OK! it's way past Christmas...so much to say. first of all,

BELATED MERRY CHRISTMAS!

i've holed myself in as of late (again)...kinda family time n stuff. the only person i actually spoke to since i've been here was cathy. other than that, i prolly talked to some ppl online...but the only ppl i remember talkin to are hija and thara. all good!

so anyways, let's talk about xmas. quite eventful. started out good, some bad shit in the middle, then ended out pretty well.

well this year, instead of just spending it with our family, we went to the OTHER family. the "in-laws"...exciting, isn't it??? we spent all of christmas eve with the in-laws! we got there around 6, ate some dinner (there was some GOOOOOOOOOOD-ASS meat there...i ferget what kind it was, but it was so tender and nice n pink in the middle...), watched spiderman twice (the second time with the pop-ups, but we only got like halfway through), then we took MAD pics. i was goin blind from all the flashes...our family, their family, just the kids, just the parents...all SORTS of combinations. man. i'm surprised we didn't take pictures of my sisters with justin's parents and justin and kuya dave with my parents. hahaha. that would be funny. it was about 9ish, and i thought we'd be leaving cuz they go to 10pm mass, and we usually go to midnight mass (we like to open gifts when we come back). dude, i had no clue wut was goin on, cuz we ended up goin to mass with them. oh, i didn't tell you did i! anita was there. she went to church with us to. odd, but hey that's cool. she's a good kid. anyways, we went to st. matthews and it's a pretty church...not a very long aisle, but we'll just walk really slow down it or something...hahaha. so i saw some cuties, saw my ading nate, sang some songs, got some communion (no wine ;)), and all that church hey God happy birthday Jesus stuff. it was nice, but as my sisters agree, we all missed goin to midnight mass. we thought we'd be able to make it, but we hung out at the estacio's fer a lil while longer. oh yeah...i had some sparkling wine (that justin offered me, so me justin and anita did a lil xmas toast) and i figured it'd be ok. it's not like i thought we were at wine night and drank half a bottle...i had like a third of those red plastic cups. and i figured, well i'm not gonna lie to my parents on christmas about drinking a lil wine. so i sit down and ask my dad if he wanted a sip...and he's like no it's ok. and then i saw claudine drinking, who was sitting by us, and i asked her wut she was drinking, and she said it was fruit punch and i said ohok. and my dad says to me, aren't you drinking fruit punch? and said no...and he said so you're drinking the wine? and i said yeah. then HE says, who gave you permission to drink wine? dammit. i think to myself, what the fuck?!?!? is he joking??? so i said, we'll i'm 22 and it's not alot. i still couldn't tell if he was joking. but he didn't really look at me after that. then i just leave to sit with justin and anita again. i can never win.

so we left at around 12, got home at around 12:45, picked up the presents and headed over next door to my cuzin's place.

fun times! as usual, we all get into one room and one of the titos starts handin out the gifts. this year, the gifts took up all the space under the tree, and started infultrating another room...:). only because there's 3 kids and a new baby...so they get the majority of the gifts. so when all the gifts and envelopes are handed out, we open our stuff all at once. it's tons of fun :D. i got some good stuff (a lotta "woohoo's!" from me). and after that, the cuzins played the boardgame cranium, which is actually pretty fun! we played that fer a while...and a couple times...then there was eating again, especially of the milk n cookies. well anyways, i slept at like 7am or something...there were only like 3 of us up at this point, playin trivia of pursuit 2002, and fer once i was actually winning! whoa.

i wake up at like 12:30ish, to find that my sister, christine, had a near-death experience. go to her page for the details. to make a long story short, my cuzins and her were all laughing. while she was laughing, she was swallowing a piece of her cookie and started chokin on it. then my cuzin the nurse (maui) gave her the heimlich and she threw up a lil on the hardwood floor. AND, it was maui's fault they were all laughing, too. so maui actually gave her 3 things for christmas, a near-death experience, a second chance at life, and a sweater from marshall field's. anyways, i start eating some brunch then go fer a lil desert. when i go to the desert table, lo and behold, there's baklavah. it's one of my most FAVORITE deserts. anyways, one of the lolas and a tita are in the room with me as i pick out pieces. i pick two, and i start thinkin about a 3rd...as i do, the lola says something in tagalog. now some of you know that i don't understand tagalog all that well, but when they talk about you, you just get this moment of clarity and you just KNOW wut they're sayin. she pretty much say don't take anymore because your fat already. you can imagine the pretty colorful words swirling in my head. after that, all i did was turn around and say, 'THANKS. THANKS ALOT.' in a very angry pissed off tone. as i left the room, i heard the tita say in tagalog, something to the effect of you should say that cuz you'll hurt her feelings. well a lil too late for that. to make it worse, i was pmsing. GREAT. so i had no control over my tearducts. me and the cuzins were playin cranium again, and i had to leave the room like 5 times. i even went back to my house to wash my face and get a hold of myself. man. that was the lowest point of my christmas. something bad always seems to happen. after that, things got a lil better, but not back to the level where it was before. playing games with the cuzins help. then me n christine watched amelie (cuz claudine was sleeping).

well, bein here isn't that great. home gets me down, not only because of the nagging, but also because of my mommy. not that she's bad, it's just that it hurts to see her sometimes...so some of you know that my mommy had breast cancer my freshman year...and now she has lung cancer. so she talks in this little voice, she's lost most of her hair, she can't do strenuous things like grip a pair of scissors and stuff...me and my sisters have to a lot of stuff for her, and it's not that i mind doing it...it's just that it hurts...knowing that your mom would but can't, and you know why she can't and you wonder if she'll ever be able to do things again. i have a vivid imagination, and the places it takes me or the events that unfold scare me sometimes. it can be a blessing to not have an imagination...

but i'm thankful for my sisters. and my friends. alot of you have gotten me through the day and night. i dunno wut i'd do without you.

yesterday me n christine went shopping at lincolnwood. man, ghetto. frickin teeny boppers in their little 'crews' or 'gangs' or wutever u call 'em. eh. but i made use of some express cards and bought myself some clothes! next, shoes and more clothes! yeahyeahyeah! :) oh yeah, claudine left for vegas with dan...she'll be back on the 29th.

today was a lazy day. :D but tonight...hopefully that'll get my spirits up. goin to Minx. if it's good, i'll write about it.