Big Week

This week was jam packed. Bad stuff happened, bad feelings were gotten over, fears were conquered, good stuff happened, lots of time with family was spent, and lots of food was eaten.

note: i stole most of these pictures from abbie's and tita del's uploads because i couldn't be bothered to bring my camera on wednesday hehe. 

Monday
Sleepless and exhausted, I go to school to submit pending requirements in order to be able to complete my curriculum. Like how my best friend's laptop refused to burn my disc after I managed to finish editing my documentary the night before, shit hit the fan at the last minute when my printer refused to print the thesis I spent so much time on writing because the ink cartridge was refilled and HP is a royal asshole about these things. I dejectedly pack up to travel for more than three hours to print it expensively elsewhere, only to have the whole thing rejected anyway. I admit, I'm at fault for doing things too late. Long story short, my efforts were proved futile as my professor informed me that I will need two weeks' worth of revisions to make the paper suit his standards. I go to the head of academics and was relieved to be informed that I can enroll again for completion and won't have to repeat the whole course next year. Hope restored. My plans are ruined, but my goals are still reachable. In a zombie-like state I quietly accepted my fate and tried to just live on for the next day because I had a job interview lined up, and tried to sleep well.

Tuesday
I woke up very early, and left the house all dressed up and ready. I was looking forward to going to a real job interview, to feel in charge of my life and competent. But long story short, I didn't know enough about cars to even be able to google my way out of the final test I had to pass. So this job, which I felt at the time was my last saving grace, ended up not being for me in the end. It wasn't easy to swallow because I liked the place and already had two friends. Plus, there was free coffee, the commute from and to home was easy and stress-free, and the salary was competitive. It also didn't help to still have the weight of my thesis rejection pulling me down. When the time came to say goodnight to beardy, I was coping well considering everything, but I admitted to feeling very incompetent, stupid and hopeless. But I was very open to feeling better again and felt really excited about the next day because we were scheduled to have a buffet lunch event with my cousins, who I haven't seen in a while. Best of all, I found out that it was the girls around my age and Jaro who are coming to the lunch! Fun became a certainty.

Wednesday
As if life was making up for all of the bad feelings, Wednesday turned out actually being about 1000000x times better than I expected. The food was AMAZING and there was a huge sushi table (although I firmly believe I didn't eat enough sushi) and a huge dessert table and my cousins and I were feeling very hyper from all of the sugar.

abbie's plate. sushi gems

the dessert table

 We somehow found ourselves acting like jackasses posing like idiots for pictures and singing silly songs. IT. WAS. AMAZING.

amazing matcha cake

seatmate/twin/sister

lalalala happeh famelleh. scuse my face

annoying people in the restroom with deplorable mirror picturetaking

jaro's humor is one of a kind. yes he meant all of it

 Even my uncle, aunt, and mom were in on the fun and we all really bonded and it was just amazing. It felt so nice to laugh at the silliest things. I love my family. I love food. I love hope.

CW from top: Jaro, Abbie, Thea, me, Cancan

Sometime during dessert I managed to convince everyone to go with Jaro and me to Alabang. The plan initially was that my mom, Jaro and I would leave the others in Makati after eating to gallivant around Alabang until my mom gets off from work to come home with us. But because October is usually holiday month, what with the day of the dead and sem breaks for students, somehow everyone was completely game and ready to leave and stay over!!! So we ended up ALL coming to Alabang to hang out and shop a little bit, and then we all went home to Laguna and had a nice sleepover! Unplanned get-togethers are THE BEST.

tita Del's paparazzo-skills at Alabang Town Center

Thursday
The next day, it was my turn to spontaneously come over. I went with tita Del, Abbie, Cancan and Thea when they left to go home. I napped for most of the day and played with my nieces who I missed so freaking much.
During the night we had a going away party for Jeff, one of our cousins, who is leaving for Dubai on Sunday. Long story short I got really drunk and the grape flavoured hookah didn't help one bit. But yeah, so much fun was had and it was nice to spend time with the boys, feeling freed from my worries about school and work for a while. It's nice to sit down and have a drink without feeling like I'm wasting time I should be spending doing something important, because I was actually on break and not being irresponsible.

Friday (today)
Most of us woke up at noon because we slept in the morning. We had a huge banquet of a very random weird assortment of food for breakfast, as is usually the case, for some reason, after a night involving alcohol at tita Del's place. After nursing the bitter beginning of my hangover, I managed to enjoy food again and maybe ate too much. Hehe.

our spot at the cemetery

We went to the cemetery and then we went to Eastwood! It's rare to have everyone be so ready and available for such impromptu trips to everywhere. It's so nice! And so much good food!!! Cancan said I looked like I lost weight when we met on Wednesday, but right now I have a HUGE GUT in the place of the void caused by being too stressed to eat while handling my requirements. No regrets man. No regrets. Tomorrow I'm eating healthy again. :)

I loved having tester-smeared hands at the end of the day from shopping and looking for makeup, it felt symbolical almost. Testing stuff, not buying most of them, getting your hands dirty, but leaving a pretty mess where your mistakes were made, and coming home with what you needed anyway (which you wouldn't have realized without making the mess of mistakes!).

How I feel about all this can also be summed up by part of what I wrote on my tumblr on Wednesday:

"...i’ve felt bad these few days because 1) i still can’t graduate 2) didn’t get accepted in my first job interview ..but right now i’m reminded of how nice it is to still be a jobless student, to still be your parents’ kid, to have sem break and time to drink and have fun, to have sleepovers with your cousins, and to be given some fun-money when your mom drops you off at the mall so you can have some coffee or cheap trinkets if you like. i’ve always guilt-tripped myself about still being dependent at this age, but now that i can say i have experienced trying my best and it just didn’t really work for me yet, i can say “why not enjoy it while i’m still at this stage?” i’m not imposing anything on anyone, and i show my gratitude and love to my mom when i can. i really don’t have any pride left to defend, and i’m not putting up a front pretending i’m independent and my mom is neglectful. im still sending out CV’s, and fully dedicated to getting my prof to approve me. so why should i make myself suffer?

I may do it two years late, and not with flying colours, but I will graduate.

and hopefully earn a living eventually.

there might be visa problems and money problems and work problems and things might not work out as i’d like, like how it happened with everything lately. but i know i’ll be okay. cos i’m okay now. i was dragged all muddy across the proverbial mud of life in the span of a couple of months and here i am, feeling okay."