Because My Thoughts are So Scattered As of the Moment for a Decent Blog Entry
Today is just like any other day in the office: boring. Perhaps this daily office routine has caused my scattered thoughts as of late (or maybe it’s just PMS, I don’t know), but I can’t seem to write a decent blog entry.
Anyway, I read from NY Mag’s the Cut that Michelle Obama graces the March 2009 cover of American Vogue. Wow, that says a lot about the scope of the First Lady’s influence. Apparently, she’s only the second First Lady to be on the cover of Vogue. Mr. President Barack Obama is one lucky man; albeit he is unluckier than I am with regards to his vice. Ha! Unlike Obama, I have not smoked for three days now in hopes of quitting. I feel goooood, yeaaah. Withdrawal high much? Well, I would rather have this than headaches please. Thank you. 
Cigarettes may be out for me, but coffee is still in. Starbucks Coffee, famous for unreasonably priced coffee and desserts (but has still managed to become a hip hangout the world over), has launched a more aggressive selling strategy. To lure in customers despite the recession, Starbucks will be offering coffee and breakfast combos for $3.95 in their US outlets. I hope Starbucks Philippines follows suit; I would love a cheaper coffee fix. Hehe.
Moving on to something that a daily premium coffee fix won’t fix, the construction of the second elevated U-turn in C5/Kalayaan has made my daily travel to work a nightmare for the past few weeks. Super congestion + stupid MMDA people/traffic police + disobedient motorists = HELL. Whether or not it will help lighten the traffic in this godforsaken area of Manila still has to be seen, but I just can’t wait for the construction to be over. I just hope this elevated U-turn is NOT as rectangular as the other one. It scares me that the inner side of the first U-turn has edges! Boo.
On to happier topics. My baby Chiquito, who’s turning 4 months tomorrow, has gained so much weight for the last two weeks. It’s insane—he looks so bloated now. It’s kind of cute, but actually scary. We don’t want him to get sick, so we’ll be starting him on a new diet next week. Let’s fight obesity before it starts. Hehe. Speaking of diet, I have not weighed myself yet since the weekend (before I started my new diet routine), but I feel better, lighter, and prettier. And prettier, no doubt I’ll be. I’ve realized that I have been spending too much for make up for the past few weeks! Crazy. Haha.
Even crazier is that Valentine’s Day, the most overrated (non)holiday, is almost here. My boyfriend and I still have no plans of celebrating it, though. Not that we need to plan anything, anyway. Heh. However, a day trip with boyfriend and college friends to Clark, Pampanga on Saturday for the 2009 International Hot Air Balloon Festival seems enticing. If only our upcoming trips are further out by a few more weeks, I could say yes to this Clark trip with lesser guilt. Hehe. Speaking of college, I almost forgot that it’s UP Fair 2009! I should haul my ass over to UP Diliman anytime this week (calling all my high school/college friends).
Regarding out-of-town trips, Kalay Lupa Mountaineering Club has an upcoming trek to Tarak Ridge, Mt. Mariveles, Bataan on Feb 28 to March 1. This will be my first climb for the year, my second major climb, and my second climb in all. It has got me excited for the past few days. I can’t wait.
Pardon the scattered thoughts. I just need to blurt them out. Heh.
One Month to Lose Insane Pounds
In a few weeks, it will be summer again. Time to wear skimpy bikinis and body-baring outfits. It’s the season when skinny is all the rage, and fatness is highly discouraged. As a beach lover, I find it my responsibility to shed ugly pounds, tone my body, and get physically fit for all our upcoming beach trips. In fact, I already have my summer goal of losing an insane amount of pounds in one month; or until March 5, just in time for our Malapascua and Bantayan Islands, Cebu getaway.
Actually, I have been on this weight loss battle for quite a while now. People who know me know that I have perhaps a (near-mid)lifelong battle of maintaining my ideal weight. From my preteen years (specifically, 11 to 12 years) to my current age (of a very young 23, heh), my weight has shifted back and forth, gone up and down the scale. Within this age range, I have gone from as low as 85 pounds to as high as 125 pounds. At around five feet four inches now, my current weight (of a little under 120) is dismal.
Over the years, I have tried a lot of dieting and weight loss tricks. Starvation figured prominently. There was a time when my friends and family thought that I had gone mad: I started counting, logging, and super-limiting my calorie intake. I painstakingly estimate-counted how much calorie I get for the whole day. At the craziest point, I limited myself to 800 calories a day! Yes, not very healthy, but it worked—in a month, I lost 20 pounds.
You are, by now, probably confused. I have been a vegetarian for a long time now, so losing weight should not be a problem for me, right? Well, that’s both right and wrong. There are many factors that contribute to my erratic weight behavior. One to blame is my metabolism (or the rate at which our bodies burn calories). Unfortunately, I was gifted with genetically slow metabolism. I have always envied my sister who, during our younger years and we were both highly physically active, would never get fat even if we ate the same amount of food everyday. Well, it’s okay, she’s shorter than I am anyway (I love you sis, hehe).
Another factor is my lifestyle. I tend to shift from interests to interests. Sometimes, I’d be so sedentary ala old turtles (and I’d do nothing but eat, watch movies, stay in front of the PC, and eat); other times, I’d be active that I’d be on the go for days, enroll in weekend dance classes, or jog/run whenever I could. BUT, I was never able to sustain a highly active lifestyle, especially now that I have a boring office job. It was better when I was still in college, when I had PE classes and I had time to exercise in the confines of the four walls of my room or at the school gym.
Well, enough of empty reminiscing. For this year, I have vowed to start a healthy lifestyle so I’d be able to lose excess pounds and maintain my ideal weight. According to various online calculators, my ideal weight should be between 107 to 127 pounds. My BMI (or Body Mass Index) as of current is at a healthy lower median of 20.7, but I am not satisfied. I aim to reach a BMI of less than 20 (18.5 is the lowest healthy BMI I can aim to have). Also, I aim to drop my weight to as low as 105 pounds again (which is a healthy weight when I calculate for my BMI). From then, I would try to keep it within the range of 107 to 110 pounds. Now, how do I do that?
Lust of the Moment: Sony Vaio P
As of recent, I have been lusting on netbooks! Yes, mini laptops that have LCDs 12 inches and below, are highly portable, and pack quite a few punch. As of the moment, Sony Vaio P definitely takes the cake for me. If I were to buy now (assuming I have the spare money), I would definitely choose this. Now, if only it comes in pink…
Features/Specifications:
1.33GHz Intel® Atom Z520 processor or Intel® Atom Z530 1.60 GHz HT
Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium or Home Basic (32-bit)
8″ LED backlit, 1600 x 768 display
XBRITE-ECO Technology
1.4 lbs. weight
Up to 60GB HDD (available 128GB SSD)
Up to 8-hours large capacity battery
2GB DDR SD2RAM
Multi-media Card (MMC) slot
Intel® High Definition Audio Sound System
SD memory card slot
Wireless LAN4: Atheros 802.11 b/g/n
Integrated Stereo A2DP Bluetooth® technology
Wireless WAN: Integrated Mobile Broadband
Built in webcam
2 USB ports
I/O connector for display and LAN adaptor
Sony Vaio P comes in four colors: Onyx Black, Garnet Red, Emerald Green, Crystal White. Price starts at $899.99, or at 49,999 in Philippine pesos.
On [Quitting] Smoking
I have always been averted to cigarette smoke—ironic, considering that I have been smoking for almost two years now. I remember hating my dad for smoking inside or near our house. We used to fight over it, with me throwing tantrums, complete with the I’m-allergic-to-cigarette-smoke-dad line. He’d just shrug it off, saying I’m just over-reacting or worse, imagining it.
But I was allergic to cigarette smoke. I’d start sneezing and coughing whenever I’d smell cigarette smoke. If it was my dad who was smoking, we’d start another tirade about it (it even came to a point when I showed him photos of cancer-stricken smokers’ lungs). It didn’t work. If it was someone else, particularly in public places where smoking is not really banned by law but not explicitly allowed, I’d give the mean eye to whoever that person was.
Imagine the hypocrisy when I started going to clubs. I didn’t mind feeling suffocated in a cigarette smoke-infested club as long as I was with friends, drinking, dancing, and having fun. I’d get stuffy nosed, and sometimes in clubs with poor exhaust, I’d get all red-and-teary-eyed. I’d go home after a whole night of enduring such, and my mom would be waiting by the door, ready to start her lecture with “You smell like an ashtray.“
A few years ago, I got into a relationship with a guy who started smoking when he was in high school. By that time, I had learned to master the art of holding my breath so as not to smell cigarette smoke. He’d smoke anywhere and anytime he had a chance and felt like smoking. My dad would rub this to my face when he wanted to insult and annoy me, or remind me that I just had my ‘karma’. It went like that for quite sometime, until the doomed relationship ended.
I could have been smoke-free until now, save for the club-going hypocrisy and my dad’s deliberate smoking to annoy me (which had, by the way, lessened over time); however, I went through a phase when I wanted to try anything and everything. I wanted to experience what it was like to be bad, be against the flow, have a vice. Smoking, sad to say, was the primary vice I thought about—an ultimate hypocrisy, indeed. Who would have thought that, one boring night in a bar, I would puff a friend’s cigarette and actually feel happy about it. It was just one puff of a stick of Marlboro reds; I remember I almost choked after trying it, but I consciously willed myself to like it and adapt my body to it. Soon enough, I was buying pack after pack of cigarettes of different brands and flavors. I tried and liked the more expensive and menthol ones, as my throat had less violent reactions to it. In a few weeks, I became the very type of person I swore I’d never be.
But I felt good. Smoking helped me through my sleepless nights while working part-time in a call center. It helped me relax before and after deadly Calculus exams. It made me feel more confident walking alone, waiting for friends in a club, or striking a conversation in an unfamiliar place. It helped me fight burn out and gave me much-needed breaks from stressful days at the office. It helped my creative juices flow more freely—seriously, after smoking a stick or two, I’d feel like I can write another 3000-word long article even though I have already done so. I’ve become a part of so many smokers’ cliques that gave me the feeling of exclusivity.
Smoking also helped shorten my breath, and I can’t breathe as deeply as I used to. I tire more easily now, and I feel cranky or lethargic whenever I haven’t had a stick for a few hours. My hair and my breath smells like an ashtray every time I’d smoke (mom was right, and I should know, I hated the smell as much as the smoke). I had break-outs and my skin felt drier. Worst of all? My smoking influenced my boyfriend to smoke, something I have regretted until now.
Midyear 2007, a few months after I started smoking and quitting and then smoking again, I decided that I was quitting smoking for good. It was my 22nd birthday, and I made a conscious effort to avoid smoking at all costs. I was working as a writer then, so it was a terrible time to quit (though I know that that time was as good as any). I craved for the feel of the smoke in my mouth, the stick between my lips and my fingers. To curb this craving, I ate a lot of comfort food; soon enough I had gained horrible pounds. I was able to survive for two months without a single puff, but it was damn hard. When I started again, I chain-smoked to make up for the time I quit.
My friend Dominic used to tell me, back when I have never puffed a single cigarette and wanted to try it, that smoking would never look good on me. He said I portray a different image, a personality where smoking doesn’t fit, and it would be better if I remain a healthy vegetarian who has all the fun without resorting to vices. The best thing he told me? Be SMART, don’t START. But I failed.
Well, I’ve had enough of the drama. Late last year, I made a conscious decision (again) to quit smoking, with the realization that I have to be easy on myself, all within limits of course. Since then, I have been smoking occasionally: a mere one or two sticks a day. This a great improvement, compared to my half-pack a day habit before. This year, I hope to continue to fight the urge to smoke regularly, and hopefully, before the end of the year, I have totally quit.
I admit this is going to be one hard feat to achieve. Bring me lethargy, crankiness, or damn weight gain, I don’t care. It’s about time, you know.
My To Do List for 2009
I know it’s a bit late to be posting a list of my New Year’s Resolution (not that I have any, haha), so I’ll post my To Do List for this year instead. Before you think I’m some OC freak who has her life organized and sorted out for the whole year, I am telling you, I am the exact opposite. I have so many plans and tasks left pending that most of the time, they are left just that, pending.
I also tend to take on a whole variety of interests. People who judge me before really getting to know me, (as well as friends who spill out their first impressions of me), mostly tell me that they thought I was only interested in a few superficial things, namely (and in no particular order): fashion and dressing up, makeup and other girly stuff, boys and cars (haha, they go well together), and going out to party. Yes, I’ve been labeled so many things: a fashionista, a tease/flirt (haha), a kikay, a gimikera (gawd, I hate that term), a maldita, and some other labels that you cannot really be proud of. I am not trying to put on airs, but most of my friends can affirm that their first impressions of me were wrong. Sorry to break your prejudice bubble, but I am more than meets the eye.
My uncanny knack for taking on a myriad of interests have both upsides and downsides. The most disturbing downside is that even though I have a whole slew of interests to focus on, I tend to be a master of no particular skill at the moment. I can work straight for 13 hours, write pages after pages of a technical paper, put my creative thoughts into thousands of words, dress up to party every night of the week, speak my mind out in front of a crowd, cook up tasty (vegetarian) dishes, climb mountains or bask under the sun in a lovely beach, but I am still at a loss as to what particular skill I can do best. Hmm, is that such a bad thing? I hope not.
For this year, I am hoping to accomplish a few important things. I want more positive changes in my life, and these are just a few of the things I can do to bring these about:
- Enroll in a Masters in International Studies Program (either in DLSU or UP).
- Take up intermediate courses in Français and Deutsch, (and hopefully, beginner courses in Español and Italiano).
- Take the qualifying test for the Board of Foreign Service Exams.
- Get back on a health and fitness routine: running/jogging every other day, badminton/other sports at least once a week, regulate daily food intake, and (gasp!) start on quitting smoking.
- Learn scuba diving or surfing. For real.
- Start saving up for my own car. It’s about time.
There, listing it down and putting it up in my blog make them seem more attainable. Haha. I’ll be updating this list with other To Do things I’ll come up with along the way. Wish me the constant energy and drive to achieve all these.
Care to share your To Do List for 2009? 
