The Purple Haze

Have I learned to forgive? Being the hard, ruthless little girlie-girl that I am, I guess I have. After all, living with a grudge does not make one younger. I refuse to spend precious pesos on any medical procedure to make fine lines disappear. I have always been a firm believer of aging au naturel anyway.

That answers my question: I haven’t REALLY learned how to.

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Congratulations to my dear sisters who graduated this year! Like I told Sis Sheila, “I apologize for not making it to your testimonial dinner. You know how much I want to go and send my younger sisters off, but there are just things that we do not have any control over. That’s lesson number one. In college, we would always think that everything revolves around us - that we could make “lusot” our way into anything, that a single Road Rage can be pulled off in a month, and that an exam can be topped by studying minutes before we took one. College is college, and it’s not quite like how things are going to be for you right after. HOWEVER, that’s the good thing about joining Sigma Beta right? It gives us a taste of what’s out there, even if we were “in here”. I really think it makes all the difference, and we owe the sorority that. We also owe the people our education, so don’t forget about them too.”

Last night’s party was technically my last party for my whole 2-week vacation. Hehehe. I feel there’s more to come, especially since my gal pals from Iloilo and Nueva Ecija are coming over to satisfy their beach lust (Galera, here we come).

Tomorrow is another story. It’s my first day at DevConcepts PH! My only problem was getting to my new office, but I eventually figured out my route thanks to Google Earth:

I just have to take a bus to Robinson’s Galleria, then walk to Cityland MegaPlaza! That simple

Welcome back, Hayz!

If blogs were like my closest friends, my dear PurpleHaze would have left me a long, long time ago.

I guess those who really know me understand why I was gone, so I feel I don’t owe anyone an explanation as to my absence. Mean ba? Now I’m really back!

Wuuuurd! It’s midterms week again - RAH, RAH, RAH. I hope now that I’ve devoted less time writing blogs, my grades would be higher than last semester. I learned the hard way (hint: Property), trust me.

Allow me to do a-la Maurice Arcache by saying life has been fab to me so far, palanggas! School has been a blast, friends and family are doing great, finances have been manageable… What about work, then? I said great, SO FAR.

Let me be blunt about this (and I don’t care if anyone from ALI reads), but my supervisor sucks to highest sucking degree! He is everything a good leader is not: indecisive, unreasonable, dumb, panicky, fickle-minded and a scatterbrain. I wonder how and why he got the job in the first place. Magaling sa visuals? Maybe. Other than that wala na eh. He should look for a no-brainer job instead (although there is no such thing).

I hope that consultancy job I’m coordinating with my brod would push through.

Enough bickering for now - have to go back to reading.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Every time I see a swimming pool (especially an Olympic-sized one), I feel really nauseous. Then it all comes back: memories of my previous competitions and all the pre-dive jitters! I felt the same queasy feeling when I hung out at our fraternity brothers’ tent along Taft Avenue for this year’s bar operations. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy what tension this year’s bar takers must have felt last Sunday morning for their first of eight exams. Best of luck to everyone!

Resume Headaches

Today I trained 2 new members of the inbound call center staff. So far, so good… until one of them started yapping while I gave my lecture on investing on real estate. Participating in the discussion is good, but not if it turned out to be a “grievance committee” to show off your family wealth, thanks to yapper girl. Here’s a piece of unsolicited advice, never speak up on stuff like that if you don’t want a potential employer to kick your butt out pronto!

Another interviewer’s nightmare would be the “walk-in from hell.” Just this afternoon, an applicant went to the office to personally hand over her resume. My jaw dropped when she brought along with her the entire Von Trappish family. The crumpled document for a resume she gave me was the bonus.

I actually pity applicants like them. They should’ve been taught how fine, clean lines make the simplest and best impressions.

So fix your resumes already!

Happy 52nd Anniversary to the Los Baños Chapter of the oldest sorority in South-East Asia, UP Sigma Beta Sorority! I’m really sorry I had to miss all the activities for the anniversary month. Nevertheless, I pour out all my support and love to the grand sisterhood and to each sister that comprises it.

“And as we face the years beyond us, finding home in many lands, Sigma Beta will see with fondness the world encircled by sisters’ hands.”

See the photo above to illustrate what I’ve been doing with my life for the past 1 year and 2 months. I am such a bore (for now at least).

It seems to me that I’ve missed attending heck-of-a-lot of worthwhile sorority and org activities. I’ve lost count on how many friends I’ve turned down and how many more people I’m going to miss out on because of the insane reason of “I need to study.” I see med and law students nodding their heads in agreement.

However un-connected I am now with my good old friends, fellow Sigma Betans and close relatives, rest assured that all this is temporary. Sigh.

All this effin drama was prompted by the fact that I said no to a nice get-together session with a sis and my bestest friend last night! Huhuhu. Guilt trip Next time, promise, gigimik tayo!

Moving on to more music… hehehe.

I need a new job, gddammit! I’ve applied to like a hundred companies already and all I got was 15 measly call center posts. Whatever happened to those day-jobs that are supposed to aid your experience in climbing the corporate ladder? Anyway, I’m up for this new junior supervisor position thing (still here in Ayala Land), but I’m afraid it’ll ruin my studying (if my boss sees this kind of reasoning I’m gonna have to say goodbye to my fiscally-challenged life). Of course, I’m eager to take it; problem is it’s taking toooooo looooong to materialize! I need the dough people!! I have freakin’ bills, pending tuition fees and books to pay! Promote me now, or forever hold your… err… basta promote me now!

I probably just need more coffee.

Happy birthday Mylene Casanova Patambang! I hope this year’s celebration proved to be meaningful (as you planned it)

Classic Mylene line: “Basta ako, gagawin ko ‘to.“

(A recent text conversation with my best bud Marian)

Mar: Hayz, gmik daw 2nyt, Fort with my, mae and anna. Call tym is 10pm. hehe.

Hayz: Tara, sama tau! Fort, yahoo!

Mar: Buti nlang hindi sa ortigas, wala nman gmikan dun eh. Naku, Friday the 13th pa pala ngayn… scary…

I wouldn’t say that Marian there has paraskevidekatriaphobia, or that irrational fear of Friday the 13th. But like countless other souls, we can’t help but feel uneasy towards the combination of two “unlucky” omens: Friday and the no. 13. I read somewhere that some people really do have morbid fears of Friday the 13th (FTT, for short), and go as far as not investing stocks, not reporting for work, not going out of their homes and not getting near any potentially harmful object on that day. Totally unproductive if you ask me. Studies even show that the US economy loses around 200 Billion Dollars during FTT, since people are reluctant to do business as they normally would. These people’s fears aren’t loosely founded - it’s quite logical to think that there are more recorded accidents on FTT than in a normal day because of increased anxieties. So, it seems that fear of FTT inflicts the danger to itself.

But we come to the question of FTT’s origin. Where did it all start? There are different stories telling how the superstition began. One is with Biblical reference, showing that Judas, who later betrayed Jesus for 30 silver coins, is actually the 13th guest to the last supper. If we trace back to Roman origins, witches always gathered in 12’s, and the 13  member would be the devil. This article in National Geographic also attributes number 13’s unluckiness simply to the fact that it is the number after 12 - a complete number, numerologists say. Why complete? Think 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 kingdoms of Israel, 12 apostles and 12 months in a year. They say that anything over 12, like 13, is irregularly “beyond complete.” What about Friday then? Friday was the day Jesus was crucified, among other events as listed in the same article.

All hope is not lost for those suffering from this phobia though. They can either go three steps at once to contradict the bad luck, according to my grandmother, or they can take control of their minds and focus on more pleasant thoughts, instead of the looming doomsday FTT pictures in their heads.

Mar, gutom lang yan. Hehehe.

One of the things I learned from my “deal or no deal” buddies in school is if you were crowned the SDL of the night (super-duper loser), it means you have overflowing good luck in aspects other than gambling - like love and career. I remember when we started this little ritual a few weeks ago, I was the first-ever SDL title holder after choosing suitcase number 18 which contained (tadaaa)… P1! I looked at the bright side and told myself that I may not have won any major prize in any raffle game, game show, bingo, lotto or even in a little betting situation like ours, but it must mean that I’m really, really lucky in love and in my career! That suits me juuuuuust fine

Last weekend, the swim meet for Conflicts of Law was finally (!) held at Manila YMCA. I was rooting for the underdog school, of course, but still garnered 4 medals out of 4 events despite my lack of cheering fans, a decent uniform, and having to endure the constant asking of “PLS? Ano yun?” So there, I got 3 golds for sprints in Freestyle, Breastroke and Butterfly, while I got a silver for a sprint in Backstroke. It was a really good game, and everyone had fun. Kudos to the other swimmers from Ateneo, UP and San Beda!

In other news, Atty. Uribe gave out the results of our Obligations and Contracts midterm exam yesterday. Before that though, there was a heavy (and headachy) discussion of the exam questions and answers. Boy did we suffer a great deal of mental anguish! None of my answers seemed correct! So, I psyched myself in settling for whatever score my paper would show (fervently hoping it was at least passing). But the tables would turn when you least expect it, and silver tints of the clouds of doubt would reveal that sunshine is right there behind it (uuuuy, my sisters in the sorority know where this came from, lol) Okay, I’ll cut the chase - I got the highest score in the class (88). There were only four of us who got 80+ scores, which kind of makes me feel sad for those who have done their best. But that’s another story.

What happened to me seemed like a cross between luck and opportunity, or something to that divine effect. So before I slept yesterday, I thanked God for blessing me with such wonderful things despite me not being worthy at all. It goes to show that He loves everyone, frequent church-goer or not (I’m in the latter) Yey! God is sooo cool!

Purple is NOT my favorite color; orange is. I cannot remember the first time I heard someone call me by my “first-ever” nickname (yes, some people called me purple haze way way back). It did not really stick with me, probably because it doesn’t sound at all like moi. Honestly, I’m more neon green than purple. How I brought myself to use it again, this time in the blogging world, has little to do with the band, something to do with our sorority color, and a lot to do with my imagination.

To get my point across better, I searched for images in the internet that allude to The Purple Haze. It’s fun - usually Purple Haze stood for bar drinks and alcoholic concoctions (tee hee)! And that has absolutely NOTHING to do with my cocktail preferences, mind you ;p

True to my bookwormish nature, TPH is also a book. This one is on radio culture and music circa 1960s.

Looks yummy, huh? I don’t think it’s edible though, even if it IS a bubble bar from lush called… Purple Haze. Hahaha!

This cutesy little candle is also called Purple Haze. I’m not sure if that’s wax or gel used as a wick. Still, it’s interesting to look at.

Now this is what I was talking about - the Purple Haze Martini. It looks real svelte and soothing! The drink will warm you up even if you just stare at it for a whole minute. This is how drinks should be - oozing with the X-factor!

Finally, the picture that rocked me was this. I’m not sure what people were burning here to cause such smoke, but it looked really nice (especially with the woodsy effect). Kind of coincidental to my header. Hihi. Though I’m not so big on the fact that someone actually burned something (poor atmosphere… poor mother earth).

Oh, the things I do with my office time!