Not attending Transpo class

Am not attending Transpo class today. Have loads of work at the office (it’s anniversary month and deadline for our quarterly publications), my husband is not happy with the maid’s cooking (which means I have to personally prepare dinner tonight), and I am not prepared for Atty. Pia (the main reason, actually). Haven’t read any case, haven’t read the provisions, and I forgot to bring my codal which is a requirement in his class. I can not come to class unprepared. Atty. Pia asks the most unexpected questions. The old man is old school lawyer/teacher, doesn’t mince words. I’d rather bury myself tonight in 30 cases than have him tell me I have no right to be in his class. One prayer - no quiz today, please…

Been hurt? - Postscript

It’s been almost six years now since the day, as Mikaela puts it, "someone I considered a friend and a sister hurt me to core" but there are just some things that my memory chooses not to erase. I haven’t gotten over it yet. Each time I remember (and the latest is about a few seconds ago) the anger, the frustration, the pain rushes back to me in an instant. I feel stupid all over again for having trusted that person, for not being able to spot the signs of betrayal and for believing her web of lies completely, absolutely, unconditionally - because she was a friend. More than that, she was then, for me, the sister I never had. That just makes me want to scream my head out (as in "Ang tanga-tanga ko!!!").

Sometimes, I still get the urge to just pull her aside and yank her eyeballs out (ugh!). My only comfort is that I KNOW THE TRUTH, there are MANY people who know the truth, and who stand by this truth.

Footnote: Sori, pinagmasdan ko na naman kasi ulit sya. Minsan, masarap inisin ang sarili (he he he).

Kids on vacation

5:30 AM, March 31, 2008

This morning I woke up to an “empty” house. The kids, all three of them, are in Mindoro and will be there for the next eight weeks or so. Adrian and Andrea are so used to it that as early as February, they have been nagging me to bring them to Lola Mommy, “now na!”. It is Patricia’s first time to be separated from us.

Yesterday, before my husband and I left them, Patricia would not break from me. I was carrying her and she held me so tight I almost brought her back to Bulacan. But my dad has waited long for Patricia to spend the summer with them and I had to give in – my father has to enjoy his grandchildren while he still has the strength to carry them, play with them, and spoil them with cake and ice cream. And so, while I know my husband and I will terribly miss the kids – especially our little Patricia – we left them to the care of my parents for the entire summer, confident that before school opens, they will weigh a few pounds more, have a tint of color to their cheeks, and give us endless tales about how they chased dragonflies, flew kites, and shooed carabaos.

That means our house will be free of toys and clutter for the next two months, I will hear no sumbongs in the afternoon that I get home (“Mama, si Kuya inaway na naman ako…”, “Mama, si Rea inubos yung paper mo…”, “Mama, si Ate hindi ako pinahiram ng crayons…”), my vocal chords will take a rest from all those yelling everytime they misbehave, less laundry in the weekend, less electric and water consumption, less expenses for the weekly grocery.

But then, that also means, for the next two months, no kisses before we leave for the office and in the afternoon when we get home, no race for Mama’s tight embrace, no love letters from Andrea posted on the ref, no flowers (taken from the neighbors’ garden) from Patricia everyday, no little hands wrapped around my neck in the mornings that I wake up, nobody to raise his/her hand whenever the favorite question of the day is asked(“Sino’ng pinaka-love ni Mama?”), nobody to make “kulit” if he can share the bed with us (“Tonight lang, Mama promise…”) , nobody to bring me the towel (and a glass of water, and the charger, and my bag downstairs…).

It’s going to be a very quiet two months without them. But the upside is my husband and I have our bedroom for ourselves for now and pretend that we are on honeymoon. Wink, wink.

Life in Law School

Four semesters in law school, and these are what I learned so far. No, this ain’t about the Constitution, nor any Code. This is about life in law school.

1. Law school indeed is a jealous mistress. It’s not going to allow you time for other personal pursuits. The last movie I saw on the big screen is LOTR. Honest.

2. You have to love reading to survive. Not reading the FHM/Cosmo type of magazines, but reading an all-text, 2-inch thick book 75% of the time. That would be apart from at least a foot tall of cases (xeroxed or printed-out) that you have to read for one semester.

3. You have to have a "kapal mukha", so makapal that I should be able to feel it here from where you are sitting now. Some professors do not mince words if you don’t get it right in the recit, which is conducted everyday.

4. A writing notebook is not just for pre-schoolers. Atty. Suarez hates it if you don’t "cross your t’s and dot your i’s" properly. "Preparation for the bar starts now!"

5. Don’t trust the professor who starts the semester by telling "I intend to pass everyone in this class." More than half the class will fail. Believe me.

6. Believe the professor who starts the semester by telling "I pass only two or three students. Last semester, only one passed." Double your prayers.

7. It pays to have friends in the upper class, or at least ahead of you in some subjects. You can always borrow their notes, books, and if you are lucky enough, their exam booklets and case digests. (Thank you, Hjoan!)

8. Lipstick and blush-ons have no use during exams. Trust me.

9. Eyebags are normal. You don’t have it, you ain’t in law school.

10. There will always be "terror" professors, but there are also "mabait na professor" who will not scare you to death. But trust me (again), you will thank and appreciate the "terror" ones  later.  

The case of the vanishing thnigs

Ten years with this office and I know for sure that there are three things that I should not leave lying around.

One, ballpen. I can safely leave a P1,000.00 bill on my table of several days, but not a pen of whatever kind, brand, or color. It’s going to disappear faster than I can say my brother’s  name. 

And his name is Vic.

Two, slippers. After a business trip to Japan many years ago, the boss declared that from thenceforth, no shoes will be allowed inside the comfort room. Call it the Japanese influence over my ChiFil boss but ever since that day, the office has bought perhaps more than a hundred slippers that the employees should use inside the comfort room. I think the Admin. Division bought more than a dozen pairs some three weeks back. This morning, there are only two pairs left. And somebody has yet to show up wearing slippers to the office.

Three, cup and saucer. Where did the cups and saucers in the OGM’s pantry go??? Luchie, the utility assigned at the OGM, bought several sets of them last year. The last time I checked (and that was this morning for my daily dose of caffeine), only one cup remains, proudly sitting in a corner of the cupboard and screaming to my face "I survived! I survived!". Yep, and I’m sure not for long.

Calling Sherlock Holmes.

Been hurt?

Found this somewhere in the Web:

"I look back to the day someone I considered a friend and a sister hurt me to the core and i know that life is occasionally studded with people who test your strength and patience, and replete with people who believe in your truth."- mikaella

 

I don’t know her (sorry, mikaella)….but she might have been speaking from my shoes as well. Very, very well said. San Mig Light to that.

Cold, blueberry cheesecake and Lozada

Not feeling well since last week, got cough and cold. Am not sure if it’s because of the weather or due to stress. I dropped by the nearby grocery this morning to buy myself Del Monte pineapple juice. The “fruits supplier” of the office, Dexter gave me a pack of kiat-kiat and half a kilo of longan (will pay for those, of course). I’ve been drinking liters of lukewarm water since 8 AM today. If I don’t get better in two days, I’ll buy the antibiotics the doctor prescribed me yesterday. As much as possible, I do away with antibiotics especially after my self-medication some two years ago which almost killed me.

Well, anyway, I’m back to my desk after almost a week in Cagayan De Oro City. I assisted the PAWD COMELEC in the PAWD 2008 Election held there last February 8. In between errands for my boss who was COMELEC Chair, I was able to squeeze in three case digests for Labor Standards and a visit to my CDO-based high school classmate, Candy. Was I glad to see her! Haven’t seen her since graduation. She now owns a bakeshop/restaurant (Candy’s) across the Limketkai Mall. She’s got the best blueberry cheesecake I ever tasted. Yummy, yummy.

The week I was in CDO, Manila was agog with Lozada’s “homecoming” of sorts. Claiming to have been abducted by his own escorts until the nuns of the De La Salle outwitted them and “smuggled” him out, Lozada is perceived to be the key that will open the Pandora’s box that hide intricate details of graft and corruption clothing the NBN deal.

Haaaaaaaaayyy….! What’s new? We all know that graft and corruption is all over the Philippine bureaucracy, so much that the two have almost become synonymous terms. Whose fault? Partly because of the greed of the people up there (imagine Sec. Neri instructing Lozada “to moderate their greed”). But how many are them? Just a few. How many of us are down here who put them there? Millions. We have the power. We get to exercise that power every election day. But then, we also allow ourselves to be corrupted by trapos during the campaign period. We allow them to buy our votes. We vote for a person because he is “kumpare”, “kababayan”, “kapitbahay”, etc. It’s always patronage politics every election period, over and over again. And we never get to learn our lesson. The corrupt are there because we deserve them. Stop complaining. Either that, or vote wisely in the next elections.

Next round of blueberry cheesecake, please.

Midterms, midterms

The bad news is that I still have two more exams this week, apart from the cases that I have to read in Property for tomorrow’s recitation. The good news is I am still alive after last week’s exam, particularly yesterday’s exam in Criminal Procedures.

Bygad! Stupid me! I got confused - RTC will have jurisdiction over criminal cases where the imposable penalty exceeds 6 years. Preliminary investigation is required for offenses where the imposable penalty is at least 4 years, 2 months and 1 day. I messed up the two, and the best I can do at this time is hope and pray (very hard) that Judge Alaras give me "mercy" points. At least for the effort, you know. And I am writing it down here so that I will remember that mistake in case it gets asked in the bar (should I ever get that far).

And for some reasons, I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what the doctrine of implication - should have been very easy! - was during the exam (administrative law). I can almost hear Sol. Laragan "Leah, I am so disappointed…", the same thing he said when he called me to recite the Villegas vs Subido case. I wasn’t able to read the case - the week before that was the Holidays - law books and cases were not part of the things under our Christmas tree, thank you. That "so disappointed" thing got into me though, and I tried to ingest all the assigned cases for the following week.

Exams for Labor Standards was pretty easy ("sa sobrang dali, ang hirap sagutin!" - Agnes). Next time we ought to know where to concentrate. I was forced to finish the Labor

Standards exams in 45 minutes because I saw ASG Panga earlier to give the exams in Agrarian Reform Law in the earlier class, and we were next. I wasn’t expecting him - he was out of the country since the first week of January, although he had his assigned readings posted on the bulletin board. And because I - and the whole class - wasn’t expecting him, I - we - did not review for the subject. Imagine my horror when I saw him walking down the corridors before my exam for Labor Standards started! Result - crammed for an hour and a half reviewing for Agra, with this question at the back of my mind: "Should I take the exam?". Well, I did. And I’m glad I did. The panic and the fear I felt just dissipated when he gave the question - just one question: In not less than 100 words but not more than 200 words, state whether or not the government should pursue the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. [essay writing contest ba itu? :)]. While most of the class worried about falling below the 100-word limit, Lalaine’s problem was how to cut her 300-word answer so as not to exceed the 200-word ceiling. Me, I think I was able to stop at the 200th word.

Friday’s exam is LTD, and on Saturday, there’s Sales. I hope I can squeeze in everything - in my hands and in my memory - all the work I have to do in the office (I’d be in Cagayan de Oro City for the entire week next week, and I HAVE to finish all the work assigned to me this week) and all those cases and articles for this week’s exam/recit. Plus my duties as a wife and mother.

Oh, one more good news. Our official publication - which I manage/write for/edit (both content and layout) - is one of the four finalists for the 1st Best Publication Award of the Philippine Association of Water Districts. Hurrah!