The operative word being “WILD”

…But the stories I have for this month are absolutely TOO WILD to be even posted here so I’ll try to be wholesome…

Rum + Coke + Pineapple Juice = ONE STRONG TRAITOR DRINK. Took me down twice this month. Both times I was drunk– the one time I did something crazy, and one time I puked it all out. Gaaah! Learned it from some new friends I’ll probably be having more drinking times with in my area… Good times.

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CP invades Boracay! September 11-13. The rest of the publicly available photos here!

It was a super wild 3D2N trip! There were 21 of us total, just enough to be the party in Bora! We partied, partied some more, and partied even more :P Super fun while it lasted…

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Wild Wild Wes: The Despedida, September 18 at Muruve. CP Team Luzon Direct Trade’s send-off party for our dear boss who’s resigned and is moving to KC :(

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Ashleigh and Sushil in Manila!!! September 19-21. My dear friends from Singapore were here in town for the weekend for a taste of Manila– shopping, food trips, drinks! I was able to get them a free room at Sofitel c/o my Dad, and it was fancyyy! Lunch at Kabisera High Street, shopping at Greenhills, sushi dinner bonding with Ashleigh, Club Bureau, relaxing pool time, shopping at MOA, Spiral buffet dinner, Barcino, and lots of catching up time! From the whirlwind week before I was low batt, but it was worth exhausting more of the remaining energy for two of my closest MISE friends!

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Sessions in Cabanatuan, September 30. Me, Jannah and Ed in Cabanatuan on a Wednesday night. Drinks and good conversations. Even steadier times when Ziggie arrived late because of work… then the night turned creepy wild when I had a close call… Such a wild way to end the month!

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Hah. Most of this post is cryptic I know. But let’s just say that this month, I…

1. Tried new things
2. Got into intimate physical contact with members of the opposite sex, short of saying I kissed two boys (waha ha haaaa…)
3. Impulsively spiraled out of control with my actions and emotions– don’t ever make a drunk call!
4. Went through more drama in my life… drama I actually cooked up myself (it’s my fault I know)
5. Realized how much of an asshole someone was… (this one’s for real)
6. …So much that it made me finally WANT TO let go and actually do it
7. Got into a close call with my new adventures. Scary.

And funny that this month got so wild my other friends aren’t used to it. They now ask me if I’m liking the person I’m becoming. Ummm, actually I do. I’d just like to say at a later stage in my life that I’ve been through all of that shit, this shit I’m going through now.

I feel like it’s an entire year’s worth of emotions, happenings and feelings all mashed up into one September. There are more things I should really regret doing, but my motto is: just live and learn, baby. Let go if you have to. Life is short and you only live once!

August

Some steady month it was! No significant happenings whatsoever– but I hit my sales goal, had lots of fun with my friends, and have the whole month of September to look forward to :) Here are some pics:

Drinks with Colgate at Hai Bar one Friday night after the August cycle meeting. Welcome to the new sales trainees Carrie, Joanna, and Joyce!

Semi-R2 and DP reunion at Jake’s birthday party. We took a lot of photobooth pics! I tried to catch up with the CP girls at Embassy after but they were too drunk and left early… so I hung around alone then just joined Jay and his friends in Merville that night!

Distillery with Jannah, Edric, Liel and Jay (not in photo) one Friday night. Steady drinks… I missed Heineken. Cool place– you can get the drinks at shelf price, get tables to drink them, and have food delivered too… with a mish mash of music in the background!

Singapore with JC to visit my friends Ashleigh and Sushil. Shopping and relaxing trip– read my blog entry here!

Videoke night at Platinum with Colgate during the last long weekend. The Visayas boys and Jay were in town… a party of 20+ in Platinum = a 10k bill = fun! I didn’t get to sing as much as I wanted though, but just spent time catching up. I was down with only 3 beers… and I slept on the way home, got back at 5:30AM!

Videoke night with the Joy Luck Club at Bea’s house. We haven’t got together since my birthday party last June. Lots of pasta, hotdog, squid balls, chips, jello shots (!), and gin apple. Catching up and games of “shit shit” and “ping pong pang”. Almost all of us were asleep before going home!

September– two long weekends, Boracay 11-13, Ash and Sushil in Manila on 19-21!!! I already have memorable stuff to tell to boot, which I will save for next time :)

Big medical spender and other drama

I spent Php 8,500 on medicines today at GNC that I had to get a Gold Card to avail of the 20% discount! Haha. It’s reimbursable anyway for my company’s Php 12,000 annual medical benefit that I haven’t used– and have to consume by the end of the year. Guess what I bought?

I sure hope this works!!! A bottle with 150 capsules cost Php 5,500! Crazy! Buti nalang it’s technically the company buying it for me. They say it really works though so let’s see! I go to the gym naman regularly and I try to keep a reduced healthy diet so hopefully I see some results soon… if not then at least I tried it :)

I also bought three bottles of Glutathione– one each for me, my mom, and my dad. It’s really an antioxidant dietary supplement but the side effect is skin whitening so it’s like hitting two birds with one stone!

I didn’t get exactly this one– the one I bought was actually stronger since it contained 250mg of glutathione. I have Php 3,500 to spend more, maybe I’ll get a new pair of glasses and another pair of contact lenses this time. When I transfer to Colgate I have Php 16,000 a year to spend so that would mean more Hydroxycut?! Haha. Joking!

In fairness I feel like I’ve lost some weight and I can already see it on my pictures, though I dunno if it’s just the angle? :P

 

Before– this was last July in Davao, and after– just last Friday, and that was already after I had a heavy lunch at Azul in MOA with Ian and Peter (yummy binagoongang paella, white cheese sticks, and ginataang pakbet!), Razon’s halo-halo, (Peter’s libre), and Krispy Kreme (John’s birthday treat) for dessert! Do you see the difference or is it just me? :P

In other news it feels so good to be back, I’m totally loving it! I love just being at home on weekends with my family around, with my friends conveniently near, and just being in Manila once again. Ask me again to come back to Davao and I’ll decline outright– this place is my home and nothing else will ever come close, despite the grueling traffic and the fact that I have to commute on weekdays! The office is right in front of Mall of Asia, and Fitness First is just downstairs that I don’t have to take a bath and dress up here at home since I shower there in the morning after gymming. The only thing I don’t like about MOA is that it’s difficult to commute especially late at night and I spend about Php 250-300 for a cab, crazy! It’s not stopping me from going out though, just last Friday I did videoke after work with Ian, Kristine and Acey. And last Friday was my last MISE get-together– well because I’ll be in Colgate by January, plus Mariel and Kaye will still be away in Denmark by the time my resignation is effective.

That’s all of us (Jade, Mariel, Ian, Me, and Kaye) with Martin, our HR Manager, at Via Mare last Friday. We had another round of stuffy, carby merienda before heading back to the office for some Friday beers at the pantry. Oh yeah, technically I’m no longer a MISE since I already graduated (gasp!) from the program but we won’t be this complete again, at least until my last day at work…

I love it that it’s a four day weekend for me– we’ve got no work on Tuesday since it’s Pasay Day, but I’ll be spending it to get an NBI clearance as a pre-employment requirement for Colgate. I’ll also be fixing the mess that is my room, I’ve still got the 2GO boxes scattered around plus my sister’s usual mess. Grrr! Anyway I had a good week and a good weekend too. Last night naman I was out with JC and Sunny– we had late, fatty chicharon and rice dinner at Baliwag then coffee at Kopiroti. I miss my best friends!!! Even if I’m not in Boracay (ehem, ehemmm!!!) this weekend, (and even without HB in my life right now) I’m loving it– I don’t even have the spare time to download all the top songs on iTunes as I did back in Davao!

Anyhoo I’m excited for Christmas :) Our office Christmas party is on December 12 and I’m glad I’ll be celebrating it here with all the young people at the office, haha. We’ve got these company presentations to look forward to and the theme this year is a chorale, so we have to do a chorale-style presentation of one 80’s song and one Christmas carol. My department is doing Head Over Heels by The Go-Go’s and Carol of the Bells, but we’re absolutely unprepared as of now while the other departments are really taking it seriously with all the organs and vocalizing pa talaga after work. And so Ian volunteered us to emcee the Christmas party to try to get out of the presentation since we don’t wanna be embarrassed to be part of a lousy presentation (of course we’re still not sure about that at this point)– but I don’t think it’s gonna work! We now have another duty to fulfill and that’s to emcee, grrr!!! But no worries though, I would have liked to emcee again after a successful one (also at the office Christmas party) back in 2006. At least it will be a fun last Christmas party for me…

And in other other news I have a new crush at the office! Hahaha! He’s cute and hot. Siyempre I can’t post the pic here but he’s really nice and we’re chummy chummy na. LOL. Things aren’t going so well with HB– actually there’s nothing going on since I haven’t heard from him in days but I’m actually thinking of him less so that’s good. Leche siya, che! Haha.

By now I realized this post was totally random! I just had too much to say :P Till the next one.

The first week back

I’M BACK!!! :) Got here last Saturday afternoon, still sleepy from Friday’s despedida for me at Marugen Dream in The Venue compound, where almost all of the Davao staff attended:

The place was small enough to fit all of us to hog the karaoke machine, so it was just good times, doing the thing I loved to do the most in Davao on my last night– videoke! Bong gave me a caricature that didn’t quite look like me but it was very sweet :) We finished at 2am, then Rex, Lani, Jane and me headed to Urban Club to cap the night off. It was an even better way of ending my Davao nightlife by coming to the club I spent so much weekends in, especially during my first few months. I didn’t realize how much I missed it and I had such a good time! I felt sentimental in that this is the place Rex and me started and this is where we’ll end as I leave the place I called home for 9 months. 

On Saturday night I went out with Sunny and Mia and guess what we did– videoke at Havana in BF. Hahaha. 2 nights of drinking and videoke for me. I missed those folks, too bad JC wasn’t there to join us! BF has changed a lot, I didn’t realize we already had Timezone and Platinum KTV branches here! I love this village. Anyway after Havana we just went to Starbucks to hang out a bit.

On Sunday after mass I watched Quantum of Solace with my family at ATC and since I was so sleepy from the late nights before, I slept through half of the movie! Haha. Daniel Craig is hot as James Bond though, can I just say! HB was also in Manila for a vacation but we weren’t able to meet coz he spent the time with his family– more of that later.

Monday was the first day back at work and I probably spent half the day catching up with people from the office. I love the location of the new office! It’s right in front of Mall of Asia so it’s very convenient to buy anything, anytime! Plus there’s a Fitness First downstairs so it’s so easy to go to the gym. My department’s area is away from all the action but at least we have our own secluded room to be noisy all we want.

On Tuesday I signed up at Fitness First and had dinner with Angeli after. I was so relieved I was still able to avail of our corporate rate! The initial cash out I was supposed to pay was 9,650 but they were able to reduce it to something like 3,350 which included the first month’s membership fee and the admin fee, with all other charges waived. Little did I know that I was gonna be tied down to the membership for a year!!! It’s not so bad and at least I will really be motivated to maximize my membership, plus it’s transferable too just in case I have no use for it in the future, who knows…

On Wednesday I didn’t report for work to attend the last interview with an Option B. It was rather short, and me and my co-applicants were quite disappointed with it. More about that later– but after that I had lunch with Michael (my co-applicant), did some toiletries shopping then went straight home.

Yesterday was normal but I went to the gym for the first time. There was this personal trainer who tried to talk me into availing of the 1:1 training service but it was damn expensive, something like 1,500 per session! Hullo!!! By the way the people at my new department in the office are cool. Been having lunch with Kristine, who was my high school batch mate, Archie, and Acey, if I’m not having lunch with old friends. 

Today was normal too but before going to the gym I attended this wine-tasting seminar at the office, administered by this wine supplier for our Christmas party. It was free and educational so I attended it anyway– I now know how to be distinct about taste, smell, and color for white and red wine, heehee! 

As for my job– it’s a good one since I’m in Process Excellence and therefore not involved in the day to day tasks, which I believe I’m so over already. I’m sitting in Customer Service now to prepare the department for a big business move in January, and I have to make sure things are ironed out. It’s a good temporary job. As for expat, it hasn’t been working well but HR has presented me with “something that might be of particular interest to you” in the local organization, and who knows… but about that…

I WILL SOON BE A “HG” TOO! If you’ve been reading my blog and the entries about HB and why I call him that, you’ll know :) Ok it’s nothing final yet and there’s still something I have to surpass but I’M THERE!!! Boom!!! I hope nothing gets in the way of it from really happening!!!

But as for HB the person, hmmm. Nothing to tell. I’d rather not talk about it but there are sure more things that keep me happy and busy lately. Besides I’ve got a busy weekend, gonna go to my lola’s tomorrow, have dinner with Ann and Kris, going to Tiff’s birthday party, and on Sunday:

!!! Watching the concert with my siblings. I’m surprising them by taking them straight to the concert instead. Something to look forward to! :)

The old Manila

I came across this video on my friend Vanessa’s blog and I just had to repost it here. Just look at how beautiful Manila was before the war. If it had been preserved that way I’m sure we’d be more than a country Caucasians visit for the women and the beaches. 

A Tour of Manila, Philippines in the 1930s. Footage from this film is available for licensing from www.globalimageworks.com

Missing home

It was my sister’s birthday today and this was the first time I wasn’t home to celebrate it :(

She had a mean Martha’s Cakes cake! I loved that! My mom said she left me some though, for when I come back in May, she’ll put it in the freezer! Haha! Anyway my family sent me these pics today of Kelly’s birthday cake blowing at home:

I miss them terribly! And look at my brother Toby, with his bandaged face! Apparently he fell and had to have that part of his face stitched. Ouch!

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I never really felt that I was far away from home than this long weekend. I went out with Bong and JM on Friday night and we headed home early though. We went to this place called Eagles in Marco Polo Hotel, but it was more of a bar for older people I think. On Saturday I stayed home all day, did a bit of studying, then went out with Rex in the evening to Nautica (along Torres) then Urban Club as usual. I wasn’t feeling very well to start with, I ate 4 eggs– pork & beans + 2 scrambled eggs for brunch, then luncheon meat + 2 scrambled eggs for dinner! I felt like all the cholesterol was in my body and my chest felt so heavy. Then went we went out I only had a cosmo and a beer, but the next day I was feeling so sick with stomach pains and a pounding headache… anyway I just stayed home (Rex stayed here until today) until today and we just abused the wifi! Haha. I did a bit of studying. Feeling pretty ok now– I had more decent meals than I usually do eat when Rex was here. :)

Anyway I miss home so much. I miss my Mom’s warm, home-cooked meals, I’m sick and tired of all the crap food I’m eating here! I swear next time I go grocery shopping I’ll lose the canned goods and the eggs!!!