Yearender

What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?

tried new sports (plural ito! capoeira and boxing)

subjected myself to a “fashion makeover”

won stuff online

won clothes at a fashion event

got engaged

got all romantic in paris with a loved one

spent one whole day by myself in a foreign country

watched flamenco

sang in acs’ front-and-center quartet

tried yoga

went on a month-long leave

got a credit card

traveled around spain with girlfriends

did consultancy

got an article published in the newspaper

started planning for a wedding (my wedding!)

did not eat a proper meal in over 24 hours

drove a car

got into a car accident

dyed my hair

maintained a time deposit

dipped my feet into the mediterranean ocean

commuted wearing a diamond ring

had pamanhikan

yay ang dami!

Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? i didn’t make any. this year, i’ll make a list of things to do – does that count?

Did anyone close to you give birth? aui, to beautiful little alexia maria cecilia (the most symmetrically-featured baby i’ve ever seen) on december 8

Did anyone close to you die? no, thank goodness.

What countries did you visit? singapore, hong kong, spain, france and the united arab emirates (as a stopover)

What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? i don’t think i really lacked anything in 2006, but i would love to have a fun OC wedding, time to fix my room, a wedding-dress ready figure, new skills and advancement in my career

What was your biggest achievement of the year? launching some of our network’s biggest primetime programs, going on tour with acs (and conquering fear haha), taking the next big step in my relationship with marlon, learning how to drive, facing up to responsibility

What was your biggest failure? being tamad to exercise, being magastos

Did you suffer illness or injury? i was rushed to the e.r. due to my mysterious allergy, which i had to bear with for most of the last quarter of the year. do my niknik bites from palawan count?

What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? october 21, the day marlon and i got engaged. november 4, the day we competed (and won!) in tolosa. november 17, the start of my fabulous barcelona weekend

What was the best thing you bought? hands down, my beginner’s guide to flamenco 3-cd compilation, from hmv in singapore.

the other big contenders are the black embroidered cowboy boots I bought for php795, over 50% off at janylin (they were great on tour, though I wonder when I can ever wear them again here in manila) and my sony ericsson k700i.

Whose behavior merited celebration? despite everything, acs! go acs! marlon, of course
What did you get really, really, really excited about? omigod the tour! my plans alone were almost a year in the making

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? appalled, one person in acs i’ll never look at the same way again. people i had to work with for the big account. maybe myself at some points, but usually not for long. may humabol pa – someone close to someone i love really disappointed me in the last few days of the year.

Where did most of your money go? pocket money for europe. i think i spent the biggest amount on plane fares within spain, then on my accommodations in barcelona. my big splurge was the entrance fee to casa batllo – i had absolutely no money, but i carded it because i felt so compelled to immerse myself in gaudi.

What song will always remind you of 2006? hmm. i don’t know. nothing really. my favorite live performances by club for five, which I have on their cd.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier. definitely.
ii. thinner or fatter? i have no idea. just about the same i guess, except i had a really thin period.
iii. richer or poorer? a wee bit poorer. i made more money this year, but spent a shitload.

What do you wish you'd done more of? focus

What do you wish you'd done less of? snack on junk food, vacillated over some really great purchases (and oh, the rental of audioguides! i still know nothing about the alhambra!) in europe

How will you be spending Christmas? working myself to death to advance all my plugs, attending charlie and gerwin’s wedding in tagaytay with marlon, and being with my family and fiance

Did you fall in love in 2006? all over again, yes

How many one-night stands? no one-night stands here!

What was your favorite TV program? definitely lost. and i was super addicted to my own account, starstruck

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? nope

What was the best book you read? the time traveller’s wife, care of maggie. don’t remember if i read it late last year, so just in case, fragile things, care of marlon, and notes on a scandal care of chris ong.

What was your greatest musical discovery? augh ang dami! flamenco takes the top spot, followed by (in this order) apocalyptica, club for five, massive attack, ella fitzgerald, nina simone

What did you want and got? atlantika (be careful what you wish for), to go back to europe, spend time with marlon, be a better (and a more fearless) soprano, see miikka again, and A ROCK ON MY FINGER hahaha

What was your favorite film of this year? was batman begins this year? happy feet and casino royale were great, can’t remember watching any other movies

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i turned 25 in paris!

woke up early (for a change)

took the metro to ile de la cite to see the utterly gorgeous st-chapelle, then metro-ed to invalides

took cheesy pictures amongst the lampposts and brilliant autumn leaves of parc des invalides

wandered around musee rodin (which i have wanted to do for the past five years!)

had the best salad in the world for lunch in au petit vatel in le marais

walked home to our hotel in the louvre (stopping for a nutella crepe along the way)

attended a dinner party at the home of the philippine ambassador

did all of the above with marlon

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? having clear-cut goals and achieving them

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? lots of black

What kept you sane? new music, sleep, chocolate

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? you’re speaking to a daniel craig convert. oh and i love angelina jolie

What political issue stirred you the most? i all but swore off the papers this year, so nothing. i realized i knew a lot about the subic rape case, though

Who did you miss? on tour, maggie, jd and loi

Who was the best new person you met? toss-up between binky and gary

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006: i quote zoe hellerman’s notes on a scandal (beautiful, beautiful book) – “after saying no, no, no, there comes a moment when you say, oh bugger it, yes.”

that, and that there are times when you just have to let change into your life – like opening a window and letting the breeze in. whether the wind that blows in will knock you over or just cool you down a bit, there’s no telling (or controlling) it. you just have to let it in.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: hmmm let me get back to you on this one.

The most touching experience you've had this year? i can think of three – the first one was the moment i shared with marlon out in the cold after he proposed. the second one, well the person involved just kind of tarnished it for me. the third is just for me.

What did you like most about yourself this year? i think i was surprisingly levelheaded for my standards. i was able to rise above my emotions when it counted.

What did you hate most about yourself this year? my procrastination and my yo-yoing weight

Was 2006 a good year for you? definitely

Heath is the new Jun-Jun

hi folks. just a quick post to say that i'm alive (just barely -- long weekend = death by plug), my favorite account is back in business, and that heath is the new jun-jun.

meet heath. not his real name of course -- i don't want the hordes at my door just yet.

okay na ba 'to, ate?

i do believe the naughty boy was trying to sneak a peek down my shirt the other day. but then that could just be too much notes on a scandal. or pure wishful thinking.

if this sixteen year-old, six-foot, adorably cocky adolescent heath ledger doppelganger is not famous by the time this season is done, i will eat my desk so help me god.

Therapy Monday

mondays are usually slow here at the office, and today is especially so. with a couple of bosses (including ze big boss) out of the office, people are taking the day's work (if any) at a slow, easy pace. the sounds are laid back, activity is at a low hum, and the vibe is therapeutic.

a resident audiophile is pumping ladytron (i don't know who they are, but they sound good) from his mac, a few teammates are debating the merits of triathlon training as stress relief (yes, there's a lot of stress to be relieved over here), and snatches of other interesting conversations (such as a lengthy discussion of pektus) drift in and out of my violet-walled cubie...

where i am making christmas cards. upon coming back from the tour, i suddenly found manila in full-blown christmas mode, and for some reason it was my hands that were itching to catch up. i used to make my own christmas cards almost every year until i hit college. the last time i sent out handmade cards was in freshman year -- i had just discovered choral singing, and photocopies of popular filipino carols were the theme of my cards that year.

with two major accounts (including my old fave) following a predictable, and actually early, daily timetable, i've miraculously found time to indulge. i'm inspired by a handful of juicy little morsels -- cutout snowflakes (a prototype in blue iridiscent paper is now stuck to my monitor), photos of tiled patterns i took in the alhambra, four-pointed stars, an inexpensive bottle of silver acrylic paint i picked up in national bookstore. i also love scrolling through d*s and dafont for ideas.

ganado ako gumawa. three cards will get made and mailed out to their intended recipients in india, belgium and finland (tipid ako on mailing this year), but it looks like a couple of extra ones will have to find somewhere to go. the ideas just keep on coming! and not only for cards -- i'm getting hit by lightning bolts for christmas presents, wedding whatnot and new scripts alike. (hmmm. i think i'm starting to reap the benefits of my one-month work-free time out in europe.)


i finished one card last night and one this morning. while i'm pleased with the results, i'm even more pleased by the process, and by the fact that i actually can do this! at the office! and it will actually, indirectly, help me think and work better!

some of the art directors i work with have stopped by my desk with smiles and exclamations -- one of them (cecil) even managed to open a bottle of gold craft paint that i've been unable to unscrew for the past two years! she even suggested i sell whatever extra cards i don't send out. and i finally got to break in a set of waterbrushes (squeezable paintbrushes with hollow barrels for water) i bought on sale about six months ago. happiness!

now if you'll excuse me, i have blank sheets of smooth white card, a silver-smeared corner of desk, and a pretense of regular monday workload to get back to.

Back at the wheel

i drove to the office today for the first time in over two months. getting back behind the wheel was something i had shrank from ever since that nasty little sideswipe on shaw. so i was wary and tense, with shoulders tight and hunched over the wheel, as max and i puttered along the streets of mandaluyong.

at first i was a menace to the motoring public by virtue of my complete wimpiness -- "speeding" at 20kph, meekly letting everyone and their second cousins cut into my lane (marlon barking "guard your lane! guard it!" at me was but a faint memory), keeping an abnormally wide distance on my right, and slowing to an almost-full stop at the sight of delivery trucks.

i must have slowed to about 0.5kph on shaw, as i approached the very spot where i had my accident. it was a good thing my favorite feel-good track from club for five's album was playing at that moment -- i couldn't resist singing along and smiling.

and somewhere between the shaw mrt station and megamall i realized so much had happened to me since the accident -- so much that had made me tougher and better and less likely to fold in on myself. (mostly i was thinking of how i dragged my suitcase all over spain.)

thus emboldened, i reached staggering speeds of 60kph on edsa, valiantly guarding my lane from a renegade kia van, and parked in one smooth movement in front of my office. hurray!

Singapore silliness

... and for once it's not with my boyfriend fiance.



yes this is what acs does in such an esteemed venue as the esplanade -- choose the most unphotogenic corner (in this case, a backstage emergency exit), huddle together and let 'er rip. or at least the soprano 1s did. from left: perpetually sleeping jett, round and giggly liz, plain old me, boobic beauty elaine and hyperactive nutcase stalee.

but here's the token boyf photo anyway. elaine took it on the bus to the airport monday night, right after our concert.



marlon has become such a tour fixture that mimi gave him his own official acs count-off number in lah-lah land (# 35). see, i finally got him to wear pink (also got him to wear subtle embossed florals); i think he kind of likes it now. and he looks cuter than me here. hmpf.

Pockets of comfort

my mind is still buzzing with thoughts about getting married and moving to singapore, which i touched on a couple of hours ago, and which i feel rather anxious about at this point.

but i was lucky to find little pockets of comfort while surfing the net at work:

- when i was nine, i saw a bed like this in an old issue of architectural digest. i decided then and there that i would have one just like it someday. they have it over at ikea singapore. oh, and this one is lovely too.

- in an old post (and column), jim offers wonderfully reassuring insights on marriage.

- and the dresses at pronovias are absolutely beautiful. (still got a little bit of a spain hangover there.)

Reality check

this post marks my return to philippine time and to normalcy after a three-week, europe-sotted, abhorrently unproductive haze. i slept before midnight last night, woke up at 8am for work, and started actual scriptwriting at 2pm (it's a slow day). i am happy to finally attribute whatever sluggishness i feel at the moment to a lack of exercise, and not to a seriously screwed-up body clock.

---

i flew to singapore with acs over the weekend to perform at the esplanade with japan's gaia philharmonic choir and singapore's syc ensemble singers (more on which later). ironically, it was in lah-lah land where reality finally caught up with me. and i actually expected that to happen.

mostly it was because of marlon. "whenever i see him, life just begins all over again," i once wrote of him in my journal, over a year ago. i told him that a few hours after i arrived (at the ungodly hour of 1:30am -- cebu pacific's "new filipino time" is disturbingly similar to the old filipino time). i also told him, "this time, i really need it to begin all over again," as i shed tears that surprised even me. it was only then that i realized how physically and emotionally exhausting drifting in my post-europe limbo had been for me the past three weeks.

"i have something real that's waiting for me," i also wrote of marlon, more recently in my little tour notebook. so reality didn't so much hit as it did embrace me. it was a gentle, warm, reassuring reunion.

---

over the past three-and-a-half years, i have made for myself a play-and-pause pseudo-life in singapore. i have routines and favorites, peeves and preferences, memories and secrets there, and a person who is like home to me. but my pseudo-life in singapore will actually become an actual life in singapore very soon. that was another reality i came face to face with this weekend, and it wasn't so bad.

i left all the sightseeing to my friends and just spent time doing my typical singapore weekend things: spending a couple of hours on marlon's ps2 (final fantasy 12 is gorgeous), waking up late, stepping out of the house well after lunchtime, walking around bishan and orchard, enjoying a massage, jumbo dinner, and a movie (marry me daniel craig!).

i didn't feel in a rush to do anything. mostly because it occurred to me that next year, i will have all the time in the world to do whatever i want to do in singapore. okay, maybe not all the time in the world; the deal marlon and i struck is a year to a year and a half in singapore, tops.

that's a lot of time in lah-lah land, time that i didn't count on spending there, and pretty soon i'll have to figure out how to fill it. part of me is actually looking forward to that -- the part of me which was fearless and kebs and used to make life lampaso on a regular basis. she's been buried under a lot of things the past couple of years, and it's time to trot her out again. this should be interesting.

--

resurfacing to my reality is like watching a flat piece of paper slowly morph into a three-dimensional object (or at least what i imagine that would be like). there isn't just one thing to consider anymore; i had been staring so long at photos on a monitor and stamps on a passport, that i had almost forgotten that life is so multifaceted and deeply layered.

i'm back. hurray.

(don't worry, i still plan to blog about europe.)

Waaah take me back

i'm not depressed.

i'm not depressed.

i'm not depressed.

i just really miss greeting people with a cheery "hola!" i've started emailing photos to friends i made in spain (two puerto rican choristers, gabi and rafy, and one spaniard, maria angeles). in the past hour i've gotten three responses all starting off with hola. it's precisely those three holas that have triggered this rant.

gabi of coralia, and maria angeles from borja (no solo pics of rafy)

i miss the language and how it changed around when we moved to different parts of spain, from fast and clipped to lazy and sibilant (a.k.a. ma-laway). i miss the mental quiet that came from not understanding the language buzzing around you -- you could just tune people out and have your mind blessedly all to yourself.

i miss the challenge of choosing to focus on that language and decipher it. i miss the succession of mini-triumphs in succeeding, word by word, whether it was during a trashy afternoon talk show ("oliver quiere WHAT con dana?"), dubbed episodes of lost ("perdidos") or an opera with subtitles flashing in catalan (guess-translating catalan into spanish and then into english -- or sometimes even tagalog = major migraine).

at the liceu in barcelona, where i saw my first opera (deserves a separate post)

i just really miss the physical activity. croaking to an unexpected sedentary death in this office cubicle is a reformed sloth. we were walking all the freaking time in europe. when i wanted to save money (which was often), i would walk. even when i wanted to take any form of transportation, i had to walk a considerable distance to find it. just going for dinner in tolosa would entail five flights of stairs.

all this physical activity reached a turbocharged peak during my six-day adventure with pia and jeline (las otras chicas), when we were changing cities, rushing to buses and flights, and hauling close to 30 kilos of luggage apiece up various stairs and cobblestoned slopes on an almost-daily basis.

we nearly cried when we saw the stairs at our hostel in sevilla

in barcelona, fate threw miikka, a certified walking junkie, at me, and at his behest (unspoken, of course) i walked for nearly five hours straight on my last saturday in europe. reviewing my map that evening, i was shocked to see how much of the city we had covered on foot, and even more shocked that my feet and legs felt perfectly fine. in hindsight, i'm happy i had done things his way and not zipped around from tourist spot to tourist spot, like i would have on my own. five years ago, i never would've thought we'd be pounding barcelona pavement together

i only took public transportation twice that weekend, up to parc guell and back, and only because parc guell was on top of a mountain.

at parc guell, overlooking barcelona, montjuic and the mediterranean

and now here i am, chained to my desk, spending at least eight unhealthy hours a day sitting on my fat ass. i do intend to start boxing again next week, but there's something different about physical activity just naturally being part of your day. the unfortunate reality that manila is a pedestrian nightmare has never hit me so hard.

gosh. i miss walking so much i almost want to weep. i'm actually excited about going to singapore this weekend with acs just so i can walk. where has the old deepa gone?

i just really miss having hermetically sealed pores and great hair days, every day. marlon told me in paris that he had never seen my complexion so good before. and never before did tweezing my eyebrows cause so much pain, or the hair on my legs take so long to grow back after shaving(overshare?!). i could slather on my extra-heavy olay moisturizer plus mix it with my foundation without going all minola a few hours later.

behold my poreless beauty

and my hair! it mysteriously turned a deep red while i was in france, and it was frizz-free and had just the right amount of wave... it was just perfect, absolutely perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *wails*

i just really miss all the wine. every single meal we had in spain (with the exception of breakfast) was washed down by copious amounts of free-flowing tinto, or red wine. okay, red table wine, but at 11-14% per volume and for absolutely free, you couldn't complain. especially if you know at least two people per meal are going to get plastered -- soooo much fun. besides, we did have a couple of meals with real red wine, after which all the table wine began to taste like vinegar. but hell, we drank it anyway.

"i want to be drunk forever!" shouted mark, our first-time drunk, in urretxu

i was quite surprised at myself; i did not even get so much as tipsy throughout the entire trip. i resolved to drink after our very last concert, in borja, and what happened after was, to say the least, not my idea of fun. (sir jojo mentions it here.) but it was just good to know that the wine was there if you wanted it. and now i find myself missing all the wine i didn't drink. i miss describing drunk friends as borracho or borracha.

let's drink to that

i miss a lot of things about europe (mostly about spain), and about being on tour. reality is wrenching things away from me at an alarming rate, and i find myself putting up a fight to keep them a little while longer.

but i'm not depressed. i'm not.

really.

just let me wallow a bit. and i'll be fine before you know it.

The morning after

on my first morning as an engaged woman, i had four really wonderful things.

the wonderful experience of getting lost in paris. i'm not sarcastic when i say it was wonderful. marlon and i began our morning ramble as a search for breakfast, with no particular plan for after breakfast, and we continued to ramble as we had difficulty finding something that was open on sunday morning... EXCEPT

the most divine lemon tart ever created. okay, i'm getting ahead of myself. the tart wasn't what we found open, but a bakery with a sign in front of it. on this sign was printed an unintelligible rush of french with only one word i recognized from my visits to market manila and dessert comes first: artisane. "marketman and lori seem to regularly rhapsodize about artisanal this and that," i thought to myself. "there must be good reason." so i dragged marlon inside, and soon we were aswirl in choices upon choices of delicious-looking breakfast goodies. heck, even the pizzas-on-baguettes looked heavenly.

wonder if you can guess which one i went for

a blissful breakfast in a quiet park with my fiance. since we had found ourselves a rather astounding (if you know how much i hate walking) distance from everything else except the sacre coeur, we decided to head for a small park we had located on the map, near the cadet metro.

it was a nice neighborhood park: a small pocket of green-turning-yellow-orange with no tourists or monuments, just parents with their toddlers, and little kids biking and running around, and autumn leaves littering the ground. it was here that marlon and i plunked down on a bench, too pleased to mind the cold, and unwrapped our respective artisanal breakfasts. his was a salmon quiche, i think, and mine was the aforementioned divine tarte citron.

you sinful little tart you

it was love at first bite, and pure unadulterated lust when i sank my teeth into the slice of candied lemon on top. all throughout my stay in france, i sought to regain the bliss of the first bite of this particular lemon tart, but it never happened. ahh well. it was good while it lasted.

a gorgeous view of paris from the sacre coeur. we went to grab a coffee and a hot chocolate at a nearby cafe before heading on the metro to abbesses, where we would elbow our way through hordes of tourists and sunday-morning picnickers to reach the sacre coeur.

thus begins my "ring in ________" series

we plunked ourselves on a grassy slope to try and call our parents with our big news, which proved utterly impossible. so we just enjoyed the rest of the warm, sunny morning with each other, and lit a candle inside the church for us, and for each other.

then we had to rush literally across paris for my first official acs engagement, and i was totally late and got 10 euros docked from my pocket money, but that's another story. just know that it was a blissful morning after. ;-)

(yes, i know, i said "gorgeous view". i'll update with more photos when i've got them all sorted out. which is soon. i hope.)

--

back to the present for a bit: slowly getting out of zombie mode at work, after almost crying myself to sleep at 6am yesterday. why was i almost crying? because it was 6am and i was still awake. if i'm still a creature of the night by the end of the week, i may just be desperate enough to try sleeping pills.

i had almost forgotten what late nights at the office were like. then again, i'd also forgotten that siopao during late nights in the office make them seem soooo much better.

Homecoming

it was my last night in europe. i was in a touristy tapas bar on las ramblas in barcelona having dinner at a characteristically spanish hour: midnight. over sangria, chorizo, sauteed mushrooms and albondigas with miikka, my misgivings (or were they anxieties? or just feelings?) about going home began to seep into our conversation.

miikka listened quite attentively (that's one nice thing about people for whom talking is like pulling teeth) as "seeping in" turned into "mini tirade". "but," he ventured, "don't you also want to go home so you can start putting the entire trip behind you?"

i stared at him for what felt like a very long moment. i may have been incredulous. put the trip behind me? why on earth would i want to do that?

thirty straight hours of traveling, two full workdays, one comfort meal of spanish-style century tuna and rice and one happy acs reunion-rehearsal later, i'm still in that frame of mind. it's almost as if i'm in a permanent, private fog, and i don't want it to clear just yet.

my first commute to work, a mere eight hours after landing on philippine soil, was a complete blur. around me was manila in all its smoky, noisy, dusty, insane glory, but i barely saw it; my mind was still walking the streets of barcelona.

my mind and body are joining forces to hold on to europe with all their might. i have never suffered from jetlag; now i'm up all night, putting in a token two to three hours of sleep before shuffling to the office so i can be groggy and sleepy at my desk the whole day. in the wee hours of the morning, i look at my tour photos and sort them into neat folders per stop; at the office, i turn up my speakers so that my newly acquired, endlessly looped finnish vocal music (club for five, whom we met at polyfollia, and two new rajaton albums) can envelop me all day and block out the rest of the world.

i'm not cranky or sad (i know the diff -- i went through a really bad depression after my first tour in 2000). i feel i'm still me, just... displaced. i'm neither here nor there, which is okay with me -- because it means i'm still kind of there.

besides, there's no reason to be sad: coming home isn't an ending, but a beginning. because now, the process of discovering what the trip has done to me, how it has changed me, how it has made me and my life better, truly begins.

My inner ditz, published

hola from barcelona! -- where i am sitting in a rather nice hostal waiting to meet my friend miikka for dinner. while killing time surfing the net, i discovered that my very first fashion piece has been published -- it's in the philippine star's ystyle section.

i love clothes and i love writing, but somehow forcing them together in this article was one of the more daunting assignments i've taken on. again, i like clothes, and i'm not completely clueless about designers, but ask me about trends du jour and brands and collections... ehhhhh. some people are wired to thrive on this stuff (there's a multimillion dollar industryful of these people) -- after writing this article, i discovered i´m definitely not one of them.

but i enjoyed the writing exercise of trying to wrap my brain around this and at least sound coherent. and since it got printed, i´m assuming i did fairly well. and i'm proud to have done it without resorting to my pet peeve, that ubiquitous, not-applicable-in-the-philippines fashion writing clutchphrase -- "this season".

you can read the article online, but i don't think the star keeps archives of its web stuff. so i'm posting it here anyway for everybody's entertainment.

The big bag theory
By Deepa Paul
The Philippine STAR 11/17/2006

Wallet, iPod, Motorola Razr. Full-to-bursting kikay kit. A pair of shades. The prescription glasses you vow to wear more often, but don’t. Twelve-inch MacBook in its snug neoprene sleeve, its charger and a spare battery pack. Red Moleskine notebook, a couple of pens. A jacket, since your office is Siberia in Manila. A slinky black cami for after-dinner drinks with the girls. And since you simply can’t bear the thought of wearing your black work pumps with said cami, a pair of killer patent stilettos. A selection of cuffs and chains to accessorize. A book – just in case you get stuck in traffic. A change of underwear – just in case. The house keys. The kitchen sink. And then some.

This is your life, and you’d be nuts to try and stuff it all into a precious little satin clutch or a darling mini satchel (although you’ve tried more than once). Thankfully, now you don’t have to. The perpetually busy and style savvy can literally live large without having to resort to shapeless sacks, staid boxy suitcase-like contraptions, bulky backpacks, or (horror of horrors) very large paper bags – because in 2006, the big bag is back in a big way.

From Frumpy To Fashionable

Once considered the frumpy old maid aunt of the slim clutch and sleek handbag, the big bag has been refreshed and refurbished with style, enjoying a resurgence on fall runways. Fashion’s biggest names have eschewed flimsy miniatures in favor of more practical, large bags without sacrificing form for function. A number of designers have already invested in big bags, making them a key for look both the current and coming retail seasons – and making the lives of on-the-go urbanites easier and choicer well into 2007.

Inspired by the frenetic lifestyles of New York women, today’s big bags are built to hold everything one could ever need to dash off from work to after-hours pursuits, be it a dinner, yoga class or a evening out on the town. More importantly, these bags sport a stylish gloss that allows a whopper of a bag to transition flawlessly from day to night. So you can cart the kitchen sink to work and back if you so desire, and still look your chic and sexy best – because the big bag has gone from frumpy to fashionable.

Luxe Leathers, Soft Silhouettes

To catapult the big bag from dowdy to divine, designers from Anya Hindmarch to Zac Posen have dipped into an equally immense bag of tricks, which includes a variety of luxe materials, a plethora of details, and a bag hag’s candyland of shapes and silhouettes. But only one size – large, of course.

Luxe leathers figure prominently among the recent harvest of huge bags, with finishes that make the big bag whisper "touch me" rather than shout "I have a million and two things to do today, and damned if I’ll carry one of those silly armpit bags." Distressed, pebbled, quilted – texture is the name of the game, as shown by the recent runway crop: outsized totes from Prada and Marc Jacobs in deerskin and quilted leather, respectively, as well as pebbled leather hobos from Burberry and rich buffalo leather shoulder bags from Valentino.

The belt isn’t the only accessory that’s going patent and huge as of late; the big bag is hot on its trail. Pick up a huge tote or bowling bag in black patent, resist the urge to match it with your wide patent belt (there’s always tomorrow), and you’ll be all set. Look to Jimmy Choo’s gold-buckled totes and to Anya Hindmarch’s roomy, luxe bowling bags for a little black patent inspiration.

And while we’re on the subject, bowling bags have found fashion favor once more. Bowling shapes abound on fall runways; Marni has released bowling bags in cream and dark brown, dressed up with chains and discs, while Chloe has beefed up its Paddington line with metallic bowling bags. Apart from bowling bags, the hottest big bags come in relaxed and rounded shapes, boasting soft edges, curved frames, and of course, lots of room.

Get The Look

For bag hags who are on the hunt for the new and improved big bag, hie off to SM for the latest textures and silhouettes – without the mind-blowing price tag. Load up on details and embellishments; fall’s harvest of bags are decidedly un-minimalist. Go nautical with stripes and braided (keep one eye peeled for braided handles), equestrian with straps and buckles.

Channel rocker chic with rings, studs, chains, medallions, chunky charms and enough metallic hardware to make any pierced rock icon a happy camper. Don’t be afraid of contrasting metallic embellishment – take your cue from Alexander McQueen’s tan leather-trimmed Novak tote, which features gold medallions, silver stitching and dark brass hardware all on one giant workhorse of a bag. Hot tip: take a cue from the fall fashion shows and carry your big bag of choice by its handles. Not only does it prevent you from bending to one side, helplessly overwhelmed by your own bag, but you’ll look as impossibly chic as the models who carted all of those giant totes down the fall runways.

So don’t be afraid to cart around everything you need to live your jam-packed, hectic and on-the-go life. In 2006, there’s no lack of large bags to help you look fab while doing it. Now if only one could look equally chic and effortless while rummaging for the house keys in that gorgeous but cavernous suede hobo.

End of the road

a quick post to mark what is officially the last day of the tour. the choir flies home to manila tomorrow via bilbao and paris (with much trepidation as regards overweight baggage charges), while pia, jeline and i embark on our sevilla-granada-barcelona adventure (with much trepidation as regards cash on hand. oh well we've heard tapas in granada come free).

i won't get philosophical or sentimental at this point, but i've been fortunate to have had some much-needed epiphanies about several areas of my life; such is the clarity one finds on the road. some are for writing, some are for talking to friends about, and some are simply for keeping to myself. eventually i'll sort out which falls into what category, and maybe some of those epiphanies will end up here.

i also want to blog about each of the stops on tour, and share some photos. but i have over 1.5GB of photos (hurray for digital photography!) in various friends' computers and memory cards, and organizing them will take some time. putting things up on my blog when i get home will help me stay in touch with europe for just a little while longer.

In the words of friends

at the moment, i have laundry to do, luggage to repack, and a final basque sunset to enjoy. so let me leave you with the words of other people -- excerpts from a press release written by jeline for the ateneo site (read the full article here), and from a letter posted by sir jojo to the acs bulletin egroup.

my own words will come later, when i am finally home.

first, a few words from jeline.

Ateneo Chamber Singers triumph in 38^th Tolosa (Spain) Choral Contest

TOLOSA, Spain—The Philippines enjoys another victory in the world of competitive choral singing after the Ateneo Chamber Singers garnered the top prize in the polyphony category of the recently concluded 38 Certamen Coral de Tolosa (38th Choral Contest), in the Euskadi or Basque region.

Touted as one of the most prestigious international choral music competitions and begun in 1969, the Tolosa Choral Contest regularly draws the most accomplished amateur choral groups from all regions of the world. This year’s contest, held from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, was especially significant as it coincided with the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city of Tolosa; thus, only a select number of chorales—27 from Europe, Asia and North America—were invited to compete.

The ACS, led by renowned conductor Jonathan Velasco, emerged first in the polyphony category among their counterparts from France (Mikrokosmos), the United Kingdom (Voces Cantabiles), Germany, Spain, the United States, Indonesia and Puerto Rico.

The polyphony modality is considered the most challenging division in any major choral competition. Choirs are required to showcase their mastery of different choral styles by performing representative pieces from early, romantic, and 20th-century Western music, as well as music from their own countries.

and a few words from sir jojo.

Hi everyone!

Just got back from Borja. We are now in Ametzagana, and back to our old rooms. Our former guide Lore is here with us, and will be taking Onyl and others to San Sebastian.

We had a FANTASTIC time in Borja! Juskoday, hindi pala sinabi sa amin na MAJOR production pala yun! It was a FESTIVAL! As in, 26th Jornadas Internacional de Canto Coral Borja. And we were the closing concert! We arrived there in time to catch the performances of the Puerto Rican choir on our first night, and the El Leon de Oro from Asturias on the second night. And ang aking workshop/seminar, major performance din! As in, I gave a workshop on the second day that lasted from 9 in the morning till 8 in the evening! With breaks of course. But no, may session pa the next day lasting from 10 in the morning till 1pm. Imagine na lang how I was able to extend my two one-hour workshops in Polyfollia! hahahaha!!!

And the concert! Hay naku, it was the mother of all concerts. Fully packed, standing room only church with perfect acoustics, hindi masyadong basa, tamang tama lang. Warm audience. And we sang EXCELLENTLY! As in! We really felt good from beginning till end. On pitch (except for Mamayog which went down a half step). And then they gave us a plaque which weighs 5 kilos at least (again!) and the announcer (Maria... but of course!) announced something in an almost halting tone... jusko, umiiyak na pala!

And that was just the start. We sang No importa, and Onyl barely finished his solo, halos humagulgol na siya papunta sa dulo. Bakit kamo? E umiiyak (llorar) na kaya ang kalahati ng audience at that point, lalo na ang mga lolay! At ang MAYOR! Na nakaupo sa harap (at kamukha ni Jonathan Pryce), and the whole list of VIPS na nasa front row, nagpapahiran na ng luha ang mga lintyak! So, by the time we finished the song, instant standing ovation lahat. Suggest ko sanang kumanta pa ng How beautiful, but no, pula na ang mata ni Dada, and I don't think we could finish the song, given that half the choir were also in tears at this point. Everybody was crying... the announcer, the guides, the organizers, the whole city council, the lolays and lolows... kalowka talaga. A perfect concert to end the festival, they said. And
a perfect concert to end the whole tour! The president of the Spanish Choral
Association was present, and he said that he thought it was the best concert of the
festival, and in fact he thinks that it is the best concert in the whole 26 YEARS OF THE FESTIVAL! And he said he truly meant it!

Then we went to this art gallery, where there was a HUGE feast of sandwiches and
hamon and cheese and salmon and everything, and wine wine wine all over the place! And the Borja wine was excellent! So as the evening wore on, palakas ng palakas ang boses ng mga ACS, at napakanta si announcer (Maria), at may video kami syempre, at nahulog nga pala ang loob nya kay Gary... hahahahaha!!!... tapos biglang kumanta din ang aming translator na si Elena, in a beautifully rich alto voice... but no.... kumanta din si MAYOR! hahahaha!!! Tapos kumanta din si Gary (iniibig kita a capella, with boys in the background), tapos kumanta ako ng old time religion... at sa bawat kanta, SALUD!! So you can just imagine kung anong hitsura namin nung pauwi na.

But no! Hindi pa tapos ang gabi. May nangyari kay Deepa, concerning her ability to feel spirits. Apparently maraming disturbing "elements" sa aming hostel, at dinidistorbo siya kasi feel nila ang kanyang "third eye". Hayaan nyo na lang na iba ang magkwento nito, pero you should have heard her blood-curdling scream at 12 midnight. Ahahahay!

At may mga taong halos humiga na sa sahig at kailangan pang bitbitin... itago na
lang natin siya sa pangalang... Pris Cong. hahahahaha!!! Oh my... it was a very
fitting ending to Borja and to the tour.

K fine. Bilbao airport tomorrow. The adventure begins. hehehe...

Sir Juju

A proposal in Paris

it was october 21st, a saturday, our first night in paris (and marlon's first in europe). after a warm welcome at the philippine embassy (marlon opened the door for me with a bouquet of pink roses) and washing off the horrid experience of traveling for nearly two days without moisturizer or toothpaste, we set off for dinner. marlon, having arrived in paris a few hours earlier than i, had made reservations at a restaurant in the gardens of the palais-royal, a few blocks from our hotel and from the louvre.

after minor quibbles about getting almost-lost, we found the restaurant. it was intimate and lovely -- deep red walls, candlelight, and more silverware on the table than i knew what to do with. marlon and i were the youngest diners in the place, and the only asians too.

dinner was lovely. the food was delicious, but what i savored most of all was the surreal feeling of being in a real restaurant in paris with marlon.

(real as opposed to, say, meals at hosts' houses or embassies or parish halls or out of plastic bags, which is where i had meals in all of my paris trips with the glee club. i actually told marlon prior to the trip that i couldn't imagine how on earth we would eat in paris, simply because i couldn't fathom the idea of eating in an actual restaurant.)

and so we enjoyed some salmon carpaccio, and lamb, and some very good foie gras on toasted raisin bread (if i ever serve foie gras at home, that's how i'll serve it), and some red wine that, working in tandem with the exhaustion of the long flight and of tragging my maleta halfway across paris, nearly knocked me out after the last bite of carpaccio. just when i was about to fall asleep on the dessert menu, marlon looked at me with this full and happy look in his eyes i'll never forget, and said:

"if i give you something now, will you be too sleepy to appreciate it?"

kabog. kabog. kabog.

is. this. it?

"er," i mumbled, as my heart thudded as fast as fatigue could let it. "it depends. what is it?"

"i picked up some trinkets for you around paris," he replied.

"oh, okay," i said, wildly relieved. he couldn't possibly have bought me the ring in paris. that would be ridiculous. babatukan ko siya kung ganun. ang mahal kaya.

and he reached into his bag? pocket? and presented me with this:


"it's lovely!" i sighed, turning it around and around in my hands. i was so afraid to open it, that i kept on turning it over in my hands, running my fingertips over it, and trying to pretend that it wasn't something that could be opened.

and then he said it, and i knew.

"open it." so i did.


"will you...?" he said.

"of course," i replied.

then he came over to my side of the table to hug me and kiss me and put the ring on my finger.


he told me how far in advance he had planned everything, how he had changed some of his plans to go with the perfect moment the restaurant had serendipitously provided, how his entire office had cheered him on before he left for paris on friday, how meticulously he had worked with a jeweler for the custom-made ring (he selected the stones himself), how he had carried it around his neck the entire day, and how he had traipsed around paris in search of the perfect box.

dessert was a happy, candlelit blur, punctuated by flashes of light from our cameras, bouncing off the silver and crystal on the table. walking back to the hotel, close to midnight, we stopped by a small square with a stone fountain.

i finally cried there on a bench there -- overwhelmed by everything the ring on my finger meant, by the end of our long-distance relationship in sight, by a new chapter in my life that had begun when i opened a little enameled pillbox, and by how lucky i was to have this man and this moment.


i still look at the ring sometimes (often, actually) now that i'm on my own -- marlon has gone back to singapore and i've gone back to being a choir girl on tour, and i think about those things. people ooh and aah over the ring (even strangers i meet at festivals and competitions), and i supposedly have an "engaged glow" about me now -- but what lies ahead shines even brighter.

Eto na

eto na...

eto na...

eto na...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!

--

packing is miraculously done -- marlon and i did it over the phone last night (oooh yes hot i know), folding socks simultaneously with the receivers cradled under our chins. another reason to love my boyfriend: he listens to me agonizing over what bag to bring and solves the dilemma by asking stunningly perceptive, girly-like questions such as "but will that actually make any of your outfits look better?"

the end of my to-do list is in sight, and so is a wonderful adventure.

--

so here's the plan:

october 20 - finish off my last-minute errands, fly off from manila
october 21 - stopover in dubai/ arrive in paris/ somehow find marlon
october 21 to 27 - paris, france! concerts/ masses/ embassy visit/ rehearsals/ my 25th birthday
october 27 to november 1 - saint-lo, normandy, france! polyfollia choral festival/ concerts/ rehearsals/ hopefully some fun in the evenings
november 1 to 14 - pais vasco a.k.a. basque country, spain! tolosa international choral competition/ a couple of free days/ concerts in the region: pamplona, eibar, zarauz, borja

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PRAY FOR US

ON NOVEMBER 4!

4PM (10AM RP time) Folklore Competition

10PM (4pm RP time) Polyphony Competition

november 14 to 17 - the great grandada adventure! andalucia (granada and sevilla) with pia and jeline

november 17 to 20 - barcelona, spain with miikka and jonathan

november 20 - manila, i'm coming home!

bye everybody! will try to update on the road. pray that i don't get sick or too fat, that zara will be on some kind of megasale and that i don't run out of money!

Fasyon + warmth = impossible?

haaaaay. wish ko lang talaga na ganito ako ka-fasyon on tour. but i have this creeping suspicion that only people born and bred in cold climes can look this fabulous and still stay warm. woe to poor tropical me.

woe to poor denim-loving me, too. our super-fasyon vp and i had a quick chat in the elevator about my trip. she used to work for a prestige beauty brand, so she used to go to europe a lot, particularly paris. her mini-bombshell of advice before stepping out of the elevator: "oh, and don't wear blue jeans. they don't like it." gaaah. how can i not wear blue jeans and still stay warm?

i've been staying up till 2am every day for the past few days doing my packing in little chunks. clothes and makeup today, shoes and bags tomorrow, that sort of thing.

whenever i feel like just tossing random things into my suitcase, i call up images of the way i looked in my 2000 and 2001 european trips -- thinness squandered on katulong- and dyke-ish shapeless outfits *shudder* -- and the horror and shame spur me to be more conscientious. i want to try on all my clothes before i actually go, but i don't know if i'll still have the time or energy. i might have to look at actual photos of myself in 2000 and 2001 to find the resolve.

the photo of the fabulous outfit, by the way, is from hel looks, a site dedicated to street fashion in helsinki and one of my favorite sites. visiting this site is like going to an ukay-ukay -- you have to wade through a lot of crappy, so-so and sometimes thoroughly bizarre outfits to find real gems. the idiosyncratic english soundbytes ("my style idols are marilyn monroe and all smiling people") are also a blast to read.

Midnight at the Medical City E.R.

ok game! kwento na!

a.k.a., "the mysterious case of the midnight higad"

okay. for the past three weeks, i've been getting these weird pantal (is there an english translation that adequately conveys the ickiness of pantal?) on my tummy. they were especially weird because they would appear only at the office past 11 p.m. (apparently, i'm allergic to overtime.) and since i had no time to see a doctor, there was there was no choice but to itch and bear it...

until last wednesday. i was relieving my mounting work- and tour-related anxieties with the boyf over brownie a la mode at jack's loft. i had the itchies as usual, and was even talking to marlon about finding time to go to an allergy specialist before my trip. all of a sudden my face went numb and hot at the same time and within seconds, the entire left side of my face had puffed up like some freakish pink souffle.

so he drove me to the nearest e.r. while i entertained wild fantasies of rolling around on a very large sheet of sandpaper. at medical city, we spent a lot of time being disoriented by the sheer size of the place and sitting in the wrong room before we finally found the e.r.. we took pictures (of course) while waiting for a doctor. when we did get to see one, the first thing he said to me was: "you look familiar." my reply: "do you know anyone who looks this lumpy?"

since he couldn't determine the cause of my lumpiness (i'm allergic to virtually nothing -- i highly suspect it's stress-induced), he prescribed momentary relief via a shot of benadryl. no, not the cough syrup, but some kind of mega anti-inflammatory thing with a sedative effect. i didn't realize just how much of "sedative effect" the shot carried until i tried to get up to go to the toilet and found myself being pursued by two male nurses with a wheelchair. "i can go to the bathroom by myself. i'm not sleepy!" i protested. but the nurses wouldn't budge -- apparently i could just lose consciousness and crumple into a lumpy heap on the floor at any given moment! and so i got to take my first wheelchair ride, thoughtfully documented here by my paparazzi boyfriend.

i stayed at the e.r. until about 2am to sleep off most of the sedative, but the world remained a soupy fog for the rest of the day. i went to work literally stoned -- my vacant, unblinking stare unnerving my boss, who shouted "hoy! uminom ka nga ng tubig, nakakatakot ka!" at me during a meeting.

the sedatives were nice. last week was so hectic, i was almost sorry they wore off.

i did go to an allergologist for a follow up, though. much observation is needed for the cause of the whole blowup to be determined. unfortunately, i won't be here for the crucial observation period -- i'll be off gallivanting (and hopefully not itching) all over spain and france. but she did agree with my offhand hypothesis that it's most likely stress, and she did prescribe meds in case the itchies pop up again.

hmmm. i wonder if the meds she prescribed have a sedative effect too. i just might need them right before the competition.

Anticipation

this week, i've found myself fantasizing wildly that i could split myself into three different people. i feel like shouting one big "mismo!" to jeline's latest lj entry.

it seems that wrestling with minutiae is the way my mind has chosen to deal with the enormity of what's up ahead. i'm almost glad there's no time for muni-muni. crossing off one item at a time from my to-do list has come to provide little bursts of strength -- fuel for fending off the paroxysms of panic that would have engulfed me if i was a little more uncertain.

but i tell myself, i'm stronger than that now. with past tours, i used to rely on the trip itself to cause some kind of transformation in me, but i can't help thinking now that the change has already begun. there are more things to do and less time to do them than ever before, but i'm not panicking. (last week was a different story. i was a basket case! i was almost sorry when the sedatives from my allergy-induced trip to the e.r. finally wore off.) i've been more relaxed in rehearsals than i have in a long time. and i think i've figured out why.

it's because i know very soon, the worrying and working and juggling and balancing and mental dashing back and forth will cease to exist. and i'll be finally able to truly, utterly focus on the one thing that i want to do, the one thing i am going to europe for -- to sing.

if there's anything i hunger for at the moment, it's the luxury of being able to focus. figuratively, i'm in ten different places now. but very soon i know i will be allowed to gather myself up and plunk myself down and just be present in one place, whether it's a church in paris or a rehearsal hall in normandie. and the anticipation of that moment will be enough to pull me through.

Memory of trees

marlon and i did a lot of driving along c-5 last week, because edsa traffic was rendered thoroughly hellish by the heavy machinery (cranes and whatnot) pulling down all the billboards. we drove through the fort (does anyone ever really call it bonifacio global city?) a couple of weekday nights trying to catch serendra piazza and chef laudico’s open. which apparently never happens when you keep television network hours. anyway it was on one of these drives that i first saw what milenyo had done to mckinley road. (yes, it’s an extremely delayed reaction, but i rarely go to makati nowadays.)

i grew up in makati – went to preschool at ob montessori in dasmariñas village, and lived in the area for quite a chunk of my childhood. those acacia trees on mckinley line so many schoolday memories. walking to kindergarten under the shade of those huge, huge trees and entering by the back gate on mckinley. lying in the car on the drive home from school and looking up at a canopy of leaves so thick you could barely see the sky through them. seeing the high, graceful arch of acacias after an out-of-town trip (or even just after school) always told me that i was coming home – home, with all the wonderful and happy things that go with it.

and so, after realizing that abnormally too much sky was glaring through jagged, broken-off ends of branches, and reconciling that to all the huge exposed roots and torn-up chunks of pavement and garbage bags on the sides of the road – i wiped away tears for the mckinley's fallen acacias.

Ten days

not counting today (since it’s half done and i don’t really feel like doing anything just now), i have exactly ten days to do the following:

1. buy team manila pins to give away to my soon-to-be newfound european friends
2. buy a new team manila shirt in the hopes that a streak of warm weather will allow me to reprezzzent!
3. decide whether mousse or hairspray works best for me
4. get tested for allergies (more on this later)
5. get a long put-off biopsy for the little thingy that was found during the annual company checkup two months ago
6. get my roots retouched
7. box at least five more times
8. rehearse at least five more times
9. have one more farewell concert
10. have extra passport pictures printed
11. photocopy all my travel documents
12. change money to euros (go peso!!! hold up until i leave!!! you can do it!!!)
13. get a credit card (ang yabang ng bpi kung i-decline nila ako, ha)
14. book cheap flights from bilbao to seville and from barcelona to bilbao
15. book cheap hostels in seville and granada
16. finalize itineraries with pia, jeline, jonathan, richie, mayte and miikka
17. buy vitamins, cold medicine and bodysensor tights from marks & spencer
18. see if i can afford that black knit hat at terranova and maybe a tube of lip venom
19. check if my foldable payong is sturdy enough not to embarrass me in europe
20. hunt for a small tabo and water bottle
21. trek to janylin marikina and try on their very last pair of size six black cowboy boots - bought a very nice pair instead at half price at janylin galleria
22. check out marikina shoe expo for leftover, discounted customized boots
23. decide if my conscience will allow me to take the boyf up on his offer to just put those adorable black zara riding boots on his card thank goodness for payday pre-christmas sales that allow you to preserve your dignity
24. get a trim, pedicure and/or massage
25. figure out how to advance my october 20 and november 5 paychecks
26. write postdated checks for mom plus the water and phone bills
27. pack enough fasyon outfits to redeem myself from my european fashion disasters in 2000 and 2001 – and still leave enough luggage space for new purchases
28. spend quality time with the boyf while he’s here - other than having too many weekday dinners in 24-hour places and spending saturday rushing around malls doing my tour-related errands, we managed rather well
29. oh, and go to work every day geddammit

Revisiting Glorietta

i was at glorietta on saturday, after what i realized was almost a year. yes, i have no life. i haven't gone malling (as opposed to say, popping in for twenty minutes on a quick errand) in glorietta since i quit working in makati. fun nga pala mag-glorietta, even if it was a little disorienting at times.

there are so many people!

there are so many new stores! yay for zara, chef tony's and the mini-bibingka stall!

buhay pa pala ang piadina sa glorietta 4 food court! my family and i used to eat there when it first opened way back when. this really blond, moon-faced, harrassed italian woman used to do all the cooking by herself.

kamiseta has become so freaking expensive!

i don't recall there being so many food freebies. marlon (he's here on his first business trip in months) was so pleased. aside from the coffee fair on the ground floor (free chocolate mousse coffee from kape isla!), we got free nibbles from auntie anne's and chef tony's. mmm.

i also don't recall there being so many dumb moviegoers in glorietta 4. did they all migrate to greenbelt or something? marlon and i watched the departed (great movie -- brilliant scorsese redeems himself for gangs of new york ten times over) and had the utter misfortune to be seated to not one, but two epitomes of the moviegoer you love to hate.

not only was one woman's phone not on silent, but she took forever to answer it and must have said "hello. hello! nasa sine ako!" at least (i'm not exaggerating) eight times. our combined dagger looks only prompted her to pass the phone to her seatmate (!!!!), who continued the same line of conversation. "nasa sine kami. oo. sine. sine nga sabi. SINE!"

said seatmate was one of those running-commentary dunderheads. you know the type -- those morons who are so deprived of intellectual accomplishment that they repeat every single onscreen event to themselves as it happens so that they can pat themselves on the back for remembering names for things. (e.g., "ayan, naglalakad na siya" = "shetanggalingko i remembered that putting one foot in front of the other constitutes walking').

they also hurl theories at the screen for the unbeatable, mindblowing intellectual thrill of being right later on, which they fervently pray for throughout the entire movie. ("SABI ko na nga ba mai-in love rin siya doon sa isa!")

all puffed up with this sense of achievement, these types are also the ones who are most disappointed when the movie turns out to be *gasp* DIFFERENT from other movies that they have frantically tried to understand and loudly played back to themselves. i almost bashed my tub of chef tony's parmesan popcorn over the woman's head when, at the film's gripping, perfectly fitting ending, she said, with a half-scandalized, half-gimme-my-money-back snort, "ano ba 'tong palabas na 'to, *nachop-chop lahat ng bayag ng mga ng artista*!" (okay that didn't really happen but i'm trying to prevent spoilers here.)

as colin sullivan (matt damon) would probably say in his atrocious boston brogue: "fuck! lady, it's MAH-tin fuckin' scuh-SAY-see. whadya fuckin' expect, HARRY fuckin' PAH-tuh?" (then again, she might have been expecting titanic for godsakes because, like, leonardo dicaprio is in it.) and then he would take out his gun, waste the bitch and blast what miniscule brains she had all over the back of the seat.

ay sorry. let slip a bit of wish fulfillment there.

Milenyo strikes again

so much for "the launch is done." so much for "i'm so not showing up for work at monday." ha! good ol' milenyo caused schedules for both the pilot and the making-of special of the new show to be drastically rearranged.

well, not that drastic actually -- everything just moved down by a day. maybe it just seems drastic to me because i had to come to the office at the crack of dawn to get started on the grunt work of revising everything. writing program advisory crawlers (you know, those little red tapes that run along the bottom of your tv screen) at 7:30 a.m. is so not my ideal way of celebrating the end of a harrowing launch.

in related news, this is day four in the dark ages for the paul household. what's extra frustrating is that just a few doors up my street, others are already enjoying life in the 21st century. stupid blackout took some of the joy out of my saturday morning spree at 168 in divisoria -- i couldn't lay out my purchases and sigh over them when i got home that night (as i usually like to do) because it was too dark.

*yawn* excuse me. gotta catch up on my sleep.

Basang-basa sa ulan

sumasabay yung kampanya namin kay milenyo.

update: random notes on the storm

sumasabay nga yung kampanya namin kay milenyo, tinangay naman niya yung mga elements ng kampanya namin. he/she/it, the strongest direct hit to manila in over a decade, ripped our beautiful east avenue billboard into shreds, and prompted our vp to order the rest of the billboards slashed before they could cause damage to passersby.

milenyo also flung away most of the 35 individual character banners installed on the perimeter walls of our building, much to the glee of the tricycle drivers who now have resplendent, mucha-inspired new seat covers. ika nga ng boss ko, "oh well. at least roving collaterals na sila."

finally, milenyo also hurled the luzon into darkness -- the lights have yet to come on in most of metro manila -- effectively rendering our kick-ass tv promo spots useless. "bakit pa natin 'to ginagawa?" grumbled charlie as we put together a series of daily countdown spots. "wala namang makakapanood e!"

random thought: who thought of the name milenyo anyway? talk about names predestining outcomes -- ang lakas kasi ng dating eh. maybe if it had had a meek name -- like, i don't know, malou or miming -- the storm would have come and gone without a whimper.

utterly clueless

i woke late thursday morning, fully intending to take my sweet time primping (an excellent stress reliever, i've found) and show up at work around lunchtime. although i heard wind and rain outside, i didn't realize the full extent of the storm as i languidly blowdried, yes, blowdried my hair and stepped into my favorite black heels. mali. maling-mali!

getting to the office was an adventure, to say the least. great gusts of wind blew rain into the jeep i was riding, which stopped a few meters short of its terminus when two bolts of lightning blew up two condo transformers. the mrt shut down, and i took a bus for the first time since college. on the way to work, i lost count of all the fallen trees littering edsa. some of them were twined with downed power lines, others entangled with twisted lampposts or broken signs. apocalypse na kaya ito? i thought idly as the bus oozed down edsa, the konduktor opening its doors to shout things like "gago, liliparin ka na!" to random, determined pedestrians.

i briefly wondered why i was even attempting to make it to work, but i realized i could not resist the siren call of uninterrupted electricity (tv! cable! internet! aircon! hot shower!) when a blackout was sure to follow.

sanctuary! sanctuary!

ayon. pagdating ko sa office, kulot na ako. not to mention i was nearly slipping out of my heels, my legs were so wet. my formidable global sources payong was bent entirely on one side, and the wind practically hurled me into the gates of gma. "ah eh -- ok ka lang?" said a startled janice de belen, who happened to be the first person i saw.

i spent the night at the office, with a host of other "refugees". it was actually fun. i spent a lot of time online and slept on the giant cushions in our floor's receiving area. plus, my hair had dried into a surprisingly pleasing configuration -- tousled bedhead curls ("dapat lagi kang binabagyo!" enthused a gay officemate). i didn't know what to be more grateful for: my wonderful office (we're literally a beacon of light in the area -- it's totally unreal to look out the windows at night and see absolutely nothing), that my family and i were safe and sound, or that i was actually having a good hair day.

Ain't she a beauty?

the google video thingy is acting up, so i put the compressed version up on youtube.

this is the product of that exhausting shoot, and the now-immortal line, "tell me your story!"

yes yes i have significantly more time to blog today.

Too bad we're not going to Italy

Your Inner European is Italian!

Passionate and colorful. You show the world what culture really is.

Who's Your Inner European?

Postscript to palpitations

the wonders of technology: you can now choose to give yourself a heart attack at any time or place you so desire.

last night, a bunch of us from the acs were having a late-night meeting at mcdonald's katipunan. we got to chatting about our upcoming competition (three weeks until we fly! aieeee!), and were idly wondering about our competitors and their programmes. then we discovered that alex happened to have his laptop on hand, conveniently wired with pldt weroam. how could we resist not checking online?

silence -- then, shrieks. "nandyan naaaaa!"

and so eight hyperventilating choristers huddled over the laptop, poring intently over lists of choirs, competition schedules and jurists. each of us scrambled to dig up every possible scrap of information and experience stored in our memories, ranging from the reassuring and relevant to the jitter-inducing and absurd.

"si volker hempfling, head ng jury sa marktoberdorf, mahal tayo niyan! siya yung nagsabing, 'we are not machines'... ayan may babae sa jury, mata-touch yan sa buwa-buwa [a lullaby]. harap na lang tayo sa kanya pag buwa-buwa na! hahahaha! ngeh may taga-ukraine? sino 'yan? peter broadbent! artistic committee din yata siya ng polyfollia. o ayan si bo johanssen taga-sweden, may swedish piece tayo, pasok na yan... bakit nga ba hindi tayo sinali sa small group category? jusko wesna! sila yung nanalo sa arezzo tapos nag-grand prix the following year... omigod nandiyan nga yung batavia [indonesian choir that is eerily similar to acs in sound and setup]! shet sa sabado pa sila, mas matagal silang makakapahinga... mag-espia tayo, pwede tayong manood ng rehearsals nila... what if hindi pala batavia yung makakatalo sa 'tin, what if university of hickville eck-eck... wag naman sana... kakanta tayo ng 4pm tapos 10pm yung sunod na category? 10pm?!? pwede bang magbaon ng masahista galing polyfollia? aaay certain cutie yang basque judge na yan ha, may pagka-sergio ni marimar... okay, let's analyze... ano ba, let's not read too much into the schedule... uy ankapella ulit, diba nakasama natin sila sa marktoberdorf? ... magaling ba sila? umm okay lang..."

panic and excitement kept us chained to the screen for what seemed like ages. hindi na butterflies in the stomach ito. cavorting elephants is more like it.

like i said before --

oh. my. f*cking. gawd. this is really happening.

Postscript to the accident

aside from the damage to the side mirror, it turned out that there was a loooong scrape from one end of the car to the other -- that for some really weird reason i thought was just paint. ooopsy. my sister was not thrilled to point it out to me when she arrived from dumaguete sunday night, and less thrilled to have to go file a police report for insurance purposes.

thankfully, the police proceedings were a total snooze -- no kickbacking cops or any of that. except that we did have to walk past a couple of overstuffed jail cells to get to the traffic desk, which was rather creepy. totoo pala yung napapanood mo sa sine -- yung naghihiyawan yung mga preso pag may dumaan na babae. *shudder*

and thankfully too, i'm going to get a reimbursement for the side mirror. and that ate didn't blow her top. (thanks ate for being such a cool ate!)

this morning, i also had to go and apologize to one of the neighbors for a scrape i inflicted upon him while backing out of our impossible garage -- only a couple of hours after one of the other neighbors hit his car!

suddenly i'm happy to be rejoining the ranks of the cabbing urbanites. :-P

My first car accident

Ate: u using the car this weekend?
me: yep
me: where are you nga ulit?
Ate: dumaguete
me: ah k
me: by the way
me: i have something to tell you
Ate: YOU'RE ENGAGED????

hmmm why is this suddenly the question of the century?

me: no.........
me: wala kaya si marlon
me: its about
me: the car
me: ehem
Ate: ARGGGGGGG
Ate: nabangga?????
me: actually its not that bad
me: (disclaimer hahah)
Ate: sana sa bumper lang
Ate: para sabay na sa paayos ng iba
me: two trucks made me gitgit on shaw
me: and i was trying to make iwas on my left
me: the truck on my right sped up
Ate: AND????
me: ayun tumupi yung right side mirror
me: and the mirror itself broke
me: but other than that wala na
Ate: *cries*
me: BUT
me: i called all the nissan casas to look for a replacement

me, while waiting for the nissan parts people to come back to the phone and tell me if they had the mirror in stock: please God let there be a mirror. please please please. if you let them have it in stock, i'll do anything God. i'll... i'll... i'll even tell ate the truth!

me: and i replaced it!
me: :-D
me: go me!
Ate: GASP!!
Ate: u almost gave me a heart attack
Ate: thank u!!
Ate: mahal ba?
Ate: tsaka maganda naman yung pagka-replace?
me: mahal sa nagtitipid haha
me: it was 1,325

so much for getting my hair color retouched before i go to europe. haay. the price of stupidity.

Ate: F*CK!!
me: ya ok yung pagka-replace
Ate: wawa ka naman
me: muntik na akong tumawag sa yo right after no
me: feeling ko talaga iiyak ako
me: haha
me: tapos i left the car in the office and took a cab to my errands
me: trauma hahaha
Ate: anobayan pinalungkot mo naman ako
Ate: thank u for the immediate replacement
me: i took it to a car shop on timog to see if they had a mirror
me: tapos naloka ako when they told me i had to drive to banawe to get one
me: hello? in my fragile emotional state????
me: and where the fuck is banawe????
Ate: grabeh!!!
Ate: so san mo finally ni-replace?
me: nissan libis
Ate: ahh gudy
me: so now i know how to drive to libis haha
Ate: mas safe yun
Ate: makakuha ka ng mirror sa banawe mawalan ka naman ng mags
me: ngork
Ate: kelan ba nangyari, yday?
me: this afternoon
Ate: ahhh
Ate: fresh trauma
me: YES
me: and then after i had it replaced i forced myself to drive around before going home
me: para hindi ako matakot mag-drive forever
Ate: well i hope you're over the trauma
me: yeah driving around after helped
me: at mejo praning na ako sa right side
Ate: o sya sho-shower na ako
me: oki
me: see you tomorrow!
Ate: see u tom
me: sorry about the mirror again!
Ate: its ok things happen
me: yeah grr
me: anyway baboo