i am sad. i was going to hang with willa, jen, sabby, eden and his girlie friend in richmond at some tea house. but when we got there, sabby and eden and girl (i think her name is anna) were already done. so we decided to go karaoke...
to be continued...

merry christmas!

i am so tired. wow, this has been one of the most busy christmases i've had in such a long time. it's 3pm and i just woke up from going back to sleep after opening my presents. i hope all the little kids i tutor like the gifts i gave them. so what if all i gave them were french books? they need to be feeding their brains at their ages anyways!

dad's leaving for the philippines tomorrow. he's going to be gone til february. i'm so jealous. i'm hoping tho that next year i'll be able to go there for the holidays. there or at least australia. we'll see.

i can't wait til tomorrow... i'm gonna hit robson street with sabz and cin!! we're only gonna hit banana republic and zara. power shopping... woohoo!!

i love the holidays! last night i stayed at home all night (yes, it was a saturday night at that!) and i made eight christmas presents. so what if they're all the same thing... at least they're different colors :o). sabby called to see if i wanted to come out and play, but i had to turn her down. so i sewed and sewed like the wind til i was done. how fulfilling! now i have eight presents for eight girls. and it probably cost me about 5 bucks each! wow. this is the most frugal christmas since i was 6 and drew pictures and gave them as presents!

oh my gosh. it is almost three in the morning and i just got home an hour and a half ago... it's crazy snowing up here!! there's about two and a half inches of snow that has already fallen and it's still coming down!! the weather report says that it'll be snowing almost all weekend! i really like the snow and all, but it really sucked this evening.

see, i technically would have made it home at about midnight but i decided to accompany joe while we dropped off his two other friends. we went to this restaurant in yaletown (aka yuppie-town) called "section 3". it used to be called "de niro's" but mr. robert de niro found out that it was named that and kindly asked the owner to change the name. i heard that the person who owned the place named it after him cuz he was her favorite actor or something, but he still wanted it changed. oh well.

ANYHOW, the restaurant is pretty cool. it had a nice set up and played good music (yes kuya, i think you'd like it). the only downfall was that it was so pricey! i ordered a pizza and it cost me $11. it was almost the size of a real small pizza, like from dominoes, and it didn't even taste that special.

so we took off for home and it was so hellish. i live what would normally be a 15 minute drive from downtown, but since we have snow in the forecast, it took 40 minutes. yes it sucked. what sucked worse is that we got stuck at the base of a hill in east vancouver (aka ghetto vancouver) until one of joe's friends came to pick us up in his 4runner. yay, four wheel drive!! i'm sorry, but joe, you're car is really nice and all but it SUCKS in the snow (he's got a bmw something something). so THAT excursion took us about oh... 2 hours.

i wish tomorrow was a school day.. then it would be cancelled. then all of this craziness would've been worth it. instead, i am so exhausted. i think in the future, i will not leave the house unless the vehicle i ride is a 4X4.

i am sooooo cold!! i know it's easy to say "it's cuz she lives in canada", but i'd just like to point out that if it's cold for me, imagine how cold it'd be for you! it's like -6 celsius right now here in vancouver... not even the coldest part of canada! you'd probably die if you were up here! ;op

but it's all good. i'm hoping it'll snow tonight and tomorrow so i won't have to work. as long as i can remember, the best part of going to school was the vacations and the snow days! i love snow days :o)

on a warmer note, i just found out that char is leaving for cali this sunday the 17th. so she'll miss me and annie's super birthday party... no big i guess. i'll see her when i get there. and she's even coming back to vancouver on the same day as me! i'm so excited! she's talking about taking me to a yummy hawaiian restaurant so i can hear leny speak pidgin. and hopefully we can all spend new years together... kuya, we'd better be doing something fun... i can't wait!

i have never had such a bad day. well it didn't completely suck. as usual, there were the high points, like talking to people who make me smile. i guess there was just more lows than highs today. i hope tomorrow is better.

i'm so happy. i just finished all of my christmas shopping for my family... i guess it's time to start wrapping.

i had such a great day. i went to church with my dad yesterday because it was the Immaculate Conception. he told me that in the philippines this is a day of obligation (as in being obligated to go to church) so we went, and even listened to a choir from the philiippines. they were really good. they sounded like a big bunch of guys, but in reality there were only a dozen of them! boy could they sing!

after church we went back home and i just chilled around until about 430pm when kris came over to pick me up... we had a shopping date last night! we went out for sushi, then hit banana republic where kris found a NICE coat. he looked good. the robson street shopping wasn't too impressive, and the cold didn't help. i swear it must've been -3 celsius or something last night! so we hit the department stores until close. we didn't do much there except for look for presents for his mom, and my sisters. we hit the perfume department and i think i found the smell i like. it's RALPH. it's smells SO good... i think kris said it smelled "so good i just want to bite!" i think we have a winner folks!

afterwards, we were gonna see if anyone else had any plans for a cold friday night but everyone was busy. so kris and i decided to hit wettbar. we were both in jeans so there wasn't really anywhere else that would let us in. saturday nights at wettbar are really fun cuz they play more popular r&b and oldschool, and it's usually really packed. friday nights are a completely different story... they play r&b and rap, yes, but they also play BOOTY! it was so funny. it was like booty version of everything! kris and i danced only a bit cuz we just couldn't keep up! the mixing wasn't so great either so we couldn't keep our groove on for long. it was cool tho cuz kris saw some old highschool friends and we sat and talked most of the time until we all decided to leave.

when we left the club, we hit a coffee shop and chatted til about 4am. we had such a great time. i've known kris for almost 5 years now and i'm so glad we're tight. it's not even weird how he's craig's best guy friend cuz he's probably my best guy friend out here too. so yes, i am a bit tired, but i'm content.

i wasn't in a very good mood in that last entry. sorry. i just hate getting sick. it drives me crazy. especially when it's my most favorite month of the year and i got an endless load of things to do. i tell you, for anyone who wants to lose weight, stress is the best diet!

my day wasn't as stressful as it could have been. yesterday at work, i was helping the kindergarten teacher type out the comments for report cards. she was impressed at my speed... in other words, she types REALLY slow. well today, i had to proofread the other comments she put in. there were no mistakes in her grammar or spelling, but the program the teachers are using SUCKS. it has a code where it would automatically change the he/hims into she/hers and for one reason or another, it wasn't working for the boys. and what's worse than a program that sucks? people who use it who's reasoning is that "the computer just knows who is a boy and who is a girl."... a computer is a machine. it doesn't know anything. it's just programmed.

i know it sounds like i'm in a not so good mood but really i am. see, i'd be in a bad mood if i were older and needed to use computers but didn't know a thing about them... like the teachers stressing out at the school. hahaha!

today was a pretty good day considering i have been running on 4 hours of sleep. i'm impressed. my eating habits are also way out of whack. since that last sushi lunch, i haven't eaten a good sit down meal, let alone one at the right time of day. even then, that lunch was at 330pm!! and tonight, mom cooked chicken adobo... i am almost sure of it. man, i wonder what's wrong with me... i think there's a full moon approaching or something.

i think i'm coming down with a cold... those darn kids. they cough, sneeze and pick their noses. i swear, every time i see them i think of rats carrying the bubonic plague. if i get sick, watch out. i will NOT be a happy girl!

what a nice monday. one of my students cancelled so i didn't have to work so hard today! yeah, i'm getting lazy ;op. even though i tutor some of these kids for just an hour at a time, every hour with them calls for at least another hour of work for me. unpaid. it's on account of all the preparation i need to do for that specific kid and what they need to learn at what level. hmmm now that i think about it, i might have to start charging more.

anyways, i just ended up working the whole morning. then i went out to eat sushi with bobby, one of my friends from highschool. this would make it the third day in a row that i've eaten sushi... mmm i love it. bobby is hilarious. i swear he is such a mac, but last night he called me up to do lunch today cuz he wanted to catch up. his big kwento was that he found out his girlfriend (well, she's his ex now) was just playing him! that's kinda sucky, even if he did have it coming to him. karma scares me sometimes, but i really believe that what goes around comes around... *shiver*

after lunch, i went out with joy. she's the best. we have the best times together no matter what we do. i guess it helps that we laugh so easy... especially at each other. we're both in the same boat (being pillars of the community and all ;op ) so we both needed our weekly dosage of shopping together. we hit south granville street, a street where most of the shops are specialty: clothing, housewares, and food. last week we did mostly clothing stores, and today we hit the houseware stores. i saw a few really good christmas presents for people, and even managed to buy my mom and annie a couple things. even though joy and i picked up a few goodies from pier 1 imports, i must say that my pick for the day from the stores on south granville is caban by club monaco. if you've ever been inside a club monaco, just think of caban as "club monaco for your house". very cool.

since i got home from shopping, i have been online. i don't think i will make it to LA (all the flights are sold out!) but i've been slightly successful with my search for flights to san francisco. i thought it'd be neat to go there for new years, but my mom doesn't want to go. i really wanted to do some travelling with my family but they've all got their own agendas. dad's headed to the philippines on the 26th and annie's headed to toronto after new years. i think even sarah's going to whistler. my mom wanted to go to places like florida, michigan, hawaii, or LA and san fran during her holiday break and i was all up for joining her. now she's thinking about not going anywhere at all. this sucks cuz i have been hyped about going somewhere all last month at least and now i feel like i might not go because of my mom. i know i can go but now she's at the point where she's saying things like "i don't see why you need to go anywhere right now. why not wait until your spring break? then you could go somewhere else.". i hate that.

i saw some poo on the ground this morning. i thought of my kuya ;op

man am i beat. i was supposed to go to church with annie at noon, but when we got there we were like "hmmm.. why is the parking lot half empty? and why are there people leaving the church?" then we looked at the door of the church and it said "please note the new mass times: 9am and 11am". we were kinda choked but we ended up going to a 5pm one later on.

i got my hair cut at eaton's by a lady named denora. she's really good. she made my hair look so good! it was mostly a trim, but she fixed a lot of the mistakes that the previous hairstylist did to my hair a couple months back. thank goodness for people like her :o)

since i was downtown, i went shopping and bought my dad a beatle's cd. i was with sabby, wee, anson and paddy so we did a bit of windowshopping before heading to my house. my house is such a great meeting place. it's location is central from richmond, downtown and burnaby, and there's ALWAYS something to eat here! we ended up looking at my old grad photos and eating ensaymada my mom baked last night (mmm... ma sarap!)

not long after we ate, i headed out to hockey. today was a great game even though we lost. but the opposing team was pretty mean. they are by far one of the best teams in our league, and we really kept up with them. they borrowed a water bottle from us during the game, but when i went to retrieve it i heard one of them say an impolite comment of me. i use the word impolite, cuz it wasn't horribly mean or anything like that. he just yelled out after me "what an UGLY man!!" and the rest of those guys laughed. so without a split second of thought, i turned around and said:

*ahem*

"that's what YO MOMMA said when the doctor pulled you out!"

heehee... i can have quite the mouth on me ;o) ...but i think the occasion called for it. besides, i think it was well put. they were real jerks. i will sleep well tonight.

what a beautiful morning. it's been rainy all week here so it's nice to wake up to some sun.

pharcyde last night was good. actually they were really good. but the crowd was something else. i've been to shows like this before and i must say vancouver has by far one of the WORST hiphop audiences. even victoria audiences have a better attitude than vancouver ones (and that's disappointing for vancouverites). like my kuya once said "everyone up here's got some attitude" and now i see his point. there are WAY too many of those richboys wanting to be all hardcore... dressed head to toe in their triple 5 soul gear, waving their towels, steppin on each others' etnies as they get as close as they can to the stage, elbowing everyone and anyone.

and that's just the guys!!
i don't think i saw one chick there that didn't have "wanna go to bed with me?" in their eyes! it seems like all the hos in the lower mainland congregate at the hiphop shows to try and get laid by a black guy. anyone who's been to vancouver knows: the population looks asian and white. now when i say asian, i pretty much mean all the asias except for filipinos. yes there are a lot of filipinos around, but my relatives don't count. and all the white guys always come downtown from the suburbs... the rich and not so rich ones. yep i'm talkin quality try-hards.

i really gotta move to cali, huh kuya?

so i'm done with the chillin'... i'm wondering tho: what is the origin of rap? i was tutoring a student last night and he asked me this. he also asked me a bunch of questions about mtv and how it was received by the black americans... i think mtv didn't want to show any black artists on it when it first started or something. i know the program "YO! mtv raps" debut was in august 1988... but was michael jackson really the first black artist to be aired on mtv? hmmm.. something to think about on my way to the concert...

i am so tired. i had to work today (yes, it IS a saturday) and it was boring. but now that's over, i can just chill til the pharcyde concert i'm going to tonight. i cannot wait!

don't you hate it when you are totally up for something like just listening to some good music but then when you get to the club, it ends up that the band playing isn't what you expected?...

last night, annie, chris, rika and i were supposed to hit purple onion to watch a triphop band. we were pretty excited cuz we'd heard about this show a month ago. well, it turns out that the band wasn't there for one reason or another and in its place was a punk band. it's not that we couldn't take the punk, we were just so not in the mood for it. so we took off to a pub called shenannigan's. it was waay better, but that doesn't really say much. at least the drinks were cheap! we stayed til about midnight then headed out to do something that would satisfy our need for something to do: we hit a karaoke place. that was fun. i don't think i have a great voice or what, but if there's anything i like it's to sing... and dance... and sing and dance. hehehe i must be filipina!

the game last night was awesome, even though i got there late. i hope this is a beginning of a winning streak for the grizzlies. i got really interested in them 3 seasons ago, and i am a big fan. but i admit, when they first came into the NBA i wasn't too sure about how well vancouver (or canada even) would do against the american teams. basketball is really big in the states... i guess like hockey is for us in canada. so it must be crappy to lose to the "canadians", even though practically everyone playing for canada is american... hehehe.

ok... i didn't go shopping which is okay. i think i can live without purchasing a 200$ dress. but it would've at least lightened up my boring day. i had SUCH a mediocre day. it was just so blah. and the cold rainy weather didn't help at all. i think it's even slowing down my computer... the lights flicker in my house and i'm wondering if there'll be a power out cuz of the rain. we'll see...

nope, no power out tonight.

i think i want to go shopping. the dress i mentionned earlier has been on my mind. but do i really need a dress?... i hate it when i'm not one hundred percent sure about little things like that. it leaves too much room for "buyer's regret". well, we'll see. regardless, i will be doing some serious shopping one of these days when i'm free. it's almost annie and my birthday, not to mention christmas, so i'd better start soon!

today will be a long day like yesterday. i'm going to head out to work in about 10 minutes and i will not be done until 7:30pm. at least i get to go to a grizzly game tonight... the basketball team, not the bear.

talk about freakiness! i went to bed at 2:34am last night and then woke up with a start at exactly 3:34am with a start. i had a nightmare. i can't remember much except that i was in my house, i saw a suspicious looking man outside sarah's bedroom window, then the next thing i know, i was being choked by something or someone. i felt uneasy when i woke up so i sipped a bit of apple juice, then thought about happy things and fell back asleep. that sleep was good, but i just woke up maybe half an hour ago to get ready for work... and i am so sleepy!! looks like i'll be having another long long day.

don't you hate it when a word is just on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite remember what it is? that's called lethogica. i had a bad case of it two saturdays ago when my cousin gary came up for a brief visit. we were hanging with char, aimee and meesh at a tea-house nearby and for one reason or another we were talking about gross bodily functions. kuya, the word we were all trying to remember is PERISTALSIS ;o). look at that. two big words in one paragraph. am i a linguist or what?

monday has passed and i am pooped. i had a very boring and yet tiring day. i'm sure any other person in the field of education knows what i mean. and it always feels like i'm working. when i get home at the end of my day, i find that i still have so much to do... correct, research, prepare. it never ends!

last friday my family and i went to victoria to see my sister annie's graduation ceremony. it was a good ceremony. not too long or boring. but chris (annie's boyfriend) and i agreed that it would have been waay cooler if you could get your very own "theme song" playing for you while you walk across your stage to get your diploma. why not? you've been in school for how long in your life already... would it really hurt if you had the chance to strut your stuff while the audience gets a small taste of your personality? i don't think so. annie's song would have to be something like "baby got back". she likes to shake her booty ;o)

our baby sister sarah is now working at the newly opened eaton's (a department store that would resemble a mini macy's) on saturday and she loves it. she's in the junior miss section so you can just imagine how her store credit card balance will look like in a few weeks! but as long as she hooks me up with this sweet plaid dress i like, it's all good :o)

sunday, i rested... for a bit only. i had to play ice hockey that night so i needed to be alert. lil me all crushed up wouldn't make for a pretty sight.