hold on to whatever will get you through

little gems of wisdom from a dinner date and a fruitful conversation, take one.

sometimes we're selling ourselves too short.

clarity

i can't be sure that this state of mind is not of my own design
- john mayer, something's missing

if i had my way, i would spend my life:

first day high

so. in another attempt to pursue unfinished business after, well, finishing graduate school, i am embarking on a four-month journey to a healthier body.

dirty sexy money

money's a bitch. especially when you don't have much of it.

over the past several weeks (months?), i've been putting off logging my bank transactions into my financial worksheet. the file was last updated beginning of march, before strama took over my whole world. with my shaky financial standing and my spendthrift ways, i knew i had to reconcile my allowable expense with my actual spending soon, or else chaos will ensue. the lesson i learned a few years ago was a costly one, and i only just finished paying for the consequence.

today i finally progressed a major step, which was track my "petty cash" account. taking down five months's worth of transactions seemed overwhelming, especially when i get home at night and i just wanted to surf the net. but i knew putting it off will only cause me more headaches, so i finally took the whole bunch of slips to work, sorted them by month, and worked on them after lunch. voila! i'm one step closer to reconciling my accounts.

but the really tricky part is still ahead of me, which is distributing the cash into the several sub-accounts i devised. even now i know that the allowance will turn out negative, because of all the spending i did during strama. i'm disappointed, because i really wanted to have extra money to finally invest in mutual funds. but that's life. hopefully i'll manage to plan the next four months to pay back all my debts to myself.

who the...

picked up another meme from sciathan_file

You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First Name:
kristin. everyone pronounces it "kristine" so i'm tickled pink whenever i hear the american/british pronunciation. my "trying to be fly" name is xtin.

2. Age:
29. must not spoil it by saying i'm almost thirty.

3. Location:
living in los baños, working in the city of manila, but my heart is in makati :D

4. Occupation:
actuarial student who just finished her mba coursework and is at a loss.

5. Partner:
no boyfriend since birth.

6. Kids:
maybe. but i don't have the maturity to deal with them yet.

7. Brothers/Sisters:
none. unless you count my dolls.

8. Pets:
none. i never learned to have them.

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:
- just finished my strama paper, three years in the making. it was my one waterloo during my whole mba experience. and i'm graduating in august. wheee!
- something's brewing on the work front and i don't know the outcome.
- planning a trip to somewhere. and i hope everything falls into place for it because it's not easy to cancel.
- trying to jumpstart my social life, so i'm more open to hangouts. please. please take me out.
- i'm turning thirty. need i say more.

10. Where and for what did you go to school for?
- ateneo de manila, ateneo graduate school of business for my mba. university of the philippines los baños, applied math major in actuarial science. all just words. blah blah blah.

11. Parents?
- still living and still together. i'm much closer to my mum though.

12. Who are some of your closest friends?
- my very closest friends come from my high school barkada. my best friend is now in hawaii and married and most of my other close friends from that group are also married. my best bud is a college friend but he's also getting married soon. so that probably means i'll be the spinster godmother for some of their kids for a long long while yet.

what? another one?

i have a new blog. yet again. yes, it's my sixth blog and my sixth platform.

check it out and drop a line: http://lasttrip.wordpress.com

btw, i really like the stock themes at wordpress. at least it's heaps more than the ones at blogger.

get to know me

when a person doesn't understand what's really inside him, self-help guides are manna from heaven.

got this one by email, heaven knows how they come up with this fluff. but i say, "what the heck?" and delve into my inner chaos. explain away...

Get a shock when you read about yourself. (read the whole thing)
IF you were born on the :
1st, 10th, 19th, 28th of any month you are number 1.
2nd, 11th, 20th, 29th of any month then you are number 2.
3rd, 12th, 21st, 30th of any month then you are number 3.
4th, 13th, 22nd, 31st of any month then you are Number 4.
5th, 14th, 23rd of any month then you are number 5.
6th, 15th, 24th of any month then you are number 6.
7th, 16th, 25th of any month then you are number 7.
8th, 17th, 26th of any month then you are number 8.
9th, 18th, 27th of any month then you are number 9.
...
Number 2
No matter what, every one will love you because you are ruled by the Moon. You day dream a lot, you have a very low-self esteem, you need to have a back up for every move in your life, you are very unpredictable. You tend to change according to time and circumstances, selfish, have a very strong sense of musical and artistic talent and powerful verbal communication. You can be sweet as an angel and can be ruthless when double-crossed. Some might say you have a sixth sense. You will become a poet, writer, an artist or a businessperson. You are not strong in love, so your relationship will be in disarray until you settle down. If you are a girl, you will be responsible for your family. If you are a man, you tend to get involve in fights & arguments in the family. You will sacrifice your life for your family. You are gentle, intuitive with a broad vision. You make a well-balanced person. Your best match is 2, 7, 5, and 9 no other people can put up with you!!!

okay, let's take this one by one.

• really, everyone loves me? i find it hard to believe. i would think i'm the person that most people wouldn't care two figs about, until they really get to know me.
• yes, i daydream a lot. like, all the time. i'm living outside my life, if you get what i mean.
• oh, i so have low self-esteem. isn't it obvious, or have you not been reading the last two bullets?
• i am a mathematician by nature, and a finance person at that. conservatives. go figure. (pun not intended.)
• unpredictable? you tell me. on second thought, i guess i am inconsistent. it depends on so many factors that i don't care to control. i am reactive.
• selfish? oh, definitely.
• musical talent is the one gift i have not been giving the time of day. maybe because of bullet 3 and 5. as for art, i just like looking at nice pictures.
• if writing a blog is verbal communication, my friends tell me i'm good at it. it's true (that they told me), promise. however, public speaking and presentation is another matter.
• yeah, i'm sweet i guess. i like making people feel good, if i'm not in a contrary mood that is. but when i'm crossed, i'm such a chicken.
• my mom told me once that i have very good intuition. she said that the things i take for granted as products of an over-active imagination are really indications of sharp observation and some super-natural sensitivity. as for me, i just don't want to be too disappointed when things don't turn out the way i think they are, so i tend to ignore them.
• no, i am not a poet, a writer, an artist, or a businessperson. i am a bum. who happens to have found employment.
• so i'll have a love life when i finally settle down? how queer is that? it's like a loveless marriage then love just barges in, like in the romance novels i love to read. duh.
• one of the private jokes in my family is that i'll have to take care of my parents and my mom's three unmarried siblings when they get old. scary.
• gentle, intuitive, broad vision? whatever.
• well-balanced person? hah.

no nonsense

i've heard of net stalking from some people but i never really took it seriously. the worst i had done was look up my crush at friendster, but i never did link up with him.

so last sunday (see previous entry) i decided to net-stalk just one person: me. i was curious what dirt google could come up with.

the outcome: 2 pages. and true-to-life links? a grand total of... 2. both from the actuarial society website. bo-ring.

at least, i finally saw the announcement they posted when i passed my first (and only) exam.

much more interesting was seeing my uncle's name (he passed the bar last year) and some other people who share my surname... and i know for a fact that our surname only belong to a handful of people.

interesting is the fact that another girl shared the same first name with me (like, same spelling pa!)

guess i don't have too much to worry about, huh. and i thought i was gonna have to come out re: my secret life as a secret agent.