Ramadan

...A word associated with one religion - Islam. I don't know much about it, but I do have a few Muslim friends. I guess they're what you would normally call modern Muslims because they don't wear traditional clothing and well... Some other culture-specific tradition they don't practice.

Frankly, the religion fascinates me - how can it possibly exist for such a long time? But then again, nature worship has existed far longer.

At the same time, it does create a lot of apprehension and fear. Particularly when you are In a society wherein those considered as wise would use it to instigate fear among the younger population. Then there's the fact that some extremists manipulates the religion to fit their distorted image of life and reality in order to gain more followers... tsk, tsk!

I can only imagine what my friends would say to those supposedly learned scholars advocating coercion and sometimes physical harm just to satisfy their own need for power masked as love for Allah.

Like it or not, as a religion, its tradition has some similarities with other religions - such as Ramadan.

From what I know of it, it's supposed to be a cleansing period. I can only associate it with Lent. In that case, then it's supposed to be a cleansing period to atone for any wrong doings one would have against one's self, others and God. What I find intriguing though is with Lent one should try to keep one's self from inflicting emotional, spiritual and physical maladies against one's self, others and God not just during the period but in the future as well, is it the same with Ramadan? Or is Ramadan just an excuse to party all night since they felt the pang of hunger the whole day?

I certainly hope not.

Wake Up Call

At 11 am, I was still in bed relishing on the fact that my work starts at 2 pm. As usual, I was roused from sleep by the sound of rubber slippers squeezing its way in and out of the bedroom and my feet being pulled by small hands. As much as I am not a morning person and would probably bite the head off of anyone trying to wake me up when it's just 9 am, I couldn't do that to a baby.

Determined to sleep until 11 am, I continued to lie on the bed. My phone then sounds off to inform me that there is an SMS message. When I checked out who it was - probably someone calling in sick again. I was jolted out of the fog called sleep by the name appearing on my phone.

It was a short message: "Did you call me" - no punctuation, no nothing, just a short message.

What could I say?

The only logical thing: "Nope. Checked with my phone but I didn't accidentally dial your number. Have a great night!"

Am I a loser or what?! Arrrrgh!

Over Coffee and Apple Pies


Had merienda and dinner with a friend today. It's been soooo long since we last saw each other that it just had to be my treat! :) When I say long, I mean REALLY long. The last time I saw her was in 2003. I can't believe how much things change... and there are still things that will always remain the same.

...like how ambiguous I am when talking to her about names of places, things and events. I always remember what happened and the people who were there, but not the names of places, things and events.
(Well, I've never been good with memorization. I even confirmed attending a UN event without knowing which hotel it's going to be held at! I had to call my mom so she could read it off the letter for me!)

...like how I could talk to her about anything and everything and always find myself cringing every time she pops up the question - "Are you seeing anyone right now?" -after asking me mundane questions. Believe me, if you knew her, you'd know it's NOT a normal question for you'd think she'd ask and you'd know why.

...like how "lola-like" she could be when asking about a guy I like and how I have to make sure that this guy is supposed to be like this and that.

...like how she literally could read my thoughts and lay it out in the open for me concretely and nonchalantly with one question and how this question could map out the entire course I want my life to take in the next couple of years without me saying anything.

Of course, I was thinking about it. And of course, I knew the reasons behind my choices and what I hope would happen. But how could she know?

She was like, "...So if given a chance, you'd like to get a longer scholarship to get to know this guy, right?"

...like how I would literally put off all other plans with other friends just to have coffee with her and talk about our friends and what has been happening in everyone's lives including ours.

...like how she always ends up having "utangs" every time we end our conversations - with me asking her for information that she would have to call me back for.

...like how she would tell me about her family and certain things that I know she wouldn't normally tell others.

I felt like I could talk to her about anything and everything. Scratch that. I REALLY COULD talk to her about anything and everything. Very, very few people can put me in the hot seat and SHE can. Yet, I can STILL talk to her about anything and everything under the sun. This clearly baffles me since I'm usually guarded around people.

I miss her, no doubt.

So to K, I had a great time having coffee and apple pie with you! And I'll keep in mind what you asked me to.

Going Back in Circles

As someone who wants to start a business, I guess I should have given Murphy a little more credit.

When I suggested catering food to offices/businesses to my friends, I did it because:
1. We needed to put our energies into something more productive
2. We could earn from it
3. it would be a good project for all of us and we could learn from it

Little did I know that we were going to end up right here.

Last Thursday, we met at the office (located in Taguig) in order to travel all the way to Novaliches (some place I've never been to before) and talk with another company our other friends are working for so we could supply packed meals.

I had initially called the company's HR department to ask about the procedures and was asked to just drop by and deliver the letter to their office. We were also informed that it takes about two weeks before we could begin setting up our business venture.

We drove for what seems to be hundreds of miles (I have no idea how far Novaliches is from Taguig) where I found myself in unfamiliar territory and arrived at the company's office. We were immediately informed that someone else won the bidding for food catering and we could not be entertained anymore.

One of my persistent friends asked the guards to at least ask the HR personnel if we could talk to one of them. After about 5 minutes, the guard informed us that the HR personnel on duty was busy with his work and could not come down to the reception to entertain our question. My friend was trying to convince the guard to convince the HR to at least see us, but I have had it. I pulled her aside and told her that we should just go since the HR personnel is apparently a spineless piece of %&*#! Who doesn't even know how to face people he had asked to travel halfway around the world to say NO to.

I immediately made a call to my sister asking if we could cater to them and asked for the requirements. But I didn't hear back from her until today.

This morning, I was informed by my friend that she has spoken with our HR department and was informed they just need a letter from us. Also, the management of the company we work for would allow us to sell food at no extra charge!

Our "field research" which started in Taguig led us to...Taguig.

What an expensive trip to take with the cost of gas and all. Plus there's the fact that I ended up driving from 10 am - 4 am the following day without having slept in between.

Movie booboos

Just some things to snicker about...

Chinese Movies:



You'd think after Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, they would learn a lot about movie-making.

But nothing beats the picture of GWB holding a book upside down in a classroom full of kids. i wonder if those kids have followed their leader and has now learned how to read upside down infront of the press.

Law School

I was browsing through the web a week or so in the office when a realization hit me.
I was looking for scholarships and MA programs I could apply for since I already have a specific area of study in mind when I realized... I want to go to Law School!

...If I can pass the LSAT, that is.

See, a lot of my friends ask me for help and I mediate for them or write response letters regarding personal and work-related problems. They also ask me for advice on labor-related issues, so why not make everything legal (so to speak), right?!

Since I tried looking for LSAT reviewer thinking there ought to be one here and found out there's none, I've relegated to getting Civil service and college entrance test exams for practice until I can get my hands on those LSAT reviewers. :)

Ramblings

Yikes! I saw the counter and it's only 100 days before Christmas!!!! My favorite time of the year!

Best Friends

So my best friend lives all the way in NJ since January 2004. This is a girl that I grew up with from kindergarten. A person who became my bestfriend when I was in 5th grade. We were schoolmates and best friends even through university!

The weird - or blessed - thing about it is we are never really truly apart. Yeah, yeah this is not one of those mushy tear-jerker kinda $%^$! It's true. No 6-months passes that we don't see each other.

See, way back in 2001, she graduated the four-year course while I tried to pursue the MA degree. We never really saw each other during the semester, but we would always end up seeing each other every three months - watching movies, shopping or sometimes just spending time together in school or in Eastwood when I'd visit her at work. This was not some sort of unwritten rule either. Somehow, we just end up calling each other up and going out every three months. So when she left for NJ to live with her husband, I knew it would take us a long time to see each other again. In fact, I was prepared for it.

Lo and behold, she rang me in March and even cried at how unhappy she was because people there didn't have time to make friends and she was home most of the time since it was so cold outside. We talk for one-hour straight! I can just imagine her telephone bill.

Then, I had to go to Mexico in October of 2004 (the one and only time we were ever apart for 9 months since starting kindergarten) for a conference and I took the opportunity to visit her. We spent two blissful days with one warning from her husband - no crying when it's time to leave.

She arrived in March 2004 and I swear! If I could strangled her through the phone. She called me while I was on my way to work to tell me she's already here! We went out a couple of times, though we were both busy - she with her sewing school and me with work. I told her I got a scholarship for a three-month stay in NYC in March 2006.

Just a few weeks ago, I got a message from her informing me that she's coming back this month with her husband for one-month's stay due to her husband's work.

Yehey!!!! We get to spend time together again! And in a couple of months, we'll get to spend more time together when I go for my scholarship!

Pray for me!

Manic Monday

Never have I thought of those two words outside their "corny" connotation at work (since one of our Managers prefer calling Monday as such due to the number of absenteeism during that day).

Since it was Labor Day, a cinema was rented on our behalf so we could watch The Longest Yard (a very very funny film)... for free! Since my friends and I planned on watching the movie, anyway, why not watch it for free, right?!

So, I decided to go home first, get some clothes for a conference I'll be attending the next day and go back to work - I can always sleep in one of our beds at work. On the way home, I saw a missed call on my phone. I sent a text message asking why she called me. She sent me a text message stating she could not go home due to floods. Naturally, i asked her to spend the night at home. I waited for her for about an hour at home and sent her several messages asking what time she's arriving and kept trying to reach her via cellphone. I had dinner rpepared for her. I then got a text message that she slept at work. So, I told her to hold her horses and I'll come and pick her up.

I went back to work and got my ride since I'm supposed to pick up some other friends. I think I had the guard confused when I arrive since he just saw me leave about 3 hours back. I went to pick up my friend and went around RCBC for an hour and thirty minutes at least. Then I went to her place to ask the guards where she was and was and was informed she's not home yet.

At that point, I decided to pass by Claudine's (not her real name) place to pick her up for the movie before going back to circling RCBC for another 30-45 minutes. We again went back to my friend's place to check on her. This very rude guard wouldn't let me park so I can go up and check if she was indeed home. Until finally, one of the guards verified that my friend's car arrived a few minutes past 11pm.

First I felt relieved, then I was irritated for not receiving any information that she was home and sound asleep.

That's the first part of the night.



Murphy's Law

I know everyone must have had some bad things happening to them... or at least something going wrong at specific points in time.

Now to the second part of the night:

So Claudine and I went back to our workplace. It wasn't until about 1am that we found out that it wasn't for all the employees. Since another friend of ours was already there with us, I asked my boss for an additional ticket to be picked up for the 5am screening.

All the "merry-go-round" we did at Makati must have worked her appetite since Claudine told me she was hungry and wanted to get somethign to eat. Yes! She informed me after we had gotten the ticket and found a good parking space. So off we went. The first part of the problem is the parking ticket. I didn't want to pay a third time for a parking ticket. So I went and left an ID with the attendant. They were gracious about it since they knew that we would get it back.

Our first destination is McDonald's at The Fort Town Center. It was closed. We drove to Chowking, but it was so dark inside that it was quite obvious it was closed. We went to Starbucks to get coffee and it just closed. We saw that Jollibee was open, but Claudine didn't want to eat at Jollibee.

A great idea came to us - we should go to Jupiter since there are a lot of food palces there! We drove off and saw this gerat place Claudine knew so we looked for a nearby safe parking lot. Since a lot of the parking lots at the back of the buildings were closed, we had to settle for a side street that looked safe - at least we convinced ourselves it was safe.

When we were about to get out - and after congratulating myself for doing very well with parallel parking, it started to rain. Having brought her own small, company-sponsored umbrella, Claudine went to open the back door of the Revo to find a bigger umbrella for me. In those few seconds of looking for an umbrella along a dark side street of Makati at 2:00 am, mother nature decided we needed a bath and a few droplets of rain segued into a heavy downpour that drenched Claudine's pants and had me deciding not to walk all the way to the restaurant for an early morning dinner, a late night breakfast or whatever you may want to call it.

Stuck in the Revo, we were laughing our heads off. Knowing that we were being told rather bluntly that we were not meant to be in Makati at that time of the night. After a few minutes, we decided to settle for Jollibee. Wouldn't you know it?! When we arrived at Jollibee, they were already closed!

Not to worry, Claudine! I knew there was another Jollibee at the Shell Station along C5 so I drove to our new destination. Whenw e arrived, we filled up some gas and drove to Jollibee where we a sign screaming at us, "Sorry, we're closed"!

Still determined not to let the night have its way with us, I drive to the one palce I knew Jollibee was 24hours. We went around 3 different cities for a meal of chicken soup, peach mango pie, fries and iced tea. I did saw the Chowking and wanted the Black Gulaman, but then the chairs were all on top of the tables and it was closed... or so we thought. After Claudine had her meal and I had my iced tea, I was going to get coffee from Select. We passed by the Chowking front door and saw in huge while letters against a red background, "OPEN".

I was sooo frustrated that Claudine treated me to a glass of Black Gulaman. hehehe. And off we went back to work to get our tickets.

...Some thought our night of adventures ended there.

But just as we were about to go up the flyover connecting Pasig and Makati, Claudine remembered that she forgot her other peach mango pie in Jollibee. And so it was quite natural for us to turn anf go back to Jollibee to get the pie.

I was soooo nervous I might be caught bringing in someone from another department! Hehehe. But then we got to watch the movie, slept on bunkbeds attached to each other.

Tuesday is yet another story. :)

Birthday Thing

Your Birthdate: March 13

Being born on the 13th day of the month should help make you a better manager and organizer, but it may also give you a tendency to dominate people a bit. You may be more responsible and self-disciplined than you realize. Sincere and honest, you are a serious, hard working individual. Your feeling are likely to seem somewhat repressed at times. You are apt to be much more practical, rational, and conscious of details. Your intolerance and insistence on complete accuracy can be irritating to some.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Got My Package

I received the piece of paper indicating I needed to go to the postal service last tuesday. Wednesday couldn't come sooner. By daylight, I was off to the postal service... well, let's say it was about 8am and those who know me also knwo i only wake up at 8am on special occasions since my works is still at 11am.

Anyway, I went there, paid the 30 bucks whatever fee and Lo and behold! The box that contains just about anything and everything I could dream of!

I knew about the Harry Potter book, of course. I was told I'll get one about two weeks before this.

Anyway, other contents of the box are:

3 towels: dark green, red and maroon
and

Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy Sleep stuff