Pichur!

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
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
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
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
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
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.

  1. 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? []
  2. LOL. What’s wrong with me? Resist?! Seriously? []
  3. Weird. I can’t find a photo of this in my Flickr account taken back in 2006. []
  4. Uh, I’m not sure if it’s a “no shoplifting” sign. The illustration was so vague. []

12 Comments

Summer Classes

So yeah, my visitors are starting to deplete. And I will not wonder anymore if in the coming weeks, Google Analytics would report to me that the number of my visitors will plunge to two-year low. And that’s because of the shortage of new blog entries here and I haven’t returned comments lately. Yeah, I know, it’s my fault. But then, I was too busy. Busy with school work (refer to the post below), reading books, relaxing, and most of all… preparing for my summer classes.

Yeah, you read that right, I have summer classes. So I can’t say that I’m an incoming junior… just yet. Actually, I was in school yesterday to enroll myself for the summer classes. Good thing, I didn’t have to spend the whole day there (the last time I enrolled, I spent the whole day in school, it was totally a waste of time). I got there very early and I finished everything I had to do in just a couple of hours or even less. I was the ninth student to finish the enrollment process. Yeah, the early bird catches the early worm!

So now, this summer, instead of going to beaches, have an adventure somewhere in the country, or just be a bum here in my scorching room surfing the Internet, reading a nice read and follow the latest development on the rice shortage in the country, I will be in school, stressing my self. Also, this could also mean that I’ll not be able to go to iBlog4. I cannot really believe this. I’m already tired of thinking about school work. I still haven’t had a decent rest. And in just a few days, hell will dominate my world again. The worst thing is that I’ll be in school five times a week, from morning to afternoon. My schedule really sucks. Come on, Satan, please, spare me! I just hope that I will survive the summer heat.

There are so many things that I want to do but my two-week vacation is almost over. I guess, I have to postpone them. One of the things that I really want to do is to revamp this blog. I’ve mentioned in my Twitter account that I’ll change the theme of this site and everything. But I’m really not in the mood to make a new one. I already know how will my next layout should look like but I’m really lazy to do that now. I guess, for the mean time, I will change the banner of this current theme and hopefully, I will also find a good background image that I can use.

Lately, I’ve also started reading books again (I’m trying to read at least 20 books this year). So far, I have already read three books this year. Seventeen to go! (Sorry, I haven’t updated my “Books” page) But I’m not sure if I’ll get to my target as for sure, I’ll be tremendously busy for the rest of the year my college life. Right now, I’m reading “Atonement” by Ian McEwan. I’m enjoying it but there were parts where I felt bored. And oh, just before I move on, I want to say to Briony (a character from the book) that you’re stupid and you took it all wrong!

Last Sunday, we went to Quezon City and we visited two malls. Lol. I still don’t get it how TriNoma became a triangular mall and SM North Edsa’s The Block never failed to make me awe me with its magnificent structure (see the photos that I took in The Block below). For nine straight hours, we were in the malls that I mentioned and by the time we were going home, I really felt exhausted. Actually, that was my family’s so-called outing this summer. But I still hope that after my summer classes, we’ll go out of town and have a real excursion. That day, I bought three books: “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri1, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon (finally, I’ve got a copy of this book), Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” and Story Philippines’ latest edition which I confirmed that it’s not a magazine for children (read “Isabel Jimeno’s Price” by Jonathan Jimena Siason to know what I mean).

I guess, that’s all for tonight. Oh, I forgot to mention that I didn’t fail in any of my subjects. As a matter of fact, my grades are really okay. I have the chance that I’ll be a college scholar next school year. Dunno if I should be happy with that. We are just really required to attend the summer classes. I really don’t have any choice, unless I want not to graduate in time.

Waiting ChairsShop 'RoundBottlesFully Booked
  1. She’s got a new book called Unaccustomed Earth but I’ll just wait for the paperback edition of it. []

13 Comments

One Time, Big Time

Seriously, I didn’t plan anything for my 18th birthday today. I just let the day unfold in front of my eyes, and yes, I enjoyed my birthday.

Earlier this day, I went to hear mass. The priest’s homily was about protecting the sanctity of life. He talked about how euthanasia and abortion removes the dignity of a person. You see, today is the Feast of the Holy Inocents. Upon hearing the news that Jesus was born, King Herod gave orders to kill all males aged two years and below. So you see the conection of the gospel and the homily, eh? Hmm… this is where Niño (popularly known as Talamasca) got his name who also celebrates his birthday today!

*****

As my high school friends lurves anything that is “on the spot,” I only invited them this morning. Lol. Luckily, five of them turned up. Some of them were shocked because they know that I’m kuripot1. Lol. Well, maybe I’ll talk about that in another entry. We met at SM City Pampanga at around noon, but two of my friends can’t get as soon as possible there and my friends that were already with me were already hungry so we decided to eat. I treated them in Chef d’ Angelo. I love their jumbo-sized chickens and pizzas. Delicious! Haha.

We had a good time talking about our high school memories like Intramural,
a particular speech choir presentation2, how we hated our valedictorian (I won’t comment about this… haha), press-cons, and our school’s success in the recently concluded Sinukwan Festival.

By the time that we were done with our lunch, our other friends were not yet there so we decided to roam around the mall. And oh, according to a billboard seen here in Pampanga, it’s the longest mall in the country. Hmm… so it’s longer than Mall of Asia? Interesting. After a few minutes, the people that we were waiting for turned up at last.

We then went to Robinson Starmills to watch a flick. As it’s still the Metro Manila Film Festival today, there were no films from other countries. We decided to watch Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo of Judy Ann Santos and Ryan Agoncillo. Compared to other Filipino movies, this movie is really good. Yes, I have written in one of my entries that most Filipino movies are corny, but this one is an exemption. This one is unique and it has its originality. Well, I won’t talk more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for you!

There are other things that I want to write here, but I think this is enough for now. To everyone who greeted me a Happy Birthday, thank you very much!

PS: I’ll be in Manila tomorrow and hopefully, Mall of Asia. But I need to get back here in Pampanga by 6PM because I want to attend one of my high school friend’s party. It’ll be an overnight party and they even own a resort… this is exciting!

  1. The nearest English translation of this word that I know is extremely thrifty []
  2. The piece was written in Tagalog by the way. []

9 Comments