Jitters of a Professional Raketista

I just feel like I have to post something before October starts...which is like... in an hour.

I've been having these jitters... because not only this month is the official month for hell week in Grad School but it's also a start for my new life and opportunities that my calendar's been messed because I've been... just going for "it".

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I want to document this jitters that I am feeling because come Monday, it'll be a whole new set of experiences for me, so different from where I came from. 

Starting from scratch has never been easy, but I've learned to be pretty good at charging it to experience. The whole feeling is like Pink's Glitter in the Air...

"The breath before the kiss; the fear before the flames..."

I remember talking to my friend over coffee a few weeks ago about where the hell did my 2011 go? I mean, the year have not ended yet, I still have 3 months to go before the end of the year and yet I don't remember getting something big, unlike the big leap that I did last year.

" What you did? It's called cleansing..."

I think I did. I think I really did. And before I know it, my schedules been packed with shoots, meet ups, reunions, interviews, new career and a much awaited vacation.

Thank you Universe and Thank you Lord, thank you for all these blessings and for never forsaking me. :)

Hash Brown Burger from Jollibee

After reading my favorite bloggers, Jenni Epperson and Saab Magalona's blog, I was enticed to try the new Jollibee Hash Brown Burger.

So last weekend, I tried the Hash Brown Burger courtesy of @ellipra. :)

I was really curious about what does it tastes like

It looks like a regular burger. The Hash Browns are baked by the way. 

What it looks like, pre-war.

Taking a shot in between bites.

• Not bad! I think I  like this more than KFC's Double down burger.
• Price: Php 60.00 - ala carte, Php 80.00 - value meal.
• Taste: 3 out of 5 for me, because I love potatoes. 

Have you tried Jollibee's new Hash Brown Burger?

NSO Customer Service

I was in the world of Customer Service for six years and from there I learned that when a customer is satisfied with a certain service, she/he will tell one friend. However, if  a customer is dissatisfied with a service, she/he will tell ten thousand of her/his friends. ( maybe tweet and blog about it. Ehem.)

So last week, I was trying to get an NSO's birth certificate for my ate and I am glad they have chat support. I was challenged (read: too tamad) to navigate the web so I asked the Chat Assist Customer Service Representative to go through the procedure with me. ( I got my NSO'd birth certificate years ago, I'd forgotten the process.)

Anyway the CSR, Naiome ( yeah, weird spelling) was very accommodating and answered my challenging questions and she did not give me those robotic, automated response ( trust me, I know!). After I paid online they said that since it's a Friday request, they will process it the next day and allow it two-three business days for delivery.

I'm happy with the service that I took time to answer the survey:

Yes, I took time to really answer the survey. 

Naiome informed me that if it's your first time to get a birth certificate from NSO and you don't know if they have a copy, they will:

• Give you a NSO'd copy if it's available; or
• Give you a certificate saying that you are NOT registered.

So either way, you will get a document stating you are registered or not. The document costs Php 330.00 (all in, shipping and convenience included.)

And Tuesday Morning, the NSO'd document came, just as promised and right on time. :)

New Series: New Girl

I can't wait for this one! I'm glad ETC is airing this really soon! 

According to Fox.com

JESS DAY (Zooey Deschanel, "(500) Days of Summer") is an offbeat and adorable girl in her late 20s who, after a bad breakup, moves in with three single guys. Goofy, positive, vulnerable and honest to a fault, Jess has faith in people, even when she shouldn't. Although she's dorky and awkward, she's comfortable in her own skin. More prone to friendships with women, she's not used to hanging with the boys - especially at home.

The casts

UPLB's Pelikulab presents Cinemalaya's Babae sa Septic Tank

After the Shokotan with Remington experience, I'm glad that Babae sa Septic Tank will also be shown in UP for a whoooping student fee of Php80.00 to be shown at D.L. Umali  hall!


I know it's been late, but I'm glad that I get to see The Zomabadings first before this. My sister did not dig this film but I'm willing to watch it because I love Eugene Domingo!


So during the first week, I dragged my friends, Paulie and Franco to watch this.

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The Philippines' CROCOSAURUS

I find the coined word CROCOSAURUS funny. I just stumbled upon it on some random blog and I was really amused by the word.

Early yesterday, while listening to the car radio we were listening to the radio show saying how "people in Manila" wants the people in Agusan del Sur, where the crocodile was found, to just leave it alone and set it free.

I think:

• "People in Manila" should let the authorities decide because those who really talks a lot are not directly affected by this huge croncodile.
• And if they really want to help, (like those aimal rights activists)  why don't they come down and physically help out in taking care of our "crocosaurus". 
• There's no proof that the crocodile actually ate someone, but are we really going to wait until a family was eaten up for dessert by Lolong ( that's the crocodile's name, by the way)?
• The crocodile might be in an eco-park but it doesn't mean it's not going to be taken care of. In fact, it's going to have a regular balanced meal without him having to hunt for his own food. All the crocosaurus needs to do is just lay there, be behaved and nice, be photographed and that's it! It's not like sticks are going to bet thrown at him by kids or something... so there. 

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Okay fine. 

I admit. I don't like reptiles because they scare the hell out of me, but if you see one like this crocosaurus, strutting along the lake where you're supposedly doing your R&R, wouldn't it make you jump out of your skull?

I need to ransack my F vineyard

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I honestly loathe cramming. I have a journal article due in a few days, a policy paper presentation due weekend after next and three chapters (read: proposal) that needs to be submitted before the semester ends.

I really hate cramming. My friends from grad school knows that. This whole graduate school stuff's been teaching me to be patient and telling me that I do not have control over everything. It was just a couple of months ago that I have finally come to accept that I am a little control freak.

I make the most out of daylight because I am now having trouble staying up at night. I have given up coffee the day I discovered I started palpitating because of caffeine. My mom would be happy that I have cut down my vice by more than 50%. I have not been drinking since the last time I got so wasted that I threw up in my pants. That was like, three weeks ago. I've sworn off vodka. I have a 1L Bailey's liquor patiently waiting for me every time I go home at night. But no, I'm not opening it baby. I decided to give it away to my friends on my personal favorite and proclaimed personal holiday: Halloween. Like I said earlier, I make the most of of day light, but honestly I get stuck midway. It's crappy, it's frustrating and I can't have coffee or cigs. To make things sorry-er, I know no one else can help me but me.

This whole "papers" thing is quite taking a toll on me. I can take it, I just need to be informed properly. I was driving myself like a maniac researching on stuff to make my paper "scholarly" and "worthy". I just wish responsible -for- information people would just tell me what is really expected.

I was asking at the start of this semester if  "Wine" is required at the end of the sem, they said Grapes would do. I just wish they won't go telling me 28 days til end of the first semester of the academic year that they wanted Wine all along when I have asked about it right in the beginning.

Now I need to ransack a fuckin' vineyard. If you happen to be in the academe, (or at least have experienced some if it) you will know what I mean.

Some kind of a guilty pleasure

I was having a frustrating day last Thursday when my friend and I decided to have coffee and got a free cookie to go with my "iced tea".

Don't you just love getting freebies when you're feeling frustrated at some part of the day?

Coffee Blends celebrated it's 8th anniversary, they gave Faye and me free cookies!

Then, the coffee shop where we frequently go to is near a Book Sale and  the smell and ambiance of a book sale and book store instantly diverts any bad vibes that I got that I ended up buying this book by Nicole Richie.

Scored Nicole Richie's Novel for only Php 45.00 ( 1.05 USD) 

I've seen it before and it was being sold for Php 75.00 from Php 100 something , then I saw it again and the price was marked down... again! I don't know the writing style of Nicole Richie and the back cover synopsis is related to her life so I decided to just go ahead and buy since it's only Php 45.00 anyway.


I bought another book, again! A couple of years ago, my retail therapy is all bout buying sky-high shoes to wear to work the next day, now it's books from book sales! I've been twice addicted to book sales now compared before because it really does feel like treasure hunting.

I still have more books from my Kuya who's coming home and I haven't even finished the chick lit books that he sent me.

I wish I could say I can't wait to start reading The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie but would you believe that I am reading two chick literature books and one hilarious feminist autobiography all at the same time and that's on top of the readings that I still have to do for my grad school papers.

Whew!  What are your guilty pleasures? 

Heather Morris' Bruised Barbie Pictorial

What's up with these Glee kids? Last year, this Glee Casts Sexy Pictorial irked the parents whose Children are looking up on Glee's Characters.

Almost a year later, this pictorial by Tyler Shields  is earning the ire of feminists nationwide. There's nothing sexy about domestic violence and there's definitely nothing sexy about this pictorial.

Peiper Weiss, a staff of Shine.Yahoo.com wrote:

What is it about bruises that fashion photographers find so sexy? The latest attempt to court controversy comes from photographer Tyler Shields and his subject, Glee actress Heather Morris. In a series of art-directed shots on his website, Morris poses with a painted-on black eye and a clothing iron, in a whimsical 1950's dress.

More shocking than the photos' light-hearted depiction of domestic violence, is the de ja vu factor. Haven't we seen this before, like, a lot? Only a few weeks ago, we were talking about a Salon ad with a photo of a bruised model. And before that, a handful of high fashion campaigns featuring women being beaten, bruised, and impaled. Domestic violence, it seems, has become the surefire way to get your fashion spread to stand out. 

In Discourse & Dialectics

Where am I? I am somewhere in between. It's been a long while since I last wrote something personal, I've been training my hands to get into writing because I have this feeling that I'll be doing that in the next coming years. I've tried so hard not to write something personal, it's a good thing I have a really great support system called "tangible friends" that I can run to. Literally.

Lately I am in a personal discourse. While I enjoy the company of my good friends, I have not forgotten the therapeutic feel of writing. My Kuya says I am an online junkie and I kind of have been paying the price of putting some stuff in the world wide web. I got stalked,some of my amateur photos got stolen (not once!),  I've been plagiarized by some sore loser who probably got the biggest fuckin' surprise and I've been googled when I am not even that interesting to begin with.

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Last year, I had one of what they call quarter-life crisis. I've lived away from my folks since I was sixteen and by twenty five, I pretty much have done what I have always wanted to do. I started on my job two weeks after my college graduation, got promoted twice, explored several departments in the corporate world, met really good friends, made stupid mistakes, have been cautiously in love, partied on weekends, indulged in retail therapy, got my own 1BR apartment to live alone when I was twenty four. By the time I was twenty five, I was throwing an intimate housewarming party with the closest of my friends at work during thanksgiving.

Then what's next? I have not been taking the big jump about love. Well, I almost did but I already knew what I will be getting myself into so I chickened out. Then I got the thing they called quarter-life crisis, fucked my so-called job that I've been secretly dreading with then got quite depressed. I did the unthinkable (for me): I retreated.

It wasn't the easiest experience. I had to submit myself back to my folks and obey their rules when I've been calling the shots for the last  recent decade of my life. I've had to trace back familiar steps, get re-acquainted with people that I've known since I was a child. Not that I am complaining. While some I know who experience the same thing, they either marry the next thing that moves, played couch potato for a number of years, in my case I got myself, literally, an education.

And now, I only got few units left next semester and I feel like I have to decide which way I want to go. I know I am not the type who will resort to hubby hunting and on the biological clock watch, because If I wanted to have a family and a baby by the time I am twenty five, I would have done it already. And if the serious conversations with beau regarding marriage equates to getting engaged, then I would have been engaged twice.

I've always been secretly jealous and looked up to those people who are self-made and doing what makes them happy by pursuing and going after their passion. I sort of envy that smile that I see on their faces, wiping sweat off their forehead, cleaning up a job done and beaming with pride. I want to experience their inner glow in doing what they love.  For the first time, I really want to do something that I love to do, not something that I just happen to be effortlessly good at.

This laid back environment is growing on me. While I sometimes secretly miss the feeling of having my own space, I still recall how lonely it's been. That's why I am excited that I will be living with friends in a three-bedroom townhouse in the city, just like what I've always wanted my next move to be. We'll be like three roommates in those American TV series we see on TV but the question is, for how long? I have not figured out what my next move is yet.

Why is that when I finally feel like I have everything almost figured out for my next move, something beyond my control comes up?

Hello Ventosa, We meet again

I was so stressed out last week from "almost-marrying-my-laptop" that I needed to have two massage in a week. I had a back massage and a pedicure on a Thursday, then I went back to the Spa last Sunday to have Ventosa done.

The first time I tried Ventosa or Cupping Therapy was back in... 2006 (I think). The Spa that I go to just recently offered Ventosa Back Massage back then and I decided to give it a go. Ventosa, according to Ezine Article is:

 is performed by placing glass on specific accupoints on your back. A technique is used to create a vacuum inside the glass placed on your back which lifts the skin. The practitioner then moves the cup toward the outside parts of the body sucking the air away.

The first time I tried it, I had my sister tag along with me to take pictures. Since my back looked like Philippine's Chocolate Hills in the pictures taken while on it, I just decided to just grab decent ones from the internet.

This is what it looks like:

This photo is from this blog

Anne Sexton's Poems for Poetry Reading

It was our usual Friday night hanging out at a local pub (oh yes, very British peg, pub!) when they had this new set up for open mic night:

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We were seated at our regular seat (couch) when the waiter from ICs told us that people can just go ahead and perform since they  have an open mic night kind. 

Then Faye got into talking about performing in an open mic night - Poetry reading. I have not exactly been to a Poetry reading except for some scenes in Pinoy Love team movies that start DingDong Dantes and Antoinette Taus in the younger years. 

Poetry reading according to Wikipedia:

A poetry reading is a performance of poetry, normally given on a small stage in a café or bookstore, although poetry readings given by notable poets frequently are booked into larger venues (amphitheaters, college auditoriums, etc.) to accommodate crowds. Unless otherwise indicated in advance, poetry readings almost always involve poets reading their own work or reciting it from memory—the recitation of a work by another poet is normally the act of a well-known poet who chooses to read a few poems by lesser-known poets or old friends that the poet feels should be more widely recognized. Poetry readings often involve several readers (often called "featured poets" or "featureds"), although normally one poet is chosen as a "headliner."
Though a form of entertainment until around the turn of the previous century, especially in the United States, readings have diminished in popularity over the course of the twentieth century. They have become less a part of the mainstream pop culture, and more identified with a literary fringe. They have remained most popular in large cities and college towns, where the population of artists and poets is larger and more self-sustaining.

This is what I envisioned Poetry reading to look like:

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Anyway, because Faye started talking about Baguio being the Artist's haven and there are lots of hippie bars, I am excited to go up there (last time I've been there was back in 2007) this year  and she promised to take me to one of the poetry readings and hopefully perform in an open mic night for Poetry reading. She talked about these two beautiful poems from Anne Sexton that was once performed during Poetry reading. So here it goes: 

GQ's Old Glee Gone Wild Pictorial

I remember this pictorial from last year from GQ.

It says :

How the hell did a show about high school theater geeks come to be the biggest TV show in America? Well, T&A helps. (That's talent and ambition, you pervs.) But so does a generous helping of pot-laced brownies, girl-on-girl subtext, and choreographed dry-humping. Gleeksters Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, and Cory Monteith pull Alex Pappademas into the vortex  PHOTOGRAPHS BY TERRY RICHARDSON

I love Glee and how it represented the underdogs and Geeks in the society but there's nothing very underdog-ish in this pictorial.

Trivia Behind logos

Never underestimate the mind and power of creative people. Most especially the brilliant mind behind the advertising industry.


I got these interesting logo facts from an article I read online and I am amazed at how the people behind it came up with these interesting facts behind the logo.


Note: The photo and captions are from the original article.

Amazon.com has become a go-to source for electronic commerce. Clearly there is an arrow under Amazon, but have you ever thought about its significance? Take a look at where the arrow begins and ends: a and z. This secret message seems to conveys that Amazon offers everything from A to Z!

This logo appears to be very simple, but if you look at the white space between the "E" and "x" in “Ex," you'll find it is more complex than you thought. Can you spot the arrow?

The Kisses logo doesn’t have much to it, but if you look at it sideways, you might see a chocolate kiss formed between the K and the I.

These popular party chips are a staple at many backyard BBQs, but chances are, you've never noticed the hidden celebration scene concealed within the letters. The second and third "t’s" are sharing a chip over an "i" that is dotted with a salsa bowl. Yum!

There’s a slightly obscured bear within the Matterhorn Mountain if you look closely. That’s because the candy bar hails from Bern, Switzerland, a city supposedly named for a bear.

I studied Social Marketing Campaign and Pre-Testing of Communication materials in my Masters and I know how hard it is to really come up with fresh ideas that'll gain impact and recall.

Cheers to the guys behind the logo. I bet they're paid a looooot!!!

Badeya...It's September!

It's officially the first day of September and that means BER-months are officially here! To start of with a good vibe, let me start this month's post with something I am completely obsessed about: Chocolate!

I saw this article last week. Captions in the photos  are the same as the ones in the article.

This dress screams: "I am yummy!"

The German bakery group Lambertz created this full chocolate dress in 2010 for its annual Monday Night Party in Cologne. The creation was one of more than a hundred fashion pieces celebrating chocolate.