerted me to the fact that it was not a movie after all. A bus did explode and people, innocent people, did die.

Again, I don't understand why they think Allah could possibly take joy in such an act. Call me ignorant but I don't think He does.

Valentines and Stuff

This morning, my mom approached me and asked "Jill, who's your valentine?" while brandishing a heart shaped plastic container filled with dozens of mini heart shaped chocolates, so I enthusiastically said: "YOU! You're my valentine!" while I eagerly grabbed all that chocolatey goodness.

There's nothing better than gorging on chocolate on a Sunday morning while cruising the internet superhighway.

Life is good and I'm easy :)

*********************

Here's the Stuff part in the Valentines and Stuff title.

The Portia Sorority of the UP College of Law is sponsoring the 2nd night of the annual UP Fair.

So if you're not doing anything of February 15 (Tuesday), feel free to drop by the Sunken Garden to relive old college memories; unwind from all that toxic office or school junk; hang out with friends; canoodle with a loved one or whatever you may fancy doing within the bounds of decency (we can forget about decorum for the night).

The bands playing are:

1. POT
2. Rivermaya
3. Brownman Republic
4. Imago
5. Sugarfree
6. Stonefree
7. Imago
8. Hale
9. Urbandub
10. Cambio

and many more

So if you're so inclined, tickets are currently available at the Portia room (look for ME-jillsabs), or just get in touch with your friendly Portian (ME-jillsabs) because said friendly Portian still has 35 supposedly non-returnable reasons left to stay extremely friendly and amiable.

See you all there!

Tag

HA! I just took three midterm exams in one week and two of those were on two consecutive days! How did they go or to be more specific, how did I fare? Who know?! Basta it's over and done with and instead of giving in to my droopy eyes and communing with my bed, I'm typing out an entry. I think this is what is called an addiction.

*************************************

I've been tagged by the Warrior Elvin and because I'm a law-abiding citizen, both in the cyber and real world, here's my list. Caveat though, my taste is pretty mainstream and is more less limited to what I hear on the radio, it's just that I have superhuman powers when it comes to remembering lyrics and melodies, that's why I know "Early Morning Rain" :)

Random Ten

1. If You Could Read My Mind (Jocelyn Enriquez, Ultra Nate and Amber)

2. Rodeo (Rivermaya)

3. Hari ng Sablay (Sugarfree)

4. Satellite (Dave Matthews Band)

5. Shoop-Shoop Song (Cher?)

6. As I lay Me Down (Sophie B. Hawkins)

7. Tuwing Umuulan at Kapiling Ka (Basil Valdez)

8. Love (Harry Connick Jr)

9. Stupid Girl (Garbage)

10. Invisible (Clay Aiken)

What is the amount of musical files in your computer

Hmmm....I really don't know. But considering that four people use the PC and each person has his/her own folder and there are communal folders as well, I would have a say a zillion GB :)

What was the last CD you bought

Diez by the Bread of Life Youth Choir. Love your own, I always say.

What was the last song you listened to before doing this?

Suntok sa Buwan (Session Road)

What are the five songs that mean something to you?

1. Seasons of Love (Rent)

2. Here, There and Everywhere (Beatles)

3. As Time Goes By (Louis Armstrong)

4. Panalangin (Apo Hiking Society)

5. I Know Him By Heart (Vonda Shepard)

Who will you pass this to and why?

1. Mud so that he can take a break from his self-imposed hiatus :)

2. Tessa because she has killer taste in music.

3. Gary because he hasn't written anything musically related and I think it's high time he did. And he's busy this week, so I just want to disturb him :)

So there. That was my fourth exam for the week. Genius out.

Goldfish

All throughout the trip home from school, I kept on obsessing over my bad recit. I kept on repeating what happened and then creating an alternate universe where I could have redeemed myself. Actually, it wasn't really that bad considering that it was Leonen's class, but still, if I were any more limber, I would have probably kicked myself.

On the way to the MRT station, I kept on muttering to myself, much to the discomfort of the lady beside me. On the train, I looked out the window and continued berating myself until I caught my reflection and quickly erased my scowl, you know, wrinkles and all that. At the Edsa Central station, an old lady got in and so I gave her my seat and I felt just a wee bit better but the nagging voice was still there. So I stopped by Glorietta for some retail therapy, which turned out to be a good idea because Manel's was on sale and I definitely felt a lot perkier with the shopping bag in my hand.

When I arrived home, I saw my brother rushing out to play tennis at the Citadella clubhouse. It was then that I felt the sudden longing to go swimming. But with two more midterm exams to hurdle over in the next four days, I knew that studying was the immediate priority and not lounging around near a pool. I am so disciplined it just hurts.

So from obsessing over a bad recit, I now find myself obsessing over my upcoming swimming date next week. Thank goodness I have the attention span of a goldfish.

Fat

The trouble with gaining weight is that the extra poundage seems to immediately make a beeline to their favorite spots. Some women are lucky because extra weight for them means bigger breasts, while the not so fortunate ones like myself have to contend with chipmunk cheeks and an expanding waistline.

It is usually during this time of the year when I feel the mounting pressure to lose weight or at least to tone up. With summer just two months away, the people around me have begun to shun the second cup of rice and order Light instead of Pale. However, I've never been picky with food because being naturally skinny, I can often get away with shovelling greasy food down my gullet without any hovering guilty feelings (save for the occassional vision of dying from a heart attack at the tender age of 45). So while they talk about the advantages of toasted bread over untoasted bread calorie-wise, I surreptitiously scarf down the sisig.

But all that has changed now. My tried and tested metabolism is no longer as dependable as it used to be. So after another restaurant raid, I find myself unbuttoning my pants just to be able to breathe. Good God! Is that a gut I see?! It also doesn't help that my friends greet me by squeezing my arms ("Ang lusog na natin a!") or slapping my butt ("Shake it Jill!") . Of course I also have my own barbs to throw out, but always in the spirit of friendship and love. :) hehehe

The point of this meaningless post is that I borrowed a skirt from my friend for the Portia Ball and it barely fits me now. My friend has the tiniest waist in the world and at this point, the only way the skirt will fit is if I don't close it at the back. So there really is no other choice but to whittle down at my mid-section. But there is another less painful way and that is to just adjust the clasp. Hmmmm.... To diet or to alter the offensive skirt... What a choice! Pass me the porkchop please.

The End is Near

First they tax books and then they intensify the drive against piracy to the point of punishing not just the sellers but also the buyers.

Is this a conspiracy against us couch potatos?!

So what does the government want us to do? Go mountain climbing? Go to the beach? Volunteer at a home for the elderly? Such wasteful pursuits... :)

Seriously though, I think it's about time that something was seriously done about piracy in this country. It has seriously hurt the movie and music industry. But maybe something can be done too to make the originals less prohibitive and more democratic? Read: cheaper. Of course, it's too much to ask that they be the same price as the pirated ones but maybe if they cut costs here and there the price difference won't be that large. Wishful thinking, I know.

Emotions

* I am a relationship retard. So I found it funny when a friend told me that she vicariously lives her love life through the exploits of other people, myself included. I take it back, it's not funny after all, on the contrary, it's really quite sad.

* Happiness is a big, big frozen Hershey's Kiss placed in the microwave for approximately 30 secs until it becomes gooey, but not too soft so as to be classified as hot fudge. Get a spoon, turn on the tv and then bathe in the warmth that only chocolate can bring.

* Easily irritated (check). Drastic moodswings (check). Forever hungry (check). Unusual cravings for salty and sweet food (check). General feeling of lethargy (check). The verdict's out, the red flag will be up soon.

* This line from a "classic" never fails to crack me up: My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns hun! Three claps for those who can guess the song :)

Batangas and Back

In my last post, I mentioned about going to Batangas to gather information on Sto.Tomas for my LocGov paper and then making a side trip to Batangas City to visit my friend, but as it turned out, the trip to the Sto.Tomas Municipal Hall turned out to be the side trip while the trip to Batangas City became the main event.

My appointment with the City Administrator was still after lunch so I decided to go to Batangas City first. I was pleasantly surprised that the entire trip took just a little over an hour so that after dropping off the kids in school we were in Batangas City by 9:15am. Throughout the trip, I wrote down questions for my interview later that day. I wrote down such thought-provoking questions as: "What makes Sto.Tomas distinctly Batangeno?", "How would you differentiate the leadership styles of Mayor Edna Sanchez to Mayor Vilma Santos-Recto?" and "If made to choose between kapeng barako and balisong, which would you rather sell in Rustans and why?" I'm telling you, Jessica Soho had nothing on my journalistic skills.

First stop was Batangas City where I met up with Kay and eventually had brunch at Ponte Fino. Ponte Fino, is a paradox because it's conveniently located near the city proper but is so situated that you kind of forget that you're near the hustle and bustle of city life. Cozy and quaint just about sum it up. There is an airconditioned tent good for concerts, receptions and other events. In fact, Nina will be holding a Valentine's Day concert there. So if you're in the mood for a country drive and want to be serenaded by the Songbird, you know where to go.

My only beef about the hotel was that when I first saw it, I imagined that it would have a large and sprawling backyard or even a golf course for that matter. I was thus disappointed to see that their only concession to a backyard was the pool area which wasn't really that big too. I wonder why they didn't build a golf course? Anyone?

Lunch was okay, of course it helped that I was already famished by then so you could have served me raw spinach and I wouldn't have cared less. I don't know how the F girls do it because, in the spirit of fun, Kay and I tried to do a food review and all we could come up with were "Mmmmm....", "Good!" and "Delicious". Methinks the two of us seriously need a thesaurus the next time we attempt to be food critics.

After lunch, Kay and I went to her friendly, neighborhood manghuhula (fortune-teller) Ka Irma. Apparently, Kay already went to her about 3 weeks ago but she wanted to have her fortune told yet again because of some supervening events in the past few days. This was my first time to have my fortune read and I usually don't believe in such things but as the saying goes, when in Rome go Roman.

Ka Irma said a LOT of things in the 15 minutes of so I consulted with her. She got some things right about me but some were totally off base. The way I see it, it was just a statistical game. The more she talked the more likely she'd say something right or something at least within the ballpark. I also noticed that she'd get her cue from me. Before starting on a new topic, she'd try to gauge my reaction. And if I shrugged then she'd just gloss over it but if I would show signs of disbelief or amazement, then she'd press on and elaborate.

As mentioned earlier, she really talked her head off so I don't quite remember everything she said but I do remember her saying that: I'm going to graduate from school (she didn't specifically say law school but still, yey!); one of my siblings will surpass me yet again (meaning one will either get married, get pregnant or get someone pregnant. I hope not! Maybe she was referring to my sister-in-law who's now two months pregnant?); I'm very picky and full of pride (tell me something I don't know...); I'm going to get a job offer this year (cross your fingers); I'm going to be very successful (again, tell me something I don't already know... :) ); Beware of strangers; and that there will be three men who will make their presence felt this year (oooooohhhhh....).

So there. Let's just see how accurate her predictions will be as the year progresses.

Finally, I went to Sto.Tomas to keep my appointment and when I got there, the Administrative Officer referred me to his secretary (or was that his secretary's secretary?) making my dreams of acting ala-Jessica Soho a nullity. I literally just gathered pieces of paper from the different departments in the Municipal Hall and in a little over an hour, I was all set to go home. Let's just see what kind of magic I can conjure for my Locgov paper with all these lists of past mayors and councilors. Good luck to me.