CREATE

There's still more than a month to go but I already have my word for 2017: CREATE. I'd like to think I'm a creative person: I write, I take pictures, sometimes, I try to create pretty stuff. And all these have been pushed to the back burner even before P came.

So for next year, I will find time to create.

1. I will find time to update this blog as much as possible.
2. I will add more to the Get Crafty page.
3. I will keep and update a creative planner – exploring the bullet journal type.
4. I will take more pictures, maybe take up a real camera again.
5. I will create a sibling for P, LOL.

Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday, Sir!

Who else misses the old blogs of yore where bloggers hide behind the veil of anonymity and share to their hearts' content? The famous bloggers nowadays pepper their blogs with sponsored ones, nothing against that (except some of them are rich to begin with and they are the ones getting free stuff, boo hoo!), I just miss the former over-sharing posts.

Anyhoo, today is the birthday of one of my favorite teachers. My favorites are the ones who taught English/Language/Writing. Sir A was our sophomore and junior years English teacher. He came from the US and he was always in Girbaud shirts before the brand came to the Philippines, hence we called him “Girbaud” behind his back, harhar. He had an American accident which we imitated, again, harhar. What I loved about him was that he introduced us to Shakespeare and Langston Hughes. He spearheaded what I believe was the first school-wide play, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Chiristmas Carol. He made us write “original” short stories, that he called out one of my classmates for plagiarism because she included Spanish sentences in her story and she does not speak Spanish at all (so she must have lifted them from a Sweet Valley/Sweet Dreams pocketbook). Sadly, he went back to the US before our senior year. I communicate with him from time to time via Facebook. I wish that baby P will have a teacher like him in the future. I know he's not going to read this, but Happy Birthday, Sir! Thank you for spreading the love of words, written and spoken. :)

Closing Time

Closing time
Open all the doors and let you out into the world
Closing time
Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl
Closing time
One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
Closing time
You don't have to go home but you can't stay here

Back in freshman year of law school, my blockmates and I had regular Thursday inuman sessions at this bar called Cafe Dapits. I think it was because we were let out early that day and our classes the next day were really late. Anyway, we would drink until the bar closed down and our cue to exit was when the place would play Semisonic's Closing Time.

While walking to work yesterday, the song came back to me. My boss is retiring in seven months' time and since I'm co-terminus, my stint here is ending as well. I can transfer to another boss but given my current state, it doesn't seem advisable to do so. However, I did make moves to transfer to another government office early this year but they still haven't called me back for an interview (boo) so maybe I'm destined to stay here for the meantime.

Apart from the retirement, everything seems to be closing down around here, and by here, I mean around the office. We are near the Philamlife building and sometime last year or early this year, it was bought by SM. I like Philamlife building because it houses two of my banks, BDO and BPI, so I can run bank errands during my lunch hour. There was also a Dell's where we could eat relatively cheap  slow-cooked food. There was  a small Mercury Drug where I could buy my medicines without a long queue. But they have all since moved out except for BPI. BDO has transferred to the other side of the street, in Times Plaza. This would have been fine except that there used to be a connecting walkway from the LRT to Times but it has also been closed. So now, I have to go down the LRT stairs to get to Times. In my state, it's kind of a hassle.

Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
Closing time
This room won't be open till your brothers or your sisters come
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Maybe it's time for new beginnings.

 

While waiting...

I'm prone to crying fits when I'm frustrated. And lately, I've been very very frustrated. During one of my crying episodes, hubby - the less emotional one - said something like I should learn to accept so I won't get frustrated.

But I can't simply accept how something seemingly basic can be so difficult. Heck, people do this without thinking.

It used to be that when I want something, I usually get it - 90% hard work and 10% luck. However it seems in this case that I need 100% luck. And I seem to have used up my quota on luck.

Russian Meteor

In case you haven't heard (or read), a meteor streaked across the Russian  sky last Friday morning our time. I read about it via Twitter late in the afternoon. This was one of the first videos I watched:

My initial reactions were: "Oh my, this looks like a scene straight out of a movie!", "This is scary!", "Is the world ending na?" and "Why didn't anyone see this coming?!" especially since an asteroid was due to pass by very close to Earth a few hours later. It turns out that NASA and the like monitor only objects that can cause catastrophic worldwide damage so this one kind of escaped their radar.

I was reminded of the Hale-Bopp comet  which was visible to the naked eye on January - May 1997. I may or may not have seen it on the exact day of my birthday, but I have a memory of standing on our street and looking up at the sky, seeing an object shaped like a comet which was seemingly not moving. This was years before I started blogging, now I kinda regret not keeping a diary then. Actually, I used to keep diaries, we were even required to keep one in our Writing class. However, I filled mine with angsty I-hate-my-strict-mom sentiments, and when my mom learned about it, drama exploded, hehehe.It would have been interesting to read what I felt back then.

I try to keep this blog frivolous because I feel that I am hardly qualified to comment on current events. But hey, a meteor is too scary and too real enough not to comment on.

#32

I feel like I'm still catching my breath. While we celebrate the longest Christmas season in the world, mine spills over to my birthday celebration/s. So, yeah, the house is still a mess and I've just finished meeting people left and right.

Birthdays make for muni-muni moments. When I turned 30, I was so depressed I purposely didn't celebrate big as most people are wont to do. This year, my senti moment was missing celebrating with my family on the exact day of my birthday. Since I turned 18, I have been celebrating with my family before the actual date because I am either back in Manila or on the way back on the actual date. I blew the candles with my family on January 1, the day we set off back to Manila, that on the eve of my birthday, I was kinda surprised that it was not yet my birthday.

The one memorable thing I did for this birthday is that I tossed back shots of Jagermeister (first time!) and Jack Daniel's after a long long time of not drinking.

 

Photo stolen from @chellepretty_bertus

 

Surprisingly, I didn't end up too drunk, just tipsy and a dull headache the day after. A friend remarked that maybe I was rewarded with super alcohol powers on my birthday harhar.

Oh my, 32.

 

Throwback Multiply: Bar 2007 Memoirs IV

Bar 2012 tomorrow (technically on Sunday, but Bar activities i.e. Send-off commence tomorrow)! Good luck bar examinees! 

Bar Memoirs #7 and 8: Remedial Law and Ethics

Tapusin na ang kaguluhang ito! :D

So makapal-ang-mukha-me (refer to previous memoir) decided to finish the Bar exams. According to statistics, around 200 of those who filed the petition to take the Bar didn't finish it.

Anyhoo, one of the first questions a barista asks when he/she starts to draft a reading schedule is, "To read books or not to read books?" And by books, I mean the thick annotated ones, not the reviewers. My answer is: it depends.

When I was drafting my own reading schedule and checking the books I had on hand, I realized that other than Criminal Procedure, I haven't read an entire book for Remedial Law. Since it has the greatest weight of the subjects, I decided, books it is, despite the fact that it has the longest coverage, too (yep, I believe it is longer than Civil Law even if the former has more  subjects). I also consider Remedial Law as one of my "weak" subjects so go, go, go books! I read Feria Noche for Civil Procedure, Regalado for Special Procedure and Criminal Procedure and the Albano reviewer for the second reading, then Beda notes for pre-week. The first reading took me two to three weeks, and there were days I just stayed in the apartment. There was a time that I realized that the only words I've spoken for the past three days were "Take-out po," after pointing to my desired viand at one of those turo-turos in V. Con. No wonder I was a wreck by September haha!

As for Ethics and Practical Exercises, I failed to follow my game plan. A topnotcher advised that to study legal forms without really studying for legal forms is to try to write at least one pleading before going to bed. Alas, by 10pm, I was comfortably hugging my pillows. So for five days before second reading, I read up Ethics and tried to memorize legal forms (at the same time praying there won't be ridiculous forms like Articles of Incorporation, saksakin niyo na lang ako with my 0.5 Pilot pen kung ganun!)

 The exams were fair and graded fairly. (Syempre nakita ko na ratings ko haha!) The questions about global injunction in Rem and the arbitration clause and clause stipulating a right of first refusal in Ethics had me scratching my head though (I feel those were inserted by the Chairman, di ba he said he had to make the Ethics exam difficult? Hmp!). I encircled the word "clauses" and proceeded to write. Later on, the proctors said it was alright if we would only give the clause itself... turns out the others have written entire contracts. Buti na lang I wasn't that masipag! I don't think it made a difference though as everyone got a line of 9 in Ethics. We love you, lady Justice!

Moral of the memoirs: Be masipag and read books and don't be too masipag to write an entire contract when the question calls for a clause. :D

Throwback Multiply: Bar 2007 Memoirs III

Bar 2012 in a couple of days! In the meantime, my Bar 2007 Memoirs continued:

Bar Memoirs# 5 & 6: Merc and Crim

Can you tell that I want these memoirs over and done with? My exact sentiment during the 3rd Sunday.

I think I could safely say that everyone was in low spirits the eve of that Sunday (except for a chosen few). Roomie Daye was worrying about her Tax while I was still worrying over Poli (stuck in a moment talaga ako nun). That night, roomie and I were doing this strange dance wherein we'd promise not to talk about the previous exams, talk about it a bit, ask about answers, then promise yet again we won't talk about the previous exams.

I've decided to lump the two exams in one memoir because they were extremes.

Merc was, in Areiz's words yet again, "Because the questions were fairly and logically crafted in a manner that you can more or less approximate a bar candidate’s knowledge of the subject." I concur, but I think I kind of messed up my answers to the first questions because I was feeling a bit light-headed that morning. I promised I'd sleep every Saturday night, and my target sleeping time was 5 hours. I'd *try* to sleep by 10pm, 10:30pm if need be, then wake up at 3am so Daye and I would have ample time in using the bath room. But that Saturday, I think I dozed off around 11:30ish, with Prof. Catindig's reviewer still propped up on my lap.

But yes, the exam was fair. The reviewer of Dean Sundiang was, in law students' words, "Patok." I read that reviewer, and that of Prof. Catindig's, but somehow, you've got to battle memory gap.

Come lunch time, I didn't know what to feel about Merc, should I be happy about it or not? But then, there was Crim to tackle. When the proctor announced that there were only 5 pages (including the cover page) of 10 questions in Crim, we thought it was a happy sign. But the smiles quickly turned to sighs as we read the questions. I read in someone's blog that she cried during the Crim exam. I didn't cry, I even laughed to myself when I saw the questions. I thought, "Wala na 'to. Bahala na talaga." Throughout the exam, I kept shaking my head as I tried to list down the elements of crimes I could remember. Yes, you could write on the questionnaire but please, no identifying marks. The proctor told us to write our seat numbers at the back of the questionnaire so it could be traced back to the owner. I was playing elimination with the crimes... Theft? Robbery? Grave coercion? Light coercion? Teka, ano na nga ba pinagkaiba ng threats and coercion? Grrr, kain na lang ako ng Cadbury.

As TL, Sol and I walked out of La Salle that day, we mused that if some people didn't come back after the Poli exam, then there would be people who won't come back after the Crim exam. It was that bad. We even joked, "Siguro next Sunday, yung mga tao, sisigawan na tayo, "Hoy, bakit pa kayo bumabalik???" " :P

Moral of the memoir: Although this journey is the journey of many, it is the battle of one. Sleep well before the exam. And do go back and finish the battle, because "you just can never can tell."

Throwback Multiply: Bar 2007 Memoirs II

Bar 2012 starts this Saturday. Good luck bar examinees! And now, a continuation of my Bar 2007 Memoirs:

Bar Memoir #3: Civil Law

After Labor, I hitched a ride with Atty. Sol and his sisters and went home to an empty and silent apartment. After talking to my parents and E over the phone, the tears came. I had no strength to go out and buy a "proper" dinner, so I just ate some of the goodies given by friends and classmates. I promptly fell asleep and woke up the next day... still wearing yesterday's clothes. Eww, I know.

I resolved not to attend any pre-week sessions and just read na lang. After my bath, I took out my Civil Code codal and started reading, occasionally fighting back tears. I broke my resolution though and attended Dean Aligada's lecture on Property and Wills... which would have helped a lot if I remembered it as there were questions on such subjects.

Persons and ObliCon are considered the "major" areas in Civil Law so I was preparing myself for such questions. Again, expect the unexpected. The questions came from Property, Trusts, and LTD. I think I answered the second question last, I found it hard to argue if "a floating platform made of wood and metal, upon which was permanently attached the heavy equipment for the petroleum operations and living quarters of the crew" was an immovable property or movable property. At may follow up pa na: "The floating platform likewise contained a garden area, where trees, plants and flowers were planted. Q: Are the trees, plants and flowers immovable or movable property?" Trick question, kaw ba yan? I remembered Atty. Domondon telling us that in answering, chances are, the first answer that comes to mind is not the right answer. So I was all set to answer that the floating platform was an immovable property (because floating = movable) but racked my brain for the legal basis. For Wills, the last question, I forgot the rest of the iron curtain rule, the codal provision kept popping in my head but it was incomplete... memory gap!

Moral of this memoir: Codal codal codal. Brush up on distinctions. Drink/eat something that would remedy memory gap.

N.B. My lowest score was in Civil Law - which is why I now hate civil cases at work haha.

Bar Memoir #4: Tax

I used to hear the same words from professors and former-bar-examinees-now-lawyers: "stock knowledge ang Bar." I used to reply (in my head anyway), "Paano kung wala akong stock knowledge"? A couple of weeks ago, I saw some of my classmates-now-bar-examinees and I found myself telling them: "stock knowledge." Predictably, most of them replied, to my face, "Paano kung wala akong stock knowledge"?

I digress. Is "stock knowledge" a Pinoy concept? I tried Googling for its uhm, academic meaning, but all I saw were sites pertaining to shares of stock. Or maybe I wasn't Googling hard enough.

I believed in the power of "stock knowledge" after the Tax exam. I was one of those people, who, when he/she failed to read the assigned cases would assure his/her self, "Bawi na lang ako sa bar review." To quote a prof: "Oooh boy." Bar review isn't for catching up but, to quote a former-bar-examinee-now-lawyer, for "polishing."

So, let's backtrack a bit... I had a hard time with my Tax Review class. I received a line of 6 in our prelims exams and I cried right there and then inside our classroom. Coupled with Crim Rev, there was a *huge* possibility that I won't graduate. When Revalida schedules were posted, I was first for Tax. Great. So for two straight days before Revalida, I locked myself in the apartment, ordered in a large Yellow Cab pizza and memorized memorized memorized. I abhorred memorizing ever since I was... a fetus. For my journalism course, it was okay, but I soon sadly realized it wouldn't fly in law school. So I memorized when it was absolutely-life-and-death necessary. I memorized as much as I could for Tax Rev, I went through 2,000+ pages of my tax books and our prof's notes in two days.

It would have been nice to say that I aced my Revalida, but I didn't. So back to memorizing and to praying that I'd get 90 and above in our final exam so I'd graduate.

Fast forward to bar review: When the week came to review Tax, I would take my Tax books and gag reflex would kick in. In short, nasusuka ako. I read short short books by other authors but I could not go back to my previous Tax books.

Come exam time, "stock knowledge" came in the form of me visualizing our dear professor in class, visualizing the pages I read while reviewing for Revalida, all those suggested answers our prof gave us in his notes which I "memorized" while fueled by Yellow Cab pizza. It wasn't the stuff I read during bar review that I remembered, it was those stuff I read for Tax Review.

Moral of the memoir: Believe in the power of "stock knowledge."

 N.B. Ang dami kong tsamba sa Tax - yey! :)

Throwback Multiply: Bar 2007 Memoirs

If you have been on the interwebs since early to mid-2000, then you surely have a Multiply account, and you must know now that Multiply is going the way of Friendster and is closing down their social network aspect effective December 1, 2012. Since my Multiply has been witness to my early photography as well as my (best) angsty blog posts (wrote about heartbreak, the Bar and job-hunting there), I've been downloading my content. The blog has been exported to a private blogspot while the photos are taking time to download thru Multiply's downloader because of the 1MB plus sizes of some. To download content, log in to your Multiply, go to My Site, then below your name and profile picture are the links "Download Media", "Export to Blogger" and "Export to Tumblr."

I can't believe it's been five years since I took the Bar - and it has gone through a lot of changes, i.e., multiple choice questions, moved to November then now October, moved the venue to UST. In the spirit of Bar fever, I'm sharing my Multiply Bar memoirs. 

#Johnny

Hubby and I stayed up late last night to watch JOHNNY: The Juan Ponce Enrile story on ABS-CBN. JPE's life is very interesting, I always thought he was born rich because he is a mestizo. JPE grew up poor, was taunted a bastard (he had a different father from the siblings he grew up with), was stabbed by guys over a lady, became a guerilla during the war and was tortured by the Japanese. After the war, his father found him and JPE said all he asked from his father is a "good education." I also did not know until now that Armida Siguion Reyna is his half-sister.

Of course the story gets a a little "hazy" during the Martial Law years because, well, I just don't know. I was a wee child when Ninoy was assassinated and I vaguely remember the Ninoy Fever. To me, anything related to Marcos seemed "bad". So I found it hard to shake off doubts when JPE absolved himself of any wrongdoing during the Martial Law.

I digress: curiously, the documentary made me miss my lolos - I wish I knew their stories. My paternal grandpa was the more talkative one but he died when I was only 9. My maternal died when I was 18, but he stayed mostly in the barrio and was quiet when he had a stroke. I will never forget though that he taught me and my brother the cha-cha while we were scrubbing our sala floors with a bunot. Our elders, especially those who lived through the war, have fascinating stories to tell and I regret not hearing my grandparents' versions.

Ramblings of a Green-Eyed Monster

There is this girl whom for blog purposes I will call "Wonder Girl" (hereafter "WG"). She is not a friend, not even an acquaintance, I just learned about her through my friends. Thanks to the social media (read: stalking), I learned more about her wonderful life. She's still living a wonderful life, have just returned from further studies abroad, got married to a fairly attractive man, and snagged a presumably lucrative job overseas.

Compared to her, my life, especially my career, appears lackluster. I mean, I go to work in jeans. L and I got to thinking, should we study again? Should we leave government service and jump into the private sector? We all graduated from the same university, are we wasting our potential while WG is making her way in the world?

But then I thought, above all, I want to be a mother. And I thought of my father, a well-loved and well-respected lawyer and professor in our province, yet I don't see him that way. What I remember about my dad is that he used to write my speeches for school elections until I started writing them myself and he would just proofread, then I ended up writing HIS speeches. Or how he would duck out of the office in his barong tagalaog and watch me in my oratorical contests. Or how he put me through law school, not saying anything when I'd ask for thousands of pesos for my law books.

Yes, WG is living a wonderful life. Yes, I am envious of WG. But I think (really, I hope) this will go away when I'm finally a mommy. #

Dreams

I have the weirdest dreams ever. Some are the normal weird, like flying and crashing down then waking up. Last night, I dreamt that I was reading something on Twitter (I forget what) then I looked at the sky and saw clouds shaped like dogs. I think last week I dreamt that I looked at the night sky, saw the moon and stars fall to Earth, then the sun came out, and there was an earthquake and tsunami. Then there was time that a baby crocodile crawled its way out of a wall and chased me. 

But my weirdest dreams almost always involve the sky. I used to have recurring dreams of looking at the night sky and seeing all the planets. A friend commented, "Maybe you were an astronaut in your past life." Hmmm... Or maybe I was a priestess who worshiped the sky. Haha.

Journals

I've been feeling a bit down lately (partly due to hormones, argh). I feel like talking to someone, only that I can't think of anyone "proper" to talk to about what's going on in my head. I thought of starting a paper journal. I also thought that maybe it's another excuse to buy a pretty notebook when I've got plenty of blank ones lying around. However, I don't want anyone to read my paper journals, even after I'm gone. See, when I was younger, I kept journals and I poured everything into them. My mom was pretty snoopy and when she read some angsty entries, she went ballistic on me. Since then, I've refrained from over-sharing in my journals (totally defeating the point of keeping journals) and then eventually stopped writing.

Then I discovered blogging. I found it liberating that I can write and write, hiding under a nickname, and people "listened" and wrote back. However, one day, one of my room mates shared that she found it weird that a group of girls were talking about something that we ourselves talked about a couple of days before. It turned out that by some strange quirk of Google, she was searching for something totally unrelated to our conversation yet ended up on my blog. There is no hiding in the internet.

My point is, there are a lot of things I want to write down, just to get them out of my system I guess, but I am not prepared to be responsible for my thoughts. Maybe I should just write, then burn everything up afterwards.

Working from Home

Pros:

1. I can work wearing my pajamas.
2. I don't miss shows like "Modern Family" or movies like "Peter Pan". (Gawd, I can't bring myself to watch the impeachment proceedings.)
3. I can control the room temperature. (My office mates like working to Siberia-like weather.)
4. I don't have to deal with pushy LRT and jeep passengers.
5. I can nap without guilt.

Cons:

1. A cup-noodle lunch.
2. I have no one to talk to haha.
3. It's so hot but I don't want to switch on the aircon to save on the electricity bill.
4. Chores are begging to be done.
5. No trolling around Trinoma. Boo hoo.

Blogger Blues

  It's that time of the... Well, it's that time again, when I ask myself why am I keeping a blog when I don't update often. I wish I can say that I don't have time, but heck, I have lots of time. Besides, most of the bloggers I follow are working moms (hello Anna, Frances and Daphne) and they blog religiously.

When I first started blogging - a decade ago, yikes - I noticed that I blogged more when I'm unhappy. Granted, most of my posts were song lyrics or angsty ones, but darn it, I was blogging! I'm kinda not happy with one aspect of my life right now (clue: not marriage, family or friendships), but the blogging juice has run dry.

And while I was eating my dinner in the smoky food court of Trinoma , it hit me: my life is too boring to blog about. On one hand, I am thankful my life's boring: no illnesses, no major drama. But it ain't good for my blog.

Maybe I should go out more, do more. I'm following a couple of online accounts of 18-year-olds and I noticed that they liked posting photos of them sticking their tongues out. Nothing earth-shaking but they sure have a lot of such photos.

Maybe I should stick my tongue out once in a while.