Through the Looking Glass

It’s my 5th OLA day tomorrow. Finally I get to blog about the blur that was last week! Friday was OLA day and I had to go home early because of family commitments in Santa Rosa, Laguna. Yeah, the rides were fun. We got home exhausted but happy and wet from numerous repeats of a ride that warned/promised me I will get soaked. No breach there.

Saturday was my cousin Jojo’s birthday and we cousins had a blast swimming and drinking cold beer under the brightness of the stars and whilst hamming it up in front of the camera… The water was nice and warm and I didn’t get out for almost 3 hours. The food was spaghetti and barbecue from the party before, slightly cold but nonetheless enthusiastically consumed by the hungry swimmers. We got home slightly before 10PM and after my bath I even got to chat with friends and prospects(?). Hehe! Don’t ask. (Also, that day I learned I was appointed as the new Winlaw 4th year batch rep! Which made me really happy and honored! I’ll do my best girls! =) ) All in all it was a day well-spent. =)

Sunday was Mother’s Day. Because of the elections I had to go early to Guadalupe for a supposedly 10 AM seminar that took up to 2PM to finish. I got home in time to eat some of the cake I chipped in for and ice cream. I also gave my mother a Mother’s Day gift bought from my way home. Hehehe! Yes, it was kikay stuff.

Monday was Election Day. I really didn’t know what to expect. I am grateful Brgy. Pinagkaisahan took care of us so that eventhough the food didn’t get there on time, we were still on the go. (I think the sandwiches we ate came from them)The kagawads were sooo nice, they even let us sit in their tent and made the work so much easier! There were some moments we were like chickens running around with heads cut off for 18 FREAKING HOURS trying to get the ERs and the protest forms all sorted out and helping out our fabulous lawyers Atty. Jenny and Atty. Jon, her hubby. In the end, it wasn’t so bad after all in retrospect. I can’t wait to finally be the one getting twice what I was getting for the day. *ahem* hehehe. One of the more bizaare things that happened was that Erwin Genuino himself called me (bec. of May), asking if we already had our McDo lunch! hehehe! Akalain mo nga naman, congressional candidate mismo? By the time it was over waaay past midnight, we headed to Guadalupe Mall to get paid, which took all of an hour. Then I took a cab with Daisy, Cha, May and Kim back to QC. My cousins picked me up at McDo Katips so I had to treat them to burgers. Yes, I really had to. Got home by 3 AM.

Three hours later, I woke up and rushed to RTC Branch 286 Pasig for my 8:30AM hearing to have my very first cross exam! =) Sayang I was so "bangag" I didn’t even get to savour it. It went well except for the part when I sort of repeated a question in an attempt to reiterate my incredulity such a mistake could happen in a legal document and the judge said it was already answered. Hihi. Fine. Afterwards it was all over and the lawyer of the accused said he will just tender a formal offer of evidence and wait for our comment. Hearing adjourned. See ya July 7! Oh wait, I won’t be in OLA by then. Yipee! Afterwards I met with Cess in Chowking Pasig and we had my current favorite, Spicy Beef Wanton noodles and halo-halo. Yummy! If you haven’t tried it yet you should! I am going through a phase where I love everything spicy and I can’t even distinguish if it’s hot already? Seriously! I think my tongue must be deadened or something.

Wednesday came and it was spent with the block meeting up Ria for her news. Hehe. Kitchen was nice. I loved the creamy, spicy seafood pasta I ate. Absolutely delicious! (Before meeting them pala Miles and I went to McDo Glorietta for milkshakes, mine was chocolate. I remember when I was really young and I used to always order milkshake and spaghetti! ) After that we went to Grilla and had a couple of beers and strawberry margaritas. I love going out with my block! We just laugh and talk nonstop! I really missed them this past summer. I wish it was school already. And that OLA was over. Hahaha! I’m kidding. Of course I love OLA! For so many reasons… not just for the clients. I’m going to miss case cons and Ate Merly, Ate Connie and Jansen. And Director Te of course! (Sorry sir, for the crappy MANIFESTATIONS! ) And our SLs. Sure, even them. Haha!   ;)

If you don’t get the title, there are court appearances where the judge isn’t there so you never get to say anything and the case is deferred to some other date, court appearances with voice where all you get to say are "I’m from the Office of Legal AId" and the case is deferred to some other date bec. the fiscal has a sore throat (like my very first one!) and now, a court appearance with actual speaking parts! I actually got to object! Woohoo!  :D  This is the stuff dreams are made of, I’ve waited all my life to say "Objection your Honor!" in a real court!

So here I went to San Mateo municipal court (which I found with much help from Catsy!!  ) and this was all to appear for the trial of my client accused of grave slander. Anyways since I can’t discuss it much let’s just say I got to OBJECT on an alleged fact that the star witness was saying she was, which the former law intern and the prosecution counsel stipulated was subject to proof during the trial. I’m quite proud of myself, despite the shaky voice, flashes of recit moments going through my head. :)  but there! i finally got to object, the heart of all litigation! next to cross pala. hahaha! well, cross ko na si Madam Witness next time, lagot siya sa katarayan ko. hehe! ay sabi pala ni Sir Te sa OLA Orientation be nice and smile… and don’t shout if you can help it. haha!

But nothing beats a first appearance, kahit less voice lang yun… meron din high kanina but it was alright lang, not euphoric or anything. =)

While looking for Albert Einstein quotes (bec. I kill time that way), I remembered how much I found myself enamored by the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez so what the heck, I searched if he had any famous quotes too! Here are the results… Not just his quotes but excerpts from his books too, more particularly Love in the Time of Cholera. I remember when I was reading this book, I was so caught up in the story that at one point I had to pause because I was so overwhelmed with the intensity of Urbano’s feelings. Powerful writing. At that point, I texted my friends the quote immediately below. Is it because I can relate to him? Or maybe it’s because I want that for me too. Really, this book cinched it for me. It’s a close close second to One Hundred Years of Solitude. I simply must reread these books before the summer ends!(Tsk tsk. I am such a romantic! Unreasonable na yata. I don’t know if this is a good thing.)  Anyways, on with the quotes!

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To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera

He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera

She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera

The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera, Dr. Urbino

He is ugly and sad … but he is all love.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera, Fermina Daza

Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Why My Friend Bill had to Lie, The Guardian Newspaper, referring to US President Bill Clinton, January, 1999

The only difference today between Liberals and Conservatives is that the Liberals go to mass at five o’clock and the Conservatives at eight.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude

Carmelia Montiel, a twenty-year-old virgin, had just bathed in orange-blossom water and was strewing rosemary leaves on Pilar Ternera’s bed when the shot rang out. Aureliano José had been destined to find with her the happiness that Amaranta had denied him, to have seven children, and to die in her arms of old age, but the bullet that entered his back and shattered his chest had been directed by a wrong interpretation of the cards.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude

(Here’s more, just don’t know what books they are from)

“Justice. . . limps along, but it gets there all the same.”

      “Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.”

      “Between the covers of the books that no one had ever read again, in the old parchments damaged by dampness, a livid flower had prospered, and in the air that had been the purest and brightest in the house an unbearable smell of rotten memories floated.”

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Anyways also book-related, my favorite book of all time is "Sophie’s World". (So much so that I plan to name my child Sophie. Hehe.) If you haven’t read this yet, please do! I liked the premise, a fictionalized and easy-to-read tale about the History of Philosophy (a review of the ideas of major philosophers from the Pre-Socratic Greeks to Jean-Paul Sartre) as explained to an adolescent girl. It was simple but not dumbed down. And I have always loved philosophy! Not like I aced Soc. Sci. II, just that I got a high grade because I liked it so much that I see myself reading Plato and Nietzche for fun. I’ll just look for excerpts next time then.

And what do they have in common? They both write exquisitely well and merge realism with fantasy in a seamless and effortless manner. Duh. Haha!

I can ignore all the other MURPHY’S LAWS on the blog but this one ON WRITING really takes the cake! hahaha! The journalist/writer/grammar geek in me (as dormant as she is on most occasions) can’t help it, I really love this! enjoy!

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The 19 Rules for good Riting:

1. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2. Just between you and I, case is important.
3. Verbs has to agree with their subject.
4. Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped up into our language.
5. Don’t use no double negatives.
6. A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.
7. When dangling, don’t use participles.
8. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
9. And don’t use conjunctions to start sentences.
10. Don’t use a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.
11. About sentence fragments.
12. In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep strings apart.
13. Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
14. Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
15. Don’t abbrev.
16. Check to see if you any words out.
17. In my opinion I think that the author when he is writing should not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words which he does not really need.
18. Then, of course, there’s that old one: Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
19. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.