Dear Santa

Do Not Judge Me. When I write my blog, it is full disclosure about my emotions and no judgment shall be allowed to pass (INSERT GANDALF HERE).

It took me WAAAAY longer than it should have to get over Santa. There, I said it. I did find out at around 6-8 (i don’t remember exactly) years old that my parents had something to do with it because I accidentally came across my own gift a few hours before the big reveal. I was snooping around but they left it lying around! I was surprised, however, when I received from “Santa” what I thought was a gift for my cousin. LOL.

I love that anecdote.

Anyway, I saved this picture a bout a year ago from 9gag but I’m pretty sure it’s a somee card. I can’t find the link anymore because I saved this picture in my phone while surfing. But here it is:

 

Yes, funny, hahaha. I actually tweeted this today and got a rather disturbing reply from a follower. But that is beside the point.

After tweeting this, I got a brain-blast! (Jimmy Neutron reference… you must say it the way he used to because that’s how I imagine it, hence the exclamation point) about possibly making a list of things I would ask from Santa if I were still writing to him.

What an intro, right? Let me segue to the letter to Santa, now. I’ll be dipping into the inner innocence I reserve for moments of vulnerability like this so try not to be too critical.

Dear Santa,

Hello. It’s Erika. Remember me? I asked for Wii Rockband and got it? Yeah, I was one of those kids.

Hey. How’s it been? I miss writing to you. I asked for so much, thinking I deserved it all but knowing I’d not necessarily been good within the meaning of the word as used in the strict Catholic school teaching (more like drilling/brainwashing) I grew up with (and, incidentally, am still very much a part of).

Merry Christmas in advance! I hope you’re ready. I hear kids today want more techie things like cellphones and laptops instead of dolls and trucks. It mustn’t be easy being who you are. I respect that.

I never knew how to begin asking for things I like. Granted, I was raised in a home where what I wanted was a good enough basis for giving me the same but I was never comfortable with asking for things outright. I prefer to believe I’d manipulated people into thinking they wanted to give me these things. I know you really wanted to give me that PlayStation with a pile of CDs just for me.

You know what, Santa? I just decided I won’t give you a list of things to choose from to give me. You and I both know I’m too old for that. Plus, I’m sure you’re sick of reading the countless letters that come to you months in advance (uhm, mine were always sent by November… I wonder, was that early enough or is November too late?).

Anyway, if you want to give me something (I have no stocking though now that I think about it I should make one out of construction paper), I think you should give me something I really need. While this is only one request, it will be tough. This request requires you to think about who I am, what I do, what I enjoy, what I love and to match a gift that will be compatible with me.

I do not envy you. I don’t even know what I need. I know what I want. I want money, I want success, I want to live a stable life that will be able to support a comfortable (even more than what I’m used to) lifestyle. With regard to things I need, however, you have me stumped.

I need something. And I need it fast. I need happiness. I need a balance between happiness and security.

I’m sorry, i didn’t mean to make this letter a rambling on about me. But then aren’t all the letters you receive self-centered? Mine is just more introspective than the others that just outright ask you for things.

Anyway, Santa, enough about me. I don’t expect a reply from you but I hope you stay alive in the imaginations of children everywhere. Don’t fade into obscurity just because children have more access to the internet and are a lot more jaded about the world wide web than I was (I was a regular visitor of santaclaus.com and northpole.com at around this time of the year — the design was prettier back then, at least to me).

Either way, I wish you well. Thanks for being what you were to me when I was a kid (and a few years past being a kid).

Stay magical.

Love, Erika

I’m so into Christmas… Or holidays in general. I love merrymaking, it’s in my nature. Advanced Merry Christmas!

I know it’s still November.

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I’m Getting Into The Spirit of It All!

If you’ve read my first entry (or second? I can’t recall), you will know that I actually set out to improve the status of my life by taking it by the balls. The balls!

So, in the spirit of things, I decided I would take on the daunting task of finding a way to spruce up the condo in time for Christmas, even if I will be home for the holidays and nobody comes in here. The sprinkling of joy will add a sparkle to my life that makes me greet the day with cheer. Holiday cheer!

So, I started decorating. I’m only using some magic tape and construction paper. But I think I’ve done a good job, even if it is coming out a little clipart-y and looks like it should belong in a kindergarten classroom.

THE POINT IS, the decorations make me feel good and so I do.

Here are pictures. I’m not yet done, I am NOWHERE near done but I think what I’ve accomplished so far has vastly improved my Christmas spirit. No grinches or scrooges allowed, please. Humbug is so not what I aim for. Here is a slideshow to make you believe me:

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Picture 1: My BIG-ASS MIRROR has been converted from boring mirror to a SNOWY PICTURE WINDOW from the outside looking in. Clever, huh? Let me just mention that (1) I’ve never seen snow, and (2) I’m proud of this, the most.

Picture 2: My WREATH! Can you believe? I wanted to just buy one, originally. But why buy something nobody will see when you can make one and be happy! Yes, those candy canes are made by yours truly… NOT YET DONE, MORE TO COME!

Picture 3: PART of my Christmas tree. Isn’t the angel-topper just adorable?!

I wasn’t expecting any of the decorations to come out as adorable as they did. This makes me want to make more. What sucks is that I’m never here on the weekends and the weekdays are slowly being sucked into an endless cycle of waking up, going to school, studying, going to bed.

I WILL TRANSCEND ABOVE THE STRESS. I promise.

Get into the spirit of it all!

3D art is for suckers. Merrily, Air ❤

On Inaccurate Titles

Scumbag brain.

I have a full day ahead of me, tomorrow.

It is 3:34 AM in my end of the world. I have to be up by 8 AM because I was planning to review my notes for class, clean up a little, and have some water delivered here. I then plan to jet off to the mall across school after lunch to pay my phone bill and maybe get a new drink from HappyLemon. I wanted to be in the classroom for a joint class early so I could get a choice seat (at the back… it’s a Theology class, after all). It will not be easy, the students far outnumber the seats. Fuck.

Let’s not even consider the fact that I need to be on top of things as far as my lessons because I might be called for recits tomorrow, during Obligations and Contracts (which is another scheduled joint class and screwing up will be doubly mortifying than if it were just with your regular classmates).

And then, after all my classes (my classes go from 3 in the afternoon to 8 in the evening), I have to find a taxi that can magically transport me to the airport again in an hour or less. I say magically because, although it is a Thursday, the next day, Friday, is Bonifacio Day, a nonworking holiday. People will be out and about. I will be stuck in traffic, which is a BITCH in Manila.

Anyway, I’m up. I might as well write another post from the beautiful mind of yours truly.

Read the title. of both this post and my blog and you will know exactly what I mean. What was I thinking titling my blog “The Daily Ramblings of…”?

It annoys me to no end but I don’t want to change the title either. I don’t want to change it because I feel like if I changed it, I would change the good fortune this blog has been having, with statistics that seem to improve (slowly, but it’s something). I’m superstitious. As a consequence, I have to live with this, and so should you.

I’m really sorry I haven’t been religious with this blog. I use this as an escape. Lord knows I need it. I’m on the edge of sanity here, what with the increasing demands of my wanting to push myself further because I’ve an academic goal I’ve been meaning to reach.

Just once, Erika. Just once.

So, here is my halfhearted apology for the crappy title of my blog. Stay tuned! I appreciate the likes! I would further appreciate any comments, if you can spare any.

Lots of love and a can of energy drink, Air. (My name is Erika but you may call me Air… Everyone does as, apparently, three syllables can be taxing)

In The Background

In the background, there plays a random playlist I found on 8tracks for classical study music.

I should really be studying. And I have started. I just found  blogging to be more important at the moment.

This post will be a ramble, get ready.

I choose to study to classical music because the wannabe singer in me will sing along to songs she knows and/or try and memorize the lyrics to songs she doesn’t. That does not make it easy for me to study.

I know what you’re thinking… “Why play music in the first place?” It would be easier. But the voices in my head that get easily distracted say otherwise. I need to drown them out. And, like I tweeted a while back, they are sufficiently surprised at the sudden onslaught of sophistication. Go figure.

I have to say, though, it irks me when I hear the score from movies included in these playlists. When I recognize them, I start imagining the movie. And automatic distraction ensues. I might even want to download the movie.

So here I am, online again, when I really should be studying. I heard the score they used for Home Alone and I missed that movie. I want to watch it again, especially because it’s already Christmas time.

Ah, Christmas. My condo is pretty, now! Well, partly. It isn’t finished yet. I shall post my progress in the next post. Tonight, when my load is a little lighter.

For now, I must go back to studying.

You should really go back to doing what you were supposed to do, too.

P.S. I will try a new HappyLemon drink today. Because the next one is “Lemon Green Tea” and I’m on a new green tea kick.

POST-CEPTION

I’m in Cebu, right now. It’s my last night before I jet off to Manila again to resume my life as a law student. I know I’m slacking off on my posting but you have to believe me when I say that I grab every chance I get to be present in the lives of the people I love from my family, the doting mom and dad, the coolest brothers and sisters, to the life of my one and only boyfriend who stayed in Cebu to study law for me (he’s from Bohol) only to be left behind because I chose to study law in Manila. This sounds tragic but believe me when I say we are weathering through the changes.

Anyway, I wrote an entry offline while waiting for my flight home and only now got the chance to post it. The weekend was full of cavorting about the Queen City of the South, drinking and being merry, not to mention shopping like there’s no tomorrow. It was also spent playing Mahjong. Hahaha. I will get around to apost explaining why that is.

For now, this little bit here serves as a tiny introduction to the post I wrote in the airport because I literally had hours to kill.

Enjoy.

November 23, 2012. 7:15 PM.

I’m writing a post at the airport, now. Of course, I’m not doing it online. I’m actually just typing it as a Word document at the moment. I still see this as a post as I’ve come to the conclusion that my blog is my diary. So I guess wherever I am, I can always just type whatever I feel whenever I have time enough to do it. I will proceed to posting it online if I’m happy with the way it comes out.

I’m writing, now, out of boredom. My flight is at 2050 hours and I’m already at the gate, it’s only 1918. Sad? I think so, too. But, there’s nowhere else to be right now.  Traffic in Manila on a Friday night is fucked up. I actually freaked out because it took such a long time to get a taxi from the condo of my friend, Maica, who lives across the street from school.

So, here I am. And here you are. And this is my post.

I am an avid stumbler. Not literally. I have the stumbleupon plug-in installed on my browser (I hope I’m using the right techie terms because I know I am no computer genius. I know how to get what I need of the web and that is the extent of my knowledge) and I use it when I get bored. Partly because I love looking at stuff I haven’t seen on the Internet, which is my HOME, and partly because I’m on the lookout for pins for Pinterest (I also have that plug-in).

Anyway, I stumbled upon this awesome project called before I die (I hope I can find the link again because I might have to put up the source. Anyway, people started a project that entailed the putting up of a wall, painted black chalkboard paint (I can only assume it was chalkboard paint) and stenciled in words that said “Before I Die, I Will _______________”. And then passers-by could use chalk (also installed on the wall with some sort of dispenser) to fill in the blanks.

Ok, segue to me. It got me thinking. I should start making my own bucket list. Not that I feel like I’m going to die anytime soon. I just feel like it would be fun to try and put my dreams down in a list so I know what kind of crazy shit goes on in my head.

So, without further ado, here is my bucket list. I wanted to put an explanation to justify each item on the list but then I realized that I don’t need to rationalize anything I want to do to anyone and, honestly, I don’t want to go to the trouble.

Before I die, I will…

1. Finish law school
2. Get tattoos (multiple, if not already obvious from the use of the plural)
3. Buy my own car/house/whatever-the-fuck-I-want-with-real-hard-earned-money
4. Travel alone (not like today where I’m just heading to Cebu for the weekend but travel alone like go to Hong Kong or Singapore or somewhere even farther)
5. Build a library (not literally build one but collect enough books to maintain one)
6. Practice law/litigate
7. Fund an animal shelter
8. Honestly try to be a vegetarian

Well, what do you know? I originally wanted to limit this list to only ten items. I really didn’t expect to not even reach that ceiling. I did, in the course of making this list, keep shooting down ideas when I realized I don’t REALLY want it. Oh, hold on…

• Bungee jump (#9)

I always had that on my mental bucket list, I don’t know why it came up so late. Curious.

Of course, these aren’t the only things I ever want to accomplish in my life. I have so many dreams, so little time. These are the dreams that keep me going. These are the dreams that make me keep pushing my limits in law school or budget my money and save towards that travel fund for any trip anywhere. My mom calls me a jack of all trades but that just makes me feel like I can do anything.

I could decide to cross some things off, if any lose meaning, or I might decide to add more, if I decide they’re more things I want to do. It’s fun because I feel like I have complete control over this area of my life.

So, there you go. That was my bucket list. I’m feeling considerably more inspired and hopeful because this list has made me realize that my entire life is ahead of me. I am ready to take it by the balls.

Crude humor because I don’t know it any other way.

So, now, this post is winding down and I know it’ll be over soon. The impending boredom is daunting. I MUST find something to do; I barely dented the waiting time! I do notice that the people at the gate have increased.

It is still 1945 hours. I’m speaking plane time talk because I feel like I know something that others might not and this makes me feel smart.

Done. That was my post. Come to think about it, I could have explored more or written more but I felt like I had nothing more to say at the time.

I hope you enjoyed the little post-ception. I have more posts coming your way soon but I should get some sleep because I have less than 5 hours to go before I have to get up and shower and be ready for my flight. Never mind the breakfast and hair and makeup.

Good night….

P.S. Here’s the link that got me thinking: http://candychang.com/before-i-die-in-nola/

Going With The Flow

Ok, so the challenges I’ve imposed upon myself are a little economically-daunting, I am still relying on the parents’ buck to live. Sad, I know, but they’ve always been supportive. I count myself lucky and I’m not squandering anything. Except these little whimsies of mine, which, to be honest, are miniscule.

I did, however, achieve a second dish at Hainanese Delights.

[you may imagine me doing my tiny victory dance here while the Hermione Granger meme in my head applauds my minor achievement –> she’s a little bit of a Harry Potter nerd, and, yes, I just referred to myself in the third person]

Anyway, my dad came over from Cebu because he had a hearing in Makati. His hearing was in the afternoon yet so he stopped by his little baby girl (I’m being cute, of course) to have lunch with her. Or, to be more precise, buy her lunch.

Originally, my mom suggested I take him to Vikings, this ridiculously overpriced buffet near the Mall of Asia. I’m not speaking out of hearsay. I’ve been there, I was not impressed. This is coming from a girl who frequents the buffets at hotels in Cebu  with her family when something is worth celebrating.

Ok, let’s be fair. It was a sucky experience because my mom and I had gone to the Mall of Asia area via taxi. I mixed up my directions and had the taxi drop us off on the opposite end from where Vikings was supposed to be situated on that seaside strip behind the mall. We were in heels, mind you, because I was on my way to school and she had a flight home to Cebu and, well, my mother is just fucking awesome.

Moving on, the place had NO taxis around so we had to walk to the other end. The entire fucking span of the Mall of Asia in the blistering noon heat of the Philippines. Yes.

We arrived (a little after I started seeing tumbleweeds and those little heat waves and my mom had exhausted her entire vocabulary of insults directed at me because it was my fault the taxi driver dropped us there and that is saying something) and asked for a table for two. What do you know, the damn place prioritized reservations (we were informed by my dad — who’d read about it in the newspaper — that they didn’t take reservations). The walk-in people (i.e., people who didn’t plan ahead — even if the internet is readily available, MEANING: people like my mom and I) had to wait among the other poor unfortunate souls outside in the heat under fans that really did not help my sweating profusely after the damn Death March we’d just gone through.

When our number was finally up, the lady told us there were no more tables near the buffet table. Well we weren’t going to throw our walk down the drain and walk away (mainly because we were all walked out) so we agreed to a table that they did warn us was far. I should have known the walk from one end of the strip to the other was an omen. The lady led us to a small square table (seats just two, uncomfortably) and, to get to the buffet table from where we were seated, we had to walk about a kilometer.

Well, you can imagine how pissed off this made me. I was still determined to enjoy this place, I fucking suffered to get where I was. Literally. I couldn’t feel my feet at the end of this day, let me tell you.

And when I got my food, well… Nothing spectacular. No fireworks. Nothing that inspired the viking in me to shove mouthfuls upon mouthfuls of food into this mouth. Nothing. Nada. (little Spanish there, for some flavor which I DID NOT GET when I tried this magical buffet)

Well, what do you expect? To get to the good food (the kind they cook up for you), wait in fucking line. To get any decent food, wait for the fucking refill. And don’t forget the godlike strength my hunger must have developed that took me from the damn table to the smorgasbord of CRAP. And my catlike reflexes and balance because you had to be careful around the beverage station or you slip and fall face first into your food.

Crap. I’m bitter. I don’t know, though, maybe I was just pissed off because of my own stupidity. But, being the ray of sunshine I am, I refuse to believe I couldn’t find a damn thing that redeemed this place. Ok, so I’m no Strawberry Shortcake (she’s the sweetest thing I can think of at the moment) but I did try my best.

I did try.

I digress. I might have gone a little off-tangent there. I was talking about mommy [i call her mommy. problem?] suggesting my dad and I go to Vikings. I was sure my dad’s GPS-like sense of direction wouldn’t have led us astray. So I decided to give the place another shot, I mean, the entire bad experience could be attributed to my horrible luck that day.

I googled their phone number and found three lines I could contact and an encouraging post on their Facebook page that said their lines were open at 9 am. All this I did yesterday morning, around half past 9. I dialed. It rang. And dialed. And it rang. And dialed. And it rang. No dice. I decided to wait about thirty minutes before trying again. I dialed. Busy. I dialed. Busy. I dialed. Busy. This went on for about fifteen minutes with me juggling the dialing with the loud speaker on and trying to review for my class that afternoon. I finally got a ring. And a ring. And another ring. What the fuck.

“Hello, Vikings” (I don’t remember the exact words)

*inhale, exhale* “Hello, good morning, I was wondering if I could make a reservation for lunch tomorrow”

“Tomorrow, at lunch?”

*inhale* “Yes.” *exhale*

“I’m sorry, ma’am, our reservations are full for lunch, tomorrow. We do accept walk-in reservations”

*gasp* “Oh, really? How early do you suppose I should go there to make that reservation?”

“We start accepting at 8am.”

“Can I just call in for that?”

“No, only personal walk-ins.” (in retrospect, the word used WAS ‘WALK-IN’ *facepalm*)

*click*

source: http://www.quickmeme.com/Flip-A-Table/?upcoming

Well, fuck.

I can’t catch a break with these people. So, to the people in Vikings, from the condescending-ass telephone operators to the smug-ass ladies at the little podium of power who get to choose who to let in the restaurant, here is a big resounding FUCK YOU.

Ok, now, back to today.

I asked my dad if he wanted to try walking in at Vikings. He said, no, it wasn’t worth it, and it was too far. Oh thank God. I don’t think I could have handled more from them, whether they know of the anxiety they caused me or not.

So we went to Hainanese Delights, a quick taxi ride from the condo to Megamall. We walked there, shared some stories, and I looked into the Marks&Spencer branch there because my mom was looking for a certain pair of slacks. We arrived at Hainanese Delights and, well, fuck, they couldn’t start taking customers in because their cashier hadn’t arrived yet.

I can’t catch a break!

Anyway, dad was a good sport about it, I think he knew I wanted to have him try it, so he suggested we walk around the mall a bit and come back later. Yey!

So we walked around and stuff… And came back to Hainanese Delights (such looooong wooooords and this long post is tiring me out).

The cashier was still AWOL but the guy said they could serve us as long as we paid in exact change. No problem.

So we ordered. I was being chicken so I ordered the same thing I did last time, the Hainan Fried Chicken. Daddy ordered something called Pork Passion (or was it Passionate Pork?). It was basically a fancy breaded pork chop dish.

Now, I have nothing against pork. I am a meat eater, even if I do say I love animals (although passing by the wet market on the way to school every damn day is slowly changing that… slaughtered meat still in the shape of the animals they came from is sickening). I do have an aversion to pork chops. Especially breaded pork chops. This is because, in my experience, the pork chops have been hard and rather unpleasant to chew. Which pisses me off because of my tiny rat teeth.

But here was his order

The Passionate Pork/Pork Passion/The Greatest Breaded Porkchops I Have Ever Had

OH MY GOD, I’M SORRY, I FORGOT TO SAVE THE CHANGES I’D MADE WHEN I ROTATED IT. FUCK. MOVING ON…

And I have to say I am a changed woman. I have never had breaded pork chop so tenderly cooked on the inside and so crunchy on the outside. Suffice it to say, my chicken paled in comparison.

Oh yeah. Daddy liked it, too:

The Greatest Daddy In The World: MY PA

So, there you go. My second dish from Hainanese Delights and I’m nowhere near my second drink from Happy Lemon. This shall be remedied soon.

I hope this long, long post made up for yesterday’s absence. I actually had fun writing this one. This might be the post I use to come out to people I know (besides my boyfriend) that I’m attempting another blog. But it might not.

I should be studying now. I have a Criminal Law class tomorrow. PUSIL, here I come!

Another Day, Another Recit

Ok, I’m outing myself as a law school student from out of town. How cliche of me to talk about trying to make it in the big world. A puppy (snort) in this dog eat dog world.

If you want to run with the big dogs, get off the porch. — Kristin Chenoweth

Blah, blah, blah. So I won’t. I will tell you that I am doing something I love and something I’ve made my up mind about since I watched Legally Blonde in the third grade. That’s always an awesome anecdote. It might make me sound like some shallow girl who doesn’t know what she got herself into but if that’s what you think of me, then you obviously don’t know me.

Now, why this sudden, seemingly random rant about my law school life? Well, I want to take this opportunity to beam and be proud of my tiny accomplishment (in the grand scheme of things) today. I had a decent recit!

What are recits? Recit is short for recitation, basically oral exams where you go head to head with a teacher on case law and legal principles. In Cebu, where I’m from, I know this is called PUSIL (Cebuano for gun… and I can be the first to tell you that this is the more appropriate name). But, here, it’s called recit. Nothing makes a law student’s blood (at least in my experience) run cold quite like being called for a recit does.  It scares the bejeezus out of you but if you nail it, you’re rewarded by pride and joy and ABSOLUTE REDEMPTION for days and nights of studying non stop.

It is a rush, let me tell you. And I’m so happy I was lucky enough to be called on to answer about cases that I’ve read inside and out. The class was Constitutional Law II. Doesn’t that just sound so official?

I’m only in the first year, my second semester. So far, I’ve been doing ok. It’s a mission to finish. This should be my biggest challenge so far.

What a rush.