the perils of

I love Christmas. I love spending time with family, receiving presents, and unwrapping them on Christmas morning next to the ratty old plastic Christmas tree we've been recycling year after year since I was born. What I don't love, however, is the residual clutter than ensues. I come from a very big family, with more than 70 family members from my mom and dad's sides combined. Imagine the volume of presents that translates to! Each year, we give and receive so much stuff that by the end of the holidays, we would have enough content for an entire season of  Hoarders. As a solution to this, last year I came up with (what I thought was) a pretty genius idea. I tried gifting people with gifts they had already received but probably didn't remember because they got buried underneath all the clutter. My younger brother Jiggy received my old barely-working Gameboy Advance from the 1990s, external lamp light and all. My sister Cait got her old Pokemon-themed Tamagotchi that...

A few days ago, a friend told me that one of my favorite bands, Foster the People, would be dropping by SM North EDSA for a meet-and-greet. So after this morning's Epidemiology class I asked Rap, who also sort of liked the band, if he wanted to go. Thankfully he said yes. Because of traffic and parking concerns, we both didn't want him to drive all the way there. So we decided to take public transportation, i.e. take the LRT2 from Katipunan, get off at Cubao, and then take the MRT from Cuabo to North EDSA. I had only ever taken the MRT twice in my life, and from both experiences I knew that it wasn't a pleasant ride. The lines for getting tickets are long, and the people in the train are usually smelly. This afternoon, the ride wasn't such a pleasant experience either, and so I shall spare you the details. I'll tell you this though: I usually enjoy commuting. It lets me see a side of Manila I don't usually see. But when I got home after the day's trip, ...

       Rarely do I ever have a Saturday morning with nothing to do. Usually I have Epidemiology class with the rest of my batchmates. Today was an exception; Doc Wong gave us the day off to work on our thesis proposals. I think it was also his way of sparing us from the infamous ACET traffic jam. Okay it doesn't look too bad here. But it's pretty bad inside campus.        I thought I'd enjoy a morning off but surprisingly, I got bored pretty fast doing nothing in the condo. So I decided to go to school to return some overdue library books. (Okay, the real reason I went to school was to see the ACET takers. I thought it would be fun witnessing them go through the whole range of emotions as the day progressed - fear, relief, happiness, despair...)        Anyway, at the library, I chanced upon my two friends AC and Mike (who has been very supportive of me and my blog. Thanks Mike!!!). They had also ran into each other by...

Had yet another wonderful day today, praise God. I went to Greenhills with Rap and his family, and I went home with these: (click to enlarge) An advanced birthday card from Karina, Rap's sister. She got me one on my last birthday, too! AWW! <3 Two Sandman s from Rap, a loose floral shirt, a Hunger Games tumbler I stumbled upon by accident (and less than P300, too!) and a pack of Karate Belts rainbow bacon strips for my family. The shirt above looks like this. And wow I've been taking pictures of clothes a lot, recently. A weird thing about me is that I like to go to malls a lot, but I never really buy any clothes for myself. I just enjoy looking at all the pretty things there are to look at. But this afternoon, I felt a little pressured to find something nice for myself, otherwise the trip to Greenhills would've been put to waste. So I got this shirt. And it looks nice, I think. Rap and I also ate at the V-Mall food court. There was a stall there that s...

Survived my first day. (Oh, by the way, I must point out that yesterday isn't technically my first day in Manila, because I came here when I was like three. And then again last April. But, for conveniency sake, I'll just say it was my first day.) So anyway. Second day. It's five in the afternoon and Mommy and I are in the guest room at my aunt's house. No WAY am I staying in my dorm until my three days with Momsie are up. I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. In my own house, I lie in bed for about two hours before finally drifting off to sleep. Although it didn't take that long for me to go to sleep last night, it was unpleasant altogether because I was feeling terribly sad. I don't know what time it was that I actually fell asleep, but I woke up at 7 this morning feeling refreshed, cheerful, and puffy-eyed. Mom and I went to Ateneo firstly to settle things with the Office of Admissions and also to pay tuition. I "oohed" and "aahed...