{waiting watching wishing}

Monday, September 03, 2007

{the return of the headless chicken AKA the (mis)adventures of a bar ops volunteer part 1}

this past weekend (and week, actually) was one of the most tiring and stressful ones i've experienced in recent months in more ways than one. the whole week went on like a blur what with last minute barops preparations, meetings, acads, council reunion, etc '(not to mention the tiredness that stemmed from being really angry about the frat hazing incident). the entire week, all i had was junkfood and chocolate for sustenance and i slept at 3AM practically every day and got up at 8 or earlier. save for saturday morning wherein i slept at 5 and got up at 8AM of the same day to take care of last-minute HR matters and to review for my torts class that afternoon. i had class til 5PM then headed home after the food i ordered for the volunteers got delivered so that my parents could take me to sheraton. from the time i arrived up to around 7:30-8:00AM of sunday i was a headless chicken since had to check up on volunteers and help with the other operations as well as with merchandising and requests of barrister. i was happy though because i finally got to experience what helping out in the different ops (except transop, though something tells me i'll be experiencing that too in the near future.hahaha) is like since all i got to do last year was help out in the hotel and drive around the manila area for breakfast orders (talk about adventure! hehehe!). i slept from 8 to around 9.45AM and then went back to barops duty, this time with winlaw and was on duty (save for a short nap in the afternoon) til around 6:30 PM when my parents picked me up.

it was funny (though stupid, too) since i got lost while delivering lunch orders. i decided to take a pedicab and go ahead of my friends since i was in a rush and thought it would make me arrive there at a shorter time. i thought wrong. taft was jam-packed with cars so i asked the pedicab driver if copytrade (where the up law tent was in front of) was near enough to walk to. he answered in the affirmative and charged me thirty pesos (imagine, THIRTY PESOS! and to think my friends who followed also in a pedicab were only charged FIFTEEN PESOS for both of them. but then, it was a desperate time. hehe.) so anyway, i got down and started to walk. after what seemed to be forever, i realized that a)none of the surroundings seemed familiar as i remember seeing starbucks, 7-11 and mcdonalds when i dropped by to check on tentops and nightops the night before, 2)no copytrade was in site, 3)i hadn't spotted anyone from up law, and 4)the number of tents and people seemed to be dwindling the further on i walked and came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, the up law tent was on the other side. so i crossed and was walking for quite some time when i saw that there was a barricade preventing me from going any further. SO, i had to go all the way back to where i had crossed from the other side and walk back to the point where i got off the tricycle only to see that copytrade indeed was on the other side of taft beneath the mrt station. how stupid could i be? hahaha. :D

this weekend and the days leading to is could also be described as this: a series of unfortunate events. i was perpetually stressed and haggard so i kept dropping things, losing things, forgetting things, etc. i also made the mistake of dropping my phone one time too many two days before the bar weekend and ended up having to borrow my dad's old phone just so i could remain accessible. however, since my phone broke i now have to guess everytime someone sends me a text message who it is based on the context clues. i really ought to have my phone fixed. it's just that the thought that it has to be reformatted breaks my heart as being the stupid person that i am, i didn't back up my contacts even if i have had my phone reformatted at least two times in the past. so much for learning my lesson. oh well. :( i remember talking with my blockmate, carmi, the other day and telling her that i needed a clone (or two), but if such was not possible, i'd settle for eight arms. i said that if i had eight arms, my life would be so much easier. in typical carmi fashion, she answered: "no, you'll have a hard time finding clothes with eight armholes." hahahaha! :D but seriously, i was quite happy though also sad for a number of reasons i don't quite feel like disclosing for now. but anyway, mostly happy. call me a masochist but despite the seemingly never-ending supply of stress, i like what i have been doing. uh oh, does that mean that that's my formula for happiness is: happiness = stress + more stress + headless chicken mode? hehehe! i hope not. but yeah, i'm one somewhat* happy (albeit headless) chicken/(almost) dead frog.

thank goodness that despite the countless glitches, we all survived the first weekend.

in any case, one weekend down, three more to go. woohoo!!! Congrats to everyone! :D

check out this article from today's inquirer. winlaw has a special mention. go winlaw! :D

--
* i would be more than somewhat happy if not for the existence of a certain cloud. or rather, clouds. don't get me started. :(

Labels: barops, haggardness, headless chicken mode

Posted by arianne at 11:39 PM

Sunday, July 15, 2007

{what i would do for a clone (or thirty)}

i have acquired a new skill: booth-manning. it seems as though during the past few weeks, all i've been doing is manning some booth or other. it started with barops merchandise then freshie week voting then winlaw fund-raising. come this week, i'll be manning the winlaw booth yet again as well as the pvo sign-up booth and will probably end up manning the barops merchandise booth if no one else can. it's actually quite fun! you get to meet new people, catch up with friends, people watch (though after a while you realize that you keep seeing the same people. haha!) and even log in some study time. though it can sometimes get stressful especially when you have to be at two (or three or four...) places at the same time.

take last week, for example. i was manning a booth and i saw one of the freshies i know so i said hi. a few minutes later, i had booth duty elsewhere and i saw her again and greeted her. her response was, "arianne, you're everywhere!" and then it hit me, she was right. in the sense that given the simulataneity (and constant stream) of (mostly) extracurricular responsibilities, i sometimes feel that i HAVE to be everywhere all at once. and last i checked, such is not humanly possible hence the fast-paced walk, the sometimes incoherent and mile-a-minute speech, and the unkempt hair (haha). given the physical limitations, i sometimes have to forego one responsibility over the other (thank goodness for understanding friends and orgmates. hehe) but i have a hard time letting go of that nagging, guilty feeling.

it also happens during social events. the worst in recent months was last may wherein i was invited to three birthday parties in one night. i felt that i couldn't skip any of the three because all of them are really good friends of mine. so what i did is before leaving the house, i set a schedule and mapped my route starting from the place nearest to my house to the furthest. while i had an enjoyable time and ended up eating three or four dinners (plus take-home! hehe), i also felt really stressed since i had to keep checking the time and praying i wasn't TOO late while trying to drive at a reasonably faster (but not too fast hehe) speed than usual.

the situation got worse this sem in that given our six day school week, i don't have much time for socials. i've had to forego quite a number of reunions, parties, movie (non)dates, dinners, game nights (sniff), lunches, etc. because my schedule can't handle it though i try to do my best by fitting in as much commitments as i can possibly in one timeslot. two saturdays ago, for instance, i volunteered for freshie night but had to drop by my friend's birthday since after all, she is one of my closest friends PLUS go home at a reasonably early time because my mom had just arrived from the states. same thing yesterday. after class, went to my friend's house since it's her younger sister's birthday. we had dinner at the fort (ran's and cupcakes! heavenly. hehe!) but i had to forego dropping by the birthday of her other sister's boyfriend AND game night because i went to another friend's party. then there was the time we had a block outing in tagaytay so i had to forego my friend's surprise despedida. i guess it's really not a big deal. i mean i really cannot be in more than one place at one particular time but sometimes i really wish i could. i'd be a lot less stressed and a lot more productive that way, i think. i sometimes feel bad when i skip out on my friends because i always think they feel that i'm not prioritizing them or shrugging them off. but it's not the case. i just have to juggle so much all at once and TRY not to let any of the metaphorical juggling balls (if that's what they're called) fall. i'm just thankful that at least thus far, my friends have been really understanding and (hopefully) don't think i take them for granted.

i still want a clone. or multiply clones. that would be multi-tasking to the Nth level! hahaha!
but wait, i don't think the world is ready to handle more than one arianne.

scary thought. hehehe :)

Labels: barops, extracurriculars, haggardness, law school, life in general, orgs, winlaw

Posted by arianne at 10:45 PM