...as for me, you know I've moved to http://tryingtowake.blogspot.com/. In case you haven't visited yet, here's the latest on what I've been up to:

Saturday, July 19, 2008
I Heart Paris
... I was lucky enough to get to live in Paris for a month and a half, and here are the top 10 things I really loved about the city. I highly recommend doing them if you get the chance. ...
More

Still a Student
... I'm taking an online English for Specific Purposes course. It's a course on how to teach people to speak English for school, business, etc. ...
More

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Listen to Yourself
...be it your mind, your emotions or your body. If you're honest, you usually know best when it comes to decisions about yourself. ...
More

This is Gonna be Convoluted
...How do you be confident enough to do these things and yet have no expectations of yourself? I tell myself to just take things as they come, but I know that I was able to do them before so I should be able to do them again. This trying to do them again stops me from doing them...and on and on I go in a very convoluted cycle...
More

Or read it all at http://tryingtowake.blogspot.com/

to:
http://tryingtowake.blogspot.com/

New topics, new thoughts, new rants and raves.

Hope to see you there!

You Should Date An Italian!

You love for old fashioned romance, with an old fashioned guy An Italian guy is the perfect candidate to be your prince charming If your head doesn't spin enough, just down another espresso with him Invest in a motorcycle helmet - and some carb blocker for all that pasta!

and to think I won't be going to Italy this month! I feel so sad.

What a way to welcome June!

Last Saturday I had the most horrific migraine ever. I could never understand what my mom meant in the past when she'd talk of a headache that make you nauseous. I get it now. That was seriously the worst headache I've ever had. There were times when I didn't know whether I wanted to black out or cry.

I've been sick for the past week with the flu.

I'm hurt because someone I really care for is mad at me and won't talk to me about it. I didn't even realize anything was wrong. I sure didn't mean it. I'm sorry.

Haaaay....

I'm tired of this...so so so tired of this...

:(

Of all the members of QA, who would have thought I'd be in the second to the lowest level of hell? Numi refuses to accept the fact that she's been assigned to the seventh level of hell, while I'm only in the fourth. As Vicki says, "Pretentious, pretentious!" Love you, Numi!

Here are my results:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fourth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

When we were asking Aaron who of us was the meanest, he had such a hard time answering. So apparently it's me (he finally gave it up after 5 minutes of pestering). Who would have thought this would happen from that sweet angelic little girl I used to be? :)

We threw Livie a surprise baby shower the other day. Vicki got Bobby to call her out of our room under the pretense of a meeting while we set up for the party. Of course, Bobby turned it into a real meeting and we started late because Livie apparently had a lot of questions.

Anyway, the day before the shower Vicki, Beth, Noemi (Loida) and I went to buy gifts for Andrea (Livie's yet-unborn baby). The theme of the shower was things sweet (the food) and pretty (the gifts). When you tell me pretty, I start thinking colors, shimmer and bling, so I decided that I was going to get a pretty little tiara for Andrea. Everyone tried to dissuade me because a tiara isn't practical. Here's where I uttered my first of two ditzy (but true) lines: "Beauty isn't meant to be practical, that's why it's pretty." The next day someone asked me why I had gotten a tiara and I replied, "because every girl should have one."

Two lines that I really do believe in, but it's hard to imagine that they came from my lips. Me who was always so practical. Me who hardly paid attention to fashion and makeup and pretty things...I'm glad to see I've learned better.

I swear I was in heaven last night. Ryan took me to a post-Valentine's dinner at Je Suis Gourmand at the Fort. I had pan-fried foie gras, roasted sea bass on wild rice risotto, a glass of chardonnay (which I actually liked! I liked his red wine too. Both of those plus Nalu's are the only wines I've liked so far. I wonder if this is an aquired taste or if these are just really good wines?) and topped it all off with a scoop of red-grape sherbet. I finally got to taste the foie gras I've heard so much about, and I now know why. It is the most decadent thing I have ever eaten. I do love a restaurant with nice ambience, good service and great food!

I'm working on a psychological profile of one of my classmates. Looking at her test scores, I'm really not looking forward to writing her up. She's one of those traditional Filipinas from the province...nice, helpful, respectful, neat. Those are certainly great characteristics, but it makes for a boring read. It would have been interesting to write a psychological profile of someone with more extreme neuroses. I'm sure Rich is going to have an interesting time writing about all the insanity that makes up my life. :)

Just want to share my avatar...

It feels good to be bad. It does. There’s a sense of freedom that comes with it, somehow. Now, I can’t figure out what’s so wrong with being bad.

As much as people always said that as a child I was ten going on thirty, I feel that I only really found myself when I was 23…two years ago. I struggled so long with this compulsion to be the perfect daughter, that I followed all the rules, was always a good girl, and was always nice to everyone. When I finally gained the courage to be myself (and we know who I give credit to for that), I realized that I had to stand up for myself, my wants and needs, and well as for my beliefs.

I believe that you can’t like every person in the world, There are just too many personalities and too much baggage.

I believe it does not matter if you are straight, gay, black, white, yellow, male, female, alone, in a relationship, or have no idea at all what you are. What matters is that you’re happy.

I believe that people place too much value on patriotism to a country. I say I’m a citizen of the world. We all are. Globalization, done well, is where it’s at.

I believe that I can’t please everyone, so why try? Take care of yourself and please those you can.

I believe I’m just as worthy as everyone else. I believe we are all equal. Age alone gives no guarantee of respect. Living life well does.

I’ve noticed that standing up for myself and allowing myself to actually be myself has gotten different responses from people. On one hand, the more traditional types don’t like it because I’m being a bad person daw. I’m an intimidating cliquish snobby bitch with a strong personality. Have you ever noticed that this is the type of girl you’ve always loved to hate? Even as people think being snobby, cliquish and a bitch is bad, I’ve noticed that they also admire people who are as they want to be and who do what makes them happy. Remember the mean girls you hated in school? They were the meanest in the school, yet they were the queen bees. Why do we want to be a part of what we don’t like? Could it possibly be that we see these characteristics as bad because they go against what society has brainwashed us into thinking?

For decades we have been taught by Philippine society that we have to care for everyone else, what psych calls the tagasalo characteristic. We have to be so nice and sweet and welcoming to everybody. We can’t stand out. We have to follow tradition.

WHATEVER! Developmentally speaking, human beings go through adolescence to test their boundaries. Young people want to know who they are and what they can do. They push themselves and others. They conform and they are different. They are good and they are bad. When they find a comfortable space, they move in. This is when a person’s personality is mature: when they are comfortable and happy with themselves.

You have to admit, society does admire mature individuals. Society tells us we have to be strong, yet cannot stand it when this strength leads us to individuality. Hence, it has come down to this: I am happy with myself. I am happy with my life. I care deeply for those I love and will do anything to help them. I demand a lot from relationships, but I also give just as much. I don’t expect everyone to like it, but if they don’t, I probably wouldn’t like them very much either. So we go our own separate ways, don’t mess up each others’ lives and happily live out our own. What’s wrong with that?

I've been accused of being cliquish...like it's a bad thing. I never could figure it out. Why is it so bad to be cliquish?

Being sociable and being with other people, although fun, requires a lot of effort. It's easy when you just click with somebody. There are these rare cases when it's no effort at all, but that's not always the case. There are so many people in the world, and believe me, there is no way that you're going to like every one. Why give yourself the extra trouble if the person you don't like is not a relative or your man's really good friend? Unless it's someone worth spending time with, why waste your energy? Besides, who in their right mind would want to be with people they don't like?

It would be an understatement to say I've been accused of being a snob. Let's just say that it is an accepted fact that I am a snob. So be it. Same principle applies here as above. If I don't find someone interesting, and there's no other reason to, why exert so much effort to put up with them? What's wrong with going off to a more interesting group? Or even with going into a little corner and enjoying my solitude and sanity? If I'm willing to be alone to preserve what little sanity I've got left, what's wrong with that?

I seriously want to understand why these are such "bad" characteristics. As far as I'm concerned, they're perfectly rational. If you can justify their badness to me, please tell me your thoughts.

He shook my hand the other day, congratulating me on the move. That was nice of him. He’s actually always been a thoughtful and considerate guy. Unfortunately, right after that happened, my skin was crawling and I was in search of alcohol to disinfect my hand. I still can’t stand even seeing his face, hearing his voice, or seeing his name on a piece of paper.

Ugh…”Tough Love” doesn’t get any tougher than this.

This was my second week of starting work at ten in the morning. I was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be to get myself up in the morning and work for eleven hours even when I was puyat. It took a week and a half for my body clock to adjust to being awake during the day. After a year of living at night, I was only able to fall asleep at the correct time two nights ago.

What interests me is this: why have I suddenly been so tired for the past two days, the days directly following nights when I’ve finally been able to get a whole night’s rest?

I just found out that Madame Tussaud's has immortalized Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt in wax. Check it out here. I know that it's supposed to be a tribute or something, but I just find it creepy that they make wax replicas of babies.

I am in love!

My iBook's battery, like all notebook batteries, tends to heat up when I've been using it for awhile. Given that I'm back at school and have to write papers galore for class, this baby tends to heat up quite a bit. I must admit that I do have a tendency to work on my bed. This makes my back hurt, and even when I put a book underneath, my notebook still heats up. I've been getting really worried about it and have been looking into various stands or cooling thingiemajigs to solve the problem.

Speedballs seem convenient in that they're small and portable. I just don't like the idea of sticking adhesive velcro circles on the bottom of my pristine white iBook.

People have been touting the Coolpad, but although it does raise the unit, it's made of plastic and can only be used on a desk...unless I sit up and put it on a book on my bed or something...but that'll still hurt my back.


I've also heard about the cooling stands that have fans running underneath the laptop on power from a USB port. I don't really want to give power to a fan. Plus, the fans are on the upper part of the stand. My battery is on the lower left corner.

Then I found the iLap.


http://www.raindesigninc.com/ilap.html

It raises the iBook and acts as a heat sink so my notebook stays cool. Also, the velvet is super comfy on my lap. Now I have the option to sit up or lie back, and I can still work into the wee hours of the morning. She's a beauty and she's snuggable. Well worth the price difference.

There are also people who just melt your heart.

Santa came to my desk early this year. I hung a little Christmas stocking on my wall (I don't normally do this, but I found it lying around my room from my days at Mccann and decided I might as well put it to good use.). Good thing I did because I've apparently been good this year. Today I found chocolates and a See's lollipop inside it. I love See's candies and haven't had one of these since Bea, Kath and I were walking around San Francisco together back in high school.

Mrs. Claus is a sweetie as well. My bracelet snapped one night at their place, and being too engrossed in a bottle of Jack Daniel's we all forgot about it. A week later, she returns it and I see that she had it fixed.

I love this couple. So, when do we have the eggnog?

As a junior in college I had to take the Felt Needs test for my Psychological Testing class. This is a test that measures the needs that you feel (duh). It was cool though because we ran factor analysis on the data and it put all 40 of us in the class into groups based on the felt needs. The needs here would be like the need to make money, need to be independent, need to succeed, etc. There were a total of 6 or so groups. I was in a group all by myself with my greatest need being the need to have sex.

Go figure...

Yesterday I took the EPPS, another personality test, for my MA Objective appraisal class. This one measures your preferences in life. Change, affiliation, achievement, dominance, etc. are the characteristics this test looks at. My highest preference was heterosexuality (likes kissing attractive members of the opposite sex, likes being found attractive by members of the opposite sex...you get the idea), change and aggression. My lowest preferences were for deference (follows instructions, accepts the leadership of others, etc.) and order (keeps desk neat and organized, etc. -- yes, I know I've never been the neatest person in the world.)

So what does that say about me? I'm a flirt, I'm competitive, I like trying new things and I'm really not masunurin (did I spell that right?). Oh well, we can't all be perfect.

In case anyone's interested, I'm an ENFJ.

There are just some people in the world you can't stand. You know them, the ones who insist who insist on discussing to death some totally inane topic that no one has been interested in in years. Most of the time these are your weird aunts or other such relatives. Sometimes though you're forced to deal with these people on a more daily basis.

If you barely even acknowledge them when they speak, don't they get the idea that you're not interested? If you turn your back on them, don't they understand that you want them to shut up? Are these people just so lacking in their understanding of social behavior that they don't even realize you're not listening? Maybe they just like hearing the sound of their own voices. If only the sound of their voices weren't so annoying. Sometimes I don't even have to hear them actually say anything. I just read something they write and I can imagine their voices in my head. Ugh. Horrible.

Then there are the people whose faces just annoy you for reason at all. They may be perfectly nice and normal, but their faces somehow make you want to brand them with a waffle-maker machine. My psych training tells me its projection. You project what you don't like about yourself onto another person. When I don't even know what annoys me about that other person, does that mean there's something about myself that annoys me but that I'm unconscious about?

Confusing thought. Let's end there.

They say everyone in the world is six degrees away from everyone else in the world. It seems to be true, if you look at all the people who suddenly pop up in your life again years down the road. There's your old softball varsity teammate, your old blockmate, a friend of a friend who now suddenly works in your office.

What I hate is when someone from your past, who you remember as being totally dorky in the past, suddenly shows up in your office one day. Surprise! You're colleagues now. You remember how dorky this person used to to be and this person reminds you of how dorky you used to be (well, actually, I was more nerd than dork, but you get the picture). The really annoying thing is that you now have to co-exist with this person who is trying to change his/her/its identity by changing his/her/its name. The new name is probably an attempt at release from dorkiness, and you have noticed that this person has mellowed out a bit...a BIT. I don't know why, but it just really bugs me that this person is trying to change his/her/its identity. Your identity is who you are. Look at me, I know I've changed a lot since then, but you don't see me changing my name...

I'm wicked, I know. Wicked and annoyed. He/She/Its still kinda dorky...