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Pichur!

Posted on August 9, 2008 at 3:47 pm | 12 Comments
Filed under Random Realities • Shameless Shot

Okay, I’m really sorry for not updating this blog for uh, almost a month? I hope you’ll forgive me. I guess, a bug bit me. Well, yeah, I have a writer’s block right now. So yeah. That’s mainly the reason why there are no updates in this blog lately. Another reason is school. Though I have lots of new experiences, I can’t post them here. By the time I get back home, most my energy has already been depleted. Then, there are still other things that I have to worry like endless paperwork, Ms. Irresponsible¹, and other things that make me annoyed. Besides, the reason why I’m keeping my identity would be defeated if I published them here.

But if you can’t resist² me, I suggest that you follow me on Twitter and Plurk. Also add me as your friend, contact, fan or whatever on Last.fm, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious (The new Delicious site is… delicious!), Google Reader, and Digg. But erm, there’s no 100% guarantee that I’ll reciprocate. XD

So, what’s with the title? Well, I dunno if I’ve already introduced you to the word pichur. Haha. Obviously, it’s synonymous to the word picture. Use it in a sentence? Okay, here we go: Have you seen NYTimes’ feature on Angelica Panganiban’s photoshopped pichur? I guess this word was created circa 2005 by my chemistry-teacher-slash-adviser who has pronunciation problems.

Because I’m really out of words, I’ll be using photos to express myself and I’ll try to put a short description. Hopefully, this will work. And uh, I hate to admit it but this post is very random.

Let’s get the film rolling!

Agony in the Garden - March 25, 2005

I’m pretty sure I’ve already posted this photo here. This is one of our heirlooms. My Dad reckons it was sculpted around the last quarter of the 17th century. That makes it more than a century old. Every Holy Week, we go to Dangwa Flower Market (near UST) to buy flowers for the procession. The float is designed with various flowers. Around six in the evening, the procession starts. But lately, I didn’t like how the float was decorated (2006³, 2007, 2008). My Grandmother insists on buying white flowers only. It looked too simple to me. Currently, this photo is in Flickr’s Explore. Uh, if you have a Flickr account and you like this photo, please add it to your favorites and leave a comment as well. Well, I’m not coercing you. Haha.

Eat - December 24, 2006

A little bit of history about this phone: before it landed to me, my younger and sister and mother used it. Well, I’m not really a fan of phones. So even though it came from the Jurassic Era, I really don’t care. Lately, it was malfunctioning which forced me to use the other old phones here at home. But now, it’s working again. The culprit was its bloated battery. On a related subject, I’ve already owned one Smart, one Sun, and four Globe sim cards. Currently, I’m using two Globe sim cards. One is for my offline life, and the other is for my online life (but I don’t regularly use it).

Fully Booked - April 06, 2008

You know how much I love books. Books are the fuel of my life. WTF?! I really enjoy reading books, that’s why I don’t mind spending hundreds of Pesos on them. Yeah, reading is an expensive hobby. Unless you have other resources like borrowing reads from the library or from your friends, you’ll surely get broke. But owning a copy is still different, eh? Right now, I don’t have anything to read. The books in the local bookstore don’t look interesting to me. Someone suggested a Chuck Palahniuk book to me, but after reading the synopsis on the back of his book, I hesitated. I think I will not like his style, besides, the synopsis kinda scared the hell out of me. I badly want to visit a Fully Booked store!

Bread Talk - August 08, 2008

I have to say that Bread Talk is officially my favorite bakery. The presentation of their pastries and breads is awesome! I always salivate when I see breads (and not to mention cakes) from Bread Talk. And oh, the structure of their shops is also cool. Simple but amazing. The only downside is that their breads are expensive. Oh, look at that sign! The “NO PHOTOGRAPHING, no smoking, no eating/drinking, no shoplifting⁴” sign can’t stop me from taking photos of this amazing bakery!
PS: I submitted this photo to the Flickr 888 pool.

Print Cartridges - August 09, 2009

I’ve been bragging on Plurk that I’ve used my HP 56 Print Cartridge (as seen on this photo) for a staggering two years. What’s more is that I didn’t have to buy a new cartridge because I used up all of the 19 milliliters of ink but because the cartridge malfunctioned. That’s how tipid I am with ink. Haha. You see, I usually use “fast draft” for Print Quality (for text). Well, the quality is good and the text is still readable. Yesterday, after checking the prices of the print cartridges in four computer shops at SM City Pampanga, I bought the cheapest HP 56/57 print cartridge combo-pack for my old printer-slash-scanner-slash-copier I’ve found. I was able to save more or less PHP 1000.00. In one of the shops I’ve visited, if you bought a HP 56 and HP 57 print cartridges separately, you would have to pay them for PHP 2680.00 (I’m glad I didn’t buy from that store)! Now, that’s an impressive deal! I guess, those are that last print cartridges I would buy until I graduate from college. Haha.

Uh, I guess this worked for me! w00t! I now have my first post for this month. I actually enjoyed doing this. I’m off to visit your blogs, then, I’ll try to catch the Olympics (read this article: 10 Fascinating Facts About the Ancient Olympic Games) later.

That’ll be her name here in my blog from now on. Also, I believe that the whole class now knows how much I hate her. Wait, have I mentioned about her here in my blog? [↩]
LOL. What’s wrong with me? Resist?! Seriously? [↩]
Weird. I can’t find a photo of this in my Flickr account taken back in 2006. [↩]
Uh, I’m not sure if it’s a “no shoplifting” sign. The illustration was so vague. [↩]

12 Comments

Tagged as Agony in the Garden • Angelica Panganiban • bakery • battery • books • bookstore • bread • Bread Talk • cartridge • cellphone • Chuck Palahniuk • Dangwa Flower Market • Facebook • fast draf • Flickr • Flickr 888 • flowers • Fully Booked • Globe • Hewlett-Packard • High School • hobby • Holy Week • ink • last.fm • mall • money • Ms. Irresponsible • Olympics • pastry • Pesos • photography • photos • pichur • picture • Plurk • print • printer • sign • sim card • SM • Smart • SMS • social networking • Sun • synopsis • texting • Twitter • UST

And I Thought it’s all Over

Posted on April 2, 2008 at 10:00 pm | 3 Comments
Filed under School Sabotage

It’s been over a month now since I and my stupid blockmates who are made-up of 99% plastic and 1% human started doing a very important project. I can’t divulge all of the information here because if I did do so, then, you would know what my course is which I don’t want to happen yet¹. Basically, what we’re doing is a class project for one of our majors. Actually, it’s an academic paper where we had to interview people in school, present facts and statistical data, analyze and interpret graphs and tables, give recommendations and support our work. It is indeed tedious task. Because of this sleep-depriving requirement, it has divided the class further into smaller groups. And now, the whole class is experiencing its consequences.

Actually, one of my blockmates whom I’m always with had predicted this. It’s inevitable. As what I have written previously, when they only see your back, evil horns start to sprout from their heads. I didn’t think that all things will go in the wrong places. I didn’t want to think about this. But now that it’s here, I still don’t know what to do and I still don’t want to think about it². Just thinking of it keeps me on the verge of fainting and lose my consciousness.

I can’t tell you much about our preparations to the finalization of our written report because, well, because I only did a few things during these parts. Yes, I know, I’m bad. Haha. I really didn’t want to make the analyses, interpretations, and even the introduction and recommendations. But of course, I helped in the tallying (and checked if there are conflicting data) and created the 50 plus graphs that we used. Actually, I was one of the few students in our class who knows how to make graphs in Microsoft Office Word. As a result, they still had to contact me whenever there are changes. When I asked them why they don’t know how, they simply answered “We already forgot how to make a graph.” God, I mean, if they had a Computer subject in high school, they should have learned how to. It’s very basic. And duh, what is F1 doing? By just reading the “Help” feature in MS Word they will surely know how to make one.

There were other problems that arose during this part, a few were telling the whole class that they haven’t slept just for this project. Everyone could smell sarcasm in the air. In the end, I learned that they were referring to one of our classmates. They said that she didn’t do anything at all. But this person they were referring to said that she did her part well. Actually, before this, these two parties have already existing issues and they just got bigger. But what I really don’t get is why they’re treating this person like that when she’s trying to avoid these people.

On the day when we had to pass it, everyone thought that everything was fine. A few hours before the deadly deadline, things started to fall apart. They noticed that there was something wrong with our project. And so, we were not able to pass it on time. During that night, they had to edit so many things with our work. Graphs were missing (that’s what they said but I did all of the graphs and I’m sure that I didn’t miss a thing), a table was not tallying with another table that should match with, some pages were not numbered. It was only a day after the deadline when we submitted our project. There were still many errors in our written report, but we couldn’t afford to wait for another day so as to make the necessary changes that we had to. Besides, we were already losing 25 points during that time and the next day when we could pass it would be only a week after (because of Holy Week).

During the Holy Week and the week after that, nobody ever dared to check our written report because everyone was dreading about our final examinations. It was only last Saturday, after our exams when we had the chance to check it again. Actually, it was only that day when I got a copy of our report. By that time, I still haven’t read our report and it was decided that I was one of the ten students who’d present it to our panelists (which we had earlier this week). I also volunteered myself to do our slide show presentation. And so, I and the one who predicted everything will go wrong went to our house to make our PowerPoint Presentation. She did the text part, and I edited the graphs. Two of our blockmates also went with us so they can study our project for our oral defense.

It was also on that day when I first read the analyses and interpretations my classmates did. It was totally a disaster. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know if I should feel mad or annoyed ~~or if I should laugh or not~~. Hell, the interpretations that my classmates wrote were really funny. There were so many errors. Typos, factual errors, you name it! Sorry, I can’t give you an example even if I want to because I can’t think of one without giving away clues about my course. Too bad, I don’t have my copy anymore which has so many red circles, red crosses, red lines, and red question marks. If I still have it, I could have looked for an example that I can publish here.

A day before judgment day (our oral defense), we knew that we’re allowed to pass an errata. It was godsend! I even told my blockmates that if we passed one, it would surely be as thick or even thicker than our written report. But during doom’s day, the list of our corrections was incomplete. Lack of time didn’t allow us to collaborate. It was only a quarter of a centimeter thick. I really thought that we would be sautÃ©ed; we were really preparing for the worst because we know that our project has so many flaws. Good thing our panelists were good to us. They gave us tremendous amount of recommendations and they gave us two weeks to revise our written report. After four hours of defending our work I was relieved. But I thought it was all over… I thought they wouldn’t need me anymore…

Remember my last sentence in my first paragraph? Well, the class was divided further, my blockmates who were friends a few weeks ago have now their own issues and they’re treating each other as enemies. No one is cooperating. Because of this, I don’t have any choice but to help. As a matter of fact, there are only six of us who are willing to revise our academic paper. And from the six of us, we don’t have a soft copy of our report which is the main reason why we can’t start revising.

Well, I’m wondering when I can say “It’s over… it’s all over.”

[EDIT 04.05.08] Yesterday, I revised a part of our written report. I also changed the format of another revised part of our project to match the format that I used. So I guess it’s over… it’s all over… ???

Abangan… [/EDIT 04.05.08]

You’ll know what my course is in due time. Haha. May ganun? [↩]
Wow. Ang gulo ‘nun. [↩]

3 Comments

Tagged as academic paper • analysis • blockmates • classmates • data • doom's day • errata • errors • examinations • F1 • finals • graphs • help • Holy Week • interpretation • judgment day • Microsoft • Microsoft Office • oral defense • PowerPoint • project • revision • school • statistical data • typo • Word • written report

Meet Gibbard

Posted on March 14, 2008 at 7:44 pm | 21 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose

I’ve actually planned to make this post’s main point somewhat like indirect. But since my tight schedule doesn’t permit me¹ (I don’t have the time to make this post full of figures of speech), I decided to rewrite it. So what’s the main topic of this entry, eh? Well, I bought an iPod Touch and I named it “Gibbard.” I got the name “Gibbard” from the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service. I actually typed the first version of this post on my iPod. It took me some time before I got used to typing on my iPod.

I bought my iPod Touch last Saturday. Thanks to my earnings from the Internet, I was able to buy it. During that night, I almost didn’t sleep. Lol. I was really excited. Haha. The user interface of the iPod Touch is really cool… very sleek indeed. And the features of it are pretty cool. Its screen is scratch proof, but then, the back part of it is not.

Currently, it holds all of my songs, most are indie music. Some music videos that I have downloaded from YouTube, a few videos of HappySlip, the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie and my favorite photos.

Viewing this site on my iPod Touch.

What I really like about it is that I can surf the Internet using it! It’s got a built-in wireless adapter so that means I can connect to a wireless network. And if you’re following me on Twitter, I’m sure you have read this and this. And if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been updating my Twitter account for the past week using iTweet. Its other features like the “Mail” and “Notes” are really helpful for me.

Well, I really love my iPod Touch! Lol.

I guess that’s all for now. Sorry for this lame post. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to update this blog this coming week again. I will be very busy this coming week (my final exams aren’t over yet, and we also have this movie to shoot for our Lit class) so before it’s too late, I want to say that I hope all of you will have a very fruitful and meaningful Holy Week!

See you soon!

PS: I’ll try to add more decent photos of my iPod Touch tomorrow.

We have this class project that was supposed to be passed yesterday. This afternoon, we were still in the process of finalizing it. I don’t know if my blockmates were able to pass it today but it looks like they did. [↩]

21 Comments

Tagged as Ben Gibbard • Death Cab for Cutie • Gibbard • HappySlip • Harry Potter • Holy Week • indie music • iPod • iPod Touch • movies • music • photos • songs • The Postal Service • Touch • Twitter • YouTube

My Holy Week

Posted on April 8, 2007 at 6:54 pm | 23 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose

Forgive me for not commenting back at your blogs, I was out from the blogosphere for five days. And in this post, I’ll narrate to you what happened to me in that span of five days. And oh, for the atheists out there, I suppose, you may skip this entry.

Palm Sunday

My family went to the church and hear mass. In the afternoon, we went to our ancestral house in Macabebe, Pampanga. The antique image of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane was brought down from the second floor of the house.

Holy Monday & Tuesday

I was just at home surfing the internet in a very slow connection.

Holy Wednesday

We attended the procession here at San Fernando, Pampanga. It’s not a big deal to me walking for an hour. I’m used to it, I’ve been joining processions since I was still a kid.

Maundy Thursday

I woke up with fever! Because of this, I was not able to go with my father and my younger sister who went to Dangwa, a fresh flower market near UST. We go there every year during the Holy Week to buy — obviously — flowers. The flowers that we buy there are used during the next day (I’ll elaborate this later).

In the evening, we had our Visita Iglesia or “Church visit.” I was not feeling well at that time, I’m just glad that nothing bad had happened to me.

And this is the Church in Masantol, Pampanga, it was my favorite among the churches that we visited.

Good Friday

When we arrived at our ancestral house, the image of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane was already in the carriage and the man that my father hired was already putting the flowers that they bought the other day.

And after a few hours…

At 6:00 pm, we brought the image to the church which is situated near our ancestral house. When we got there, the other images depicting individual scenes of the events that happened between Jesus’ arrest and his burial were already there.

In my mother side, we also have an image of Jesus, this time, his entry to Jerusalem. It’s just new and this was the first time that it was included in the procession.