[ BE RiGHT BACK ] so ryan's here in florida, finally! and im so amazingly happy! 3 days here and we're having fuuuuuun! ;) ill be back soon for updates, promise! love you and miss you all!



P.S. you all should go see LOTR3: The Return of the King. it is an amazing movie. and you know how i am ... yes, ivey i cried! =) haha ... you'll cry too! see it today! i think im seeing it again! haha

[ iT GiVES YOU WiNGS ] so whats been up with me lately? our last class was on monday. ive been busy working on final papers and whatnot ... actually finished two in one hour thanks to a can of redbull! it was due thursday morning - even though classes "officially" ended monday - and being me, i didnt get started on them until THURSDAY morning! haha ... so i woke up at 5:30 (needed to leave the house by 8:30!) and instead of getting started right away, i sat around playing with scooter and talking to joy. i dropped her off and came back and didnt even start until 7:30! haha ... you know how when you're working on something, you get like, into a zone? in that hour, i was in the zone, buddy! haha ... ended up walking into class just in time ... it was funny coz the last time everyone was in class was on the first day of school! haha



[ OLD SCHOOL TERM ] i guess i had been focusing so much on my papers that morning that i couldnt understand a word of what the teacher was saying. you know how when you're listening to a cd player with headphones on and you talk extra louder coz of the music in your head? i was singing a song in my head - it was prolly HEY YAH again (haha) - and right after my professor said something along the lines of "Ok, so you should be set. See you next thursday. Don't forget your blue books." and i just blurted out WHAT?! SCANTRONS? WHAT THE HELL'S A BLUE BOOK?! haha ... people were laughing at me ... lemme tell you something about my english professor, he doesn't speak so well. he stammers and assumes everyone knows what he's talking about. he ended up correcting himself ... "blue books" are the old school term for exam sheets. and it was damn good thing that i spoke up coz no one else ever, EVER does ... seriously, they'd rather be lost and confused than ask for clarification. so im gonna wait until last minute to get my blue book.

[ GiMME A BREAK ] my Education Tech. class is so easy ... its basically like ms. delaire's english class. remember how she was too nice sometimes and you couldn't help but take advantage? of course i feel bad but hey, it makes my life easier! my Ed Tech. professor is just like Ms. DeLaire. i went to the lab closest to my work (UC Lab) and was annoyed to hell because of these nerdos that were getting loud and excited over their online Magic Cards game ... geeze, you'd think these people would grow out of it?! they were freaking out because one of their partners or some shit lost their dorm key and wont be online in time to play. haha ...

[ EXAMS ] exams officially started friday but i havent had one yet. luckily, my toughest exams are this sunday and monday. im looking forward to getting those outta the way. whoo. after that, i dont have any exams until thursday. so im just procrastinating. again. dude my new favorite show is the Tracy Morgan Show. that little boy from the Apollo (jimmy? the little one) is so damn cute! i think its gonna start showing Tuesdays on NBC. i just figured out that everyone sleeps with their windows open. haha. and all this time i was sleeping in my hot room trying to figure out if the aircon was busted for the last 2 weeks or if it was just me. haha ... so i had a very nice sleep with my window open last night. the only sucky thing is that the reflection of the moon on the lake brightens up my room as if it were day forcing me to face my LEFT-side, which by the way is soooOOoOo not my side. hahaha ... such problems huh? haha. really though. ive been feeling EXTRA BLESSED for some reason. im thankful for everything. im thankful for all of you guys! im thankful for the most wonderful, funny family in the whole world. im thankful for having the best boyfriend ever. i love life. even if i do have finals this week.

[ HAPPY THOUGHTS ] bleh. i write too much. just one annoucement: JOY iS READY FOR THE HOLiDAYS! are you?

miss you and love you all!

congrats on the J-O-B shay!
KB Toys sounds soooOOOooOo fun! wish i could be there to make a mess! good luck! =Þ

[ MAMA’s MASHED POTATOES ] Thanksgiving was nice. i was pretty worried at first coz 85% of the familia up in Orlando are vegetarians and the other 15% have basically learned to live with the cooking. But yeah … so the plan was to spend a simple, quiet thanksgiving at home, here in palm beach THEN drive to Orlando on Friday for the weekend. So we woke up Thursday morning taking things easy … my mom started to cook … then my dad’s cell phone starts going crazy … everyone’s calling up telling us to go there. So at lunch, we sit down to mom’s chicken (turkey was never really the thing in our household), mashed potatoes (and I STILL asked for rice!), and other stuff … and all looked at each other with this *WHAT-THE-HELL-ARE-WE-DOING-SPENDING-THANKSGIVING-ALONE?!* look … ate super fast and ran to pack up for a four-day weekend.

[ FOOTBALL & TOFURKEY ] so thursday night, we get to orlando (2 hrs! BEAT THAT, holiday traffic!) hugs and kisses all around. my uncle jerry kept saying we should visit more often and was trying to pass me a bottle of the good stuff. haha ... he's been high on life since he graduated from UCF this past summer. this time the party was at my other grandma's house ... its great having so many grandparents! i cant explain. they have this nice place but you kinda had to get there through this road that looked like something straight from Sleepy Hollow. once we got to the residential place it was safe again ... haha ... kinda like crossing that bridge! haha ... ok. so the house was big ... so much fun. the boys in one living room playing cards - getting super loud for a poker game. the aunties in another living room gossiping ... the old people in the quiet living room watching whatever (more like falling asleep! haha ... for a while, i took over their tv to watch volleyball) ... and the kids (oh my goodness, ALL of them!) were running all around all over the place. they took out all the beanie babies they had and an innocent game of "pet shop" all of a sudden turned into an attack-marj by throwing them all at her game! haha ... but it was fun. i kept the kids intrigued with my belly ring and eventually, they all wanted to sit on my lap. my cousin josh gave me his brand new M&Ms mini's dispenser plus two bags of M&M mini's as a Christmas Present. he's such a sweet boy - and the kid can throw like no other! forreal man, he has an arm! he's gonna big one of these days! and he has the coolest BUZZ LIGHTYEAR room in the world. no joke. my grandma has this beautiful grand piano and playing it made me miss playing so much! but yeah ... the food ended up being really good! they had regular turkey (for the out of towners) and tofurkey! haha ... i tried it just for the hell of it ... never again. one side of the table was vegetarian EVERYTHING - from vegetarian lumpia, veg. pancit, and veg. empanadas. it was cool. crashed there for the night.

[ ST. AUGUSTiNE ] so glad i avoided the malls the next day ... the news kept replaying this lady getting trampled by a mob of shoppers who lined up at 3am in front of a WalMart ... they were trying to get a VCR/DVD combo that was going for $30. haha ... all that craziness isnt worth it ... some of my aunties went to the 6am openings and were trying to get us to go ... yeahright. around lunch, we all met and drove up to St. Augustine to stay at the family condo. the condo itself was awesome ... there was this really cool pier and pool and club ... those beaches with the rickety, old-school fences DO EXIST! it was so pretty out there ... but by friday, the weather in florida all of a sudden went crazy and temperatures dropped from the 80s to 50s! i didnt have any sweaters or SHOES with me! my mom and joy was making fun of me (mainly, my near-shriveling toes!) and my zorie'd out self (and they said i knew it was gonna be cold, my fault for packing too lightly). haha ... cant take the island out of the girl huh?! we chilled in st. augustine for the day and at night we all ate at nice, warm Applebees. We split after that - my parents wanted to crash out in jacksonville. so we took the half hour drive further north and found the base.

[ HOUSE HUNTiNG ] being able to use my ID card again was sweeeeet! haha ... i didnt think id miss it that much! haha ... i was this close to having a panic attack as we approached the gate coz i couldnt remember if i had left my ID at home or not. checked in at the Navy Lodge - whoa, i havent said that in a while! in the morning (it was 30 frikkin degrees! when does THAT happen in florida?!!) we went to the NEX - super big, super crowded. ran into old friends ... it was cool. bought even more presents and presents for joy's friends (joy's broke) coz im a cool sister like that. stopped by arlyn's house (ives lisa, remember the Rosal's from Lockwood?!) and my parents were catching up with her mom. we talked about each other's schools - she's gonna transfer somewhere south and me and joy are prolly gonna end up at hers (UNF). oh and shay! remember katherine belarmino?! she was up in Jacksonville too ... but she was working so we didnt get to meet up. it was cool though ... lotsa filipinos. we were house hunting ... we're most likely gonna move in 3years. we're all ready to leave palm beach ... stuck up, too expensive. jacksonville is nice. maybe thats where we should all end up.

[ CRUNCH TiME ] sunday it was back to orlando coz it was my grandma's birthday ... more fun, more family, more food! we had to leave sunday afternoon coz my dad's cell kept going off ... some emergency at work? plus we all missed our own beds! so i get home and am reminded of all the work i left behind. haha ... school today was good though. i get to drop my math and psych finals coz im doing SO DAMN WELL in those classes. still have to take them though, just dont have to worry. its great having that security. english final is an in-class cover letter for our portfolio ... no biggie. human dev. final is a group project that im basically carrying on my own ... one of my group members hasnt been to school in like 2 months! and the other dont talk. what the hell is that?! crunch time, but i like it. and my education tech. final is on building a webpage and HyperStudio - sinchy (haha). a few things here and there that im scrambling for but i like the stress ... i havent had much all year so i think its more funny than anything. after all this though, i can RELAX (sorta, im on full-time for work this december) ... what i mean is that things worked out and ryan's coming, FO'SHO!! (ill explain later) haha ... i sooooOOooo wanna go to Universal's Islands of Adventure ... maybe not (if the weather stays like this, i mean!)

[ HAPPY THOUGHTS ] that was a mouthful. so much to do and im still sitting here typing away ... catching up on the latest entries & emails ... ill promise to comment and reply to the wonderful emails later ... after this crazy life slows down (haha, how many times have i used that phrase on this blog?!). miss you and love you all!

HOLLA
kristine aka PEECHO #2, the caballo to my meirda!: dude, you flooded my inbox this weekend with your cam-phone pics! haha ... i couldnt get any email for like 4 days! haha ... its cool though ... those ones of you guys jumping off the swings were sweeeet!

jenna aka JENN: hey, i havent heard from you in a while! seriously dude, send me your address. we need to catch up!!

ivey aka 18 NOW!!: how was your birthday, sweetie?! hope it was tons of fun! i hope you guys still managed a turkey (or chicken!)-filled Thanksgiving even if your momma couldnt be there. you guys should spend christmas in sunny florida! =) but dont leave behind your winter clothes ... i swear, this climate is so crazy sometimes ... psch, 30 degrees in florida, i still cant get over that. haha ...

FOR THE MOMENT:
lets make fun of joy for the moment coz she lets scooter take 95% of her bed and will sleep freezing half-to-death just to make him happy. haha ... how does that happen?! he's a SMALL DOG!

is it december already?!
joy's sweet 16 is in 23 days! my advice, one gift for x-mas AND her b-day! haha ... i tell her thats my plan all the time.