date day, night

I hate it when a national holiday falls on my day-off. How come other people get to enjoy a workless day and have the weekends off? I work on Sundays! I don’t get a long weekend and I still need to share the train with them? No fair.

But April 9th treated me well. Met with Eula after er months – and we went shopping! Typical. After lunch we went around Market! Market! and finally got what I wanted – big, chunky, clunky rings. I LOVE IT. There were rows and rows and rows of stalls selling costume jewelry and semi-precious stones inside the mall. I mean it. We actually got LOST at one point. It was amazing. Eula said she saw Imelda Marcos shopping there once. You should go to there. Seriously.

Here’s Eula and I showing off our rings while inside CBTL in High Street. (We were hiding from the heat. Gah.)

I also bought necklaces and earrings. They’re selling ’em quite cheap anyway. Next time, I’ll buy bracelets. Let’s do this again, Eulaaaaa. ;)

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Met up with Jake that evening, then off to Trinoma to meet up with Carl and his friend and see Date Night.

THIS MOVIE HAS TINA FEY AND STEVE CARELL HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU GO WRONG. (The sex robots are just a bonus.)

Watch it.

Dinner at Tokyo Cafe with the rest of the HGC gang. I’ve avoided Tokyo Cafe for the longest time because I thought the food’s crazy expensive. Okay naman pala. Next time we go there I’ll order the parfait.

So there. How was your –

No. I won’t ask you about your weekend, because most likely you had a long weekend, so yeah yeah you had an extra day to watch DVDs. Hmp.

dear self,

Consider this schedule:

You wake up at 6 a.m., have coffee and maybe a sandwich, put on your running shoes, and start jogging (jog-walking, more like) at 6:30 a.m. This morning you finished at 7:30 a.m. Why not exercise till 8 a.m? You know, just for fun. Then sleep till around 10:30 then prepare for work.

Sounds good?

Never mind that you’re planning to eat crispy pata for dinner tonight – we’ll work on that later.

Come on, you don’t want to spend a fortune upping the size of your wardrobe do you? Do you?

vacation, or this incredible heat

Bulacan till Easter Sunday. Halu-halo. My mother’s caldereta and kare-kare, yum. Sex and the City. How I Met Your Mother. Some Big Bang Theory. One story, done, but needs re-reading and edits. One story, edited, final read, done (hopefully). Silly computer games, like Diner Dash, to kill time. Jollibee with my brother. Re-read Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Drank Mint Choco Bailey’s with my father while watching a godawful action film.  Made my brother watch The Ruins, and of course he hated me for it, hehe.

The heat was torture. I’d take a long cold shower when I wake up and in a few hours I’d be swimming in my own sweat. I’d take a shower in the afternoon, and I’d start sweating while wiping myself dry. How can we live like this?

I hate the summer. I love beaches, the feel of the sand, the look of the water and the sky, but I hate the heat. Hate it hate it hate it. If asked to choose between an airconditioned hotel room and swimming at the beach under direct sunlight, I’d choose the hotel room in a heartbeat. I’m a worthless tourist like that. Seriously, we should hold tours at night, and swim only when it’s dark. (Boy, I sure hope the sun would hide behind thick clouds during the Bohol trip with Jaykie and Friends next month.)

Anyway, met up with the boyfriend after Lent. It was so hot during the commute back to the metro that I was SERIOUSLY this close to punching a stranger. Seriously. Seriously. So I had a shower first in my airconditioned room. Airconditioning. It is bliss.

Went to UP. Lunch at Choco Kiss (airconditioning!), had the Chicken Kiev. Some The Office. On Tuesday we planned to stay indoors, but ahoy rotational blackouts. Even a moron wouldn’t want to stay indoors in this heat, so off we go to UP, which also experienced a blackout (fuck – it’s as if it’s following us), played cards with Mark who happened to be at the HGC tambayan, then off to the mall.

We watched this! (Mark mentioned that Jme wanted to watch it on Saturday I’m sorry Jme it was hot and I was miserable and I wanted to laugh please don’t hate me for dragging Jaykie and watching it ahead of you guys. T_T)

As I was saying –

Photo from Filmofilia.

I love this film. (Despite the fact that the children speak with an American accent while the adults speak with a Scottish accent – despite the fact that they’re all supposed to be Vikings.) It’s  one of those few 3D films that you won’t mind paying extra to watch through the funky glasses.  (Now, if I can find me a theater where your chair tilts as the dragon spins and descends…)

3D tech has been abused lately, but in this case, it’s quite effective.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I was sweating while we’re waiting in line to buy our tickets inside the mall?

I was sweating. Inside. The mall.

It was seven p.m. when the film ended, so it was safe to venture out since the sun’s finally disappeared from the sky. But before we went home we tried eating at this Vietnamese restaurant (whose name I can’t remember! The heat’s killing off my brain cells!) for dinner. I enjoyed the salad. The vegetable’s really fresh, and the dressing’s light and tasty.

All in all, great vacation. (But still – the heat’s a real fucker.)

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In other news, my story “Once They Were Gods” will appear in is in the April issue of Expanded Horizons soon. Watch this space.  Go click and read! :)

I’m also looking forward to the Summer Komikon and the Philippine Speculative Fiction V book launch this month. Yay!