HERE, THERE and EVERYWHERE

I'm glad to know that I don't always feel the need to shop. I was in Megamall the other day killing time waiting for a meeting. I had three hours to spare but oddly enough, I wasn't in the mood to look at clothes. So I ended up in National Bookstore.

Now books are another matter. If there's one thing I don't hesitate to spend on, it's books. My reading taste is rather simple. I usually go for books that read like a movie. Nothing deep nor dramatic. Just give me any adventure, disaster, or contemporary romance novel and I'll be happy. But comic and children's books can still amuse me. Especially when there's no good novel in sight.

I went in search of The Spiderwick Chronicles, which National is building up to be like Harry Potter. And I ended up buying that, Meg Cabot's Haunted and Books 2 and 3 of John Christopher's classic Tripods trilogy, which I was surprised to see.

When I was a kid, my brother told me to read The White Mountains by John Christopher. Now I usually do what my brother tells me to even though it may take me some time to do it (And he loves to remind me about this). Reading The White Mountains was one of those instances where I just had to swallow my pride because I really enjoyed it. I knew it was a trilogy but we only had the first book. So I was excited to discover the series after all these years. Apparently, the book was re-issued since it's on its 35th Anniversary.

Even before Harry Potter, there were other book series that I grew up with:

THE FUDGE SERIES BY JUDY BLUME
FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS BY ELIZABETH LEVY
THE PRYDAIN CHRONICLES BY LLOYD ALEXANDER
ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND THE THREE INVESTIGATORS
A WRINKLE IN TIME, A WIND IN THE DOOR, and A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET
BY MADELEINE L'ENGLE (I never knew how to pronounce her name)
SWEET DREAMS

I've given away practically all of my children's books except for these. Maybe I want to be able to read them again someday. Maybe I want my own kids to discover them eventually. Or maybe it's just plain old attachment. But I'm keeping these books and will never stop searching for more.

And this is why I will never be a graphic designer. I spent 5 hours yesterday just experimenting with the colors of the new template of my blog. If it wasn't for Taken, I surely would have wasted more hours than that. But even with a new color scheme, I'm still not satisfied. Now I want to see if I can actually change the design of my blog. Sigh.

I must have been a real difficult editor to deal with. Back when I was with Flair, I kept pushing the artist to try harder, to come up with new ideas as well as inject a little bit of logic into her designs. Although her work improved, there were times when she'd just let me fiddle with her computer. I guess even back then, she knew that I didn't really know what I wanted.

RULE TO SELF: Never drink two cups of coffee after 7PM unless you want to stay awake until 3 in the morning.

My recent trip to the dentist reminded me just how much I really hate going into office buildings. The receptionist always asks you to leave an ID with a photo. Whoever made this rule assumed that everyone is either a student or an employee.

This rule makes life hell for freelancers. Especially for freelancers who don't drive. And it's made more frustrating by snooty receptionists that insist "Next time nga" when you explain that you don't have one.

So next time I should bring my passport with me just to have my check up?

You miss out on a lot of things when you're cooped up at home. Like the fact that there's a storm. So on the day when roofs were flying, billboards were coming down, and trees were being uprooted, I went to the gym.

--->

When you don't cook, even the simplest things like turning off a stove after using it sometimes eludes you.

In Camiguin, you can swim in six water sources in one day.

DAMAGE TO MY WALLET:

TAAL VOLCANO = P1,620

Inclusive of...

Transportation
-- Manila to Taal (bus, trike, jeep, boat), Taal to Tagaytay (jeep), Tagaytay to Manila (bus)
Meals
-- Breakfast at bus station, Lunch at jump-off, Drinks at top of crater, Coffee at Bag O' Beans, Dinner at Leslie's
Guide to Crater
Beach Entrance
Misc
-- soap and shampoo after impromptu swimming

PUERTO GALERA = P5,523.30

Inclusive of...

Transportation
Accommodation
-- 3 Nights
Meals
Island Hopping
Souvenirs

AGUINALDO SHRINE AND CAVITE CITY = P794

Inclusive of...

Transportation
-- Manila to Kawit (jeep, bus), Kawit to Cavite City (jeep), Cavite City to Manila (bus)
Meals
-- Breakfast at Figaro, Lunch at McDo, Dinner and Drinks in Malate

CAGAYAN DE ORO AND CAMIGUIN = P7,220.80

Inclusive of...

Roundtrip Airfare
Terminal Fees
Souvenirs
Cup of Coffee
Bottle of Water

But then it pays to know someone who practically owns the town:)

Finally, after a month of dabbling with Photoshop, I've managed to print my first batch of calling cards. Like most people, I never learned Photoshop formally. The little that I know about it I learned from watching a graphic artist at work. Everything else I learn through trial and error. My constant struggle with the program made me realize that there's so much you can do but only so few that you can and would probably want to be good at.

This applies to our careers. Three years ago, I was happy in publishing, editing and doing photography at the same time. I thought then that it was something that I could spend a lifetime doing but I ended up going into advertising soon after. The agency was my real initiation into the corporate world and though I was capable in my duties, there were some aspects of it that I really didn't want to continue doing. So I went into event management after that.

I'm still doing events. But I'm also going back to my other passion. And hopefully, this passion would continuously make me strive to be better at it.

Sometimes I wonder if some of my memories are real or just false images my mind created based on childhood stories about me...

--->

But don't you just love it when you catch yourself smiling because of a sudden memory?

Just when you've decided that you wanted to save, your dad gives you a fancy phone that you don't need. And worse, you don't even like.

If my mom is an obsessive shopper, my dad is what I would call a hoarder. For a guy, he loves to shop for clothes. He buys expensive brands whose stores I don't even go into. He stocks up on almost anything. We have a collection of toothbrushes that never lessen no matter how often I change mine because he keeps on adding to it. We have so much grocery that we've stopped telling him when we like something because he'd just buy more of it. And then he gets mad when something expires no matter how often we tell him that there's only so much four people can eat.

What's worse, he doesn't even believe in throwing things. Sometimes I even go to lengths just to throw something out for fear that he'd just take it out of the trash can. It has happened often enough. We have so much junk in the house because he thinks that there will always be some use for the things that have become defective or old. And these things just clutter desks and fill up drawers and cabinets, waiting to be put to use.

And then there are times when he buys you something out of the blue. A phone or an expensive gadget that he expects you to use but buys without consulting you. When I lost a phone that I paid for personally, I wanted to punish myself for my stupidity by using an old one-liner phone we had lying around in the house. I told my dad I didn't want a new one even though he offered to buy it for me. But he couldn't help it. He just had to buy me a new phone. At that time, I couldn't help think that if I'd only said yes in the first place, I would at least have had a choice in the matter. It was a good thing I loved that phone.

And now he wants to replace it. I just wonder if I'll ever grow to love this new one.

--->

How ironic. My anti-virus caused the virus that has been making my bouts with my computer hell. My trip to the shop enlightened me to one thing though -- that I've become attached to so many material things. I had trouble accepting that I might lose all my files in my hard drive -- photos that took me days to save and letters that I weren't able to print.

This same attachment is also probably why I collect a lot of things, from postcards to things I consider of sentimental value like cards, old high school notes and even uniforms.

This accumulation of sentimental junk over the years makes me realize that in some twisted way, I am also a hoarder like my dad.