amusing law reading of the day

credits to charles i. -
The perfect example of equal protection clause

and while this looked like drunken follies of those in their ivory tower, we came across this proposal in Japan to tax handsome men. So basically when you get tax exempt that is the country's way of showing that you are really fugly.

Merry Christmas Greeting

‎"Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, and gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures). The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s)."

-A lawyers holiday greetings

Reminiscent of recent conversations

Liar Liar.

A movie about a scumbag lawyer

Hits the nail on the head on this one

:P

And of blogging while in a bad mood

and the readers reaction are...

But it wasn't always like that.

it used to be fun.

Then we started seeing fundamental differences in our way of life.

All I want to do is text 

but seriously the phone bill is getting to me more than any smartphone block

My days are running out.

I just need to

This is a gift to myself

Last night may have been one of the most introspective nights I had over the din of Gangnam style,  and various Christmas Jingles and I have compiled a list of things I want to do over the next year. I haven't made any  real new year's resolution for the past three years now and I realized there are some things I really want to change this year.

1. To give myself value. 
   Stop all the self - immolation I have done while in law school. I made it here just like every other honor student who enrolled, and they have had the same heartbreaks along the way as I had. Excellence is reached when the things have gotten so low, yet the person still plowed on with his 10,000 hours. For all the years I've spent fangirling Chicago Bulls, I seem to have forgotten Michael Jordan's biography.
   
   It's time to forgive myself for not measuring up to my own expectations. Its also time to forgive myself because I simply did not have the time. I was consumed with stuff I had to do  with the family, to the point my schedule was stretched, I even got hospitalized.
   It is time to recoup, focus, and just do it.
   
2. To stop forcing the issue; chasing. 
   If it was really meant for me, it would come to me. If someone wanted to give me flowers I will get them out of their own freewill. I never asked anyone to give me flowers and I got it when I was in elementary, from oblation runs, in exchanged gifts.
   
   Last night was particularly illuminating. All I wanted, which became a point of contention for the past two months was a decent skype call from the person who made my world go round this past year, and I didn't get it. While I was getting shit from him despite best efforts on the turn of midnight, suddenly my bestfriend who I didn't tell about my 'issues' greeted me Merry Christmas on the other window. I thought it was the standard greeting. He was cities away with the rest of his extended family. I wished him Merry Christmas back, no sense of spreading my sadness when I know he is in his happy place, then suddenly out of the blue he makes it into a Skype call greets me with his aunty, his cousins, and it was the best Skype call I've had. I couldn't even say anything I was just overwhelmed. There I was sitting frustrated, feeling sorry for myself, wishing I did not go online, and there was my bestfriend smiling back at me and all I could do was wave back and nod and they thought I wasn't speaking because I can't hear them. I just couldn't speak. After that, it just wasn't so bad anymore. I may not have gotten the love I wanted so bad, but I think last night I got one I deserved.
   
3. To do things with value.
   Just noticed how much stuff we do with our daily lives that just consists of consuming, without us per se generating value. Studying has value because it has mental training, reading on the internet about the latest memes, while entertaining, doesn't add anything. Nor is finishing the entire genre archive of my favorite fan ship (I've been in it since 2004, and I've pretty much read anyone worth reading with decent grammar skills on my pairing on ff.net + lj.com). That won't help me for my bar exams either. If I got rid of those I'd actually have time to jog and lose 10 kilograms! by March 8.
   
   
   Ill keep my list a short one. So that by the end of the year I have no excuse. 

So this is why blogging is a personal creative non-fiction.

The best thoughts come when were in the shower.

I can attest to this fact because the words flowed like the water pouring from the bidet while I was in there unable to type, and they are all gone as I go against the blank page.

This would probably be one of my most incoherent writings as of late; perhaps it’s a way to ensure that I do not end up doing the same thing for the bar exams or my SLR.

I was watching ETC there was a commercial of the new MTV series, Catfish. It talked about how people in an online relationship seem to sell a different persona than what they are in real life. There are those which have even gone so far as to give a picture of a different person, which then reminds me of a conversation with Martin in the library when we were talking about all the black propaganda during the elections. He was lamenting the fact that there are certain rumors totally based on lies and if they wanted to spread around lies they should have made those that are not easily verifiable to be debunked.  I am planning to watch that show and say to myself “Thank God I don’t have that problem.”

I never realized how much typing on blogger bothered me when I couldn’t make the paragraphs justified and that there was no auto correct on the program which would have caught on my typos and lack of words when my brain thinks of things faster than my fingers can type. Sometimes it’s a struggle to write the next sentence because my brain has already jumped into a new one and I forgot the thing I had to say.

For the fourth time I finished the book of Malcolm Gladwell, Blink. It talked about thin-slicing, the process of our brain in making snap decisions based on experiences gathered over the years, perhaps over ten thousand hours (as listed in his succeeding book Outliers). According to this book our series of human interactions have a pattern – from how an athlete manages to know exactly when to hit the ball with a baseball bat, Andre Agassi tilting his wrist exactly at eight degrees  when the tennis ball slides down his racket, or why the psychologists at the testing center could predict with 95% accuracy whether the marriage of the couple they were studying would end up in divorce within the span of 15 years.

Reading that part with dread, the researchers concluded that for a relationship to last there needs to be a ratio of happiness to unhappiness ratio of 1:5. So for every bad moment there needs to be four good ones, and somehow they were able to determine this by studying one hour clips of a couple’s interactions on a topic they do not agree upon. For example, the couple had a dog, which the guy clearly didn’t like, while the girl absolutely loved. The dynamics of their conversation were recorded and compared to their recording of retelling the examiners how they first met.

Arguing was good, disagreeing allowed couples to look for solutions where their minds would reach an agreement. Just like 1206 of the Civil Code where it said a contract was a meeting of the minds. But contempt was not. It looked down on the other from a different plane establish a difference in levels and a reason for disengagement.

Every day we are taught that the words we have are our weapon. Latin maxims are our last dagger. I was so intent on winning him over failing to realize that there was no competition and I ended up killing the love I was trying to win. All my words did not have any actions to temper them. I. on disagreements felt I was slighted, that I was losing him to a bestfriend that wanted his attention as much as I did, that whatever my bitchy personality was lacking I could have won him better with my other attributes to the point that it did nothing but prove that all I was after was to show how I was better than him, that when all I wanted was to show how much I valued his presence over anything else that I ended up talking to him instead of getting ready for class that I had to subsequently drop while he could not be bothered to skype with me once a week on the only day I have a decent internet access,  I became one of those clingy girlfriends that men habitually complain of during drinking sessions.

So this is what its like to be crazy in love with someone huh?  It’s consuming. When we started the relationship I was just excited, happy, floating on cloud 9. He had misgivings, what if we never worked out then we would never see each other again just like that? Maybe I should not have thrown caution to the winds. It’s the 20^th tomorrow, am I spending it alone? Maybe. The worst thing in having a phone is knowing it can receive messages from anybody but not the one you were waiting for. 

I thought I had the girlfriend role down to a t. I knew exactly three dishes to cook so at least if we ended up married he can choose among steak, stew or spaghetti. For dessert I can make a creamy refrigerator cake. I’ve been introduced to parents. I wasn’t a slut, in fact based on 9gag I would have been awesome because I played games. On retrospect, previous relationships didn’t work out because A was a jerk where after we fought he would list down every good thing he did for me, while L can’t be bothered with loyalty until he found himself a continent away. Dates that did not last two months? My old guy pals rationalized it that these guys who never me knew before wouldn’t have been able to distinguish had I been joking or not with the language I employed if they didn’t have a basis of comparison, but they said there was hope for me yet since I had them as friends after all for the past 12, 10, to 6, and 3 years.

I think you met me at the worst time in my life. Whatever good you’ve seen was buried under the daily stress, fatigue and chucking of self-esteem. I guess that’s why in law school they have a classification of relationships. Those that were formed before law school and survived 1L are bound to last, because they knew the person how he was before law and how he can be again after the bar exams, while those who got in a relationship while in law school never last because they only see us in our most horrible moments for the next few years until the bar exams are over and think of it as truth. Heck even most under the first category ended up getting married right after law school to the point we have bar babies being born, while the people in the second category according to my professor had a new relationship every semester like school supplies.

What am I writing for? To ignore the compulsion to check my phone ever few minutes to see if there’s a message not trusting my senses that there’s no buzzing in the front pocket of my pants anymore. No good morning, no good night, no message as I was leaving home for the next 5 days. It was easier to ignore when there was a lot of things going on. Now it’s a damn holiday and things are slowing down. Its all coming back to me now. I have outlined my faults, but what can these do? Am I apologizing for the things I said? I apologize for the way I said them, that I wasn’t there to show you that there was no real venom in my voice and no spite, but I had to say them somehow. I was not comfortable with how much you valued her, how different our views are towards education, that you moving away bothered me so much to a degree that regardless of what I know it didn’t stop me from feeling that I was losing you. Tomorrow is the 20^th again and I am starting to dread it.  

What is it like to have free time on you hands

• There's "ME" Time for the personal beauty regimen I sometime's never get to do especially on hectic weeks since I only have one day off. I bought these items on a whim and its the first time I tried them and I'm glad that a.) I am not allergic to them, and b) they proved to be worth my money.
• Watson's Glam line for Nose Strips delivered its promise of effectively removing blackheads from problem spots ! At only P 99.00 for 12 strips, usable 2x a week in between 3 day intervals, not bad!
• I used Beauty Bar's Apple and Evening Primrose Mask after using the nose strip since my skin felt a bit tight and dry! and now my skin is shiny (not in the mood to add a pic of my face and scare you all off). This one is sold for P 39.00 each but if you buy 2 at a time, the set costs P59.00 only and this one can be used daily in place of your moisturizing creams.  

• I get to read random internet pages without feeling guilty that I was not reading my cases!   
• Just like this Cracked article which basically gave sense to the roller coaster of emotions I could not adequately put into words whenever law school chucks my self-esteem down the window. Dare I say, it took him 13 years to come up with these realizations, I went to law school and got a crash course.
• Another bout of series cramming / movie hopping as well
• Like a discussion on "Who is Gossip Girl?" and its none other than Dan - Pathetic - Humphrey.



• Rurouni Kenshin the Movie ! 
• Oh-god-its-so-so-awesome-iamdeadsigh-o/ Because it was sooooo fdamn gooooood, instead from a limited run of 5 days (December 5 to 10), SM Supermalls realized they had a sleeper hit and decided to extend showing until December 24, just before the Metro Manila Film Festival forces every foreign film out of the cinema in favor of some original Filipino flop movie (self-hate much I know, but I shall continue to diss until they find an original plot).
• It totally captivated the essence of the anime. In fact I started watching my anime cd's right after I got home and the movie got everything in the first 3 episodes right even with the lone strand of hair in Saitou's face during the opening!
• Sadly the movie ended just around the first arc, which was only until the introduction of Megumi into the plot, so sadly we don't get to see our dearly beloved Aoshi and Misao :< 







• Cloud Atlas
• This movie spans for three hours with about six different plots running at the same time. As one youtube comment put it, "its determined to confuse in the first hour." Its not an "awwww" gushing movie; However I found the movie to be running on one general theme only but depicted in the six different scenarios set in multiple eras not depicted linearly (because each scenario started with the past then went back to the future then somehow explained everything in the present) . 
• On top of that it only had like 8 all star actors portraying the six different roles which was what made the film amazing because they were in character and one can really see the range and mettle of skills that they had to differentiate one from the other.
• On other news I can see my floor again! Joke, but at least I am not having dreams that my paper stacks of readings would topple over me. 

Why exchange gifts with close friends is fun, on the reverse!

Whoever you are :D

It was unexpected, but appreciated.
Arigatou Gozaimasu!

An Exchange Gift Guide = )

Yesterday I got the comment that I was hard to buy gifts for. I don't really know where that comment came from but since when I window shop I tend to be "needs" specific. I'm posting a list of things I intend to buy the next time I have cash which is probably after Christmas, so if my kind mommy/daddy bought this for me, rest assured I shall be using them.

A Panda Car Head Rest

Actually, I like any panda stuff. Even if its not a head rest.

I need a watch, because I left my only one at the other house I live in.

It doesn't have to be branded but you get the general style.

If you can get it in panda, that would be nice too!

Well its a charger and speaker all in one!

This one is cute and pretty handy for the mall trips. I like the grey one.

Boyfriend Appreciation Day

Today I'll try to make this a less sappy cheesy post though I have to admit I wanted to started this in old english with the line of How do I love thee let me count the ways.... I wanted to make this one since August 27 (when I saw the drafts today), and I'll finally write it as part of Nanowrimo. 

When I was randomly searching on how to deal with boyfriend arguments on the internet a few months ago I was not disappointed. When I typed "my boyfriend is" I got a list of suggestions, majority of them negative, and I found it a tad bit unfair to all the boyfriends in the world (though some may end up deserving the names they are called) to be described in such manner. Granted, I too, am guilty of writing down my thoughts when I am angry / sad but yet I never got around to sit and type about my life when I am happy, maybe because I was so into the moment of enjoying it, and I feel like its about time I actually sat down to write all the good vibes I want to send my boyfriend's way. If I can get the time to talk to him about my problems then I can also have the time to tell him when I am happy and appreciative of all the things he does. 

One of the things I liked about my boyfriend is how easy it is to get into a conversation with him. It doesn't matter what topic it is, he listens and adds his thoughts on the matter too. He makes me feel excited enough to make me want to tell him first whats the interesting thing that happened to my day, and unlike most guys he actually responds. He doesn't mind sharing what happened to his day too even the littlest details which makes me feel I was actually with him when it happened to him. 

Another thing which is probably why I love love him is how stable he is personality wise. Its like even when my own temper flares he doesn't go to immediately fight fire with fire and he doesn't mind talking all the issues out until we get to the root cause of the problem, unlike in the past where I'd get stuck in ignoring/quiet spells, cool-offs, and lets just break up over this fight thing (though I am guilty of it too). With him I can count that we are still in a relationship even if we were in a fight (and not get surprised that I'm already single because my ex told all our friends the next day at school we were already over). 

His independence and strength of character really amazes me too. To be self-supporting at such a young age, not afraid to take risks and go across countries, and to have the initiative to work to make things better considering the environment he grew up in... To me its really something. 

He makes me laugh. Damn witty this one. 

Our complimentary strengths and weak spots. 

How responsive he is. I mean he really listens to what you're saying and if there's something I am unhappy with like less time due to work, suddenly I feel like 'why is he around at this hour when he has work tomorrow?' or when conversations always get cut short, I know when he is making up for it when I get the full details the day after; and on the dangerous topic of why I hate his girl "best friend" who is a totally passive-aggressive, attention seeking, and in a need of a therapist kind of person, at the back of my head I know he has been making changes to accommodate competing interests, even if my appreciation for his efforts are lacking or sidetracked by the latest eyebrow raising thing that girl bff has done and what not.    

I have to end this short now that he is awake. Lol.

    

Staycation 101: Movie Marathon

Ted (July 2012)

Now this is one movie I wish I've seen together with my boyfriend as recompense for all the chick flicks he may have sat through in his lifetime. Maybe its the bear, or the fact that it has such a foul mouth that makes this movie totally hilarious, or the fact that one can totally relate to it as it details every single man-child manifestation there seems to exist about men. From the girlfriend vs. bestfriend wars, to not dealing with emotions, childhood fears, 'immaturity', and what not; Mark Warhlberg who I thought was too old for this in the trailers was the perfect 35 year old who needs to grow up, after all, a man with a talking bear, no matter how awesome that bear is, is still a man with a bear. I'm going to stop here lest I ruin the magic of it in my head.

The Sweetest Thing (April 2002)

This one frankly bored me last year when I first saw it starting on HBO so I promptly flipped the channel in my bout channel-hopping. However, since I inadvertently got this copy from a friend, I decided to give this movie a chance, and then I realized its not so bad.

Typical Hot Blonde. Hot. Bitch. There's a running commentary of men who hates her. She's easy to lay, but closed off in emotions. Perfect for a one night stand but totally clueless about relationships until she decides to take a chance and drive halfway across the state to chase a man she had a connection with in a club only to find that it was already his wedding day the day she arrived. What is the guy to do, cancel his wedding of course!

But all is not lost with this movie because at the day there's this marvelous ode to the male organ sang in the tune of "I'm too sexy for my shirt" and some pretty horrific scenarios I do not want to be caught in, including but not limited to, having a d*ck stuck on your throat. Pretty good laugh even if its gutter humor. 

500 Days of Summer (October 2009)

I just love, love, loveeeee this movie! If I were an English or Humanities Prof, I'd give the writer and director of this movie and A++. This movie brings that scenic quality reading novels brings while keeping the oomph factor and the drama for movies very much intact. My heart went out to this young boy the moment the movie started with the line... this is not a love story. All throughout the movie I was readying myself for a Kleenex because my dear young boy is falling in love and its not his story just yet. I wanted to poke my screen, tell him to come to his senses, and stop himself from falling until he does... But you know what I loved most about this story? That even if things don't go our way, it does not mean we have missed our happy ending.

A Lot Like Love (Aug 2005)

If you are more impressed with the photographs taken within the movie rather than the movie itself that's a pretty bad sign. 

From the moment the movie started, the my first thought was, 'who the hell is this demi moore look a like?', and looking at Ashton Kutcher, well yeah I get the way he looks cute, but he kind of didnot throw off the look of 'dumb'. Its not like he is acting at all, as if he was just doing what he does in his everyday life - talking, having fun with his friends, and getting away with it because, well he looks cute. Cute and cute and that's pretty much it. No I don't hate Ashton, in fact I kind of liked him from his eyes, but I can't help but feel disappointed with this film and him. Considering this was 2005, and the fuckbuddy concept was not over used back then, this movie is totally flat. Just like Valentines Day. Oh wait he starred in that one too. 

Quarterlife Crisis, a day chronicle.

Sad onigiri.

No one said law school was easy, but its reaching the point of me saying everyday 'kill me now' which was I ended up doing a few months before I left the working world. This isn't a whimsical, fly by the moment thing. Rather its the product of cumulative experiences from one semester to another.

I look back to one conversation I had with one of my favorite professors in law school. He described first years as the bright eyed, hopeful individuals who think that law school life is as shiny and bright as it is seen on TV. Years of Boston Legal, Estrada Impeachment Trial, and the Corona Impeachment Trial glamorized the profession to the level of Gossip Girl sensationalizing high school life. Then come their second year where they get the grades from the year before and see that life is not what it seems, become disappointed, see their numbers diminishing, and the general feeling of loss after seeing the class number literally halved. I'm on my third year now, some would say almost at the final stretch, so close, so close to reaching my goal or dooming my fate, asking myself once again do I really want to do this?

Political Science was marketed as the best undergraduate degree course back then. If you took it there's no other career track other than becoming a lawyer, otherwise you'd be stuck as a teacher, a researcher or a bank person, forever enduring the questions of why didn't you go to law school, questions which I endured when I was out there working. On one side half of the people I know in law school had PolSci degrees, but I think its more useful in practice if you had Accounting instead. At least you have the work cut out for you on subjects like Obligations and Contracts, Credit Transactions, and Corporation Law.

I am getting sidetracked.

Ah yes, the great halls of Malcolm Hall always looked pristine, imposing and tad bit intimidating before. Now sometimes I think of it as saddening. I wanted to call it home when I first entered but right now there are periods of revulsion. One professor refused to give me a grade because I cited another in our final paper and he found it insulting (due to a personal political feud). In the next year that professor made a guy kneel so that he would pass in the same subject that he refused to give me a grade in. Now he is a shoo in to be an Associate Justice in the Supreme Court. Now I wonder what it would take to win a case.

The year after that I found myself as an irregular student, going into fourth year and third classes, where the professors expect me to know the answers to subjects I have never taken before. Third year, still the odd man out especially with the re-blocking of the system. I feel like being the ultimate politician because I'm sure I've known entire batches by now. I'm happy to survive on a day to day existence.

Maybe I am suffering from the Facebook effect...
Every post on newsfeed shows all my friends getting married, spending summer in Paris, US, backpacking all over the ASEAN Countries, and here I am, here, getting by trying to keep my dignity intact against everyday onslaught of recitations, lack of sleep, and the generally different temperament of people in law school.

But at the end of the day even if Mom offered to ship me out of the country and not look back, i'm not quitting this until its finished. I don't want to wake up when I'm forty and realize how much I regret not finishing. Thanks love for reminding me that.

Going to College or Not.

For Filipinos education has always been the greatest vehicle for social and financial mobility. Without it, one is stuck with jobs paying the minimum wage (if it is a legitimate employer). A degree is so important to attain here that there are those who also sacrificed their own education in favor of their younger siblings. Like a pay it forward system, the oldest see to it that the younger ones finish first before they attend to their own needs. Then they become so proud of what their younger siblings have achieved.  While there are others who would like to say that they were successful without it, even those who had been successful without it, they themselves have essentially sent their own children to school so that they would not suffer the risk of not being successful in life.

However other countries, primarily the first world which has been beset by the financial crisis are seemingly adopting the view that education may not be that important after all, counting the fact that it does not guarantee a job nor does it guarantee financial gain. To them its a vehicle of incurring a very heavy financial burden that can span to a decade and bottom line is if they are going to earn as much as an uneducated individual they'd rather not study at all. A very different mindset from where I am living in because here, having a degree is basically the minimum requirement if you wish to get any good job outside of a minimum wage, with some self-employed individuals being the exception. There's one serious flaw in the argument of nay-sayers to education though, and that is the equating education with material gain only; it is, in simplest terms, trying to equate a part of your life to the amount of money that the market will dictate. Everyone knows how fickle the law of supply and demand is;  'need' is not the motivational factor of demand, rather it can be as stupid as 'unsubstantiated fears (speculation)' and 'popularity' (think apple fanboys) to drive demand; Ten years from now when the market has again stabilized, what will happen to all those who chose not to study but end up stuck in a world where specialization has become the norm? There is no value created in unskilled labor, something that economists like Samuelson have forgotten, one clear example is China being able to churn out so much cheap and useless products because people would supply common labor in exchange for food. Compare that to goods made in Japan, and Germany where products have been associated with quality.

While there are arguments the higher education is not for everyone, like in MBA where it is discussed that once you have reached your level of incompetence, or in plain terms this student is just plain stupid to comprehend higher concepts; I do not agree that one should cease to pursue education. Its effects cannot be quantified by mere material gain or what an individual earns. An educated society is far better than a country full of idiots or have we all forgotten why there was  a point to civilization? The benefits to the person's psyche, his intellect and his experiences, and the effect to the society he is living in cannot be quantified.  Access to information and education should be made a human right, but until then, with the prohibitive costs of whether or not to get it, I hope that people make the right choice.