for the love of sushi

these are now officially on my wishlist:

sushi pillow

sushi charm bracelet

sushi soap

* items herein can be bought here and here and here.

a little holiday indulgence

Everyone loves the holidays. For who could ever find a more perfect time to indulge and give in to our little materialistic hopes and worldly wishes? Only in Christmas folks. Only in Christmas...

So, here's my little list for Santa and judging by the way I've been all year, I think well, pretty much I deserve most of them. Hey, I tried to be nice. I really did.

Anyway, here goes:

1. an ipod classic- a 30GB baby would do. everybody, has this on their Christmas wish/shopping list, so i might as well have it too. and besides, i could very much use the distraction.

2. havaianas or ipanemas- i've been wanting to own a pair for quite sometime but always thought it was too expensive for a pair of rubber flips. but a little Christmas indulgence won't hurt.

3. graphic tees- from David and Goliath (P995) or Wetseal (P750), a bit too indulgent. that's why they're on the wish list.

4. scarves galore- what?! it's cold and it's Christmas. nothing spells the holidays better than scarves.

5. body splash from Victoria's Secret or Bath and Body Works- they are about P500 each and practical more than indulgent

6. ODM knockoffs- for only P950 and an exact replica of the original, i think they're a good, indulgent buy.

7. plane tickets to either Boracay, Davao or Singapore- right now, i would want nothing more than a chance to travel. to go to the beach or visit a new place, now that's indulgence.

8. a digital camera or better yet a DSLR Canon D40- i would want to start a photoblog with it.

9. a tumbler from the cheshire cat- its about P350 bucks. and i love the designs. even better than the usual Starbucks coffee tummie.

10. Chuck Taylors- i've always wanted chuck taylors for Christmas and i have a recent inclination to shirt and jeans (see number 3 on my list). as a friend pointed out, it is probably a manifestation of my subconscious longing to go back to college.

* not necessarily in order but that's all i can think of for now! this should give you the idea [wink]

here are some examples xD

And since we are on the topic of photo editing, here are some of my finished products using Picnik, Picasa and Online Phototool:

Vive Cuervo!

our new old pic

caught on cam

it's time to go out on a picnik

I recently discovered online photo editing (what a loser!) and am seriously hooked. OPEs make Adobe Photoshop seem passe and uber difficult. Although in Adobe the possibilities are limitless, it might still take a while to figure out before you could even create winner designs and even that still will depend on your tech IQ and artistic knowhow.

But before you even discard the idea of prettifying your photos, consider OPEs to make your photo-editing life a breeze. They're fun, hip and most importantly, easy! Most of them have very user-friendly interfaces and won't take any figuring out.

Here are my personal favorites:

1. Picnik

Picnik has the easiest user interface among the OPEs in town and the catchiest name at that! The site layout is very friendly and easy on the eyes. For slower PCs though, it might take a while to load. Use Picnik to quickly edit all your photos online. It's an easy remedy for your underexposed and red-eye laden pics. Plus, you can be an instant artist with the many special effects. I like the vignette and matte effects particularly. Picnik was once completely free to use. Sadly however, some of the special effects come with their premium package which you can get for a price.

2. Picasa
A 5MB favorite. The software is free and downloadable and it automatically gathers all your pictures into a very convenient and user friendly program. It's a lot like Adobe Bridge only easier. And yeah, you can do some editing with it too!

3. OnlinePhotoTool
Sign-up for free and you can use this OPE any which way you want to edit your pics. It's MS Paint combined with Adobe Filters. Making it a 2-in-1 delight. It's easy to use and they have lots of gorgeous frames to choose from. And did I say it's absolutely free?

on the radio

[so] this is how it works,
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe until their dying breath...

how I wish it was that easy~~ sigh!

chipped korean nail art

is love.

love at first flight

Almost got late for checking-in at the Manila Domestic. Arrived minutes before Counter 22 closed. Aboard the first flight of my life bound for Iloilo. Love every single moment of it. Always knew travelling was part of my system. Landed at the Iloilo International. New and shiny airport at the outskirts of the city. Not very third world. Love new things. Love it. (Will try to post pics from Mam D's cam).

Checked in at the Westown Hotel. It's new and shiny also hence, love it too. Have inclination for shiny and glittery objects. Hotel has free internet and location is perfect for night life. Visit the place if you happen to be in Iloilo. It's near everything.

Taxi rides are delightful as compared to the Metro. Cabbies don nice uniforms and don't choose passengers. Perfect tourist guides. Taxi meters work. Recorded message plays when the meter stops to remind passengers of belongings. And for the first time, it felt right to tip the cabbie. Again, not very third world.

Had lunch at Tatoy's. Delicious oysters. Delicious everything.

Off to SM City to burn calories. Ultimate markers of civilization. Bought pain killers. Just in case. Searched for the elusive Globe loading outlet. Had nail art done, hot pink zebra stripes. Chipped them off on our taxi ride on the way back to the hotel. Dammit.

Passed up time watching ANTM and reading Lord of the Flies. Should've slept instead.

italian night

I'm feeling all sloppy right now and my work efficiency is spiraling down to extremely low levels. It's as if my stars have picked the most perfect time to be misaligned what with all these things I have to pressure my self to finish and a lot more. Come to think of it, I haven't been feeling like my usual perky self all October. It's like bad hair day, everyday for nearly two weeks. I wonder what my astrology update has to say about this.

Anyhoo, it's Italian night once again with Sed and Kare. Mad dash to the CCP to catch the 7pm screening of *Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto, a 1974 Wertmuller film roughly translated in English as Swept Away (first to memorize the Italian title wins). Madonna, stars in its 2000 American remake by Guy Ritchie. It's a political film with lots of scenes alluding to sex. The violence was tiring. Carunchio is a pig. Sra. Lanzetti is a goddess. Love her, especially that black number she sported the day they got stranded in the island. It's so fazyon, you wouldn't think it's from the 70s. Travolti is one of those films that seem to run too long, draining your energy along the process. Even before the credits started rolling, we have already been tired and famished.

And as we were in the Italian spirit that night, even more influenced by the food of the Italian elite we saw in the movie, Sed, Kareeza and I craved for good ol' spaghetti (We don't want fettucini, thank you!). Then, armed with a camera phone, we spent the rest of the night cam whoring by the bay.


*Swept away by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August

oathtaking

The idea of cramming in tens of thousands of people in an enclosed space had me suspicious. Especially that I already had my doubts with the event organizers founded on the poorly planned sytem (or lack thereof) of the NLE application filing for the June 2007 Board Exams. My suspicions were affirmed, somehow ominously, by the sucky weather on the day of the Oathtaking and the rather ambivalent cabbie who drove us to the venue. He had my eyeballs rolling at dangerously blinding degrees with his account of the road situation at the various routes we could take going to Araneta Center, as if we hadn't already known that a) traffic was bad especially in this weather and b) yes, it was probably flooded.

Then I had sort of an epiphany of all the taxi rides I have been in my whole life and I realized, how much stressful these rides were, which totally defeats the purpose of taking them in the first place.

We arrived in Araneta an hour and a half later than scheduled, I blame it partly on the weather, and the rest on my genetic predisposition to be tardy. Luckily, there had been a delay with the program because apparently the guest speaker was likewise marooned due to heavy rains. The ceremonies, dare I call it, have just started when I finally got to where my friends were.

As if it was not enough that we had the attention span of hummingbirds, the volume of people, nurses at that, inside the Coliseum, was overwhelmingly distracting. So trying to pay attention to the speaker's cookie cutter speech was a real struggle. From where I sat, all I could see where tiny other nurses in white. The Araneta Coliseum suddenly became a gigantic ant hill of tiny white ants who move and talk as if it were a single unit. A single mutinous ant, backed by thousands of likewise mutinous but far more cowardly ones, could only mean stampede. But fortunately, nothing of that sort happened. People there, well just as Joy Behar's aunt would put it, just remained.


So ok, we were there, now what?

Ironically, that summarizes my life so far. I have hurdled the test and am now a professional nurse but what happens next is all a mishmash. But don't get me wrong. I have plans. Oh I have lots of them. I have future end goals, and milestones I wish to achieve are deeply planted in the cortices of my brain. I know what I want, where I'd go, but it seems I do not know how the hell I'm going to get there.

And now, I wander.

inasal and italian

Graci to my former professor, current boss, Prof. Shiela who told me all about it, Sed, Kareeza and I (the super draggable trio) met for a mid evening rendezvous at the CCP for the Italian Film Fest screening of Pana e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips). Despite the seemingly unbearable facts that I was finally succumbing to mumps, Kareeza still had to come from Katips, Sed was terribly hungry and the annoying drizzle was not helping, we were off to the movies.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Italian movies or maybe Italians par se, can be quite a distraction. So much that I totally forgot about the subtitle for the first 5 minutes of the show. I'm not sure if its the heavily passionate Italian or the utterly tacky clothes that looked straight out of German Moreno's wardrobe. I mean, come on! a silver wind breaker? What the hell are they thinking?


Pana e tulipani tells the story of housewife, Rosalba, at a crossroad (literally or figuratively) on her middle-aged life, of finding freedom from her tyrnannical husband and her highly domesticated life in the most beautiful of places and of rediscovering her life's passion. It is mid-life crisis told almost in a dream with a large helping of comic relief

In a world which hails bubblegum pop and a culture of swooning over matinee idols and teenage girls in mid-rifs, middle-aged romance may not be on everyone's comfort zone. I mean it's not even cute. But they nailed it! With witty dialogues, sarcasmic undertones, unpretentious scenes and wonderful, wonderful Venice, it won our hearts over.

After the movie, grumbling protests from our stomachs declared we should probably eat lest we want to be malnourished, not that we still aren't. So the three of us decided to have dinner just across the CCP. There were a variety of dine places to choose from, we picked Inasal for the very convenient reason, thanks to Kareeza, that it does not have a branch in Katipunan. Well, as for Sed and I, we just wanted food.

scientific evidence to dispprove summer class

in case you haven't heard april 24 marks the beginning of my unemployment (a.k.a. graduation day). although i'm a little bit disappointed that i won't be getting any award for graduation (pardon, the explicit g.c.-ness and abuse of parentheses), i'm relieved that finally, i'm done with school and have at last earned that much awaited degree. however, the relief, at least for us, is short-lived as the looming terror of the board exams hover over our elation. under the cloudless sky and scorching heat of the sun, therefore, there is a dire need to attend review classes.

we haven't even gone through the formalities yet and here we are butt fastened tight to our classroom seats, inducing information hemorrhage while our brains fry under the horrible summer heat figuratively and maybe even literally.

well, there's literature to prove that we may be literally frying our brains off, that heat could actually affect brain processes. as anything that does work produces heat, so does the brain. overthinking could actually cause the brain to "overheat", so to speak, and eventually lead to brain damage. if you think this could be the perfect excuse to do away with summer review, think again. there's a far better scientific rationalization to dismiss most if not all structured summer learning.

our bodies are equipped with natural temperature control mechanisms. excessive body temperature, brain temp included, can be dissipated to the environment as we perspire and give off heat. sadly, this process becomes less effective when enivronmental temperatures rise, as in summer. when this happens, the brain,to compensate,is forced to decreased its activity below acceptable standards. Ergo, a person appears sluggish, exhibits fragmented thought, mental instability and more commonly, general sleepiness (finally, an explanation for dozing off!), making summer review classes futile and utterly pointless!

science is just so cool.

Reference : Overclock Your Brain by Lyle Zapato 2006-07-24 http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200607249460.overclock_your_brain

new template

this is my first take on blog design, it caused a little bit of headache,
so be kind and feel free to comment. ;)

will be updating people soon.

ciao!

me, my hair and i

when i became a self-conscious adolescent i started questioning why i have lots of hair and just about everybody else doesn't. as if it wasn't enough that i got loads of them sticking out my scalp, thick, coarse and irritatingly wavy locks crown my glory. and it isn't fun, if at all funny. i have a theory that if i shaved off my head i'll be 2 pounds lighter in under 15 minutes making it the fastest, most efficient weight loss regimen in the planet.

when i roll it in a bun, it's massiveness would be enough to throw me off balance with the slightest push. when i tie it in a pony tail, by midday my scalp would be aching by the constant pull of the weight of my hair. by that time, i would be needing pain killers to function. if it's in a braid, it wouldn't be as cute as it should. how could it, when its thick enough to dock a ship? if i let my hair down, all hell will break loose. hair iron and blower would take forever, the salon almost charges me for the extra electricity. i couldn't even risk using hair product because the effect would be leaving a coat of grease that would hinder air circulation, giving me a nasty headache, which is so not worth it. just now, i tried my luck on side-swept bangs. didn't work. too much volume makes it look poofy when its supposed to be flat. a bob is out of the question, because i am not getting one. it's hideous and it reminds me of how i looked back in high school. two words: not good.

i tried having it straightened once to get the limp lifeless look. the effect? waves started showing days after and the ends have been damaged by the straightening formula, which made it look more like a native broom. well, i haven 't tried getting a perm but its just because no matter how i want the 70s to be back, it wouldn't be and nobody's ready to go afro. not just yet.

there had been confrontations and endless sessions on the discussion of my hair. people would tell me "maganda nga yan. makapal buhok mo." (its nice that your hair is thick) but they do not know any better. the truth is, it sucks when your hair is coarse, thick and unmanageable, when it's neither straight nor curly. it sucks when no amount of conditioner can hold it down. it sucks when you can't use hair product or you can't even have decent bangs. it sucks that people sell products to thicken hair but none to make it thinner.

it sucks in so many different levels and i'm tired of it.

adieu

until we meet again

Nagcarlan was harsh at first. it was unforgiving to the unknowing as it beats the spirit up black and blue. everything was new and unfamiliar. amenities are always less than at the city and for the urban-bred creatures that we were, everyday survival was a feat in itself. we learned that to survive, we had to rely on one another for support, for a pat in the back, for that tug on our reins when we seem to have lost control, for happiness and for friendship. yes, it had not been always easy. individuality would assert our differences and the struggle to survive in a new environment vis-a-vis the enormous efforts we make to try to incorporate 12 other people in our circle all at the same time was a challenge we thought we wouldn't get past through. confrontations and silent squabbles gnawed at our very being.

with our desire to make life worth living in Nagcarlan at least for 8 weeks, we settled our differences, laid our cards on the table and worked towards peaceful coexistence. and i think, even at a silent level, everyone agreed that living together and going through the same experiences, kept us bonded. seriously, we deserve an award for all that we've been through.

in the end, we emerge from the provincial cocoon, stronger and more mature. who had ever thought life would still be worth living without an internet connection? more than the experience, i value the life lessons that seem to have been magnified a thousand times more. we have our beloved Barangay Palina to thank for that.

sure i'll miss a lot of things, the food, the air even the mud that so often had our feet but not as much as i'll miss the people who have shown us friendship more than anything else.

now it's over. i guess what's sad about goodbyes is knowing that at some point, goodbye, especially ones that are unsaid, would be forever.

straight from a Hallmark greeting card

thanks for all the well-wishes and prayers...

I'm well on my way to recovery now.

grazie!

you know what else is stupid?

getting sick in the new year is.

Sigh! I have herpes zoster and it's wreaking as much havoc in my life as it can. It's painful and hell, it's ugly! No, it's not venereal. It's more of the price I pay for pushing myself to my human limits. Lack of sleep and inadequate nutrition (read as: laziness to eat) has finally got me. I lead an unhealthy life as opposed to what I am preaching as a nurse. My resistance fell to dangerous levels. Hence, opportunistic viruses such as the herpes zoster virus took the chance to bite my ass... err... my entire right abdomen, at least.

So here's how it goes...

When we get chicken pox as children, our body fights off the virus by creating antibodies against it. Some of the virus, because of the threat of virus-destroying antibodies, would remain dormant in our peripheral nerves, that is, they would remain inactive until the threat disappears. Normally, our body's resistance would be enough to keep the virus dormant. However, when our resistance goes down due to circumstances like lack of sleep and malnutrition (I experienced both), our antibodies would become less vigilant and hence, the virus would come back with avengeance in the form of herpes zoster a.k.a. shingles.

With its reactivation, the virus would travel down the peripheral nerve and to the skin to manifest as a rash that quickly progresses on to a blister, a painful one at that! Since only one side of the body is supplied by a particular peripheral nerve, the lesions would grow only on one side and would never cross the midline. I got mine on my right and it's killing me!

Communicability wise, it is highly communicable via contact, BUT only to those who haven't had chicken pox yet. Shingles par se cannot be transferred. Although that is the case, the pain remains to be a BIG issue here. Some even say that the pain lingers several months even after the lesions are gone- post herpetic neuralgia. I'm just hoping I wouldn't have that.

There's really no way to speed up the healing but to strengthen the immunity. Pain killers are helpful to decrease the nuisance. I was given steroids to decrease the inflammation. I stopped taking them midway but the pain killers I can't live without.

For the meantime, I miss work. Tons of it are waiting for me in Nagcarlan and i really can't wait to haul myself there. Since when have i been a workaholic?

Just let this be a lesson to all. :)