sit down "birthday" dinner

i just had my first sit down "birthday" dinner, yay! i tasted the best steak in my life and i drunk 6 kinds of wines and cocktails. i got tipsy, hang-over and sobered (may not in order) multiple of times.

i had never drink that many beverages in my life: moscato d'asti, white zinfandel, strawberry decory, banana decory, margarita and the other white wine that i forgot the name (i think i may start a vice here).

my georgia family

keyk!

it's balot's birthday, too

the beautiful hostess,

the person who made it possible

gifts! that includes kinky ____.

(flat iron not included)

B-day in the USA

it's very cliche but i'm allowed to, coz it's my birthday, and i just added one to my age and that is horrible, so, i'm gonna give my birthday speech. 

i really don't like having my birthday. i remembered during highschool when all of my classmates would stand up and sing a birthday song for me. and then, i don't know what to do, should i stand up, too, or remain seated, or what should i say after the singing ended. i'm not good in delivering speech. sure, i had the biggest smile, it went ear to ear, coz i do that when i'm shy. and i was blushing so bad my body temperature increased a degree or two. i'm socially awkward, that's what it is. i don't like the attention and i don't want to be noticed. 

there was one birthday, when all my classmates gave me flowers that they had picked from our shool garden after flag ceremony. that was on my first year highschool. and after they turned my chair into a garden, i realized at that time "now, i need to be nice to them all day!", hahaha. and then, my teacher scolded them for denuding our garden. that made me treated them really really nice not just for a day but whenever i remembered it. that is fun memory that i will treasure forever.

and now that i'm alone and noone's bothering me, i don't like it either! yikes, i think i just had a midlife crisis at this very young age!

the best thing happened today is my family gather together to sing a "happy birthday" to me on skype. i think i made them do it. but i'm allowed to coz it's my birthday.

it's 10am and i'm already having a happy birthday (no pun intended), although, in the philippines, it's almost over.

all in all, it's the best day to add one to my age. happy birthday to me :D

si am am

buhbye maam :(

the office won't be the same without u

new york, new york

i am mourning the death of my dream to go to new york ;((
next time nalang if there is!

brrr

cracked lips
blistered hands
cold feet

oh winter, why are you so hard on me?
i've been dreaming of you my whole life
television only satisfied my sense of sight
they never tell how it feels like

but i still love thee

?

remember when you started to learn the alphabet and you already knew all the letters in it but you didn't know how to form it into words? i am so into that feeling right now.

i know the fundamentals but i do not know how to put them together. the puzzle still don't fit together!

my wiki

i only not imagined it, i experienced it, bigtime!

oh, wiki, where are you when i badly need you?

cold weekends

spending the cold weekends at tita susan's house. i saved 2 days worth of food budget. awesome!

drinking, chatting til the wee hours and slept at 2am.

woke up at 11am with a table full of food waiting.

this is life!

very cold below zero degree (celcius) winter night :|

my room at tita's for countless of sleepovers already

winter clothes, another gifts from tita :)

pa sign-na ko beh!

i'm not one of those people who took a photo of themselves when they're bored and post them on facebook and twitter. only pretty people do that.

i write. everywhere. sometimes i post it, sometimes i don't, it depends on the level of the absurdity. i don't wanna be the cause of somebody's heart attack while reading.

so, now i'm bored and lonely and has perfectly excuse to do this.

autograph. i think i'm the only girl in our class (grade and high school) who hasn't own one (okey, i have a childhood and i swear i tried multiple of times to have one, but we need to write down the questionnaire and i was too lazy to ... ) and since i've got too much time on my hands, so, i revisit my childhood again and do this.

Name: Ma. Vella Labiste Frondoso. I was born a 'Uella' pronounce as 'Wella' and not 'Vella', I was using Uella til 12 years old, thanks to the registrar who messed it up.
Nickname: Daya, Ja, Vella
Birthday: January 28/29 of every year. again, thanks to the registrar, i have a true birthday and a for-the-sake-of-legalities-coz-its-what-is-written-on-my-birth-certificate birthday

Age: let's skip this part, okey?
Year sign: i almost sure it's ox. sorry, it does not interest me.
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius. i know there's opphocius(too lazy to ask mareng google for the right spelling) added sometime last year and that messed up the whole zodiac arrangement and i don't know which sign i fall now, and, I DO NOT CARE! i don't do horoscope, anyway!

School/University: CIT-U
Year/Course: BSIT
Favorite Subject: Biology and Geography, People and Culture (chismosa jud)

Books: The Firm, The Client, The Pelican Brief, My Sweet Audrina, A Little Princess, Little Women, A Walk To Remember, Da Vinci Code, To Kill a Mockingbird, ug uban pa.
Authors: John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, Johanna Lindsey, Julie Garwood, Harper Lee, Jane Austen (I haven't read any of her books yet but i already have Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility in my Kindle, ayeee!)
Kind of Movie: chick flicks. yuh, i love sappy chick flicks. that trumps all those 3Ds and high budgeted films. just so you know, i stopped watching Transformers 2 in the middle of the movie, i didn't finish Iron Man and the latest X-Men. I only watched Transformer 3 coz Patrick Dempsey was in it and I only watched his scenes. I watched Avatar til the last 20 minutes but that's because of technicalities. I like Avatar. Sorry, I'm rambling! See, this is why I didn't do autograph during those years, coz i need an extra page to wrote all my disclaimers.
Movie Idols: Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, Richard Gere, Keannu Reeves
Singers/Bands: Air Supply, Adele, And the artist behind the song "Trouble is a Friend"
Music: classics. ladies and gentlemen, my shortest answer!
T.V. Programs:  Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother

Dress/Outfit: i-do-not-care-if-i-look-good-or-not-with-this-baggy-dress dress
Perfume: Mild. im not so much into perfumes. It makes me nauseous.
Food: chinese food minus the chopsticks, adobo, breakfast food. anything that screams sugar!
Drinks: if i could just drink soda as much as i want to :|
Pals: Grade/Highschool friends, college friends, ncr pips
Hang-outs: H.O.M.E. there! my shortest answer
Colors: gray, green that has purple designs or anything purple that is added to it (ang arte)
Pets: I'm not a pet lover, but I don't hurt animals.
Lucky no.: 3. i reached my big 3 last year. i'm not talking about age.

Motto: Confucius' Golden Rule. Do unto others what others deserve to be done with.. yuh, i'm pretty sure that's what the rule is all about.

Who is your love? Patrick Dempsey Ashton Kutcher nayabag na akong keyboard, patakag type
How did you meet?
Is she/he your first love?
Her/His special characteristics?
What attracted you most? can we talk about colors and food again?

Happiest Moment: when i got my first job. this job!
Greatest achievement in life: being a good daughter (pang miss U kaayu ug answer, pakpak mga silingan)
Greatest Dream: that i'm gonna wake up a millionaire the next day. always! and also, write a book.
Most stupid thing ever done: no enough space for rambling. all i can say is, i'm clumsy to an unimaginable level. crazy things always happen to me. i'll shot myself cleaning my own gun.

Beliefs/Philosophies in life: everything happens for a reason.

- questions above are syndicated from nikki gil's blog

apartment

backyard

this is what it looked like during november

this is what it looked like came december

the roomies who left me for home :(

roomies' despedida party

the visitors

the infamous love triangle

apartment's address

fine dining

its my first time spending the holidays out of the country and away from the family. since, i'm all alone in the apartment, tita susan invited me to spent christmas at her house. i practically lived and fed there for three days.

we had a very busy schedule; visit her in-laws for christmas eve and a filipino family for christmas day and celebrating her birthday and visiting other friends in between. plus the never ending errands. hectic!

so, i was told beforehand that this two families, american in-laws and filipino friend, are rich.

in the in-laws (christmas eve):

i was wearing the best dress that i had and was willing to pay dollars to get my hair done, if i only had the time. 

so, we went there. the house was enormous and elegant and those christmas trees (there's at least 4 of them) were so beautiful that i was tempted to snatched one of those coca-cola collectible items that was dangling on it. yeah, i was willing to be jailed just to stole one of those christmas trees had it been fitted in my bag!

what surprise me was the simplicity of the event. everyone's wearing [holiday] sweatshirt and pants. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I WAS OVERDRESSED! and were talking america here, people. even their food were simple; just pizzas, pies and cakes and everyone's standing everywhere.

they're nice and very welcoming and they smiled a lot.


in the filipino friend (christmas day):

so here goes the tale of vella and her always underdressed issues. 

i was wearing t-shirt and jeans and flat shoes. we're having a sit-down dinner and i thought it's just as simple as the name. but, i was, as always, WRONG! coz everyone's in their fancy dress.

dinner came and we went to the table. i was surprised to see names on it which means that the person would sit on the chair opposite with his/her name on the table. then, there's this three piles of plates in different sizes and a lot of utensils in the sides which i'm too lazy to name. i've been to a lot of fine dinings already, but that's different coz i've been with friends and coworkers whom i wont ashamed to messed up. 

first course - salad. i like salad (preferably, caesar salad). so, its okey. i helped a plateful of it myself. i was observing at the other twelve participants of that dinner. if anyone of them will start eating, then i will, too. coz i was afraid that i might stuffed food in my mouth sooner than required. hey, it's a fine dining and i dont wanna get a mistake.

so, everyones eating, and i noticed that it's a different salad that i used to have, but it's okey, it taste good. what wasn't okey was the whole tomatoes and olives. i dont like tomatoes, i only liked it on my scambled eggs and on vinegar for fried fish. other than that, i despise tomatoes! and olives, too. so, i ate everything except those. and i must have scooped plenty of them coz there's a lot of them on my plate. so, here again, i observed everyone's plates and looked what had had left. surprised!, everyone's plate was clean. meaning, everyone ate to the last piece of their salad. meaning, i, too, need to ate those tomatoes. and the olives. [i heard that it's a compliment to the host if you eat everything on your plate in front of her/him] uh, i started to hate fine dining! so, i braced myself and tried to ate those tomatoes without breathing. that makes the taste tolerable. i was on my fourth piece when i finally gave up. i stopped or else i would throw up.

other than the dress and the tomatoes, everything went smooth. and the host/hostess were very nice and chatty. the house was pretty big and beautiful, too.

that's how i spent my christmas here in the US.

tsk

i just FBed* my mentor's wife during work. yup, i just did while everyone thought that i'm so busy doing my task. huh!

i didn't find it peculiar until she said "is your sir ____, there?" 

bang! 

yeah, i'm screwed! the worst case scenario is "me" as the topic over their family dinner discussion.... no, the worst case scenario would be "me" thrown back to the philippines as an incompetent employee! FB, you managed to ruin my life on so many levels. hahah, FB pa'y sad-an!

*FBed -> comes from the root word FB, short for facebook. That's not a word but who cares!

mao na diha

:(

if i hadn't had burnt my tongue, i guess coffee is the best thing that had happened to me all day ever since the year 2011 ends... and i dont even like coffee! at least it's hazelnut. 

i guess i started the year on a wrong foot. hay, positive vibes i invite you to come into my door, 2012 is still a long way and i heard that it'll be this year that the world will come to an end, and i don't have plans of acquaring wrinkles before it does.