Twos

Tagged by Hazel :)

Two names you've gone by: Aggie & Maria (the ingenious of this name, I swear, whenever my Mom is in a super ballistic mood.)
Two things I?m wearing right now: boxer shorts and jersey

Two things I have in a relationship (with Nards): love and laughter

Two of my favorite things to do: take photos and read

Two things you did last night: updated my blog and watched a Top Chef marathon

Two people you last talked to: Nards and Beng

Two things you?re doing tomorrow: attend a meeting and start on my paper for Konrad Adenauer

Two longest car rides: Sagada (5 hours to Baguio and 6.5 hours to Sagada itself) and Naga (8 hours by bus)

Two favorite holidays: Christmas and Easter :)

Two favorite drinks: water and watermelon shake

Two things about me you may not have known: I can be a total slob, and I am a closet OC. (I'm a walking oxymoron.)

Two jobs I?ve had in my life: a teacher, something I will always do at some level, and a researcher, initially I didn't realize that writing papers in college would pay off but it did, haha!
Two movies I would watch over and over: Chicken Little and Something's Gotta Give
Two favorite foods: fried chicken and taho (notice how consistent I am with "chicken.")
Two places I?d rather be right now: Boracay and Baguio
Two people I tag: Beng and Mitzie and you!

First Trial Make Up

Deepa graciously recommended Jackie, one of their top make-up artists at The Body Shop. Jackie was nice enough to give me an uber friendly rate of 1k for my make up (total of 3k including my Mom and sister). She'll bring along her cosmetic case from Body Shop and a skilled friend to fix my hair a minimal amount.

To further save on expense, she and Deepa invited me to Body Shop mall events where they give free make overs. This is where she'll give me all the trial make up I want, so we can experiment which colors I like the best. I love Jackie and Deepa who have an intense understanding of cost management especially in weddings where expenses can get the better of the couple.

Today was the first free trial make up (done at the Body Shop booth at the Bellyfest in Glorietta), and she concentrated on pink, bronze and brown.


I'm so sold on this look already. :P Ang kilay ko hindi na sumisiwalat!

But Jackie insists on giving me more options. And Deepa is excited for the other trials as well.

(P.S. Nards prefers my natural look. He's such a sweetheart.)

The Wedding Dress

My friend, Carrots, recommended Mrs. Cruz for my wedding dress. So last Wednesday (18 June), I went to her shop in Kanlaon St. and met with her and the designer. It took us a total of fifteen minutes to discuss what I wanted hidden, what I wanted on the dress itself, the overall design and for the designer to put it down on paper. This was pretty quick considering the other bride (together with her parents) in the shop there with me took a total four hours for them to decide on the final design of her gown.

This is what we had decided on.


It has a rich lace shrug (to cover my gargantuan and jiggly biceps). The dress is basically a tube top, empire cut, A-line skirt with lace and minimal beading on the hem. (The idea is to cover my flabby and non-existent waistline, and to create an illusion of a figure.) It has a moderate train (enough for Nards to probably trip on during the reception - hahaha!).

I really wanted it nice and simple, and I think we accomplished it with this design.

What do you think? :)

Where Do Storms Go Off to Die?

Right now, as I am writing this, Metro Manila is under storm signal no. 3.

I wasn't prepared to hear over breakfast that another ship of Sulpicio Lines carrying more than 800 passengers and crew members sank off the coast of Sibuyan Island. This is just few of the news that I heard over the AM radio this morning over breakfast. (This triggered a childhood memory, waking up to the sound of the AM radio on a rainy morning meant no classes.)

I feel bad for all the people severely affected by Frank (and his 120kph winds).

We are fortunate that the worst thing for us during this storm is that we're housebound, and I am very much thankful for that.

What is annoying me right now, is that on the radio, PGMA is screeching at a coast guard official over the sank vessel. And what she's grilling him (over the air) about is whether there was a warning issued by the coast guard to prevent the vessels from sailing because of the storm. I'm thinking, why do that now? Do that later. See what can be done about rescue operations instead. Who cares about blame and responsibility at this moment when there are people paddling for their lives in the rough seas?

Get the errant officials later.

Save lives now.

Swamped

My blog is suffering from neglect lately.

Most of my time is spent juggling wedding preps, work, budgeting and avoiding heavy traffic.

I hope to upload a substantial update soon.


Photo by Nards

It's Official

Pop the champagne!

I'm engaged!

Sleeping White Elephants

I got an email from Kidlat this morning. (As in at two in the morning. Peppered with apologies because of the uber short notice.)

A Bouquet of Sharpened Pencils

I remember hearing that from Meg Ryan on You've Got Mail, and I've always liked that.



School will open here next week, and with it will come heavy traffic jams, streets teeming with pedestrians, and general mayhem in school zones. Every where I look, school supplies are abundantly displayed in stores. Most of the parents I see on the streets are toting huge plastic bags (stress, kelan kaya masasanay ang pinoy na gumamit ng eco bag?) crammed with notebooks, pads of paper, crayons, rulers, pencils and other whatnots.



I, personally, am addicted to school and office supplies. Nards knows this. Often, when he loses me inside a department store, he'd invariably find me in the stationery section browsing through all the items on the shelves and glass counter.



And I've always had a thing for notebooks. I have this COMPULSION to buy notebooks, even though I don't go to class anymore, and I just list down things. (Like right now, I have a notebook on my weightloss project. Another one on photography. There's another one for recipes. Another one that serves as my dream journal.) You know how there's a bag lady? Well, if there was a notebook lady, I'd probably be her.



But going back to the pencils. I remember I used to have this green Kero Keropi pencil holder that I filled with Mongol No. 2 pencils. Every morning, I'd get a kick of keeping all those pencils uniformly sharpened. And when things got stressful, the sight of those pointed lead tips always relaxed me a bit. I remember my number one pet peeve was when people, without my permission, grab a pencil from my holder. Worse, they don't return it.



I miss my bouquet of sharpened pencils. It's been replaced by this dual ink gel pen (that I picked up from the Japan store -- the Japanese have the best school supplies!) and my highlighter with a little post-it dispenser.



I miss school.







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This blog entry was borne out of the blahs. I should be working on the revisions on my paper which is due tomorrow. But I'm not in the mood to write. So I wrote this entry instead hoping to kick start my motivation.



...it's not working. I'd rather play video games.





[photo source]