One-Girl · Revolution

Hi, guys! HSBC has recently opened a promo to its Red Mastercard users and I thought I'd try to ask if anyone would be interested: I just need to find a friend who wants to sign up for a card and refer her... and get free Janylin shoes for the both of us worth 1,600 each! Hehe. Just get in touch with me at agnes.manangu@chinatrust.com, text me, or call me at our office 8401531 loc. 8603 and let's talk about it. Whether or not you want to sign up for a card, it's also a good excuse to meet for lunch (Hope you guys are in Makati also). :)

Here's to free shoes!

In a nutshell, here are some things about the promo:
- Free shoe voucher from Janylin worth P1,600.
- Waived card charges for the first year
- All the obligatory discounts :) As I've found, most of them are for restos and clothes and girly stuff... I guess kaya nga it's a card for women :)

You'll need:
- a referral form (that'll be coming from me)
- proof of identification (photocopy of front and back of a valid ID, that being driver's licenses, passports, company ID, PRC ID, Postal ID, SSS Photocard)
- Proof of income (that being your latest ITR)

Hope at least one of you is interested. Janylin is love. :) See ya!

After months of contemplating it, I've finally published A Banker Babe's Tales. I hope you guys can check it out. There's not much in it yet, but I plan to update it regularly. And no, there won't be any insider information here. :) Just observations and learnings about life in banks. Nothing technical. Bankers are still human after all.

For every dutiful daughter who trains herself to be deaf to her own heart, who keeps selling her parents' simplistic recipes for a happy existence to herself day-in-day-out hoping desperately she'll buy them some day.

For every artist who's had the audacity to ignore fire in their bosoms to keep fire far away from their families' stomachs, to live half-lives in the land of cubicles and copiers.

For every sister who swears to persevere despite the odds to ensure that her siblings won't share her fate, but wakes up each day to the precarious puzzle of where to draw even a scrap of energy to go on.

These stories are yours. I'm not sure they ned to be told, but I'll tell them anyway.

* * *

I am an artist. Or at least, I used to be. My earliest childhood memories were of learning how to look at the world and see beauty. I have been forced into a great many molds by people with the best of intentions and the numbest of hearts, but all I ever learned from these half-hearted but ostensibly more useful occupations was to look at the world and see more beauty.

Although I wish the case were otherwise, I am not telling this story to cater to some higher purpose. At best, it would be the mildly entertaining rants of someone who was too chicken to stand up for something she believed in. Let's put it out there, it won't be pretty and it will be selfish and resentful. So if I'm beginning to smog up your sunny blue skies, stop reading now.

To be continued...

I totally missed writing about 2005 at the height of the sentiment. But what was there to write? Last miserable days of college spent in cold, unfriendly UPSE. The horror of waking up to the harsh reality that being a Magna Cum Laude can actually be bad for you as you begin to look for work. The struggle to keep what had been a perfect relationship alive. And of course, miscellaneous family worries that just keep getting worse with each passing week. Work has been a boon for me... I've figured out why I've been spending so much time in the office. Because compared to life and love, banking is peanuts.

I *know* I will regret not going back to sleep later as I agonize over financial statements, but I just have to write. Just when I thought I was getting a dose of reality, I see it happen to other people in full force and I get educated. Funny how the cosmos works. I want so desperately to be strong like Mandy and his family. I wish there was a manual that could teach me how.

Maybe I have gotten stronger. The newest developments in this joke of a life don't terrify me anymore. And I've stopped coating everything with drama to preserve my poor heart.

* * *

2006 will be the year I get my life back. I have obviously been underachieving. Maybe some of you will disagree violently with me, pero kulang ako sa yabang. I have thought so little of myself these past few years, and I've begun to believe it. I used to be outspoken. I used to be fearless. I used to dream in frightening proportions.

And since this alone is a pretty tall order, I won't make other resolutions. Just watch me conquer the world, people.

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In June I gave bedpotato a Dutch Oven (-10 points). In April I ruled Duluth, Minnesota as a kind and benevolent dictator (700 points). Last Wednesday I pulled jov's hair (-5 points). Last Saturday I punched enraptured_moon in the arm (-10 points). Last week I got in line at the supermarket at the same time as someone else and I didn't yield (-8 points). Overall, I've been nice (667 points). For Christmas I deserve a shiny red ball! Sincerely, lady_nocturne

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

huhuhu, it hits too close to home...

;_;

Day 3 of 4 day bed rest. I've actually gotten worse if that's possible!

First, I break up with my boyfriend of four years who's all I ever wanted and more. Then, I strike up some sort of quasi-relationship with office crushie who's (1) also on a rebound and (2) my officemate, duh! (I mean, what was I thinking? If this sours, it'll suck to go to work for a while.) Then, I break away from the insulated cushyness of training to get posted in the department that cost me the most sweat, blood, and tears of all the departments I've been through these past few months.

Strangely enough, I feel liberated. I have no idea what the future holds, and for moi, Little-Miss-Crazy-Planner-Armed-with-Plans-A-to-G, this means I should be a nervous wreck right now. But I'm strangely cool. Hardly collected, but sufficiently cool.

Haha. I sincerely hope I haven't gone nuts.

You have a total of 19 friends
You requested to guess 19 entries.
None was skipped due to invalid content (surprising?).
You made 19 guesses.
You got 18 correct.
Doing the math for you, that means you got 94% correct

I wonder who I missed?

I'm not totally selfish, I hope. :)

* * *

My girls are planning a get-drunk night on friday. God knows I need to get drunk, but I'm not sure this is the best time for my first time! Haha. I'm treating this like I'm about to lose my virginity or something. But I'm really scared to get drunk--the reckless abandon, the throwing up... I hope I don't say or do anything I will regret. :p

Seven Things That Scare Me
1. Losing control of my mind
2. Spiders
3. All horror flicks
4. Becoming ugly
5. Not waking up from a bad dream
6. Violence
7. Leaving this world without having done something great

Seven Things I Like The Most
1. Gelo :p
2. My family
3. Fantastic Pinay crepes from Cafe Breton
4. Neatness that I didn't bring about
5. Funky articles of clothing I can wear repeatedly for at least 5 years
6. Thinking
7. Me! Yehey!

Seven Random Facts About Me
1. I like working in a bank.
2. I took hula lessons when I was a little girl.
3. I have read each of my favorite books at least 5 times.
4. I have always wanted to be named Grace. My daughter will be named Guadalupe. I have a strange fixation with 'G' names.
5. I don't like going to malls unless I previously made up my mind to buy something before finding myself in one.
6. It takes very little for me to be persuaded to treat people.
7. My dream car is either a really huge pick-up or a really small compact... nothing in between.

Seven Important Things In Our Bedroom
1. Lamp
2. Blanket
3. Favorite books and mags
4. Storage!
5. My glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars
6. My sarong/curtain that looks oh so pretty
7. My hooks, which are everywhere! (to hang most everything on)

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die
1. Win a Pulitzer
2. Become a philantrophist (with a special concentration on women's issues and education)
3. Have a child and right all parenting wrongs done to me
4. Buy my daddy a super expensive SUV and send my mommy on a European tour
5. Become a real godparent to an especially chosen kid
6. Travel the world
7. Figure myself out and learn to love every bit of me

Seven Things I Can Do
1. Fall asleep in any lecture, even if I'm sitting right in front
2. Fall asleep through a Venti-size Starbucks anything (coffee has no effect on me)
3. Stay awake for hours when I especially need to fall asleep
4. Draw. With emotional if not technical depth.
5. Write. With both emotional and technical depth.
6. Almost completely sing the theme songs to Tiny Toons, the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, Spongebob Squarepants, Lizzie McGuire, etc.
7. Anything I put my mind to.

Seven Things I Can’t Do
1. Figure most people out
2. Stay awake through an after lunch lecture
3. Stand by and not help when I can
4. "Beautiful eyes"
5. Draw a rugged manga-style man
6. Not worry
7. Not react to politically incorrect remarks

Seven Things That Attract Me To The Opposite Sex
1. A wonderful scent
2. A knack for "getting it"
3. An utter lack of pretension
4. Strong hands
5. Sensuous lips
6. Tanned skin
7. A beautiful profile

Seven Things I Say The Most
1. Inherent disincentive
2. Shockers
3. Super _
4. Sureness
5. I'm sorry!
6. Helleur?
7. *huggle* (but only to Gelo)

Seven Celeb Crushes (Whether Local or Foreign)
1. Steven Strait (yep, Ate Matet I soooo second the motion.)
2. Ray Fiennes
3. Monica Bellucci
4. Brandon Lee
5. Kelly Hu
6. Salma Hayek
7. Jay-R (haha so sue me!)

Seven People You Want To See Take This Quiz
1. enraptured_moon
2. oplan_haraya
3. ubechan
4. flashwhite
5. bedpotato
6. geijutsuka_chai
7. r0ane

I just realized tonight that I spend a minute more thinking about how to get people to like me, I would regret it at the end of my life. I've spent too much time thinking there is something gravely wrong with me and I've always hated it... I hate how I think sometimes that people can be really superficial or even stupid but continue to strategize about how to win them over. It defies logic. It does not make the slightest bit of sense.

The truth is that personal magnetism stems from confidence. I sometimes feel I have more skills than I need, but these are completely undermined by a lack of belief in their potency. And I have spent too much time worrying about other people to build myself up.

I have thought about it as is my wont and found out that there are less abstract ways to get around this problem:
1. Find a hobby that will enable me to meet more people. If there is a one in a hundred chance I will get along with someone in this new group, then it wouldn't bother me so much that I can't please everyone in the office. Plus a new hobby will give me something to think about other than my sickening fixation on other people's impressions. I'm in the office for more than 12 hours a day with no clear stuff to do other than to wait for my dad to finish up at his office and take me home--I have to get out. I just have to.
2. Seek out people who love me and draw strength from them. This has always been on my mind but the thought of never being able to save money makes me rethink asking people to lunch or to movies. But this is also very twisted--these moments are what we work to earn money for. I used to treat people just to cheer them up and not count the cost because that's what I felt money was supposed to be for--to buy sensory pleasure, hopefully the beginnings of happiness. I should apply this idea to myself. Therefore...
3. Spend more money on what makes me happy. Each day I think about how I need a bag that will fit everything including flats to commute in, a coat that doesn't look like it shrunk in the wash... but I also think about how at least P3,000 of my money should go into a time deposit each month so I put off buying stuff I need. Naturally, buying the stuff I *want* or even stuff I want to buy for my family is out of the question. So now I am postponing saving money, at least for this first year. Hopefully these investments in myself will pay off.

People have been telling me to stop being so serious and now I've finally decided that it can be done. The truth is that nobody expects me to be as responsible as I try to be all the time. Not my parents, not my brothers, not Gelo. But I will pursue no more of being a bad girl just to negate this serious image, breaking little rules in silly ways with sweaty palms, eventually deciding I'm better off treading the straight and narrow. There are more mature ways of effecting this change. I will begin Operation Get Happy tomorrow by shopping shamelessly.

* * *

These are stuff I've always wanted, with an everyday-wishing-to-buy-it-someday kind of wanting but never got around to buying because my spreadsheets told me I shouldn't:
1. Get hair straigthened anew with conditioning this time (because I can afford it now), get a spanky new haircut along with it.
2. A suit--a real matching one. With a skirt that makes me look sexy naman for a change (the current ones I'm using are high-waisted and long).
3. A bag that fits everything but doesn't make me look like a mother of three.
4. Storage bins, boxes, and cabinets to tame the mess in my room.
5. A label printer. I once saw this in a mag, but I have no idea where in the Philippines to buy such a thing.
6. New skirts and blouses to wear to work. In particular a crisp white blouse that goes with everything, and a black 3/4 sleeve knit top to wear with my cute-but-difficult-to-match-with-anything colored skirts.
7. Girly sandals for casual wear. I'm working now, I can't go on wearing my unlaundered-since-college Chucks everywhere.
8. Dance classes. Flamenco, Tango or Bellydancing. As in! Wishing for this one with "the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns".

The list is pretty long, but I know that getting at least one item once a month will improve my disposition dramatically. I remember buying my wallet from Girbaud sale on a whim--I sigh in satisfaction even till now each time I recall what a good purchase it was. Tomorrow I hope to find my big black bag. Wish me luck.

How much time should it take to add a friend on livejournal and add a pic on friendster? If I hadn't been so enamored of that Spongebob nightshirt picture, I wouldn't be going through all this trouble.

I realized that if I work really hard I might make it in sales, but I can't change my personality overnight. Psychologizing myself just stupidly illuminates this truth: I'm hopelessly serious. Screw anyone who doesn't like it. I take care of people around me and I do it very well, which is more than I can say for some people who give me such a hard time.

Why am I in such a bad mood? I know perfectly well actually, but I'd rather not talk about it. I hate it when people are judgmental and can't wait to tell people about their useless opinions.

Strangely ironic, ne?

(But no, this rant fest is not about work. I know, it's weird. I must have done something good to be enjoying it right now.)

In the end, I always go back to doing the exact things I hate about myself, knowing that there isn't anything else I can do... things being things. Me being me.

It's not entirely evil when you think about how these pieces of me aren't horrific or loathsome individually. If God could grant me one wish, it would be for me to forgive myself for existing. I know this kind of talk might terrify some of you, but let me assure you that this isn't depression talking. It's an everyday thing. It's me--a truth, a constant in my life that finds a million and one different ways to manifest itself. It's uncomfortable but manageable more often than not... although there *are* days when it just makes you stare straight down at the floor from high balconies contemplating the dynamics of a jump for year-long minutes.

For all its imagined misfortunes and self-magnified ironies, I still love my life. If only for pure moments like this, all the drudgery and confusion of existing becomes worth it, unqualified and as certain as death and change. For example, it is priceless to get reminded, especially in the middle of activities we have deemed to be valuable by convention, of the very simple fact that we occupy space. Suddenly, just sitting there gains a value of its own: taking a sensory roll-call of each part of your body to determine your physical bounds, heart brimming with fascination at how you can never be in two places at a time or, likewise, at how you and some given thing can't occupy the same space at the same time. Priceless. Like studying the rain or dissecting how the world changes after a kiss or hypothesizing about the divine plan that placed certain persons in your life.

Even tragedy has beauty. Thomas Hardy understood this well--which is why after almost 4 years I will finally get those copies of Jude the Obscure and Tess of d' Ubervilles I've been eyeing at National Bookstore. There is darkness and light in everything, the natural consequence being conflict, depth... and beauty. This is what makes me want to wake up to a new day each day.

* * *

I try but I can't stop thinking about relationships. How they begin, but most importantly, how they conclude. Because a lot of them live cruelly short lives. Even more of them end before they even begin.

What makes people decide they don't want to be friends with you? What do these people tell themselves to justify their avoidance, their deliberate coolness? Why do relationships that start out fine sour mysteriously after X number of days? I have always gone with the convenient answer of "Maybe it's me.", but truthfully it gets really tired.

I would like to live a day, just one day, without a single self-hating thought.

* * *

The weird but always wonderful side to all of this is: everything happens for a reason. This is why life can be really fun if you're a good sport, the puzzle that is the cosmos will provide you years of entertainment. Good luck figuring it out! Not finding where some parts fit can really, really suck sometimes, but after gnashing your teeth and shaking your fist at the sky, your mind clears magically and you find where things fit in the big picture. And there is serenity. And peace. And absolute rapture.

Every time I take this test, it always comes up with an accurate result. It's really freaky! The first time I took it, I got "philippine street food is love". And now:

mojos are love
brought to you by the isLove Generator

Grabe. Ang galing talaga.

* * *

I'm now at Leki's house and I've been invited over, supposedly to avoid the rain tonight, but of course I'm staying over kasi miss ko na siya. Hehe. But at the rate things are going, both of us being busy and all (and me being sensible enough to bring some work along with me), mukhang we're not gonna get much face time. Which brings up the issue of how we're all growing up and how we all have our own lives now, lives that don't have much to do with each other. It will really take extra effort to meet up like before, I guess. While it's exciting to find out what tomorrow will bring, I fear this drifting that has begun to take place. Although, maybe it's also more acute for me kasi I'm on the other side of Parañaque...

Today was great! We went to the company's Gawad Kalinga adopted community and helped facilitate feeding and parlor games. It's heartwarming to look at the colorful houses GK puts up for these families. It somehow makes me believe that there's hope for the Philippines yet. I heard from an officemate earlier that GK is right on track for its GK 777 project: 7000 homes in 700 communities in 7 years. An organization of Fil-Ams had recently committed to build 5000 homes in conjunction with them--so they're not only going to fulfill their goals but they may possibly exceed it. It's such a happy thing.

As usual, being with the MDP people was a blast. It's strange how I never seem to be in the mood to tell you guys all about them, when I'm having the time of my life with them. Maybe one day, I'll set aside a time to really talk about these caring and talented individuals. There are too many stories now, though--I may not know where to begin.

* * *

I'm an old soul, as many of you already know. I know whom I'm going to be friends forever with instantly with the most superficial of encounters, sometimes even at first sight or first contact, and I have never been wrong, at least to my knowledge. I have this uncanny ability to read compatible auras--and there are often times when I'd feel like I met a person in a past life. But while these things occur inside me with absolute certainty, a lot of people whom my intuition singles out as soulmates remain oblivious to the en, the cosmic connection. It only took me one time of coming clean with someone to wound me for life--I now make it a point never to tell any of my soulmates about how I found them. I often feel like I'm in this world to remind them of what they've forgotten. But during the MDP, for the first time in my life, I met a fellow old soul who likewise recognized and acknowledged me as a soulmate the way I did with her.

The moment of recognition with Agatha came when I first heard her speak that first day of MDP (for some, Gelo included, I get the ephiphany sometime after I've met them. The feeling is akin to suddenly being awash with light, in a very peculiar, dynamic sense that that is part figurative and part literal.). Barely a split-second after hearing what she had to say, I knew that she was exactly like me and that I had to get to know her. But as with most of my "soul-mates", the worldly connection was to be established at a later time. Just this week we got to talking, and after a spooky string of discussed similarities that were especially eccentric (ie. Me: "Ako ganito" Her: "Ako rin!" and vice-versa), I felt I could tell her how I sensed that we were going to be friends for always that first week of work. The surprise came when she told me that she felt the very same way. The way she described it was so much like my own weird awarenesses: it was as if there were things in the universe that were aligning every time we spoke, there was something inside ourselves pushing us to interact with each other.

It gets even freakier. The superficial stuff is easy to enumerate: we have names that are variations of each other, we don't look alike but we've both been told that we look like Tetchie Agbayani by different people in completely independent instances. But there are things that really curl my toes, like the love of people-watching and guessing people's stories, that strange sense of "old soul"-ness she tells me she has that so perfectly describes my own, the way she talks and thinks, the cycle of her emotions and moods, her snap depressions and highs and quiet moments and noisy moments. It is an awesome and delightful thing, but my sudden awareness of has been admittedly very intense. Even Gelo, who is my cosmically designated partner in life, took a bit of time to recognize the en.

Right now, all I can say is the world is amazing. I am getting used to the strangely earthshaking impact of this acknowledgement, but I feel that usual feeling of being able to place yet another piece correctly in the puzzle of my life. I thought I'd met all my friends, family, romantic liaisons, and whatnot from my past lives, but I realize that throughout my life, I will keep getting reacquainted with more of these kindreds. I even feel the same strange connection with Sir Row, my assigned mentor for the MDP (whose moment of recognition I had almost set aside because of some seemingly inconsistent event.). And this makes the future something I should really look forward to.

1. Hit Me Baby One More Time by Britney Spears
2. Simply by Sara Hickman
3. Paglisan by Color it Red
4. The First Time I Loved Forever by Melanie Safka and Lee Holdridge
5. Bells and my Shadow by Sugar Hiccup
6. Songs with the word crazy in it, ie. Crazy by Aerosmith, Crazy by Britney Spears, Crazy for You by Madonna
7. Dreaming of You by Selena
8. Dare You to Move by Switchfoot
9. Someday We'll Know by The New Radicals
10. Another Day by Mojofly

Haha. Too lazy to tag though. =P