and another...

arrovo bill! this time, it was part of the change i got from mister donut. i got lucky again. :)

ang aming mananahi, atbp.

nagpunta ako, si mommy at ang kapatid kong si pinky sa mananahi namin. imbis na tanungin ako kung kamusta ako, ito ang sinabi niya: "napabayaan ka sa kusina, no?"

alam ko namang tumaba na ko mula noong abril, ang buwang huli akong nagpatahi sa kanya. pero hindi naman siguro ako umabot sa puntong mukha na 'kong baboy, di ba? at hindi naman ako bata na kontrolado pa ng magulang ang pagkain, para sabihin niyang "napabayaan" ako sa kusina.

hindi pa rito nagtatapos ang kwento. nang isinukat ko ang blusang ipaaayos ko sa kanya, sinabi niyang: "ay naku, ang baba ng balikat nito. mukha tuloy lalong lumalaki ang braso mo."

sabay harap sa mommy ko: "hindi talaga pwede sa kanya ang RTW. dapat talaga, yung tama ang sukat."

at meron pa, mga kaibigan: "parang panlalake kasi ang katawan niya, e. malapad ang balikat." tama ba namang humirit pa? sa puntong ito, natatawa na ang kapatid ko. buti naman, nakuha pa niyang magpigil, kahit papaano.

pero in fairness, maayos siya magtahi. mura pa - 200 bawat pantalon. sa 750, may blazer, skirt at slacks ka na. kaya nga kahit natatagalan kapag marami siyang tanggap, sa kanya pa rin kami nagpapatahi. sa mga tulad ko nga lang na medyo alanganin ang katawan, kailangan ng konting pasensya.

========================

nag-aaral na nga pala ako para sa revalida namin. ayaw ko pa sanang simulan, kaso marami talagang dapat basahin, e.

========================

katatapos ko lang pala kumain ng dirty ice cream. sa totoo lang, kasabay kong kumain si nimbus, ang aming butihing aso. kilala na kasi niya ang tunog ng batingaw ng sorbetero, kaya lumalapit na siya sa gate kapag may dumaraan, o di kaya'y kumakandong sa daddy ko. grabe, naunahan pa niya 'kong maubos ang ice cream!

at least, nauubos niya ang binibili sa kanya. salamat din at hindi pa niya nakikilala ang musika ng selecta at magnolia. kapag nagkataon, mas malaking gastos yun. :)

my pony is blue :) atenista!

You are Opium!

You like to have fun and enjoy life. Reeeeeally enjoy life. If it isn't fast, loud, or extreme forget it. You value friendship and are loyal and will not hesiste to go off if someone crosses you.

What Naughty My Little Pony Are You?

must love dogs

"...are just so different. who we are, what we want. i never knew how important that would be. i thought you just had to find someone to love, & then the rest would fall into place."

- michael hurlihy in must love dogs
by claire cook

this tag thing

i'm weird.

i was not tagged by anyone, but i've seen this on several blogs already, so i'm answering it nevertheless. ;)

three names you go by:
1. grace
2. gracia - tawag ng mga nangungulit, may kasamang tan-tan-tan pa
3. baby - my actual nickname at home, though i'm the eldest of 4 kids

three screen names you have had: (ano raw?!)
1. glydel mercado
2. lucy liu
3. gracie lou freebush

three physical things you like about yourself:
1. the mole below my neck, which is right in the middle of my chest
2. my height - i've gotten used to being less than 5 feet tall (or short, as the case may be)
3. my light complexion - it makes finding suitable colors for clothes easier

three physical things you don't like about yourself:
1. my bilbil, which is slowly but firmly fighting for its right for entry into the world
2. my acne-prone skin!
3. my hair, which used to be quite nice & shiny way back in high school

three parts of your heritage: (other than filipino, which is obvious)
1. spanish - i'm 1/4 spanish by blood
2. ilonggo - from my mom
3. bikolano - from my dad

three things that scare you:
1. death of family members & friends
2. uncertainty - i have yet to develop "negative capability", which is basically the ability to tolerate the unknown & uncertain
3. failure

three of your everyday essentials:
1. rice
2. meat
3. sleep

three of your favorite musical artists:
1. the corrs
2. lea salonga
3. the carpenters

three of your favorite songs:
1. don't say you love me
2. dreaming of you
3. before i fall in love
(shocks, mushy lahat. kaasar, only songs of this sort come to mind at the moment.)

three things you want in a relationship:
1. passion
2. intimacy
3. commitment, which i believe isn't possible without love
(shocks, psych major talaga ako! straight from robert sternberg's triangle of love. :) )

three truths in no particular order:
1. one person can make a huge difference.
2. love is a choice, not a feeling.
3. everything happens for a reason.

three lies in no particular order:
1. life is fair.
2. you've got to play by the rules.
3. love conquers all.

three physical things of the opposite sex that appeal to you:
1. eyes
2. skin
3. (i can only think of two. i'm too myopic to be visual. haha.)

three of your favorite hobbies:
1. eating
2. sleeping
3. talking

three things you want to do really badly now:
1. forget about our revalida
2. read a nice book
3. write something good again

three careers you're considering/you've considered:
1. industrial psychologist/HR practitioner
2. clinical psychologist/counselor
3. public servant/NGO employee

three places you want to go on vacation:
1. puerto galera (dahil hindi ako nakapunta noong summer kasi nagkaroon ako. hassle!)
2. switzerland, because of the snow-capped mountain peaks
3. holland, because i want to be amidst so many live flowers

three names you like: (for my future kids!)
1. hannah
2. candace
3. crystal

three things you want to do before you die:
1. work for an NGO/support a cause i'm passionate about
2. learn to take care of plants (4 cacti have died under my "care")
3. learn to forgive AND forget

three ways that you're stereotypically a boy:
1. i'm quite aggressive at times
2. i offer to let people go before me
3. i used to watch basketball & wrestling a lot

three ways that you're stereotypically a girl:
1. i cook well. i have no specialty, but i can dish up practically anything, provided that i have a recipe & the ingredients.
2. i spend a long time in front of the mirror. (though this is only of late, since i have to apply make-up for work.)
3. i can spend five hours window shopping without getting tired & without wanting to stop. (making bene feel dizzy in the process)


tagging: everyone! :)

feeling lucky because of a BSP blooper

i have one of these!

i was lucky, that's all.

i mentioned this to bene while we were on the bus. he got the only 100-peso bill he had in his shirt pocket and showed it to me. voila - arrovo!

and yes, he gave it to me when i asked. i am lucky because i have one of a "small number" of bills that show a misspelled surname of a president, a first in Philippine history. but more importantly, i'm lucky to have someone who would give up something like this for me because he knows that it would make me happy (and it would stop my pouting). ;)

do not put off for tomorrow...

...what you can put off until the day after that is jessica wakefield's motto when it comes to her obligations. sometimes, i wish that i could live with this in mind, specially when i feel that the mini 'judgment days' of my life loom near.

i'm scared of our revalida. argh.

10 tips for marital bliss (from ma'am kristine's bridal shower)

1. never wear a daster. (or is it duster? whatever, you get the point.)

2. little things matter. take note of even the minute details.

3. the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

4. make money matters clear. early on, decide who's going to budget, how expenses will be divided, & whether each one could have personal savings.

5. learn how to make the first move. (i'll let everyone speculate as to what this means... )

6. know how to please him. ;)

7. never criticize your husband when you're talking to his parents.

8. don't nag.

9. let your husband have the final say. in other words, submit to him. it's in the Bible, after all. (good Lord, what will domineering little me have to do?!?)

10. show your in-laws that you love your husband, & they will love you too.


i guess attending my very first bridal shower was quite productive. looking forward to going to more (& to having my own, in a few years' time of course). ;)

hp 4

i was never one to rush to the cinemas on the opening day of a movie. definitely NOT in the middle of a school or work week. but i did last night, for harry potter & the goblet of fire.

how can i resist? crystal offered to pay for half of the ticket's price & 6 of my co-MT's were going also (whenever we get together, there's usually only 3 or 4 of us, out of 15. 7 must be the most there was of us in a gimmick). so off we went to g4 - me, crystal, jamie, kris, cecille, jonah & sarah.

what happened when we were in line to buy tickets is something that jamie describes as "meant to be". we didn't make it in time for the 6:40 sched, as it was already 6:45. the 7:15 sched was supposedly sold-out, and the next sched was 7:40, which was already too late for many of us. nevertheless, crystal and cecille fell in line and asked the ticket seller to recheck the availability of seats for the 7:15 sched. believe it or not, some people did not claim their reserved tickets, and 7 seats were available! even more amazing was that all 7 seats were in one row, with only one seat cutting through the 7 seats. :)

needless to say, we were able to watch the film. "it was nice" is all that i can say, as i have read the book already & actually enjoyed the story more in print. (don't take my word for it though, as i really love to read.) but to be fair, the execution of the book was pretty good. last but not the least, it was great that we MT's were finally able to get together, even if it was only because of a movie.

hmmm, i wonder when hp 5 will be shown? ;)

still awake

and cramming into the wee hours of monday morning what i should have done during the weekend. well, relaxed last saturday, and went to star city with bene yesterday. happy times. :)

pseudo-weekend

it's the weekend, but i'm not really looking forward to it. why? one word: REVALIDA.

i think of it as the hell on earth that we trainees have to go through. as if info overload is not enough - at the end of our almost 4 months OJT in credit, we have an oral exam before a panel composed of AVP's & VP's (maybe with some SVP's too). needless to say, i'm not looking forward to it.

last august, we had our revalida on branch operations. it didn't turn out well for most of us. the questions were not really hard, but the panel must have expected a different sort of anwers from us.

our revalida on credit will be on december 5 & 6. even though that's 3 weeks away, we're all getting tense bit by bit. we've been through so many departments & units, so it's hard to remember everything that we've learned so far. the weeks left are hardly enough for us to study, but three weeks is really all we have left.

so this weekend, it's the start of reviewing for most of us, me included. *sigh* i wonder why the week had to end...

praying for a better day tomorrow :)

na-late ako today by five minutes. hassle! worst case scenario, 6th late ko na to in five months. not really that bad, but it's horrible for li'l OC me. oh well, it's not my fault that the shuttles to lawton were nowhere to be found.

because i was late, i had to run to the loan management center (LMC) where i'm assigned this week, sans makeup, & with a bladder that was threatening to burst. thank God, adjacent to the dept was a comfort room. thank God, indeed.

come lunch time, i went out to withdraw money, but wasn't able to do so at the branch where our payroll account is maintained so i had to go to harrison plaza. considering how my day started, i probably shouldn't have been surprised that the ATM terminal i chose refused to dispense cash, & actually debited from my account the amount that i wasn't able to receive. but i was surprised, & irritated. however, even that doesn't make me forget to be thankful that the branch personnel who assisted me were very patient in instructing me what to do, & explaining how my complaint will be addressed by the banks involved.

oh, by the way, i missed lunch. i arrived in the office at exactly one, with barely enough time to wash my oily, perspiring face. earlier, my officemates texted me that the lunch i ordered was delivered without utensils. another thing to be thankful for - they washed a pair of their utensils for me, so that i would have something to use.

to say that this day was not so good is probably an understatement. but as risk management people would probably say, there were "mitigating factors" anyway. thank you Lord, for the small things that make bad days a bit more bearable. :)

yum!

You Are Mexican Food

Spicy yet dependable. You pull punches, but people still love you.

What Kind of Food Are You?

from the outside...

Slow & Steady

Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder. It'd really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment. They expect you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then usually decide against it.

How Do People See You?

goes with the "OC" description people have often used for me. in fact, i'm the "OC Girl" in chi's links section. :)

"working" on a saturday

yup, i have to go to the office tomorrow because of a training session that we have to attend. as much as i hate waking up early on a weekend, tomorrow's an exception. the session we'll be having is counterfeit detection to conducted by someone from BSP, so it's bound to be really interesting. :)

we have free ride passes to star city, but i might just opt not to come with my co-trainees. gel, joyce and i might have dinner tomorrow. can't wait. :)

random thoughts

random thought # 1:
may pasok na ulit bukas ang mga katulad kong naghahanapbuhay na. hay...buti naman, nakapagbakasyon din ako ng apat na araw. i hope that i don't forget to prepare the clothes that i'm going to wear tomorrow. i'll be in credit implementation, and from what i've heard, it's really cold there. hello to my 3-piece suit.

random thought # 2:
nakakainggit si bene! he has the whole week off, for he scheduled leaves for nov. 2 & 3. he needs it anyway. he has been quite harrassed lately. it's good that he decided to take a breather before the busy season load gets the better of him. (he works in punongbayan & araullo, an auditing firm. busy season is from september all the way to april.)

random thought # 3:
hindi ko yata dapat binigyan ng "assignment" si bene para talagang makapagpahinga siya. hehe...

random thought # 4:
i wasn't really productive during the long weekend. the only thing i was able to accomplish so far is organizing all of my hand-outs from the different departments and units that i've been to. nevertheless, i don't think that i can underestimate the importance of having done this because of one thing - my bedsheet has become more visible! haha!

random thought # 5:
ang daya! nung estudyante pa ko, hindi ako nakatikim ng isang buwang sem break. ngayon, isang buwan ang sem break nila! nakakaasar!

random thought # 6:
correction: nung estudyante pa ko, hindi ako talaga nakatikim ng sem break dahil una, lagi akong nasa planning ng SF / execom / soa EB. pangalawa, registration assessor ako - isang araw ang inilalagi ko sa CTC para sa training, at apat hanggang limang araw naman para sa mismong reg. siguro, swerte nang naka-isang linggo akong sem break nun...

random thought # 7:
but i don't regret spending my "breaks" that way. at least, i was productive, & i was with my friends. not to mention that those planning sessions have made a significant difference in who i am now, and what i want for myself.

random thought # 8:
ka-YM ko si guiller ngayon. i miss him & all my other college friends! special mention sina gel, candy, badz, de-anne, trina, ivan, kfc & ginger.

random thought # 9:
nag-siesta ako kaya hindi pa ako inaantok.

random thought # 10:
pwede pa akong maging productive tonight! subukan kong basahin yung chapter 4 ng book namin on understanding financial statements. it's not exactly my kind of book, but i need to exert extra effort if i want to understand the audited financial statements of our clients.

random thought # 11:
hindi ko pa nababalot ang "something moving" ko for thursday. paano ba naman kasi, kakaiba ang shape! mahirap tuloy maghanap ng kahon...

random thought # 12:
may free lunch kami tomorrow courtesy of sir odie! yehey! - from the stingy part of me

random thought # 13:
kung estudyante pa ako, ano na kaya ang ginagawa ko? siguro pinag-aaralan ko na yung available class scheds at pumipili na ko ng teachers. o di kaya tumatambay na sa national bookstore sa katipunan para makapili ng magandang notebook.

random thought # 14:
i do not regret taking the classes of some of the "terror professors" like fr. adolfo dacanay & mr. eduardo calasanz (though my groupmates & i ended up neglecting a major cognitive psychology report because we were bent on finishing our reflection paper for dacanay, & my quality point index was pulled down significantly because of the grade i got from calasanz). i feel that i learned a lot of things from them that i would not have learned had i taken other professors. or maybe i would have learned those things anyway, but in a not-so-fun or insightful way.

random thought # 15:
enough of this randomness. understanding financial statements beckons...