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I meant to publish this during the evening of December 31 but writing this entry took longer than I thought, and I was already late for New Year’s Eve shenanigans.

So I’m sitting here at the lobby of the pretentious condominium development my grandparents insist on living in when they’re at the city, getting a little bit of quiet before all sorts of new year’s eve mayhem covers the city in smoke and noise. Or maybe it won’t. For the first time ever, it’s raining like June or late May, which means that people won’t be lighting up as many firecrackers as they usually do. This time last year, Anne and I were holed up in my room where she was reviving my love and interest in slasher flicks, zombie movies, and horror film in general. I think we were watching The Hills Have Eyes, or maybe it was Hostel 2.

It’s crazy how 2008 just flew by like that, considering that December has been a slow, languid month for me. It feels like I spent most of my time sleeping, and my waking hours trying to do whatever it takes stay awake, simply because sleeping as much as I have been can’t be that healthy. Except for reading a couple of chapters on Mao Tse-Tung’s life on his birthday (December 26), I’ve had little interest in theory, history, and books in general. Maybe I’m going through another one of those moments again. I know I’m going to regret not being as productive as I should have been once I go back to school and remember that I’m supposed to be a graduate student who decided that her destiny lies in the academe. But I certainly don’t regret the time I set aside for the people who matter.

Photo by Fritz-paparazzi

One of this month’s highlights was hosting this year’s Man Blog Christmas party at my parents’ house. The Man Blog website and forums may be dead now, but my relationships with the smartest, wittiest, crassest guys and girls from the local blogosphere are still very much alive. Sometimes I think that maybe I should trade them in for nicer friends (just look at their gift suggestions for me this Christmas), but what would life (and my weekends) be like without them? Nice people aren’t much fun.

Just to show how much I love them, I pretended that I knew my way around a kitchen and prepared a fiesta ham and beer sauce for the party’s sit-down dinner. On Plurk the next day, Ade said it was the best ham sauce he had ever tasted.

Then we had what Anne calls the geekiest Secret Santa ever. Our presents for each other didn’t get any geekier than books, DVDs, gadgets, and ninja weapons (nunchucks for Jen from Bim!). Except for when Bim went down on Mike because Mike got the Gift of Nothing from us for the second Christmas in a row.

Exactly a week later, on Saturday morning, I woke up to a text message from Luis telling me to get out of bed. I was too sleepy to manage a reply, plus I was still slightly sore at him for ditching us last night. I was dying to get away from the monotony of my life in Manila, and Luis’s answer to my road trip idea was, “Nah, I got a couple of dates lined up for me this weekend.” Then I went online (I live on the Internet, pretty much), where Anne told me to get my things ready and help her look for a hotel in Batangas or Tagaytay. “Luis says we’re going on a road trip,” she said. “And he wants to stay somewhere pricey.”

“WTF I’m not paying for any pricey hotel,” I replied.

“Luis is paying.”

“K.”

After a stressful three hour search, we finally found a pricey hotel at Tagaytay that wasn’t fully booked for the night. Initially, we wanted to look for a place in Batangas so we could hit the beach the next day, but there were no vacancies anywhere. Anne suggested Puerto Galera, but Luis shot that idea down, saying that you needed to go on a one-hour boat ride to get to the island, a boat ride which he “didn’t quite fancy taking.” So cold, hilly, boring Tagaytay it was for the evening, then Batangas the next day. I was so excited - I haven’t seen the ocean in months and I miss the saltwater, sun, and the sand.

Three more hours later, I was done packing a backpack full of summer clothes, Helga finally woke up from her drunken stupor to join us, and we were on the road to Southern Luzon. By 9 pm, I was doing The Ultimate Hotel Expensiveness Test at 8 Suites - you know you’re staying somewhere fancy when you can jump on the mattresses without worrying about breaking your neck or the bed. AND HAHAHA NO PARENTS TO TELL ME TO STOP JUMPING ON THE BED WHEEEEE.

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I almost didn’t attend yesterday’s rally at the Makati Central Business District against charter change because I was severely turned off by the “interfaith” adjective attached to the demonstration. I read on the papers that the rally would be spearheaded by Catholic groups and the last thing I want to do is attend a political protest led by an institution that cares more about preserving their outdated dogmas than enacting changes that can improve human lives. But I haven’t been to a demonstration in a while and anyway, I like going to rallies. They have a fun sort of carnivalesque atmosphere to them, minus the alcohol - which is good because at least people aren’t behaving like drunken idiots. But beyond the fun is also the tiny tiny spark of hope that rallies bring.To me, rallies are a reminder that there are people who actually care enough about our country’s social problems to do more than just sit and criticize current events without even immersing themselves in the real conditions of the masses. It’s a refreshing change from being around folks who roll their eyes at my political beliefs, dismiss my opinions as “outdated radical thoughts”, or who drag me away from political arguments because I can get a little too hotheaded, pissy, and downright socially embarassing when I encounter people who disagree with me (and by “people” I mean my own parents and some of my friends. I love you guys but seriously, I do get annoyed when you do that. And I’m sorry if you had to read my blog to know that but I’m too passive-aggressive to tell you these things to your face).

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I have a bad habit of starting new blogs and abandoning them after I’ve made ten posts, but my new project is something I’m passionate about. Nope, this new blog has nothing to do with politics or theory - which is not to say that it isn’t politically motivated.

Welcome to Ukay Manila, a fashion blog where I post my favorite ukay finds from my favorite ukay stores. It’s a couple of days old and I’ve already made three or four entries, but I doubt that I’ll run out of things to write about because ukay-ukay is a very important part of my consumer lifestyle. Around 60-70% of my clothes are ukay-bought because I usually buy a couple of pieces every week; I rarely ever do my shopping at malls these days and I’d like to keep it that way.

Non-Filipino readers of my blog are probably wondering what ukay-ukay means and why I say this blog is “politically motivated”. I wrote a short introductory post on ukay-ukay to kind of contextualize the blog and I hope it makes some sort of sense.