On the way to lunch

We were on our way to Eastwood today for lunch with some family friends. We were crossing a bridge, when we noticed this foreigner standing on the side of the bridge having a conversation with a man living under the bridge. It gave me this funny feeling inside. I've gotten so used to the situation here in the Philippines, that sometimes I can no longer see it. I've learned to ignore it. And it has already become second nature. But here was a guy, taking time out of his day to spend it with a (for lack of a better term) "taong grasa". There was no car in sight, so how did the foreigner get there? Did he really plan on going there? What did they talk about? How long did he stay?

It made me feel ashamed that there isn't anything I'm doing for that person under the bridge.

Must.Return.To.Relaxing.

It's the second week of my Theoretical Perspective and Issues in International Studies class....atleast I THINK that's the subject title....I just call it IS-201 because the title is sooooooo long. There's only two students: me and Hannah. She's from South Korea, and has been here for one year already. It's so weird with only two students. You definitely can't get away with anything at all! Like the other day, I was late, so of course it was very obvious. And there's always a 50% chance that I'd be called on to recite! Hahaha! Nah! Class mostly consists of Sir Radj talking to us. And all our quizzes and test are take home so that works to my advantage.

Today's class was more like a religion class than anything else. We were discussing St. Augustine's Salvation Theory and how it is man's goal to return to the golden age, which is paradise. Return because according to St. Augustine, the time of Adam & Eve and The Garden of Eden was the golden age. And man fell from the golden age because of the temptation of Eve. And then from there we ended up discussing the cruxifiction, the da vinci code, and the recent specials on national geographic channel. Also since Sir Radj's specialty is history he knows alot of not publicly known facts. It's very interesting to just listen to him. Too bad he has already chosen to retire from teaching, and will only be gracing the halls of MC as an environment student.

Alright enough of academics!

I was talking to a friend today. And she was stressing as to how to spend the rest of her days now that she has finally graduated from college. You know how since you were a kid in school, you always knew what was coming next? You enter elementary, then high school, and you finish off with college. But what comes after college? The.Rest.Of.Your.Life. That's a long time, and it's so hard to choose what kind of job to get because you could end up doing that for the rest of your life.Eek! Scary! What if you choose wrong? And you end up being miserable?! Worse! What if you can't find a job and you have no choice but to live with your parents?! Penniless and miserable! You end up a loser and alone! (said-she-the-single-bum-living-under-her-parents-roof) Okay. I should stop now, because I'm stressing.

Another thing I learned today. I'm the ONLY SINGLE person in our little group of friends.And now my skin is breaking out from all the stress.

So it looks like we're going to Canada this summer.....

We went to the Canadian embassy yesterday to get visas...urgh! We had to get up very early to make the 8am appointment, we were up by 5:30am. Turns out there were a lot of people applying so it was a good thing we got there early. While we were waiting, there was a woman at one of the counters talking in a very loud voice,and I'd like to point out that we were seated at the very back row. Not that she was angry or anything, but I got the feeling that she was kind of showing-off to the rest of the people in the waiting room. She was speaking with a "Canadian twang" and made it very obvious that she was indeed a citizen of Canada. And then just as she was about to leave she went back to the people she was talking to while waiting and said, loud enough for everybody to hear, "When you're in Vancouver, look me up and I'll show you around. Okay?" Hmmm.....wish you'd learn to use your inside voice lady!

Anyway.... Our turn comes and we get into a booth where the visa officer is waiting for us behind a thick glass. He just asked a couple of questions and reviewed the documents we brought. Needless to say we got approved! But not before he told us that we had to renew our passports because the lamination on the pictures were broken. Now my mom swears that she checked every passport the night before and everything was just fine. So it looks like they kind of bend the laminated part to see if it will pop open. Actually my passport was alright, but not until my mom decided to demonstrate what they did. Oh well....right after we went over to the DFA to renew them.

Okay, this is my first time to go over there, because usually my parents take care of it and have a travel agency renew them. But since we were already out, and it was still early (only 9:30am) We decided to just get it over with. When we got there, I understood why the parental units usually had an agency do it. Urgh! very chaotic with a lot of people shouting at you from all directions and telling you what you had to do. And since you're all confused with all the shouting, you just tend to follow the general direction of people. Which was not a good thing because, they charged for the application form and having them glue your picture on the form. When we got inside, we found out that we could have just gone straight in and get an application there and not pay anything!GRRRR!WTF! If we'd known that, we could have avoided all the sweaty people bumping into us!Argh! Oh well.....

Wanted: Easter Bunny

We're not at all that religious so we spent the Holy Week at home, enjoying the peace and quiet of an emtpy city. But today we went out for lunch and spent the day with our little cousins. Gotta love Heaven & Eggs! They have the best pancakes and you can choose from several types of syrup.I recommend the peach. As we entered, they gave our cousins hard boiled eggs to color while we waited for the food. Well Isha and I did not want to be left out of all the coloring, so we settled with making our paper placemats works of art. Hehehe! After lunch we spent a few minutes around the fountain taking pictures and throwing in coins. It's so weird, everytime we get together with our cousins, we all go a little crazy and act like a bunch of hyper kids.

So anyway, we went over to Floyd's to get ice cream and get hocked up on more sugar, because we needed the energy for the arcade. Where we somehow spent P800 in 2 hours! Urgh! How did that happen?! There was also a doggy obstacle course set up outside, and well.....I just couldn't resist. Woof woof!

I'm still waiting for the lifetime supply of Pedigree the judges promised me.Hmph!
more pics

contingency plan

CONGRATULATIONS TO MS. GISELLE GERMAN FOR GRADUATING CUM LAUDE!!!!!

Plan A

Fly off to NZ.Get a job. Enroll at AUT for Events Management . Get a job in events. Move into my own apartment. Live and be happy.

Time line: no idea.all depends on when we do get out of here.

Stress factor: hmmm.....job + school=moderate amount of stress for only a year if I go full time study.Probably less if I opt for the part-time, which will take me 4 years to complete the course.

Plan B

Stay here. Find a job. Get my Master's degree at MC(or I could try UP also. I found out today they also offer MA-IS). Get a Bachelor's degree in European Languages at UP. (eek! is there any way i can do it all at one go,with out killing myself in the process?) Study for the Foreign Service Officer exams. Take the FSO exams. Become an FSO. Go on to work for the DFA. Move into my own place. Live and be happy.

Time line: let's see....MA at MC takes 2 1/2 years if I take 9 units each sem. Let's say the BA in Euro Lang takes me another 4 years to complete.So that's already 6 1/2 years. The FSO review takes 2 months. The exams take approximately a year. That's a grand total of 7 years and 8 months.

Stress factor: i'm predicting the pull "out-my-hair" type of stress.sleepless nights. a ton of paper work. and i kiss my social life goodbye.

hmmm.....decisions....decisions.....what to do?

**********I just watched little manhattan yesterday.It's such a cute story!************