Never Lend Money to Friends

I should have known better but I didn't, unfortunately...

Neither a borrower nor a lender be for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. – William Shakespeare 

I should have heeded old Willy's advise, then life would not be so annoying for me right now. See, I have this friend who asked for a loan and swore she would pay me back within a month just as soon as her father gets money from some lending company and/or just as soon as her clinic gets enough patients.

I always try to accommodate my friends if I can at times like these, so even if this particular friend still had a $600 outstanding loan from the previous year, since she needed the money badly and I wanted to help her get started, I lent her another $1100... well, that turned out to be a really stupid decision.

Fast forward six months later and she'd been avoiding my texts and calls like the plague. If that's not enough aggravation, she's been telling common friends that she hasn't forgotten her loan and she'd pay me but I'm making life difficult for her by pressuring her with my (sporadic, unanswered) calls and (very polite) messages.

How would I know she still intends to pay me back when she's been ignoring all my attempts at communication? Shouldn't I expect my money back when she tells me she'd pay at least $200/week because according to her, her dental practice is now doing really well? The nerve of this woman, huh?

To make matters worse, I let her charge her expensive sandals on my credit card and I've had to pay that monthly for the past six months. Talking of being reminded regularly of my utter stupidity! That's the saltiest salt in the wound, I tell you.

I must admit this situation has happened to me before, so I know how it is to be used and discarded by so-called "friends". But this is by far the most painful for me because this one was my friend for more than 15 years, while we were still in school. We've been through so much together, I never thought a stupid thing like a loan would come between us, but it did.

So dear friends, heed William Shakespeare's (and your mom's) advise. Keep your money, save it, give it to charity, help your family in need... just don't lend it to friends because 99% of the time you will end up losing that friend and your money too. And don't trust them just because you've been friends with them for ages, read the bible and goes to the same church as you, okay?

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The Avengers and my bestie

I finally checked out the Avengers movie. Co-workers have been talking about it for days and made me feel like I'd be missing this huge cultural event if I didn't watch. So I dragged my cousin/best friend Rose away from her gorgeous 10-week old daughter Athena to watch the movie with me.

 I know, I'm a heartless godmother for doing that, but I just missed catching up with her the past few months. We hardly saw each other since I was busy with work and traveling (Singapore, Malaysia, CamSur, Albay. Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte within a month, crazy!) and she was busy lactating. ;)

This day was just a relief for both of us, ranting and raving about our situations. Sharing her joy at being a new mom, while I shared my disgust and disappointment at someone who wouldn't pay back a loan. It's just like old times. I'm thankful for the four hours we got to share a good conversation over pizza , pasta and a good movie.

The Avengers is a very good action film, with all the explosions, special effects and hot guys we've come to expect from summer blockbusters. Oh Captain America, marry me! But my absolute favorite is Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, she totally kicked butt. It's also very funny in parts--I loved the various interactions between the superheroes--even Loki rocked it.

Now I know why it's breaking box office records in the Philippines. It currently has the record for biggest opening and is on track to be the biggest grossing movie ever in the country. It's so good, it made me forget for a bit that friend who owes me money, who's currently ignoring my calls and texts. Thanks, The Avengers and Joss Whedon for that!

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Survivor USA is Filming in Caramoan

There are billboards like this put up in practically every major intersection in Camarines Sur these days. It says "This is to inform the public that Gota Village Resort and Hunongan Cove is fully booked from February 2012 until August 2012. The following islands: Sabitang Laya, Tayak, Pitogo, Catanhawan, Inayun-ayunan, Matukad and Lahos, will also be inaccessible due to a special project from February 2012 until August 2012."

no Sabitang Laya island...

no Gota beach either

                                   
Survivor USA filming in Caramoan is an open secret. We were supposed to spend the past Easter there with my balikbayan relatives but this notice from the CamSur provincial government made us reconsider our plans.

but Manlawi sandbar is open & worth the trip alone...

I have asked my local contacts there and they said these "inaccessible" islands are open for tourists if there are no scheduled shooting that day, but we chose not to risk it. So we went to Aguirangan aka Rose Islet in Presentacion instead. I would have loved to explore more of Caramoan this summer, but Survivor USA will introduce it to even more people, so no complaints here.

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Holy Week: More Fun In The Philippines

I'm spending Holy Week in CamSur for the first time in over a decade. I don't know, but since I left home for med school, I have always found myself busy working at this time of year.

I filed for a two-week leave because my nephew's graduating and they might leave for Canada by the middle of this year so I wanted to spend this occasion with my big sister's family while they are still here. Also my cousin JR is getting married after lent and assorted relatives from Europe are coming over so I was excited to spend time with everyone.

It's really nice to see folks participating in parades and passion plays. We even drove by one on the way to my hometown this morning. There were kids dressed as Romans and there were even two carrying crosses. I guess one represented Barrabas and the other one was supposed to be Jesus.

Things like this just take me back to my childhood. This kind of parade was a big part of my lenten season memories as a kid and it's nice to experience them again after all these years.

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Summer Rains and Flight Delays

It's turning out to be a weird summer for us in the Philippines. What with the unusual rains brought about by "La Niña" affecting travel plans etc. I had to go home to CamSur for my nephew Jian's High School graduation and getting there was challenging, to say the least.

My flight via Cebu Pacific that's supposed to leave at noon, left at 4:45pm instead! I arrived at the NAIA Terminal 3 at 10:30am so it was over 6 hours of waiting... The airline did not even give us water for our trouble, hmmph! Good thing I had my HP tablet and phone to keep me from going crazy.

And yeah, I also discovered Blogger has this blogging app for iPhones now so I can update this semi-abandoned blog while waiting for my flight to get called. I guess the hours of waiting was not a complete waste, huh?

Long story short, I'm still thankful my flight did not get cancelled due to the nasty weather & I still got to buy my nephew's laptop gift from his aunts (boy, kids these days are lucky!).

I hope I can figure out how to use this app properly though, so I can blog on the go & I can rant here more often. I wonder how this entry would look like when I hit "publish". Here we go...

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