Okay, so I thought there's gonna be another big rally. I haven't seen one in a long time. I kinda miss it :) Seriously, I support the cause.

TV say: I watched Prison Break last night. It was promising. Familiar faces, like John Doe, that teacher in Boston Public and the lead in one The Twilight Zone episode I watched for 4 times when I was sick and was in bed. :) Of course that's just how I was reminded of them, I am more excited to see how the whole show would unfold.

I also watched, after a frustrating day (but that an entirely different story), american idol...back-to-back. Yes, I think there was no StarNews Asia and Friends. I wonder if that will be the case tomorrow and on Friday. Oh well, all 12 female contenders sang and my early favorites did well. Simon said that 4 contestants stood out that night and Katharine McPhee was the best of them. I kinda agree but I think it would have to be Lisa Tucker for me. I think too that the four singers he meant were Mandisa, Paris, Lisa and Katharine (in order of appearance). I could be wrong but based on his comments, the 4 stood out naman talaga. Apart from the four, I also like Ayla, Brenna (I just love the spunk!) and Kinnik. I am excited to see how the guys would do tomorrow!

Work stuff: A big bowl of crap. The associate chief editor has reminded us to keep our emotions in check and leave each and every personal angst at the office door. Well, it's one hell of a task if what makes you angsty and annoyed is in the office! Yes, we're talking about a person :) Hay, I dunno until when I can endure this. Maybe I ought to stick it out and fight na parang tooth for a tooth or something like that. I just hate scheming people kasi. If I can't love my job, just do what is expected of me, and be thankful for the salary. Yun na lang. Better to watch TV at home. Mamamatay din sya. Este yung incident pala. Who knows.

~
Plus, things come to me that made me happy.


My VF issue finally came! The photos were amazing! You can check out www.justjared.com for scans of the inside pages. I loved Dakota Fanning's classic shot. The others are awesome, too. A collector's item :)


A gift from Powerbooks. My letter was editor's pick for their magazine's (Read) current issue. Just wrote something cheesy then voila! :) It's not as if I so wanna have this but pwede na rin. Have I told you that I don't like the endings of Dan Brown's books? And that I don't own a copy of The Da Vinci Code? i plan to buy one, though. Feeling ko lang it will still be talked about in twenty or thirty years and i wanna show my future kids my own copy of the book from my time. :) Pero saka na lang.


Yay, let's have a yabang moment :) This is a beanie baby which is supposedly from the office of the President (of the U.S., obviously). I got this as a gift because I got a perfect score in a course that our whole unit took for almost 4 months. We had the exam before the end of the year then the test papers were faxed over to FSI (Foreign Service Institute) in VA. Our boss then picked up the results when she went there for training then she carried a story that she mentioned to State Department Secretary Condi Rice that someone from Manila got a perfect score in the exam...thus the token from the State Department. I dunno if it's true, and I'm not saying din naman that our boss concocted this story but...syempre blushing moment! Humility aside, I'm proud of myself. See, kaya ko naman pala. Much as I regret having to perpetually say, "I could have done better" when I was in school, I try to motivate myself by thinking of the fact that I used to be very good at this (studying and topping exams...yeah). Minsan I would have to face the truth that I might be too rusty and beyond repair, but nothing is really certain, is there? Well, my friends did well in the test also, they're almost perfect! Ano ba kasi yung question number 8 na yun eh! Nevertheless, it just goes to show, we're... yeah, good :)

Zoom!

There are just so many things to do.

I still have less than two hours but I hope to get home in time to catch what could be or could not be another historical event.

Be calm. Be vigilant. Be updated.

semi-back

I'm surviving. :)

It's been a week and yes, I am still on an extended break. A lot has happened and I really felt urges to write them down a minute after they unfolded. Eventually, the urges dropped faster than I can open the "Compose" page so they all went to my office notebook-slash-doodle pad during meetings-slash-journal scratch pages. I currently have five pages full of thoughts about the films I watched, my thoughts on recent office happenings, spoon handles in taxis, cleaning up in coffee shops, girly bars beside fellowship halls, my faster reading pace, my being so plump(ier) again, Friends re-runs, EVAT, killing someone who says bad things about my mother, and George.

I was incommunicado for the whole of yesterday, too, because my phone broke down. Much as I regret switching to Globe because of their poor signal, I am amused by their updated texts and missed calls list provided to you when your phone was off.

I am supposed to scan more pages of this magazine, which I promised a yahoo groupmate, email my sister, increase the number of my posts in the Friends forum, and read blogs but I don't want to anymore. Enough for today.

Off to go to watch Nip/Tuck (my very first) instead. Prison Break premieres on the Crime/Suspense channel (50) tomorrow at 10 pm. ETC has another Friends rerun on Sundays at 7 pm. Haven't watched Bones (Tams!) pa.

I observed that more things happened to me when I went on blog leave. Or maybe not. Maybe I just focused on blogging each of them, failing to see the other events happen because I was busy typing. I don't know. But things have turned quite a bit harsher and it was more eventful, just last week alone. I wonder what's gonna happen in the weeks to come.

Oh shoot, Nip/Tuck, yeah. I am five minutes late. See you whenever!

i will rest for a while.

while waiting for mom a while ago in a bookshop, i found myself wanting to devote more time to reading the books and magazines i bought (and borrowed). it's probably an illness of sorts that i tend to collect and collect books and magazines without even reading them. i should start picking them up and browsing the pages, although as it is, i have 5 or 6 books unfinished all stacked in my bedside table.

i felt i should give up blogging for a while because this is the only time-consuming activity that could take the backseat, given my set of priorities.

as i go on "blog leave", let me share to you my wishlist. i intend to have all of them soon, and read or watch them hopefully in this lifetime :) if any of you can help me secure any of them, particularly the dvds, please...email me :) hopefully when i regain the interest to blog, i have all of them already.

• Sophie's Choice (William Styron)
• An Instance of the Fingerpost (Iain Pears)
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Thomas L. Friedman)

• Kar Wai Wong's 2046
• Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange
• Kar Wai Wong's Chungking Express
• Robert Altman's Gosford Park
• Kaige Chen's Farewell, My Concubine
• Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl

Jennifer Aniston's Vanity Fair May 2001 and September 2005 cover issue



Vanity Fair March 2003 (Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, etc.)



Vanity Fair June 2003 (with Amanda Bynes, Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, Alexis Bledel, etc)

and kasi feeling ko cute lang kaya i've been wanting to have this:





~*~*~*

the end of the affair

hopefully, my decade-long affair with laziness and insecurity end today. they are twins and for the longest time i cannot separate myself from them. i want a divorce. no alimony necessary. i just want to change.

*this is what a fever on a work day does to you.*

***

I can't wait for the March issue of Vanity Fair. I haven't even finished reading my January issue and haven't flipped a page of this month's. Naomi Watts and Lindsay Lohan could probably wait because there will be a total barrage of more interesting people next month.

Signing off temporarily,

Grinning Shiela the Queen of Bondi Beach

turn the tv on and be happy

i didn't kick ass during the conference, alright. i was respectable, i say.

i wanted to go home immediately to escape from it all. i finally watched Lost, as in my first whole episode. then i've seen "the one with ross' tan" in Friends for the third time this week, second to this is "the one where ross is fine". guess Star World is playing with the start of the 10th season. if any of those two will be shown tonight at 11p.m. again, i'm going crazy. well, not really but i'm not just gonna watch. btw, what's the name of the female anchor of Star News Asia? she looks like Maggie Wheeler a.k.a. Janice (of Friends, sorry!). finally the AI auditions are over (and i'm glad my dinner date with the gang was postponed so i can catch the first night in hollywood screening!). i have been seeing plugs for Prison Break. was told it's a nice serial. i can't wait for it. channel 50 is getting better, even if i feel bad they lessened Murder, She Wrote airtimes. i am watching Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition. yeah, i do. they're getting interesting now but not all of them. i am rooting for Bianca Gonzales, initially. then this Zanjoe guy is so cute and Mich Dulce is entertaining---kinda see a bit of myself in her, literally and figuratively. i caught Dong Puno's Viewpoint after a long time. why has the stampede got blown out of proportion? this is just too much. let them rest in peace. be accountable and let them rest in peace. some people can't just live another day without having to say something about an issue like this. and oh, three boring night in bangkok without cable tv got me into watching chinese shows now. even if i hell don't understand a thing they are saying-- i am amused! i get the storyline by watching anyway. i'm a regular of channels 58 and 62 now. try it, it's fun. now i wish we can get a real bollywood channel on cable, too (as in beyond Koffee with Karan?). i found myself missing those singing and dancing routines.

*work shouldn't take over your life. lying on your bed flipping channels can be immeasurably pleasant, it does a hell of a job cleansing your soul.

whatever.

...i just had a thought.

the associate editor had her way and went ahead with her version of the plan and subtly made a round on THE hub (which i pretentiously occupied, remember?). she must have hated the idea that i am there. because honey, i look good in there. hah! i believe i really do. it fits me. i fit it. it's all good. i can be better than you someday, you...you..you! in fact (*twirls hair*), you just have more experience but i am better than you are. at least i don't engage in character assasination like you do, that's why your other antagonists do the same to you.

let's all go eat french fries, shall we?

...and then it goes.

What do you know, apart from the e-mail, I received a call again from the associate editor reminding me NOT to do it again. Okay, I get it, I'm not dumb. I just wonder if my very pregnant pause will lead to something worse. A pause that I believe should be filled in by a resounding "sorry". I did not do it. I just said, "Okay. Bye." Might as well not say it if you do not mean it than continuously feed one's ego by saying so. Sorry is the worst word in the world.

So, my day is already ruined. I can't promise but I will kick asses later this afternoon in the conference because of this. I so hate it when something obviously understood is being rammed in my face just so I would obey.

If I said it once that I understood, it means I did. My evil bones tend to disobey if something is constantly reminded to me over and over again.

Karma comes via overnight delivery.

It must be the pompous assumption that I will enjoy gripping THE seat that an hour after the close of business yesterday, I was balked at for subtle insubordination. It's something trivial that you will look like a total idiot if you try to defend yourself and be angry to death. There was apparently a mistake on my part, something I didn't even recognize. The moral of the story? Do not bypass (if you "forgot", you're busted) your associate editor who controls the key to the vault of your performance evaluation.

Now THE seat makes me uncomfortable.

~
P.S. It's someone special's birthday today. Sheesh, the height of my madness.

i, ambitious wretch.

i discovered that i am a superficial career...person. now i lust after my ex-editor's desk, it being my self-appointed sanctuary for a little while now. my own hub was cleaned free of countless unimaginable dirt, all right, but i still won't leave THE desk, joking that i want to get the feel of it. a real wretch. i admit to getting all pretentious and pompous because i really like the idea of a bigger table, having enough space whenever i turn. it's not about the position title, people. it's about the space you own. your own domain. *evil grin*

seriously, as i tread the polluted streets of manila every night on my way home, i try to confirm with myself if i regret that i did not apply to fill in THE seat. there's got to be a reason why i get all whiny inside with the thought of THE desk becoming occupied by someone else again. is it because i am slowly getting used to this temporary "filling in"? am i liking the power-tripping that goes with it, i.e., toying with who to forward what case, much to the dread of three wonderful people? the idea of having to give the "approval", no matter how mundane the activity is? i still have roughly around 25 work days before THE space becomes unavailable--and only holy cows know until when it would stay that way. i thought, factors that led me to not go for THE desk are still on the horizon: frustrating office politics (lowlife style) and impending studies. nothing's changed in that aspect, unless the very core of it did: i now want it. i can't answer that now. and even if i do and it gears toward the "i want it after all" side...it's too late. then again, no one knows. i may just be itching for a bigger work area, especially after seeing that someone has a rather big cube of his own. i'm a normal human being after all...salivating for what you saw that gave you a sudden envy rush without thinking ahead if it will fit you anyway.

for now, i am not to give up THE desk, no matter what they say. let me get tired of it until the first week of march. i will.

in addition, THE desk could help me reverse what could be a lasting impression. see, i think it was the third time this year (this early, yes) that our super publisher caught me yakking and yakking. he must be thinking, "this fat girl is not doing anything but yak." well, it's about one-third true. so apart from actually working more seriously (THE desk, remember, THE desk!), i resolve to carry a case file with me when i feel like blabbing to my staff. it's a very professional way of making chismis during office hours. the ability to insert an office jargon as soon as the door opens is definitely an asset that should be honed for life.

already second in command, i should be satisfied, shouldn't i? after all, i was offered to lead but turned it down. other openings are looming and i may need to do coin-tossing a hundred times before jumping into them. if the others won't pay as much or better, and if i won't have my version of THE desk, then i should just try to be happy where i am. see, it's not about that dignity crap and fulfillment hullabaloos, really.

it's about the MONEY and THE desk. *wipes drool*

i bet my emotional quotient dropped way too low tonight.

taking it easy

i am taking it easy. it's hard to explain if you do not want others to fully understand it in the first place. particularly if it's as personal as an agreement between yourself and...yourself. i realized i am doing things impulsively and while i feel satisfied (i think), i thought of going to the other end of the "metaphorical tunnel" and take each thing easy as it comes. kumbaga, relax lang. alalay lang. i could seize more moments this way.

no more focusing on one thing at a certain moment, virtually forgetting the others. try everything that's there because honestly, this lifetime isn't enough to experience them all. no more trying to make my presence felt all the time just to let others know that "i am there". no more trying to relay everything that i know just so others would know that i do.

in short, i have to learn to be secure with myself. never mind if i become a person on the backseat. never mind if people do not see that i know many things about a lot of stuff (not that i do, i mean, only about specific stuff of interest). what's important is that i am here, i know stuff, and i enjoy them. it's not written anywhere that i have to be transparent as it all the more makes me prone to insecurity, arrogance and envy all at the same time (see, you probably don't see it in me. uhm, do you?).

life is short, as evidenced by tragic events and natural deaths. i could regret it in my grave reviewing everything i did and finding out that i experienced many things by dipping my finger into them... but not finishing practically most of them.

it could be the reason why at the end of the day, i still feel incomplete. it's good i realized it this early.

short stuff

i saw carol banawa for about two seconds on american idol. per pex, it was indeed her but she didn't get in.

my favorite video clip lately is jennifer aniston's skit in saturday night live in '04 where she
played a paparazzi with amy poehler. it was so hilarious especially when the "razzi" her was bashing "jennifer aniston" on the red carpet. so funny.

i am going to watch memoirs of a geisha next friday courtesy of leahmay's invite. mamie and edith invited us though for the black history month show that same day albeit earlier. my friday nights are kinda moving, no matter how...uhm... un-outgoing it appears. at least.

erwin has a girlfriend! i was supposed to tell him about someone he used to text but i just said i'm happy for him coz he finally snagged his neighbor. hahaha. i so miss the guy. he gets what i'm trying to say by just giving him a blank face (J: oh, i am a fan of Friends now. E: friends? J: *blank stare while hand acts as if it's trying to explain* E: *wonders aloud* Ah...Friends. okay, okay.). plus, he is one of the very few people of the opposite sex whom i can show the real me. the palengkera, shallow and matakaw me. all that and more without hesitations. hoy, manlibre ka na next week. wala ka nang rason para hindi kami pakainin.

chelli called and said 'hi' to everyone who had been her colleagues and at the same time my still unfortunate co-workers until now.

i cleaned up my phone inbox. i totally forgot why i am keeping more than 180 messages from someone from last year. kagulat. i must have been crazy keeping even a mere" psst" or "i'm home na" text, parang, huh? but before erasing them all, of course, i found myself smiling. last year was kinda fun. i wouldn't have traded it for anything. it was good, it's just that this year's probably better. and yes, sobrang natatawa tlaga ako. imagine ang messages ng ibang tao, yung mga heartwarming forwarded quotes from people na hindi ko nai-save just to keep them? nge. medyo mabilis na ulit ang phone ko ngayon.

tonight's AI audition was kinda boring compared to last night's in vegas. one funny quote: "whatever happened in vegas...goes to my website!!!" (the guy got in; he was the gondola...uhm...driver? i dunno what's it called!).

friday. friday na naman. friday na agad.

would you believe?

that i'm down to three to four sane screws bolted in my head to hold my sanity together. i'm going crazy in no time if i continue to be so understaffed. pakshet talaga, hindi na ito makatao. i must have answered gazillions of letters addressing different nonimmigrant effing visa issues. at ang tao ko, palaging 2 lang o 3. pero wa-i choice ang beauty ni judie. go pa rin :<

seeing wency made me happy! a relief. see, ganyan ako ka-lousy ngayon, ang caliber ni wency eh nagpapasaya na saken. hahaha. hay nako. we have to talk, pare. seriously. tungkol dun kay ano. isa pang pakshet yon. *smirks*

i still have not recovered financially. even if nothing's changing with my pay statement, it's still a consolation to see it, especially yung "net pay" na line (well, pati yung "leave balance" but can you even attempt to think to take one, given this situation? hmp.). what's worse, when i break down what i'll receive, parang pulubi na ako, huhuhu. isa pa nga: pakshet (i'm starting to love this word. i heard it from Em last friday and from Rach last Saturday. hehe.)

i miss bangkok. hala, ayan na. i was terribly upset for a time when i was there pero habang tumatagal, i'm starting to think that i really missed a lot dahil super nag-inarte sa melancholy ang drama ko. i didn't even take much pics! when i see other's bkk pics, i feel so inggit. hay. i'm going back there. and you know what? kahit walang kasama ulet, okay na ko. hmph.

citibank hasn't cleared my check. it's ruining my financial plan. naks, kala mo ang extensive. but it is. i'm so tempted to use the money na!!!! brrr!!! ma-clear ka naaaaaa!!!!!

it's 6 p.m. and i'm not done working. there are jillions of things to do pa.

pakshet.