playing catch up again
wow. this has been my ultimate worst at keeping
up with my blog.
I've literally missed two weeks worth!

lemme just start with the week of May 5-11:
I started my first day of my new job on Wednesday, the 6th.
This is by far the most different job I've ever had.
I laugh at myself cause although it's not totally unrelated to my
background in social work, it's still different:
I'm a paralegal for my friend who practices immigration law.

the great thing is that she is pinay. we went to college together,
so we know eachother, and (the best part) she's focusing on
reaching out to the Pilipino community.
She's pretty amazing at what she does. I'm learning a lot just by
seeing how she works and interacts with her clients.
She's definitely created a great balance with being professional
and being compassionate and easy to relate with.
So, if any of you out there need help with immigration matters, even if you are abroad,
please give us a call! (shameless plug)

the other great thing is my office building is literally steps away from
BART and only 3 blocks away from my Spa job, so commuting is a breeze.
The only bad thing is it adds another $100+ that i need to spend every month.

Working in the city again feels great, though. It's great to be
in the financial district, knee deep in the middle of everything!
I'm near 3 shopping centers, tons of yummy restaurants,
and I just love the hustle and bustle of it all.
I think I really need to be in this place right now.
It's definitely not isolating like in my last hell hole job.
I see sooo many different people walking on the street
and on the elevator in my building. There's so many people
to interact with and talk to. Even the security guards in my building
are so friendly and ready to have a conversation.

Also, I've got wayy more friends and family that work nearby.
I'm two blocks away from my best friend, R, who I was able to have lunch
with last week along with my other close friend, A.
And the absolute BEST part is that me and my BF take BART together
and can have lunch together cause he's only 3 blocks away from me.
So even though I have long workdays sometimes, I can still see
him during the day.

It's definitely amazing how a bad thing (me losing my last job)
has led me into a much more healthy, and positive place.
That can only have come from "upstairs". I truly believe that.

Anyhoo...
The first couple of days were all about getting trained.
My friend (and boss) took me to Roy's.
I've heard about it from tons of people and all of their
praises were well deserved.
WOW! that was really really delicious food.
This was by far the best welcome to work lunch I've ever been treated to.

The first part of last week was a little frustrating.
Work was just frustrating because I was in the middle of
learning new things...'couldn't make connections fast enough,
so I was struggling a bit.
But, I sat down and wrote stuff out..tried to figure things out by
reflecting and evaluating. And you know what? it worked.
by last tuesday, I felt more confident at my job, even with all my mistakes.
Thank goodness my friend is so patient with me.

As for the job itself, i basically help prepare forms and other paperwork for our clients.
I do feel like I'm actually doing something productive cause
i'm helping people become U.S. citizens or permanent residents, OR
I'm helping them to study or work here from different countries.
The coolest thing is when we work on cases where we help unite
couples. i.e. when an American Citizen or permanent resident petitions
their spouses to come and live in the U.S.
It's all very different, but neat at the same time.

I work in an office with other lawyers that practice other types of law.
i.e. estate planning, corporate, taxation, real estate, etc.
In fact, just the other day, me and my other co-worker got to be
witnesses in the signing of someone's will.
Therefore, my name and signature is part of someone's last will and testament.
pretty cool.

Anyhow, it's quite interesting working in a place with these
kinds of professionals. Strangely enough, most of them
are pretty down-to-earth/human.

not a catty thing at all
thank goodness I was able to end my first week of work with
a bridal shower at our friend's house.
it was such a great time.
and the funny thing is, all we did for 8+ hours was sit around
in our friend's living room and talk. yup, talk. talk, talk, talk, eat, go to the bathroom, talk.

i was pretty amazed at all the women around me, too.
they're all accomplished in some way, yet remained very down-to-earth
and positive.
There was some really good energy in the room.
And after some of our deep conversation, I grew to respect all of them at
a whole 'nother level.
Really makes me proud to be a woman. :)

The best part of the night was when I checked my
voicemail and found out that J&M had their first baby.

first baby girl
...and that's who we visited on sunday, after our mother's day brunch.
my bf's family, my cousin's family, and my family went to the top of the
Holiday Inn in Emeryville to celebrate mother's day.
my mom made corsages for all the mothers from her orchid plants.
they were really beautiful.
we totally and completely pigged out on the buffett.
I thought I was gonna pass out from all the gluttony.

then, we headed over to the hospital and met Giselle for the first time.
she looks just like her mama and grandmama.
I got to hold her for a little while.
It was such a great scene. there were 10 of us
packed in J's room. little M was running around
while we all laughed and joked around as usual.

we pretty much stayed their til visiting hours were over at 8p.

20/20 vision
and I almost forgot to mention:
the previous friday, my bf got Lasik surgery.
I picked him up afterwards and saw him with sunglasses on in the
corner of the medical office.

underneath the glasses were these two clear,
plastic things that covered his eyes so that he
would not inadvertently sractch them.
it looked like he was wearing two slotted spoons or something!
I kept teasing him and calling him, "The Fly" - remember that 80's movie? ;)

Anyhow, doctor's orders were that he sleep the rest of the
day through tomorrow.
and when we got home it was only 6p and there was still light out.
BUT, that was no problem for us.
he took a couple of sleeping pills and I already had a headache, so
we were pretty much out....FOR 14 HOURS!!!!!

OH-MY-GAWD! I still can't believe we slept for that long!
well, we actually woke up around 1a and ate a little "dinner",
but we fell asleep right afterwards.

He's doing pretty well and now has 20/20 vision. driving at night is
still a little challenging...he sees halos around lights and things.
other than that, he's doing great. he just has to keep up with his
hourly eye-drop applications.
Oh, and we even got a video tape of the procedure as a souvenir.
it's not that icky, but it is kinda surreal.
I'm just glad he's ok.

why do stupid things always happen to me?
so the rest of this past week went well.
I worked all through Thursday, though, with no lunch break.
Then, I worked an extra 2 hours before heading over for an 8p
session at the spa.
You would think I was delirious from all of that non-stop work, but
I was actually ok.

I was just happy that the weekend was coming near.
Yesterday, saturday, we went to my godson's first communion.
I was all ready to go and right before I could reach the handle
to my car door, my ankle buckled under me and down I fell into our dirty, cobweb
infested garage stuff.
There was even a crashing sound.
Thank goodness I've got a lot of chub in the fron of my body..
It definitely cushioned my fall!

As the story goes, I twisted my ankle.
But what hurt the most was my ego.
Damn, what the hell am I going to tell people at the communion celebration?
"Uh, I'm a dumbass who simply ate it...just cause"

Well, as it so happens, that was the only story I could give.
And of course I couldn't ignore the question, "What happened?" since
I was walking with crutches.
but before we got to the celebration, I elevated my foot and put ice on it for 20
minutes. I remembered that acronym, "R.I.C.E." which is
supposed to help you remember what to do when you sprain your ankle.
Trouble is, I forgot what all the letters stood for, well, except for "I" and "E".

In any case, I had a great time at the celebration. I got a chance to spend
time with some of my other close girlfriends who I haven't seen in months!
I got to finally meet some of their kids, too.
And, I got all kinds of special treatment cause of my foot.
It's not all that bad to hurt yourself.

today
woke up this morning with my foot feeling better.
it's still a little sore, but I think I'll live.
It's definitely not as bad a twist as it could have been.

'got to the movie theaters at about 11am and there were already all
these people in the seats.
so much for being the early bird.

we watched The Matrix. ooh. very cool.
'can't wait til December when Matrix 3 will be in theaters.
I still don't fully understand the "ending" with the architecht and
all the mumbo jumbo he was saying.
all I can say is the action sequences were AWESOME!
makes me wanna train and lose hella weight so that I
can wear a pleather body suit and kick some ass.

but I guess I gotta wait til my stupid ankle heals before I can do all that.


...stupid weak-ass ankles!!!!