Jaded

So it's a little crazy for me this week. So many things to do and read. I have to come up with a marketing campaign, prepare for a seminar, come up with graphic designs (I don't do them; I just conceptualize how they're supposed to look and the artist and I have good chemistry) and write tons of papers! Plus, there are essays I need to grade. So that's me studying my seminar materials and trying to grade essay papers all at the same time. When I get bored reading my students' essays I study my seminar notes. That way you don't waste time staring into space wondering why on earth your student wrote what he/she wrote and expect you to NOT GIVE him/her a big fat F for his/her gobbledygook. Doing two things at the same time also makes it less boring. Haha! And yes, I try to stay away from the computer while studying and making the grades; but apparently here I am again. So just a short update. I have to get back to that other table like NOW.

BC Bloggers 4 Now Open!

I have been waiting for this to open again and finally it's here! BC Bloggers 4 is now open. So if you're new to blogging and is finding it hard to gain links to your blog;  tired of exchanging links one blog at a time; and looking for friends in the blogosphere, then you absolutely have to join this batch. Here's how:

1. Make a blog post about BC Bloggers 4 to help spread the word. Invite your blog friends everywhere!

2. Put the BC Bloggers badge in your sidebar. The code can be found here.

3. Make a page dedicated to BC Bloggers where you intend to post the links. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the navigation bar or at the sidebar as long as it is linked in the homepage.

4. Once done with 1,2, and 3, fill up the application form.

 

Pretty simple, huh? So join us now!

White Lady

This happened on our way home. We usually take leisure drives before heading home and this is what we saw:

It was a bit of a shocker especially with the effect of the moon and all. We consoled ourselves saying it was probably just another human who decided to take a stroll in the middle of the street at midnight (yes, we go home that late!), wearing an all-white flowy gown. Who does that? What was creepy though is that we did pass by her and got a little close but I don't think I remember seeing a face.

Ryan told me it was probably a white lady. A White Lady is a type of female ghost purported to appear in many rural areas, and who is supposed to have died or suffered trauma in life. This is the Philippines' version of White Lady according to Wikipedia:

White Ladies are popular ghost story topics in the Philippines. Along with other Philippine mythological creatures and ghostly beings like the Manananggal, Tiyanak, Kapre and Wak-Wak, White Ladies are often used as subjects that tend to convey horror and mystery usually aimed at young children for storytelling purposes. Sightings of white ladies are common among folk from around the country, and usually every town and barrio has its own "White Lady" story to tell.

The most prominent one is the White Lady of Balete Drive, in Quezon City. It is said that it is a ghost who appears as a long-haired woman in a white dress. According to legend, she was raped and killed by Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. Most of the stories that have come out about her were told by taxi drivers doing the graveyard shift. In other instances it is said that when solitary people drive by Balete Drive in the wee hours of the morning, they tend to see the face of a woman in white in the rear view mirror for a split second before the apparition disappears. Some accidents on this road are blamed on the White Lady.

Another story tells about a taxi crossing the dreaded Balete Drive and a very beautiful woman was asking for a ride. The taxi driver looks behind and the woman looks like her face was full of blood and bruises. The taxi driver escaped from the taxi from fear.

Many sources have declared this legend was actually manufactured by a reporter in the 1950s, and also possibly a combination of multiple stories from the area

 Okay so I'm going to end it here because it is seriously creeping me out.

You Are for Me by Kari Jobe

This song really spoke to me when I first heard it. In times of weakness and great sadness, I remind myself of God's promise that tells me whatever I am going through He is for me because He planned to prosper me and give me hope and a future. His plans are perfect and pleasing and I ought to trust that.

The chorus says:

I know that You are for me
I know that You are for me
I know that You will never forsake me in my weakness
I know that You have come down
Even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who You are

So amidst despair and feelings of emptiness, I remind myself who He is. He has defeated death and conquered the world. He gave His own life for me even when I am unworthy, even if I've constantly rejected His love; just so I can live in freedom from my own shamefulness. I love because He loved me first.

So to my bestfriend, if you ever get to read this, I dedicate this post to you. Run into His arms. His love does not run dry; His touch restores life. And He is for you, as He is for me. I love you with the love of Christ.

Surigao City Weather

I used to hate the second half of the year. Even if our country is in the tropical region, our little city in the south had it bad during these times. June to December was always characterized by either typhoons or heavy downpours (without the wind). Flying debris have actually become a typical site here. Aside from that, it's difficult to get out of bed as it was almost always cold (for a tropical region I mean). And since some parts of the city had pour drainage systems, you can always expect them to be flooding. So before daily weather for Surigao City was a toss up between the following:

However, something's become really strange here. June has come and gone and there's not been a slightest drizzle. Not to mention we've had terrible power outages because the water level in the biggest hydroelectric plant in this area of the country has gone down to its critical level. Apparently, this is global warming touching base. So after its onset, weather patterns here have turned to this:

I used to sing the "rain rain go away" song before. But now I miss it terribly that I forgot what it sounds like, tastes like (ah yes!), smells like (oh the wet earth) and looks like (the cool little needles of water!). Rain, rain please come again before I lose all my weight simmering in the sun.

The Princess Bride

It was Ryan's birthday two days ago. We had a lovely dinner with the family at the restaurant called Spectacular View. (Pictures are yet to be uploaded because he has them.) The view wasn't really that spectacular. The entire place could really use a bit of ambiance and re-decorating, but we had a great dinner nonetheless. On the plus side, Ryan got two birthday cakes, both extremely delicious! One of them was an unexpected present from a special student who's extremely generous with everything. (Thanks, Madam!) So anyway, I thought the day ended with just that dinner and with us distributing the cake to the customers of LOLZ (the business we put up together -- an Internet Cafe), but no it didn't. See, Ryan's an unpredictable sweet guy who'd research, download and watch cheesy, romantic flicks with me. He also knows my "anti-social" nature and thus, has downloaded a ton of indie films for me (err... both of us) to enjoy. Guys are known to love the action-filled types of films but I'm not really into that. The more conversations there are in the movie, the more likely I'd watch it. And Ryan can actually sit through something that would put others to sleep. So we had another movie night and we watched The Princess Bride.

I feel like such a loser for discovering this wonderful gem of a movie only now when it was released way back in 1987 and has probably been shown in Cinemax a couple of times or something. Plus, it stars Mandy Patinkin in his best role ever. It prolly was one of the first feature films Robert Wright Penn has done too and she was so adorably pretty and innocent. Ah, the magic of true love and a beautiful narrative. I love it that the film was able to preserve the witty narrative style of the book where it was based from. And as the grandfather said, the movie has everything: comedy, romance, adventure, pirates, torture, sword fight, battle of wits, strength and steel; what's not to love? What's more, the screenplay is so clever it brings me to tears and makes me burst with happiness all at the same time. I love how each characters fit into their stereotypical role and how that played out so well for the film. Big LOLs for the Albino, the Miracle worker and his wife. Everyone has a story to tell and that darn, Prince Humperdinck is so easy to be disgusted upon. Vizzini is more lovable than he is.

One thing that's most memorable about the film is it's brilliant screenplay. The lines are forever etched in my memory. I even made a drawing for my most favorite one. I'm probably going to do series of drawings for this film just for the LOLz of it. There are a lot of them in the movie's facebook page. Even until now, the film has a fiercely loyal following and I just became part of the cult. Overall, this is such a charming film and no matter how much of a cynic you are, it somehow makes you believe that truly love really does conquer it all. The film is also one of the most faithful and tasteful transition from the written word to the silver screens. Comic book transitions to the big screen have disappointed me for so long (with the exception of Spiderman) and book to movie transitions suck big time (hello, Twilight and Nicholas Sparks based films -- not that I'm a fan but they become cornier in the movies).

So, I really thank Ryan for this one. It's his birthday and yet, he's the one who made me happy. I guess that's what true love is for me. ^_^

Stick Figures

I don't know how to draw but I love expressing myself through images. And this blog: Diary of a Fair Weather Diver inspired me to pursue the only art I know how to do -- stick figures! Check out all of her wonderful drawings and mini-comics. They're all really funny. Hehe! Anyway, please become a fan of or like the stick figure page over at facebook by clicking this. It's so cool to know how many people love stick figures the way I do. Yay! So here's my first art. It's about my blog, catching that sunshine in your cup! I was never really good at art but I love looking at them. I attempted drawing (seriously) at some point in my life but failed miserably. I guess you'll just have to make do of what you can draw. Did this in Adobe Photoshop though using my trusty Hello Kitty mouse. I know how to use Photoshop but I'm not an expert so I'll probably stick with something crude. Like this.

Cheating in Class

 (image via here)

You've had zero hours of sleep because you spent the entire night trying to memorize theories, equations and a whole bunch of mambo jumbos that explains how societies allocate scarce resources to satisfy people's wants and needs. Your notes are scattered all over your desk (or the floor) and practically all the pages of your book are filled with neon highlights that emphasizes all the important information that you need to remember in order to survive. You've eaten more than a fare share of junk food and consumed gallons of caffeine in order to last the night. And then you ponder why, with the abundance of time you've had before, you never thought of allocating them to memorizing and understanding the things you were already supposed to know. Welcome to the night before examination periods where students cram, panic, and try as hard as they can to shove up all the information they can possibly process in 24 hours (or less) in their brains, all for the ultimate goal of attaining that seemingly elusive passing mark. This may not apply to everybody but at least a large majority of students all over the world have nights like these. But when that fateful exams day eventually comes, all systems would suddenly and (most of the time unsurprisingly) fail and none of the information hurriedly digested the night before are available for recall in the memory banks. Exam questions then transform into un-decipherable encrypted data and the chances of making it through have gone from barely possible to mission impossible.

When this happens, students turn to one of their last and most ingenious of tricks -- cheating! The art of cheating is one that is perfected throughout time. It takes skill, perseverance, determination and cunning to be executed seamlessly. It evolved together with the advancement of technology and has now taken on numerous forms. Students have now developed elaborate and fail-safe systems of cheating; some of which have been widely successful while the others have caused grief even to top students. It has been embedded deep within the academic culture and putting an end to it has proven to be futile.

Schools have now set-up stricter policies to counteract cheating such as -- no cellphones during exams; bags and all notes must be left in lockers or placed in front of the class; and worse, students have to be frisked before they're allowed to take the exam (yes, I've seen that happen!) As a teacher you must exert a significant amount of effort to ensure that your exams are cheat-proof (if you can only put anti-cheating charms in the exam papers that would be neat). You need to have a hawk's eye to detect the most subtle of movements and you'd need a bat's ear to hear the faintest of whispers. But despite all of these, cheating persists and prevails.

So what should a teacher do in order to minimize if not eliminate the incidence of cheating? In my two years of teaching I've learned a trick or two that has helped significantly reduce the number of students in my class who resort to cheating as a means of getting through a course and I'd like to share them here:

1. Take the focus away from grades -- most teachers think that terrorizing students with failing marks will somehow push them to work harder. That may move at least three to four students in class to react positively but unfortunately, the good majority of the class will not only respond with hate, but will try to outsmart you whenever they can just to exact revenge on you for being unreasonable even if you have the best of intentions. Instead of constantly reminding them that you hold their fate in your precious little hands, stress to them the significance of the things they ought to learn in class. After all, the end goal for classes is not just achieving a high grade but actually learning from them. If you take away the stress of grades the focus will be on learning instead of achieving. Students will no longer need to cheat because they've actually learned something.

2. Prioritize depth over breadth -- You hand out the course syllabus at the beginning of the class with high expectations and with a wide range of topics and learning objectives. You throw piles and piles of reading materials to the young ones believing that it's the only way to achieve the goals you've set for them. But the truth of the matter is this, your class is not the only one your students will have to attend to. We've all been students once and we know what it's like to have heaps of reading materials to go through. And because we have to do so many, we end up taking shortcuts for some subjects (like cheating) in order to focus to the ones we think are more important. The key is to streamline. If there's a range of reading lists for a single topic focus on the material that would best enable the students to learn what it is they're supposed to learn. Slow deep learning is still best. They'd remember those that they've learned deeply. Even if you've covered hundreds of materials, students will immediately forget them if they don't really have a clear understanding of them. As a result, it will be as if your class never happened.

3. Make learning fun by being creative in class -- Sell your class by understanding your students' culture and relating to them. You may find hearing a barrage of facts entertaining but not everyone does. Find a common interest among your students and build from there. All classes even the dullest ones have practical applications and it is your duty as a teacher to discover what those are. Sure, teachers have different personalities and interests, but classes are not about them, they're supposed to be about the students. There's more at stake for them than for you. (Here's when I remember Mr. Miyagi telling Daniel that there's no such thing as a bad student, only bad a teacher -- Karate Kid I) And when the class is fun, students will absorb the lessons like extra-absorbent sponges and learning goals will be achieved. As a result, exams will be easier for them.

4. Be a mentor not an authority figure -- Ah, the lure of power and domination; for what end? I believe it is better to be feared out of respect than to be feared out of hate. If you're their mentor they will have so much respect for you, that they will never try to cross you and cheating never becomes an option (or less of an option).

5. Don't ever try to show off by emphasizing how difficult the subject you teach is (even if it really is) -- It's like telling the students they can't do it. Instead, encourage them to take it as a challenge and remind them that they're capable. You once survived it right? Always emphasize the practicality of the subject. That's how I've learned to love my business law and statistics classes despite the number of jargons and other technicalities.

6. If all of the above still fail, make your exams cheat-proof -- Schools have different policies on the type of exams a teacher can give. Some schools require multiple choice exams, while others are okay with essay questions. It's very difficult to cheat on essay exams; but checking them can be such hard work. For essay exams, try to limit the number of sentences a student can use to give his/her answer. For multiple choice exams on the other hand, you can probably give different sets of exams for each row or line. Exam questions need not be entirely different. You can have different sets of options for each exams -- like instead of using ABCDs, you can make use of numbers or other letters in the alphabet. It's fun to form some sort of a code with the choices.

Cheating is really something we (both teacher and student) will encounter when we go to school. It's beginning is unknown and how it will progress in time is not for certain. But one thing is clear though, we go to school in order to learn. More than anything, that has to be the priority whether you're there as a student or as a teacher.

P.S. First exams in the school where I teach will be next week and I am currently revising the exam questions. I sincerely hope, all my students will do well.

Who Am I

(image via here)

Who I Am In Christ
I AM GOD’S…
· possession Genesis 17:8/ 1Cor 6:20
· child John 1:12
· workmanship Ephesians 2:10
· friend James 2:23
· temple 1 Cor 3:16/ 6:16
· vessel 2 Timothy 2:2
· co-laborer 1 Timothy 5:18
· witness Acts 1:8
· soldier 2 Timothy 2:3
· ambassador 2 Cor 5:20
· building 1 Cor 3:9
· husbandry 1 Cor 3:9
· minister/instrument Acts 26:16 / 1 Tim 4:6
· chosen Ephesians 1:4
· beloved Romans 1:7/ 2 Thess 2:13
· precious jewel Malachi 3:17
· heritage 1 Peter 5:3
I HAVE BEEN…
· redeemed by the blood Rev 5:9
· set free from sin /condemnation Rom 8:1-2
· set free from Satan’s control Col 1:13
· set free from Satan’s kingdom Eph 2
· chosen before foundation of world Eph 1:4
· predestined to be like Jesus Ephesians 1:11
· forgiven of all my trespasses Col 2:13
· washed in the blood of the Lamb Rev 1:5
· given a sound mind 2 Timothy 1:7
· given the Holy Spirit 2 Cor 1:22
· adopted into God’s family Romans 8:15
· justified freely by his grace Romans 3:24
· given all things pertaining to life 2 Pet 1:3
· given great and precious promises 2 Pet 1:4
· given ministry of reconciliation 2 Cor 1:22
· authority over the power of enemy Lk 10:19
· access to God Ephesians 3:12
· been given wisdom Ephesians 1:8
I AM…
· complete in him Colossians 2:10
· free forever from sin’s power Romans 6:14
· sanctified 1 Cor 6:11
· meet for the Master’s use 2 Timothy 2:21
· loved eternally 1 Peter 1:5 /
· eternally kept in the palm of his hand Jn 10:29
· kept from falling Jude 1:24
· kept by the power of God 1 Peter 1:5
· not condemned Romans 8:1-2
· one with the Lord 1 Cor 6:17
· on my way to heaven John 14:6
· quickened by his mighty power Eph 2:1
· seated in heavenly places Eph 1:3
· the head and not the tail Deut 28:13
· light in the darkness Matthew 5:14
· candle in a dark place Matthew 5:15
· city set on a hill Matthew 5:14
· salt of the earth Matthew 5:13
· his sheep Ps 23 / Psalms 100:3/ John 10:14
· a citizen of heaven 1 Peter 2:11
· hidden with Christ in God Psalms 32:7
· protected from the evil one 1 John 5:18
· kept by the power of God 1 Peter 1:5
· secure in Christ Jn 10:28-29
· set on a Rock Psalms 40:2
· more-than-a-conqueror Romans 8:37
· born again 1 Peter 1:23
· a victor 1 John 5:4
· healed by his strips Is 53:6
· covered by blood of Jesus Rev 12:11, 1 Pet 1:19
· sheltered under his wing Psalms 91:4
· hidden in secret place of the Almighty Ps 91:1
I HAVE…
· access to the Father Romans 5:2
· a home in heaven waiting for me Jn 14:1-2
· all things in Christ 2 Cor 5:17
· a living hope 1 Peter 1:3
· an anchor to my soul Hebrews 6:19
· a hope that is sure and steadfast Heb 6:19
· authority to tread on serpents Luke 10:19
· power to witness Acts 1:8
· the tongue of the learned Isaiah 50:4
· the mind of Christ 1 Cor 2:16
· boldness and access Hebrews 10:19
· peace with God Romans 5:1
· faith as a grain of mustard seed Luke 17:6
I CAN…
· do all things through Christ Philp 4:13
· find mercy and grace to help Heb 4:16
· come boldly to the throne of grace Heb 4:16
· quench all the fiery darts Eph 6:16
· tread on the serpent Luke 10:19
· declare liberty to captives Isaiah 61:1
· pray always and everywhere Luke 21:36
· chase a thousand Joshua 23:10
· defeat (overcome) the enemy Rev 12:11
· tread Satan under foot Rom 16:20
I CANNOT…
· be separated from God’s love Rom 8:35-39
· be perish or be lost John 10:28, John 3:16
· be moved Psalms 16:8
· be taken out of my Father’s hand John 10:29
· be charged or accused Romans 8:33
· be condemned 1 Cor 11:32

from: Awake Kings

Vintage Finds

I went shopping today! But since our sleepy little town doesn't have any malls nor any shopping destinations to go to (not discouraging tourists though; shopping isn't really something we sell anyway) I went to the most unusual of places: my grandparents house's basement! Yep! An Aunt who lives there told me that certain "stuff" from the basement was going to be thrown out that day. She knew I loved books so she told me to pick out those that I'd love. Termites were eating away the cellulose - rich pages of my grandma's book collection so they had to be thrown out. To my surprise however, I got more than what I bargained for. Look at all these stuff! All vintage, acquired prolly during the 60s or 70s! I rescued them from their garbage dump destination and here they are sitting in our living room awaiting their new mission assignments as decors for either my room or our workplace. So what do we have here? The big brown box thingie is a vintage make-up kit. It probably belongs to my grandma as it contains some of her stuff. It's so pretty I knew I just have to find a new use for it and I think I already know what I'll use it for. Then, in front of the make-up kit is the classic FOX'S candy box my grandpa used to own. It's so colorful and retro! I remember stealing a few of his candies back then. He always had this on his bedside table. Then I found Japanese red boxes and some other ceramic trinkets. Oh I love the painting too! I'm planning to create a wall art of some sort in my room and it'd be a wonderful piece to add. I'm so excited! I'm going to start decorating soon. Yay!

Random, Flowers

Little things brighten my day especially those that give a splash of color to a monochromatic room. Didn't notice this corner of our living room until this morning when I finally woke up early. I'm not a morning person so I never see things with that much light; especially light that comes the morning sun. So I thought wow, my Mom got us flowers and they're extremely pretty! It's weird too because she rarely has time especially now that she's on a night shift (she's a nurse) but I know much she loves decorating as much as I do. So then I went near the beautiful bunch and tried to touch the pink and orange ones. To my surprise however, they had none of the delicateness one would expect from such pretty little things. And also, they didn't smell of anything. Non-fragrant flowers smell of water and earth but no not these babies. It was only then that I realized that they were plastics! Haha! Do they look plastic to you? XD

Desk Journal 1, Ukay Finds, Second Hand Stuff

Been in agony for the past two days cleaning and sorting out stuff that I've accumulated for a while now. I've thrown out like a heap of junk (with due consideration of course to those that can still be DIY-ed to form other interesting decors or used in the work office/ministry center office) already but it's still surprising to see so many stuff left! I particularly needed to organize my desk because I do a lot of writing in my room which is very crucial to the freelance stuff that I do. Anyway, I know this state of calm in my room wouldn't last for more that two days so I needed to document just to remind myself that yes, at times, I am capable of some sort of order. So here goes:

These are the stuff behind my laptop (which you will see later). Hate the lighting but this is actually the best it can get with the equipment I have. I seriously need to do something about the lighting of this room. I replace bulbs like every month plus only two out of four dimmer bulbs actually work! There are electrical issues that need to be fixed but we still don't have the budget for it as of this time. So as you can see, I have an assortment of pens and pencils. I just love looking at them. The feather Death Note pen is out of place but I have nowhere else to put it. Meanwhile, the papyrus Egyptian painting are gifts from the former Mayor. They're precious to me even if they're normal tourist souvenirs from Egypt (he went for a conference on good governance). The Mayor gave them to me after the work I did for one of his speech-presentations. Both clocks (pink and yellow Belldandy) don't have batteries right now (I don't really use them anyway). They were all given to me. On the other hand, I got the picture frames from Christmas Parties (I always get frames!).

My old Jigglypuff (laptop) still works wonders for me despite the shabby appearance. Hello kitties on the right side of the desk; all given to me either as (speaking engagement) tokens or as gifts. There's one there given by one of my younger cousins because she said she wanted to add to my collection (cute!).

This area is where the speakers should go but I don't have huge speakers right now so I converted this into a picture board. Random photos of me and Ry, my family, college friends, pre-school friends, and other stuff. The pink dolphin study lamp is again a gift from my friends Grace and Ram. The Majin Buu ash tray serves as storage for certain accessories. Got it from Comic Alley (haha I do buy something once in a while) from way back in college! It was on sale and extremely cute so I bought it immediately! The tiny Hello Kitty creatures are from Davao. I can't remember when or why I bought them but my cousin Jacqui loves playing "pretend" with them when she's here in my room. We'd tell stories using them as characters so they serve a purpose.The purple M&M plushie and the American Idol toy beside it is from a package sent by our mother church, TPCWOC. Hehe asked it from one of the kids (the original recipients of the package) and replaced them with bigger presents.

My anime loot. I don't have the best stuff in the world but love all of 'em as they are once again gifts! The comic party figure in particular (the only original figure here) is from the peeps from Otakuzine. The gashapons (Bleach, Naruto and Death Note) are from Ryan and Earvin. The puzzles are gifts from Kuya Cocoy and Ate Lotlot (of Child Evangelism Fellowship) who saw anime stuff during their trip to Malaysia and remembered me!

The other table where most of my paperwork go (underneath and they're a mess so I'm not showing them. Haha!) So what I have here are ukay finds! I love things with character and I've had a long time love affair with bargain shopping. Charity (the porcelain doll) is a purchase from an antique store in Cebu. I fell in love with her the minute I saw her. The Japanese doll house (or at least half of it) is a find in the Japanese surplus store in Cagayan de Oro. My mom and I frequent surplus shop for great finds! She has like a tone of ceramic and porcelain stuff from these stores. By the way, we also bought a Roland piano from one of these Japanese surplus stores for only Php23,000! Checked the price of it online and found out that it's current market price is at least Php150,000! Earvin, my brother who play the piano, almost collapsed upon getting it. And those that you see there are original Louis Vuitton and Ferragamo bags and clutches. Oh the other brown one is a vintage Gucci. And guess what, they're ukay finds! People from all over the place have offered to buy them from me, but no way man! I should probably get dust bags from them though. Hehe! There's more hello kitty stuff there (gifts again) and my colorful bible (a gift from my college buddy, Rhea during my 20th birthday!). Every page is indeed life!

This is the shelf above the desk. The plushies above are my purchases from different anime conventions. The Japanese kokeshi doll is from my Pop. He studied in Japan for a while and brought home what I thought was the weirdest doll I've seen that time. The Harry Potter figure (which is actually a bottled liquid soap) is an original souvenir from Warner Brothers sold during the first Harry Potter movie debut in London! My Aunt gave it to me way back in 2002 or whenever the Sorcerer's Stone movie came out.

And last but not least, the airconditioner area that doubles as a dresser. I'm on a Herbalife diet by the way and it has worked wonders for me. More plushies and some of the stuff I use.

So there you have it! I'm still re-decorating the other parts of my room and my bed is still in chaos right now. Once I'm done, I'll prolly post pictures. Still surfing the net for lighting ideas. Help!

Home Decorating, Indie Films, Medieval Music

I've been dormant  for nearly three years in the world wide web. Not that anyone would notice nor care really; but since I'm devoid of anything profound to say, I just want to announce that I am back or at least I plan to create an online presence starting today.

It was way back in 2007 since I last maintained both a blog and a site. Back then, I didn't have a definite purpose other than to keep an online diary where I would speak to myself (which often helps in my quest to make sense of everything around me). But real life suddenly took a hold of me (almost drowning me at some points) so writing became a struggle rather than something therapeutic. Between then and now, I've learned so many new things about the things I am able to directly perceive. But more importantly, I've discovered a lot about who I am. Starting from this post and in some later I'll be sharing some of the things I've come to love/like and explore with a sense of wonder. I guess in a way they make me see life a little bit brighter; definitely drops of sunshine in my cup!

1.  I'm a sucker for DIY projects and interior decorating makes my heart beat faster. I recently fell in love with Apartment Therapy.The site has been around for a while now and I feel kind of a loser for having discovered it only now. But I'm glad I did. I now have a zillion ideas on what to do with our future house so we ought to seriously start saving soon. To put certain DIY's to practice, I did do some renovations to our "command center" at work but the walls and lighting still need a lot of work. I will be posting pictures of that soon.
2. I've gotten into "indie films" with Ryan these past few months. We've seen a lot of movies (we actually have movie night every night). I guess I got tired of the usual Hollywood stuff so getting into the indie spirit has given the two of us interesting new perspectives about everything, even death. I love the treatment they give to these films, especially the storytelling and the cinematography -- aspects I often find somewhat lacking in most Hollywood films (even those people have declared to be profound). These are some of the current faves (will probably be talking about each one of them a little later):

3. I've discovered Heather Dale and my fascination for medieval - themed songs such as Mordred's Lullaby: We have decided to do a medieval wedding. It's close to impossible to pull off especially here in our sleepy little city, but we are just as determined.



This song is kind of a lullaby to me as well even if the lyrics are so depressing. Heather's voice and storytelling are so powerful that I can't help but be drawn in. Somehow I feel Morgan/Morgana's pain and probably the loathing she has for Mordred's father (in most legends they say it's King Arthur). Even in her son's lullaby she talks about his loyalty that must only be to her. They are both so destroyed not knowing their place in the great destiny that was actually laid before them. It's sad when you choose to harness your potential for evil; but it is sadder to know that you decided to do that because evil got to you first.

I still have a whole lot more but it's almost 5:00 a.m. so I'm ending with the lullaby above. More cups of sunshine for everyone, next time!

Schuyler Fisk: From Where I'm Standing

This song has been around for a while now but I only got to listen to it last night in the movie “I’m Reed Fish” (a fascinating film btw). Love the lyrics of this song, the sincere melody and Schuyler’s voice! I found a new sunshine in my cup!