Note To Self: Thou shall not eat Goodah's ribsi at 3 in the morning after working out four straight days--thou shall feel bad after.

For two months now, I've been seeing my trainer, Spike, in the gym with the hopes of losing 20 pounds by May. I will be bridesmaid for my childhood buddy, Erika, and it will be my first time to walk the aisle as an adult woman. For the reason that I was never married in church and neither did any of my girlfriends.(Half of them are single moms and the other half, you guessed it, are mistresses. So there).

You can't imagine how excited I am to finally wear a gown and be all made up even just for a day. As oppose to Katherine Heigl's 27 dresses, this is my first and I am stoked. But petrified. You'd think that only brides panic at the thought of looking like godzilla at the wedding, think again. The whole entourage walks that aisle, no exceptions. Unless I back out this early or Erika and I fight, this show is so happening in three months, godzilla arms or not.

This is my mantra every time I make my way to Fitness First and step on to the darn treadmill. Or when I attempt to bench press thirty pounds and end up screaming like a banshee. One time, I burst into tears from pure exhaustion and simply collapsed in the free weights area. I stopped working out for a week after that and reviewed my motivations. Why was I killing myself? Was I even doing it right? Did I try to listen to Spike's dietary advice along with the work-out? I hit the gym again and realized I've lost one dress size in that week of reassessment.

You could say I've gotten the "groove" since then and slowly losing the weight. Once in a while, I go through 'lapses of judgment" like the above-mentioned ribsi incident (just couldn't resist!) but all in all, I think I'm in the right track. I don't even feel I'm doing it just for the wedding anymore. Working out makes me feel good, literally. I am inlove with those endorphins. If only I can convince the whole family to give it a try, that would be the icing on my sugar-free cake!

Santi teaches college-level law at his alma mater (name with held upon hubby's request) every Saturday. At first, he took on the job out of curiousity and ,admittedly, for the extra income. A few months into into it, however, he began to love it.

Forget that none of his students would study enough to spit out anything close to the right answers during recitations. Forget that some of them would arrive an hour into his lecture (and he lectures for 6 hours, mind you.) Santi persisted. Patience being his number one virtue, he has never skipped a Saturday for almost a year now. He would study before giving out yet another tedious speech and would give exam tips, hoping that his students would actually care to remember any.

Last weekend, he asked me to help him check his midterm exams. "Be lenient,mommy, ha. These are college kids, not law school." Okay, I thought. Fair enough. I didn't expect legal dissertations here--just simple answers to simple questions my husband asked like, for example, "Who has the right of choice in alternative obligations?" Not bad, right? It will not take a Davide or a Joker Arroyo to figure this one out.

I snapped up the first booklet with anticipation (I was intent on giving out 90's and perfect scores talaga ) and it belonged to a certain Mr. Cinco (in hindsight, the name was some sort of premonition.) To my horror, there were no answers to the first few questions. As I read on, I realized there was not much to read. A couple of answers were made up of a single sentences each. But what really disgusted me was the answer to the above-mentioned question. See for yourself.



Since when did college students come up with a single-word answer and expect full points? Santi said I should give Mr. Cinco 10 points since "debtors" was the right answer. I could not, for the life of me, stomach to do so. Last I checked, elementary students are taught to write in complete sentences and not in fragmented ones. Was it too much to expect for Mr. Cinco, in the very least, to state that, "Debtors have the right of choice in alternative obligations"?

I gave up on his booklet and told my husband that if he passed this boy, I would picket for a whole week in front of his beloved alma mater (where pickets are abundant).

If we condone this kind of mediocrity, complacency and laziness in the classroom, what kind of people will run our businesses, government agencies, our country in the next 10 or 20 years? People who don't care to even show the tiniest bit of respect to their professors who teach for hours and wind up getting pathetically insulting answers in return.

The rest of the booklets, aside from a chosen few, ran along the same lines. One even copied verbatim his seatmate's answers. Santi said he was the star of the school's basketball team. Still, I wrote in his paper, "Maybe you and Mr. ____ should share this grade". Being a jock is not an excuse to feed off your clasmate's intellectual property. In our world, that is equivalent to theft.

I convinced Santi to expect more from his class by demanding more. Not all of them will go to law school, but all of them will enter their chosen field where blank papers and chopped-up grammar simply won't work. Worse, there won't always be a star-strucked seatmate willing to share his answers.

Teachers, I believe, have the china man's chance to make a difference. They should take it. It is their privelege and sometimes their curse.

that's what is stuck up on the wall of Fitness First ELJ branch. I'm not sure if people here can't read or they simply choose to ignore the sign. I've been waiting for half an hour for one inconsiderate person to get off the computer but he wouldn't.So I left in a huff and took a shower.

After taking the sweetest time bathing, I was back in the best of moods again. The computers were still taken for and I was, again, close to erupting. Finally, the gods smiled and one pc was freed at last!

All this trouble for a shout out:

I wish I was in New York when the Giants won!

Just this millisecond, I close my eyes and say. I wanna be a part of it New York! New York!

Have you ever been friends with a bunch of people that you had absolutely nothing in common with except for one thing?

Meet my bunch.

Mike--fratman turned family man. loves watches, branded clothes, fine women and...lechon.

Donald--the loner. loves to tinker with the newest gadgets,ipods, cellphones, name it, he's got it. Well-versed in european football and....lechon.

Berna--the artist. will rather paint all day than go to work. shoots beautiful pictures and then eats...lechon.

I, as you know, am the nut. Thing speaks for it self. crazy about life, living on the edge and ,yep, lechon.

We were officemates in a firm I worked for two years ago--where the bosses would bribe us lechon for every good work done. We all have left the Firm but can't do away with craving for the yummiest lechon this side of Manila. If we can't beat it, eat it!

So we meet once in a while to satisfy our lust for the suckling pig. Yesterday was Elar's at Quezon Avenue. We downed one and one half kilos of swine. No regrets. Just pure, unadulterated fun!





This is why I ended up in Fitness First ELJ branch after

I write this not because of the impending arrival of valentines but just because it has lingered in my mind lately. I feel I have to let the dog out and today seems to be the right time.

Santi and I starbucked a half and hour ago and went over the hearings I'm covering for him this month. I haven't started work and his firm recently lost an associate. It gives me something to do while I wait.

One of the hearings, we realized, fell on the court where my ex works/ed (I don't know anymore, I told him). He said it's my choice if I want to attend it or not. He even joked about how I should look nice and pretty in case the ex is there, and that I might never know what can happen. I couldn't help but laugh at his attempt to make light of the matter. Except that I realize he wasn't attempting. He's just being himself--letting bygones be bygones and simply moving on.

I flashbacked to the infidelity symposium I went to a few weeks ago where an unmarried person commented that love is not just a feeling. That it is a choice a married person makes every day for the rest of his/her life.

I felt then that the "choice" part was a little problematic, if not totally wrong. A choice, to my mind, connotes the will to freely pick one thing over another.To eat or not to eat? Peanut butter or ube? staying or leaving?

In light of that symposium, sometimes a marriage falls apart because one or both persons choose not to love the other anymore. Does it mean they failed to love their spouse at all? That they do not belong to that utopic place where couples who chose forever reside? That their love was fake because they chose to separate?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I believe love is indeed a choice-- to either keep on loving or stop altogether. If it ain't this way, let us all please stop calling it a choice.

Fast forward to now. Sipping frappuccinos with my husband. Looking at him and witnessing the mystery unravel. No earth shaking feelings of mad love here, I don't see. No highest of highs like the kind I felt when I was unfaithful. No tearing up at the thought of growing old and gray together. No drama. None.

But with him, now, I find peace. Serenity. It beats everything else I've ever wanted. Beats love that everyone else chooses, whatever their choices mean.

If, by this time, you remain unconvinced, at the very least, pray for the safety of this man.

I don't have money, resources or the connections to offer. Not even the courage to stand up and say i'd lawyer for you. But I have faith and this, from miles away, i send you. Our dear Lord WILL be with you and your family always.




God save this country.

Currently watching: jun lozada at the senate

How was my valentine's?

[

Lovely


P.S if you find yourselves swinging by the south side of manila, visit westgate beside ayala alabang. Chances are, you'll wine and dine in style, on time and in peace.

I don't know the English word for it exactly because the Tagalog version always seem to capture it perfectly. It is the pervading mood nowadays for me, as I have been keeping it all inside, "kinikimkim" ang lahat. But then again lightning strikes and blows everything into smithereens. This is how today started.

For months now, I have waited for the approval of our real estate loan that will finally allow us to move into the condo. I already had it painted, tiled, wall papered--the works only to be told by the bank that we lack one of the requirements needed for its approval. I wouldn't have minded this fact if only they had told us earlier and not two months after the submission of the paperwork. I went to the bank's head office and aired my dismay. The head honcho of the credit department arrogantly dismissed his bank's foul-up saying, "Mam. wala na pong diskusyon, ibigay nyo na lang ung master deed". I wanted so badly to knock the living daylights out of him but the thought of the down payment I stood to lose if we don't get this loan forced me to take a step back. So I let it pass. I still can't believe how a big-time commercial bank can be enveloped by such glaring inefficiency and be so unaplogetic at that.

Now we have a little less than a week before our deadline to make payment to the seller comes up. Unless some two million pesos rains down from heaven, I am constrained to meet up with the nearest five-sixing bumbay in town.

Let's backtrack a week ago, when I submitted my paperwork to the Supreme Court. Armed with the checklist its HR department provided me, I marched happily to Padre Faura thinking I was done with the requirements and can finally start work. Tough luck. The HR head icily informed me that I was given the wrong checklist and that half of my papers were inadequate. This is the highest court of the land, mind you. One would expect a human resources department that renders above average work considering they pluck, screen and provide for judges and court attorneys nationwide. But no, it hands out wrong checklists. Ergo,I am jobless for another month.

Bummed out at how it all seemed to snowball at me, I went home and decided to call it a day. I missed a gym visit and Sofia's PTA meeting. I sent Mom instead. She handed me Sofia's report card and narrative report (I am not joking, this toddler school is the real deal). Teacher Rica filled up three pages of bond paper in her report of my little one. Here's a part of it:

" The epitome of a lady, Sofia has been a delight to have as part of the Lovely lambs class. Her curious natue and observant ways have contributed into making her the well-rounded lass we come to love. Her innate motherly behavior has won her many friends and we can already imagine what a great life whe will lead. We will miss seeing our little helper in her matching pink outfits."

I would have put all of it out here but I promised myself I will never be a stage momma. But reading about my little girl makes my heart swell and tearducts active. She is the most helpful in class and the sweetest. She gamely shares her food to her classmates during recess and waits for her turn in their group activities.

I've always prayed that she comes to know of compassion and kindness over and above anything else. I think I'm getting what I wished for.

Here is the result that mattered most, from my life's equalizer.

And this is how my day ended.

Once.

That's the title and tag-line of the Irish indie movie which won the Oscar for best orginal song, Falling Slowly. Made with a budget of $100,000 and using a couple of handicams, the movie captures the pure emotion of unfulfilled yearning.

I watched it in the plane coming home from New York. Running a gamut of emotions from sadness, anger, longing, fear and wondering if I made the right choice of flying back home, I sat there and witnessed two characters in a movie not kiss, not whisper i love yous, not hold each other and yet worship each other through their music.

Not everyone gets their happy ending but sometimes the walking away itself is the perfect one.

One of my mistress friends took a job offer in the States and will be leaving in sixty days. I'm not sure how it all happened as I have purposely distanced myself from her but it did. She decided to leave Mr. Married Dude and start over ten thousand miles away. I found this out from a common friend and realized that this is how much we drifted apart (as she apparently left off telling me the news)--mostly from my own doing. Suddenly I'm Miss-Righteous-Riding-Her-High-Horse and thus cannot bring herself to hang out with a bunch of mistresses. But that's what I become. A slightly better wife and a hell of a lousy friend.

That's not really the point of this entry. No. What I wanted to say is that I wished something better for her and it came. Not in the form of Mr. Dashing Single Guy who will sweep her off to fairy tale land but in a visa to the city of angels.

I can't put into words how happy I am that she's going for it. One of these days I'll tell her exactly who I'm rooting for.

and to the Top Man up there, You never fail to amaze me.

Minz is: jubilant