Eye of the Storm

So it's been a quiet weekend. I'm bracing myself for a chaotic week but I also know I have to stop being lazy. I haven't touched my freelance work folder for quite some time and started working on billing old jobs that I've put off far too long. I'm putting myself back at ODesk and I'm also following up loose ends that haven't quite made it to the finish line. So it's a start - a slow one - but a start. I decided that I will try to limit my freelance workload to 3 hours weekdays and 8 hours weekends. I plan to keep my workout routine for as long as I can. I remembered how I love running - so I hope that it doesn't rain on our Boardwalk days.

I finished reading the Niffenegger books my friend gave me. I read The Time Traveller's Wife a second time and had the urge to draw a timeline for Henry and Clare - something I wanted to do when I first read it. But that means I had to draw not just two but three timelines - Henry's, Clare's and the time travelling Henry's - which would probably end up with a doodling mess on paper. Her Fearful Symmetry is slightly heavy emotionally as all books dealing with afterlife and souls and cemeteries should be. If I had to be locked up as a spirit, I wish to be in a Smithsonian - or the Louvre. Wait, I take that back. I don't think I want to be locked up at all - dead or alive. (Sings aka Nelly Furtado): "I'm like a bird, I only fly away. I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my home is." Yup, I want to roam free. And if I had to haunt people, I already have a short list of people to haunt (insert deep creepy laughter here). I'll start with my nemesis (Nyahahaha!)

On the lighter side of life, I have found a new gift. I seem to be very good at putting babies to sleep :) I don't know, maybe I'm soooo boring, they just shut their eyes when I start talking or singing. Or maybe they find my arms alike a comfy spa waterbed. Whichever, I can put Tyo Mike to sleep with a bit of crooning and rocking. Of course, once you put him down, he starts belting like Freddie Mercury again. But I really like having a baby in the house. It's true what my married friends say, babies take away stress just by looking clueless and dumb : ) - No, I haven't changed my mind about marriage or babies. I'm too selfish to be a wife or mom. Me likes being girlfriend and Tita until death do us part. Treat me right and I promise not to haunt you in the afterlife - Nyahahaha!

Ok, that's it. Have to go. It's Sunday and I plan to land a freelance job by next weekend before I go broke. Fingers crossed. Ah, the life of starving artists! Haha.

Pictures

I'm making up for all the lost time I should've spent blogging. I have been doing it sparingly but life goes on and does not stop for anyone. I have nothing much to say but here are pics for some quick updates.

1. Baby Pic- The new guy / toy in the house.. We call him Tyo Mike. :) Born two days after the elections, he earned the nickname Binoy. Dark but cuddly in sooo many ways. Grrrr.
2. Books - gifts from baby bro! Finished the Web Design book today. Love it! Recommend it! Must read! I wish all text books were written this way. School would never be boring!
3. Pug - the green pig who made it possible for me to leave for Thailand :D. Butchered him early May I think. Sold him for 2,750 pesos LOL. Enough for the elephant ride and a bit of pasalubong - hahaha.
4. My two remaining pigs - Dodo and Violet :) Dodod currently eats ten peso coins and will take awhile to fatten up. Violet is currently on loan with my nephew Paolo.

Attention Span of a 5 yr old

I was cleaning the mess in my desk this morning and found these:

A speaker once said in a seminar that doodling means your not listening or that you're bored. Then she singled me out and asked me if I was bored. I said "No" and continued doodling. I don't know if I insulted her that way because she kept calling my attention after that. LOL. I'd like to think I heard every word she said.

I think it's her job to keep me interested. If I don't hang on to her every word, maybe she just wasn't that good of a speaker. Haha - gina-justify pa! Anyways, I doodle when listening to people talk. Maybe I'm not just an undiagnosed obsessive-complusive. Maybe I'm autistic too. Hahaha.

I share this bad habit with a couple of siblings and several nieces and nephews. What can I say? Crazy runs in the family.

Quiet

So everything's been quiet and slow around here. I really have nothing to report because I haven't been really doing anything particularly important. Well, a few things here and there but no long term projects for now.

The truth is I've been spending a lot of time feeling good. LOL! I've been running/jogging a lot with my friends. And I have also enrolled myself in a gym :) I don't know if I've told you that before but I'm liking it. I like feeling energized after a workout. I like sweating profusely (LOL) and inhaling huge chunks of fresh air after a sprint.

Am I losing weight? LOL! A bit. Nothing drastic since I still don't want to give up my favorite food but I do choose what I eat. I don't starve myself but I don't reward myself with food either. I am still an emotional eater. But I am losing weight. Not too much. Slow progress. But loving it. Living it. - Us Girls!

It will take me more than 2 years to get to the weight I wanted. But it's not just the goal that is to be enjoyed ... but the journey. : )

Did I tell you that I have fabulously great, supportive and encouraging friends? I do :D

What I like about Bangkok

It's colorful.

It's creative.

Size matters.

Detail does too.

It's modern.

It's old.

It's quite and meditative ...

But fun and noisy at the same time.

Ahhhhh This is what I needed!

If you're good, I believe God will grant your prayers. If you are extra good, he will give you what you need. I love my vacation. I'm having fun. I'm losing weight - although that hasn't been confirmed yet. And I love love love the people I'm with. I promise I will make it a priority to save up for vacations like these. Next time, I wish the whole family would go together. What a blast that would be.

Will post pics soon. For now, I just want the world to know what a great idea this was despite the possibility of a protest, the untimeliness of the situation and the lack of funds.

Stop Trying So Hard

There will be bad hair days and just really bad days.

Yesterday, on the way home, I took the wrong jeepney. Then after realizing this and how late I was, I got into a cab that couldn't take me home because the driver needed to pick up another passenger. So he got me into another cab who had to drop off another passenger at SM City before he could drive me home. So finally got home late and started to change gear for my boardwalk run. I called my friend that I was ready and then realized that I had locked myself out of my bedroom. My keys, my money and my cellphone were inside. And I couldn't get it to open. So I borrowed money from my sister and headed off to Boardwalk. Halfway there, my sister texted my friend (since I didn't have my phone) to let me know that my Dad just sawed off my bedroom window so that he could try to open the door from the inside. Only it wouldn't open from the inside because the lock was jammed (probably because I kicked the door several times). So my Dad took his hammer and broke the doorknob from the outside. And that leaves me with an open window and a broken bedroom door.

On the bright side ... I ran 2.4 km, walked 4.8km and had fun with my friends that night even with bad hair :)
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Was reading through my favorite blogs and found this note from John Mayer on his blog:

I'm living out of a duffel bag and a messenger bag. I'm taking photos and taking cabs and taking chances on restaurants that might be the equivalent of a Spagos or a Shoney's. I'm re-using socks. (once over.) I'm sweating on a treadmill. I'm taking cat naps while in motion. I'm you, only with a guitar and some songs that people can sing along to.

La lang. I'm just happy to  know  that he is re-using his socks once over. Haha.

Motivation

Started going to the gym yesterday with my yahyah buddies. It helps to do it as a group because we all keep encouraging one another to keep up. It's much more fun to get through the routines with a bit of laughter in-between. Not attending the scheduled work-outs means you stood up your friends which we don't want to do to each other. And having Cid Lucero as bodyguard helps a lot too.

Anyway, my friend Super Mama started a trend while we were gritting our teeth through crunches yesterday which prompted me to make a motiovational list while doing all our circuit training exercises. For beginners there are 15-20 counts through each repetition with usually 3 reps for each exercise. There are about 20 exercise for the workout program so it gets harder as you go along. I thought that instead of counting the number of times we grunt our way through a leg raise or a bicep pull, we should recite motivational words to get us through a repetition. They must be recited in order because as the exercises get harder, the stronger the motivation needed. So here's my list: :)

1. long gown
2. skinny jeans
3. tuck-in
4. pantsuits
5. mini-skirts
6. pencil cuts
7. sleevless
8. halter tops
9. spaghetti
10. strapless
11. sarong
12. tube
13. belly-ring
14. see-through
15. backless
16. tangga
17. swimsuit
18. two-piece
19. topless
20. nude :)

Feel free to adapt it in your own workout. If this doesn't work, I don't know what will. Haha.

Season of Good Rain

My friends know I'm a sucker for acoustic guitar music and great movies and great conversations. Combine those, add bamboos, rain and a cute cross-cultural love story - ahhhhh love it! The Director of the film was also the Director of the movie April Snow = love that one too. Anyway, reminds me of Before Sunrise and After Sunset. The actors had to switch from Korean to Chinese but the conversations were mostly English. It is better to get the movie with subs because there are words you they pronounce thats better read :) Likey very much.


This is my third Jung Woo Sung movie. The first one was devine but heart breaking called A Moment To Remember. 

The second one was a re-make of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but was called "The Good, The Bad and the Weird" of which he won an award as Best Supporting Actor. I did think he wasn't bad at all considering that he had to be compared to Charles Bronson and Dirty Harry : )

Must watch.

Bored - walk

I haven't been blogging much. Sometimes I get caught up with work that I can't remember to post anything. Other times, I find myself having a very slow week with nothing to do and so end up with no topics to post. I remembering that there was a time when I forced myself to write even if I had nothing to write. It's a writing exercise that once you get started, you will soon get to a topic and it will begin a chain of thought that ends up on you blabbering yourself away to kingdom come. Which is why I'm posting today. I've been neglecting this blog far too long.

So what have I been up to? I've been walking in Boardwalk. If you live in Iloilo, you would have heard about the bike lane in Boardwalk.

It's a 1+ kilometer of concrete road alongside the Iloilo River - sort of like the sidewalk in Manila Bay. It begins perpendicular to the Marcos highway and ends on the smaller Tabucan Road. It started as a bike lane. But in the afternoons up to late into the night, it has become a hotspot for healthbuffs and hangout enthusiasts. After office hours, it gets populated with bicycles, street vendors, joggers, motorcycles at controlled speed, strollers, skateboarderss, waveboarderss, skaters, taebo and belly dancing groups right in the middle of the road. It's colorful. Not exactly an ideal place to jog if you are a serious jogger. But it's free and conveniently located right in the center of the hub. Walking distance to Smallville, UP, the real Boardwalk establishments and a short ride to SM City - the one stop shop.

My friends and I have started joining the taebo class - if schedule permits it - at sevenish or 6:30ish in the evening. To support the program, you can drop any amount in the basket they pass around to pay for the trainor and the sound system. Good business if you ask me. It's also a sight to see because people of all ages and all walks of life converge into a dance routine together. I find it enjoyable to watch. There are several older people there who memorized the routine way better than the trainor does which is funny. There are kids jumping up and down together with their moms. And there's us who just wants any excuse to dance and sweat off. My friends and I have started walking at least 3 times a week. While the guys jog, the girls walk back and forth along the road while updating ourselves with the latest gossip and talk about what's happening in our lives. The talk is just as much therapy as the exercise. So by the time we finish, we had a bit of exercise and a bit of fun for two hours.

Hmmm, the post is longer than I expected. I have to go now. Next time, I'll talk about murder - hehehe. I butchered another pig. Will tell you about that later. Or maybe tomorrow. I'm off.

Beauty

I've spent the whole afternoon editing pictures of a beautiful girl to make her picture perfect. As I was doing it, I started to reflect on the body's imperfections and started to love every wrinkle in my face - LOL. I know I would like to be younger, more healthy. more fit and YES, have the body of an image model - or at least her height. But I also realize that every wrinkle in my face represents the bit of wisdom I've acquired through the years. And every scar is a token of somethings survived or a reminder of a past mistake I promised not to do again (but end up doing again anyway LOL). I'm glad this model needed a make-over. Her wrinkles, though I had to hide them, revealed what she had gone through and survived. Makes her more human that way. Makes her more like me - well, maybe a hundred pounds lighter LOL.

While doing this job, I argued with myself a lot. It goes with the territory if you're working alone freelancing. I wanted her to be beautiful. But I also wanted her to be real. A smudge can make so much difference in Photoshop. But do I really want to smudge it there? I know people like looking good. I just wonder if people ever thought that being real is so much better? I follow a lady photographer's blog, and the pictures I really like are the ones where it doesn't hide the person's flaws but it's the flaws themselves that adds beauty to the picture. That's why I really like portrait photography and like to draw people. There's a story behind every line.

Speaking of stories, had client meetings during the week. Talked to a new client, a black British businessman. I usually talk to foreign clients over email and IM or Skype. Most of the time, I just meet up with my local clients to talk of projects or make a pitch. This guy was here for business so I got to talk to him without having to type my words. Which was weird.  I realized I was less nervous speaking to foreigners than I was speaking to my local clients. And I was not intimidated at all. Which was also weird because I always tell my friends that foreign clients tend to give me more stress than my local clients. Maybe because they demand so much? Not true really. Maybe I just give more pressure to myself with foreign clients than with local ones. Is it because they pay more? That's not true either. Maybe in my mind, there are more opportunities with them when it comes to service? One thing I know, this business is broadening my horizons quite a bit. And I like having a better view of the world from where I'm at.

I should blog more. But I've been busy. That's not really an excuse but can't help it. I have very little to say nowadays. Well, that's not really true. I have plenty to say. I just don't say it here quite as often as I should. I'm currently trying to give my life more balance. It's a struggle but it might result to less time with the computer and more time with reality. ; )