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my own little box

read some of my blog entries.

i've been cooped up in this house for so long that my blog entries are either about the bar, wen, and my tiny adventures in the house. you would notice the highlights of my life. going out.

damn. now i know that i want to get the bar over with. i have been alcohol free for almost a month already. hi. i'm tina b. sober for 24 days. that would be the longest i have been alcohol free for the year. sigh.

i look at my cue stick resting against the wall, feeling lonely and unused and unwanted. my rubber shoes are looking dejected. my bathing suit more so.

and the refrigerator is practically empty!

i need to get out of the house. if only to do some grocery shopping. and because the items in my room are taking on personalities of their own. i have to get out before they start walking.

i think i'm going mad.

p.s.

have a new mazinger-z die cast miniature action figure. he's standing in my bookshelf beside my bolting out voltes-V. :)

comments

configured my blog. comments and links and what have you, and 3 shades of blue.....

a little more than a week

the bar starts next sunday at 8 am. sigh. running out of time. i want to get it over with but at the same time i want to put it off for another month. can't seem to make up my mind. another sigh. oh well. i guess i just have to go and face it. no choice in the matter....

one of dem murphy days again

it's 130 am.

just woke up. well i should be sleeping but then i slept around 1030 because i was so tired.

ran some errands today. my sister is in japan and i needed to send her money. so i was rushing trying to make it by at least 5 pm japanese time.

went to the bank. they did not have outgoing to japan. too bad. so i went back to up and headed straight for the shopping center. rcpi. they had western union.

yes, they had outgoing to japan. western union. no she didn't know where their branches were. but she can call. no she didn't know their rates. but she can call. so call she did.

line was busy so she told me to wait. so i did. and i sat there and listened to the people behind the counter, talking about this guy they were chatting with. during office hours. a 32 year old american.

sigh. customers came and went. they paid their bills, made their phone calls, sent their telegrams, got their money. and still i sat there.

finally the girl asked me how much i was sending. i said a thousand dollars.

all the doors opened. the lady was all smiles. very accommodating, actually. she made the calls, asked for the rates, and gave me a form.

filled up the form and gave it to the lady. the last page wasn't filled up. but she said it was okay. isang libo yan, wag na nating pagurin si mam. so she photocopied the form and gave me a copy.

it took me an hour. sigh. she made the calls, faxed the form and i gave her the payment. she asked me for my id. ang ganda mo dito ah. so i'm ugly now. oh well.

she was short 3 dollars so she asked me to come back for the change. no problem. i even got 3 coupons and got an umbrella for the transaction. finally done.

i called my sister and proudly told her that help was on the way.

called a few hours later and found out that the stupid branch of western union in tokyo closes at 3 pm. 3 pm. damn. i made the 5 pm deadline alright. but they close at 3 pm. they will open again at 9 am the next day. and lucky me my sister was to be on a 930 flight. double damn.

so now i have to figure out how to refund that damned cash.

wasted day. didn't get to study, was dead tired. all for naught.

another murphy day i suppose.

lecture time again.

had a lecture that started at six and lasted till forever. sigh. the only thing i realized after that lecture was that i know nothing.

the professor kept on saying "i will not elaborate. it will be insulting to your intelligence if i do. we all know this already..." insult me! insult me! i know nothing of the sort.

ah but i couldn't very well say it out loud. so i sat there in silence and pretended to understand.

after the lecture my friends and i went to get dinner and tried to catch a glimpse of mars... we saw it. we just didn't know it. i, in all authority, claimed it was venus. ha! i know nothing about political law. tonight i realized i know nothing about astronomy too.

sigh. i know i don't know a lot of things. but i wish the realizations about my lack of knowledge would come in single doses. did that statement make sense?

i think i ought to sleep.

nyt nyt people.

p.s. funny statement by the prof: "submerged lands are lands under water." well i suppose land could be submerged in oil or alcohol or whatever fluid there is on the planet. who am i to argue?

p.p.s. my other neighbor is freaking me out. started playing moonlight sonata around midnight. sound carried clear across the whole compound. a sudden vision of lestat (aka tom cruise) wearing tattered ruffles and playing the piano came to mind. freaky.

finally.

finished political law. sigh. i'd be hard pressed to remember the concepts but heck. if i read it, i will probably remember something.

my speakers are blaring music. have to drown out my neighbor who's been playing christmas carols and it's not even september yet! what's worse, the kids are actually singing christmas carols now. sigh. i don't want to think about christmas till after the bar. hence the loud music.

it's ain't christmas till the bar's over.

i ate chocolates. ü

good morning world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

have nothing to write about but since am online thought i might drop by.

q eyes read my blogspot last night. she was full of questions, and i had to glance over her shoulder to read whatever particular entry she had her eyes on.... amazing. i read the entries and i waited for the all-too-familiar pain. the one i felt while writing. there was none. i answered her questions and promptly went back to reading my reviewer after.

but i made mental compliments to myself. like "that one's nicely written." "i can't believe i wrote that." "when did i get this good???" hehehe. just kidding.

the lack of pain was a good thing. seems my heart is healed. not fully. but healed. scarred. but healed.

some day my ego will heal too.

the up college of law moot court team won the asia cup international moot court tournament.

my sister is part of the team which is why she's not here. she's in japan. the lizards are taking advantage of her absence.

i'm so proud of my sister i almost want to take a break and celebrate and just go out and drink to my heart's content. ah but the bar is a very good deterrent.

so i will put off my celebration. after the bar, tina b. after the bar.

p.s. miss my church buddy. and that's all i'm going to say about that.

i have fat lizards by my window.

it's not fair. we had a deal, the lizards and i. that they will eat all the mosquitoes and i will let them scare my sister to bits. it was a deal. now they sit (lie?) there by the window looking obscenely fat. as a consequence the mosquitoes are feasting on my humongous thighs. sigh. maybe it's because my sister is not here that's why they're not keeping their end of the deal.

so maybe when my sister comes back they will resume their duties.

in the meantime it's just me, the fat lizards, the stray ants and the blood-sucking mosquitoes. the latter two bite, so i refuse to talk to them. so i guess it's just me and the fat lizards.

at the rate am going the men in white coats will come and get me really soon. will my lizard friends miss me?

got the permit.

got my ID.

got the instructions.

it's real. it's real. it's real.


AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

on a lighter note, passed by robinson's before going home. saw a book entitled "readings for writers." contained readings and analyses (analysises???? hehehe. writer, i am not.) most of the readings there i've read already.

thought of buying it. 235 bucks. hmmm. thought some more. put it back on the shelf for a while. hmmm. black book beside it. "secrets. the best in women's sensual fiction." 90 bucks. it won. hands down.

no turning back.

just called the supreme court and they said my permit to take the bar is ready.

sigh. my one final hope, that they will not let me take the bar, has been dashed. i guess i really have to take the damned thing.

panic time.

i just died of hunger.

for the first time in a long long time i had to miss a meal to go to a lecture. my sister and i were supposed to go out for lunch. since my lecture was at 2 and we were still at home, we had to miss lunch.

went to the lecture. i braved the rain so i wouldn't be late. well my teacher wasn't there yet. we called him up and he said he was just going to take a shower and then he'll head for school. since it's a holiday, there was no cafeteria. i resigned myself to a few more hours without food.

the 2 hour lecture stretched on to 3 hours. i was lightheaded already. i had gotten drenched while i was on my way to the classroom from the parking lot and the airconditioning wasn't helping me any.

my sister bought me food though. so i went home after class and had my first meal for the day. the two bananas i had for breakfast had disappeared ages ago.

i feel alive again. a little shaky, but alive. sigh. back to the books. i never want to go through that again.

how do you recover?

somebody asked me this question the other day. and although i am far from fully recovered, i had a ready answer. i said slowly.

first you wallow in misery and then you wallow some more. hehehe. the thing is, what i had to do was keep busy, write whatever angst(s?) i had, drown myself in alcohol and generally try to live.

i took it a second at a time. coz i didn't have much choice in the matter. you wake up in the morning and force yourself to get out of bed (or in my case, the mattress on the floor). you take a bath. you eat your meals. you go to school and see your friends. you go out and try to have a good time. before you know it, it'll be night time and it would be time to sleep again. and then you realize that the day has really gone by and you survived it.

sure there were moments during those days when i'd end up staring into space and tears would threaten to overcome me. but these things need to happen. you cannot will yourself to forget or to get well. at least not immediately. the will is there and it gives you the ability to forget, sooner or later. but you need to go through the gamut of emotions before you settle down. you need to mourn. i know i needed to mourn. and i did. for months.

now am a little better. i still take it one second at a time. i wake up, eat my meals, take my bath and try to study. and at the end of the day i slip into slumber, thankful for another day and hoping that tomorrow will be a better one.

and of course, i prayed.

might not work for you but it worked for me. somehow. so there.

how do you recover? you take it one second at a time.

sometimes it really isn't worth the effort to get out of bed.

got up this morning to eat spicy tuyo that i had delivered last night. i ordered tapa but then i had to order something else to make sure i'll make the 100 peso floor for delivery. so i thought why not order breakfast too and hit two birds with one delivery guy.

so there. heated up the food, ate without much gusto and went back to studying. my back was aching so i headed for the sofa to read. two pages down the line i was asleep. i had slept at 4 am and gotten up at 730. so it was understandable that i would be sleepy come 930 and after a full meal.

slept till 130. gosh. was slipping in and out of my nap (if you could call it that) because my sister was talking to me. i'd answer and promptly sleep.

anyways, got up and took a shower. i felt human again.

lunch. looked for food in the ref. given the chance the food in there would have walked all by themselves.

checked out the cabinet. 1 can of sardines. 1 can of corned beef. settled for the sardines. when i threw the can i looked into the trashcan. styrofoam packs from cravings (roast beef and bolognese -- spoiled which i ate anyways coz my nose wasn't working, but that's another story). styro packs from tapa king. hormel luncheon meat can. tuna can. corned beef can. lucky me noodle packs, sisig pack. (all visible because the trash can's big. i wasn't rummaging, mind you.)

damn. i've been eating canned goods, processed food, and take out food for the past week. i'm going to die soon. when they open me up, my stomach will be lined with ads and brands.

well that was a long introduction. i have digressed. going back to why it's not worth the effort to get out of bed, after eating that sardine meal, i decided i wanted real food.

i wanted sinigang. so sinigang it is. decided to go grocery in shoppersville. grabbed my jacket and walked and stepped on my glasses on the mat. naturally i didn't see it coz i was blind without it. i put it on the mat for a while to rest my eyes. it was bent horribly out of shape. did what i could and they were serviceable after a while. so off to shop.

did some shopping. got back into the car. car wouldn't start. i was hungry, it was hot in the car, and i wanted to pee! popped the hood and fiddled around with the wires. car started. sigh of relief.

it was going to be dark soon. headlights. no headlights. no horn. but i had hazard and break lights. there. is a God.

headed home and started cooking. checked mail while waiting for the food. checked on this buffy episode i was downloading which i had partially watched. clicked on my touch pad to resume the download. and hit cancel.

F@%#^! tried to resume the download. naturally it went back to zero. the stuff i had downloaded just vanished into thin air.

i'm having a murphy day. what can go wrong, did.

i wish i had just stayed in bed.

but then maybe my luck will change after dinner. at least i have sinigang. :)

by the way, this was the high point of my day. was still reading the reviewer in criminal law. i quote:

using the kottinger test for obsenity::: "a sexy dancing performed for a 90 year old is not obscene anymore even if the dancer strips naked. but if performed for a 15 year old kid, then it will corrupt the kid's mind."

unquote.

where do these people get their examples?

absolutely useless question for the day:

do ants have laway?

reading a reviewer in criminal law. and i quote:

in still another case, the accused entered the store of a chinese couple, to commit robbery. they hogtied the chinaman and his wife. because the wife was so talkative, one of the offenders got a pan de sal and put it in her mouth. but because the woman was trying to wriggle from the bondage, the pan de sal slipped through her throat. she died because of suffocation. the offenders were convicted for robbery with homicide because there was a resulting death, although their intention was only to rob. they were given the benefit of paragraph 3 of article 13, "they did not intend to commit so grave a wrong as that committed." there was really no intention to bring about the killing, because it was the pan de sal they put into the mouth. had it been a piece of rag, it would have been different. in that case, the supreme court gave the offenders the benefit of praeter intentionem as a mitigating circumstance. the means employed is not capable of producing death IF ONLY THE WOMAN CHEWED THE PAN DE SAL.


unquote.

at 130 am, with two cups of coffee in a non coffee drinker like me, i was laughing hysterically, saying pan de sal pan de sal. that last statement was so profound. damn. why didn't she chew the pan de sal? if you were tied up with pan de sal stuffed in your mouth would you chew it? probably. with cheez whiz. geez.

back to reading. there's too much blood in my coffee. (to paraphrase faye)

my sister in the states sent me email saying :marunong na akong magtext!

she's all of 35 years old and i could almost see her face while she was typing that. funny. everyone's so into texting in the philippines that we take it all for granted. we send prayers, jokes, news, song lyrics, rants, raves , the occasional version of the chain letter, and what have you's. sometimes we forget that there is a primary use. communication. (dramatic!!!)

when i was sending her my number and the rest of the family's numbers, i began to feel excited too. now i don't have to wait online to get to send her messages. i don't have to call her and have her call me back. i can just text her to call me. exciting news can be relayed immediately.

i know my mom will be thrilled. she taught my niece how to text when she was there last year.

but then my sister, in all her excitement, forgot one thing. she forgot to give me her number.

guess she'll learn. :)

i'm drinking milo again.

it's funny. when i found out wen was courting somebody else i gave up 3 things. sleeping in my bed, eating chocolates and drinking milo. for some reason or other i couldn't do all those. my sister was ecstatic, of course. after all, i did give her the stash of chocolates i had. and that was a lot.

but the milo i couldn't understand. maybe because we were both non coffee drinkers and would prefer to drink milo or hot chocolate instead. maybe it was the color. hahaha.

still, my sister's been going at me to drink milo and i have consistently refused. until this morning.

there i was, reading up on civil law when all of a sudden i could almost taste milo. then it hit me. a craving for a warm (not hot, mind you.) warm cup of milo. so i heated some water and made myself a mug of the beverage. and the first gulp was like heaven. it was like coming home. i can't believe i'm writing about milo. but it seemed like such an event that i had to write it down. i finished the mug and now am craving for more.

the way i see it, i'm on my way. on my way to where? full recovery perhaps. the associations are slowly losing their hold on me. i've been sleeping in my bed for months now and now am drinking milo. these are good tidings.

life is good. the pain is almost gone, it just hits me when i'm feeling particularly vulnerable. which hasn't been happening much.

i'm moving on i suppose. and getting better each day.

who knows one day i'll wake up and reach for a bar of dark chocolate. and it will taste like heaven.

now all i have to do is pass the bar and then i'll be fine and i'll go out and face the world. watch out world, here i come!

oh, and watch out wasteline. ü

p.s.

just a thought.

associations: san miguel beer -- san miguel corporation -- danding cojuanco -- presidency -- philippines -- gone to the dogs (if not already).

so i was thinking, if i drink enough san mig light san miguel will be making a profit from that and then that profit will accrue to danding and he will use that to set his campaign machinery running and he will run for president of the philippines, then he will win because of that machinery and then where will we be? so, do i love my country enough to get me to stop drinking san mig light? will i make a difference if i start drinking lone star light exclusively?

i think i can give up san mig light. but then.... red horse is manufactured by san miguel corporation.

and therein lies my dilemma. sigh. love of country is hard.

i'd like another august please, well done.

it seems that since august started i've been absorbing more information than i have for the past 5 months. maybe it's the panic. maybe it's because august is immediately before september, when the reckoning begins. maybe it's because it's do or die.

so i'd like to order another august. the panic will help, plus the additional 31 days can't hurt.

so there. another august, 2003. well done please. thank you.

yesterday i went to manaoag with a couple of friends (nizette and meg) to attend the first friday mass and to pray for the bar. we got there a little before 7 and we had pan de sal with corned beef. the mass was short, because there was no choir, and hence, no singing. but it was solemn just the same. and after the mass the priest called for people with religious artifacts to go to the altar to be blessed.

i had a crucifix on a chain so i went there. i got hit smack in the eye by the squirting holy water but i didn't mind.

then we went to the second floor to pay homage to Our Lady of Manaoag. then on to the religious shop. there were so many things for sale. from tiny rosaries and crucifixes ( is that right?) to huge statues. we got a few candles and some rosaries.


we lit some candles for our intentions. i think i lit 10. some of it for the bar, some for my family a few for my classmates who were pregnant and are taking the bar, one for my personal intentions (re: personal life). i just hope my prayers were heard.

then we went on to the second mass to have the stuff we bought blessed.

the second mass was sponsored by a school in manaoag. there were hundreds of school children in uniform attending the mass and they were all singing! that's my favorite part of the mass. when the people start singing. imagine all these people who don't know each other singing together. that's prayer in its highest form (at least in my opinion).

anyways, the blessing came again and as usual, i got hit smack in the face with holy water.

we had a few pictures taken in front of the church and then we got some holy water for free.

meg said we had to have it blessed but i said it was blessed already. and besides, even if it wasn't blessed, it was all about faith. if you believe in something, then it is what you believe it to be. so blessed or not, i'm sure the water i have in my bag is holy water. :)

anyways, we stopped at a roadside canteen and had shrimps for breakfast. then back to manila.

that was a tiring trip. for the first time in i can't remember i slept from 5 pm to 7 am. i would wake up every now and then to a text message but i never finished a reply. i would slip back to dreamland.


and now am awake and strangely at peace. the pilgrimage, as my mom calls it, did me a lot of good. i actually think that things are going to be alright.

i think it's all about faith.