i am violeta
i have a secret which only my closest friends know (hehe! hindi naman pala talaga secret noh? and because of this post, it won't be a secret anymore). it's about a name i wanted when i was a kid. when i was in prep, my mom went to work abroad. i missed my mom so much and i made it a point to write to her regularly. one of my letters (which until now is in my mom's bedside drawer) goes something like this: Dear Mama, Kamusta ka diyan sa Saudi, Mama? Kami po ay mabuti naman dito sa Pilipinas, Mama. Katabi ko po si Maye [my little sister] ngayon, Mama. Umalis po si Papa, Mama. Ay! nandiyan na po pala si Papa, Mama. Sandali lang po at magki-kiss ako. *In my dad's handwriting* Pangga, kamusta ka naman diyan? Pinasulat ako ni Ging dito. Oo nga pala, tinatanong n Ging kung pwede daw palitan ung pangalan niya to Violeta. *In my own handwriting again* Mama, sige na po, Mama. Please, Mama. Gusto ko ppo talaga ung pangalan na iyon. Please, Mama. Love,Violeta ---O di ba, eeeewwww talaga yung sulat ko! hahahaha! and, of all the names, VIOLETA??? buti na lang hindi pumayag mga magulang ko. although they still tease me about this violeta name from time to time and have even came up with possible nicknames for me... violy, leta, letty... really! what could i have been thinking??? :)
no job for me
btw, have i posted about the streetkids home i called and applied to? they needed a person who can arrange a support group and counseling sessions for the mothers and i was willing to do it but i asked for transpo allowance kasi mejo malayo po ang shaw from my home. they denied my request. they said marami raw silang psych volunteers na hindi humihingi ng transpo allowance. (i was asking for P500 a month.) ay juice ko! puro undergrad kaya ung volunteers nila. i shudder to think what kind of program those kids can make. haaay! am i bad coz i asked for 500 bucks? hindi naman sana. actually hindi naman kasi sila nag-advertise for the available position, i just saw their flyer and was impressed with their vision so i called to "volunteer". no go daw eh. sayang!
on being a wedding coordinator
i told myself that i would not use this blog to make kwento about my life as a wedding coordinator. aside from the fact that mauunahan ko pa clients ko sa pagkwento about their weddings (hehe!), i really think it's unethical to talk about a client. siguro dala na rin ng training ko sa counseling. i realized though that i can write naman pala about the job per se so okay na. :)i enjoy coordinating. it is stressful. it is tiring. you feel as if you were a slave for one whole day. but i enjoy it. i know it's not the save-the-world job that i've always dreamt of (okay, okay, i know i can't save the world!) and i'm not planning to do this my whole life (my sweet husband actually thought i wanted to be a wedding coordinator until i'm 40). but for now, i enjoy this. i realize that i don't just like it because i'm still hung up on wedpreps but because i've always enjoyed coordinating events. gusto ko kasi talaga feeling efficient ako and what more can make me feel that way than organizing an event? at least you'll immediately know how it turns out. and contrary to what some of my friends think na masyado ako nawili sa preps at hindi ko ma-let go kaya ako nag-coord, i actually told benz march 2004 pa that i wanted to be an events coordinator. nung time na yun hindi pa naman ako haling na haling sa preps.my parents absolutely dislike the fact that i'm doing this right now. we had dinner with them last easter. just before dinner my mom and i talked and she gave me an earful about my being a coordinator (she already did this by calling me at 630 am last week just to "remind" me about my thesis). i was able to reason with her and even told her in a nice voice to stop nagging me. i thought i was off the hook. tapos dinner na. bernard and i were about to leave when my dad asked me about my thesis. naku po! ayun na! nagsimula na ang litanya. haaay! :D talaga raw bang iiwanan ko ang psych for events coordination? aba! sana man lang daw kung yayaman man lang ako. aside from the fact that i've always dreamed of becoming a top-notch psychologist, they said that the only way i can earn real money from this is if i get a cut from suppliers PF which they sure i won't do (actually, tama naman sila kasi our team already discussed this and although there are suppliers who offer money, we decided not to accept it kasi we think it's unethical). haaaay! to top it all, my husband laughed every time my father would make a joke (papa: "anak, hindi ka ba nakakahawak ng P10,000? tapusin mo na lang thesis mo." bernard: "hahaha!" mama: "anak, masyado mo naman kina-career yan" bernatrd: "hahaha!"). i was so irritated with him that we argued on the way home. syempre biglang bawi ang mister ko ng "but baby, it is your decision naman. i will support you kahit ano pa man ang gusto mo." achuuu! bwiset! pagkatapos mo akong pagtawanan sa harap ng magulang ko! haaaay!oh well. for now, hindi muna ako pumupunta sa parents ko! hehehe! escaping ba? mabuti na lang bernard and i have this research project so they know i'm busy with the research and not just with coordinating. hehehe!in fairness to my husband, he does support me. actually buti na lang talaga he does or else, i won't be able to do all the meetings (palaging gabi meeting. at palagi akong sinasamahan ni jojie) and the coordination per se (he prepares breakfast for me and arranges all my stuff if we have a wedding, etc). and in fairness na rin to my parents, they also told me that as long as i finish my thesis, they are okay na with my being a coordinator. magturo na lang daw ako ng kahit na 6 units para hindi mawala sa psych circle.i really need to finish na my thesis but where the hell will i find 10 high-SES couples with 3 to 4 kids with the eldest aged 10 to 12??? o di ba, ang hirap! haaaay!oh well! for now, i like what i'm doing. i get to meet many people and get to befriend most of my clients. at the same time, i get to practice my counseling skills when the client gets so stressed na. so the bst of both worlds di ba? :)
at last!
because of all the things i'm doing right now -- wedding coordination, thesis (although hindi naman talaga), and this research study bernard and i are doing for a UK market research firm -- i decided that to avoid being burned out, i need to give myself at least 30 minutes a day to just sit and be. i realized, too, that the best way to spend this half hour is to blog so i can organize my thoughts and put thing in perspective. i promised myself that three weeks ago and it's just now that i was able to sit down and type my thoughts.
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i am supposed to be cooking right now but something happened to our stove so i'm waiting for jojie to come home to fix it. actually, and this is a secret between you and me and the world wide web, i do know how to fix it but waiting for jojie enables me to: 1) blog; 2) watch an ally mc beal rerun; and 3) make jojie feel he's the man of the house.... hahaha! the last one's a joke. although i'm pretty handy around the house, having been my dad's assistant around the house for most of my life, jojie does the "handyman" things around here. i must say, though, that since i'm home alone most of the time, it's a really good thing that i'm used to fixing stuff.
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i was in makati today to meet with a client and i had lunch with abie. although we've seen each other last week (in a wedding she helped us coordinate... more on that later), we really were not able to talk. so we took the opportunity today to have lunch and to talk and to make chismis about our other friends. hahaha!
it's so funny how abie and i met. we were "forced" to stick together during the w@w5ive because our boyfriends were not with us. a couple of months after, we met again to go to dangwa and to divi. i introduced her to mang boy, she introduced me to divisoria's bubble makers. from then on, she and i would talk every now and then to update each other about wedding preps and life in general and slowly, our friendship grew. although we're in different fields and our life circumstances are different somewhat , we are in the same life stage and although she might not realize it, i learn so many things from her. and as mushy as it sounds (i know abie hates mushy stuff! hahaha!), i'm looking forward to planning our silver wedding anniversary with abie and my other w@w friends. :)---jojie and i are doing this research together. the research is about the wheat and wheat flour industry in the philippines. although it's been hard (we're on our fifth and last week of the project) and really stressful and tiring (case in point: we spent the whole holy week in coffee shops until after midnight), the research has given us an opportunity to work together. although we've done this before, working together as husband and wife is a whole lot different than working together as boyfriend and girlfriend. for one, when we were doing research before we had to stay at my house. we were so stressed that we argued many times. since i'm such a bossy editor, jojie and i quarreled a lot. with our current research, we have learned how to utilize each other's strengths and how to take things in stride and how to be there for each other all the time. it has not been easy; there were times that jojie was ready to just give up and i had to be there for him and there were also times that i wanted to give up but he was there for me. i think this is what marriage is all about. working together and supporting each other, all the time. i'm not saying it's easy because it's SO not! but then, having jojie by my side makes the adjustment, the compromises, and all the changes i have to cope with worth it.
surprise! surprise!
my surprise party was a success!!! i am so happy and bernard was so touched and... hmmm... surprised! hehehe!my honey's birthday was last sunday, feb 27, but since i didn't want a sunday night party, i opted to hold his surprise party on the night of the 26th instead. isa pa, i think mas dramatic to have him blow his cake at exactly 12 midnight so 26 na talaga.although i've been planning this since last year, it was only three weeks ago when i (and my mom, syempre, the ultimate party host) finally decided to have the party. the first person i told my daddy, jojie's dad tapos yung family ni jojie and then his friends.fast forward to feb 26... jojie and i woke up really early because we were going to the hospital for daddy's tests and checkup. because matagal ang tests niya, and pila sa doctor's clinic, and ang pila sa pharmacy, i arrived at my parents' home around 1:00 na. when i got there, i immediately set to work. the menudo was being marinated na (my mom was making the menudo) and i focused naman on the pinanyahang manok. we made sure that the ingredients for shabu shabu was already prepared. around 3pm, i went to the supermarket to buy last minute stuff. nag-order na rin ako ng cake, pancit malabon, and inihaw na bangus (we were supposed to make the inihaw na bangus but one of our helpers, yung taga-luto talaga namin, took the weekend off). after making sure that i had all the ingedients and complete ko na ang dishes, i scouted for a flower shop. i didn't have time na kasi to go to dangwa kaya ordinaryong flower shop na lang kahit mejo mahal, at least malapit lang at di na ko mag-ga-gasolina. i was able to buy gerberas. ang ganda nung gerbera pero yung stem mejo hindi na matigas. the flower shop owner, tito joey (o di ba close kami kahit na nun ko lang siya nakilala), taught me how to use wire to make sure na nakatayo yung gerberas sa vase. i also bought flower foam from him. on the way home, i passed by gazebo royale to buy silica sand (yung white na sand).when i got home, i started preparing the roof deck. i set up the tables and the chairs (dineliver a couple of hours before). buti na nga lang yung ibang crew ng papa ko andun pa so sa kanila na lang pina-ayos ng papa ko yung tables at mejo mabigat rin yun. when my mom saw na maalikabok yung chairs, kumuha siya ng pamunas at isa-isa niyang pinunasan yung mga silya (o diba, ang bait ng mama ko!). after a while, diosa and marvin (w@wie friends) arrived. dinala ko na sila sa roofdeck para makapag-billiards muna sila habang naghihintay but diosa, ever-reliable diosa, offered to help. although i don't normally trust other people (hehe!), i knew diosa wold do a good job kasi pareho kami niyan eh, ma-OC rin (btw, she was one of my friends who coordinated our wedding and kasama ko rin siya sa business namin) so i entrusted the table centerpieces with her. pinakita ko lang sa kanya kung paano yung gusto ko tapos siya na yung gumawa. we used the vases i borrowed from balay kandila (super love ko talaga sila ronald at tisha, biruin mo pinahiram pa ako ng vases. isang tawag lang yun, walang hesitation, pinapunta nila ako kaagad para mamili ng vases na gusto ko). ang ganda ng kinalabasan nung centerpieces ko, yung classic balay kandila setup na bulaklak na nasa tubig at may sand sa baba. instead of putting paraffin oil, though, since i wasn't able to buy the wick balay kandila uses (mahal eh!), i had candles na lang put in small glass jars (the ones na natira from my gel candle favors) tapos for every table (each tables was rectangular and seats six) had the ala-BK centerpiece and two candles. ang galing ni diosa!around 5:00, the san mig keg arrived. sobrang hassle-free talaga yun, yung delivery people pa yung nag-setup sa roofdeck so wala talaga kaming prinoblema.around 6:00, i was already in a panic, hindi pa tapos lahat but i needed to go home na to pick up jojie (i told him that i was in shangri la for a meeting with diosa, abie, dowa, and teenee). syempre naka-uwi ako 6:30 na and akala ko galit na siya kasi ang alam niya we were having dinner with his family at cravings katipunan at 7:00. hindi naman siya galit. buti na lang i also had the presence of mind to ask his sister to tell him kunyari that they will be late.when i got home, i took a bath na agad. and then, while jojie was making sure that all the windows were locked, etc, i told him na mauuna na ako sa kotse. when i got to the parking lot, inayos ko na yung kotse and when he got down, he was surprised to see me in the driver's seat. i motioned him to sit in the passenger's seat. nagulat siya pero he complied. pag upo niya, sabi ko, "ako na lang drive, upo ka lang jan at pikit ka." tapos i used a hanky to blindfold him. sabi niya, "naku! ano naman ito?" sabi ko, "basta surprise, wag ka alala, sandali lang ito, mga 5 minutes lang. hindi tayo male-late for the dinner." and we took off.the whole time we were driving (around 7 minutes lang naman from our place to my parents place eh), he was trying to guess where we were going. sabi niya pa, baka raw mag di-dinner lang naman kami sa roofdeck (i did that na kasi on our 3rd month-sary). sabi ko, "eh paano na sila daddy, papunta na yun ng cravings?" "oo nga no," sagot naman niya, "hmmmm..."the funny thing was when we were near my parents place na, may dinaanan kaming lubak na may takip na bakal. narinig niya yung tunog nung bakal at sabi niya, "ha! papunta nga tayo kina mama, hindi ko makakalimutan yung lubak na yun. un lang ang lubak na ganun!" sobra na akong tawang-tawa pero pigil na pigil.when we got na to my parents house, i made him go down the car. sabi niya, "tignan mo, paakyat na(sa garage ito), sa inyo lang ito eh." "hon, wag kang maingay, maririnig tayo nila mama, may surprise lang ako sa iyo, hindi ko kasi pwedeng pa-deliver sa atin kaya dito ko na lang pina-deliver"when we got to the roofdeck, everybody was there na. jojie still had his blindfold on. pinatayo ko siya sa harap ng lahat and then asked him to remove his blindfold para makita niya na yung surprise ko and he was really surprised! nagulat siya kasi andun pa yung high school friends niya (whom he seldom sees). he was so touched and happy. nakakatuwa. i was really happy because i knew that that was his first every birthday party na party talaga. :)my husband is an introvert and he once confided to me that he's natataranta when he needs to entertain many people from different groups but that night, parang nawala yun. he was able to mingle with his guests. naging biglang party person ang aking asawa! hahaha!
the party went well, i think. :) the guests seemed to have a great time. we had lots of food. akala ko nung una kukulangin pero ang dami pang natira. by 10:30, jojie was mejo tipsy na. it as probably the firts time i saw him tipsy. :)around 11:50, i went to the kitchen to get the cake. by this time, yung mga pamilya namin tulog na (jojie's family already left) kaya friends na lang ang natira. jojie was seated with don paul, his bestman, and paul realized na 12 midnight na at wala raw ako. kakatuwa si paul kasi parang nanghinayang siya na wala ako sa tabi ni jojie ng midnight. eksakto naman umakyat na ako, dala ko yung cake, with candles, of course. gusto ko kasi maraming candles so aside from the numerical candles, meron pa akong blue na maliit na candles. when his friends saw me at the stairs, they stopped muna their billiards game and their singing (nagvi-videoke sila) and sang jojie happy birthday. na-surprise na naman ang asawa ko. :)the last guests left at 3:00 a.m. ito talaga funny kasi around 2:30, jojie was telling don paul pa na umalis na. sabi niya, "pare, birthday ko, gusto kong makipag-sex." syempre hindi umaalis si don paul. tipsy na rin kasi kaya kung anu-ano na ang pinagsasabi. mga bandang alas-tres, hindi na gustong makipag-sex ni jojie, gusto niya nang matulog pero wala pa ring balak umalis si paul (inaantok na rin si percy, yung misis ni paul). sobrang funny kasi si paul at yung mga hirit niya tawang-tawa talaga ako kaya sa akin, okay lang na hindi pa sla umalis. pero si jojie talaga naman naasar na! hahaha! sabi niya sa kanyang kaibigan, "p***** i*** pare, gusto ko nang matulog umalis ka na, pwede ba!" hahaha! nakakatawa silang dalawa! :)paul and percy left soon after and that endeth my husband's celebration of his birthday. :)
