PLDT MyDSL's Anna Banana TVC

Have you seen PLDT MyDSL's Anna Banana TVC?

I saw it last Sunday night and I was intrigued. You know the first time I saw it I know that it's about PLDT myDSL ( taking notes from my Advertising Class that within 5 secs from the start of TVC product should immediately appear).

When the characters involved a mom watching a boy singing a song on YouTube, I knew it comes with some sort of values (again, as guided by rules of Advertising in the Philippines) and after watching it, I find the video very timely and it did strike home. ( At a different point.)

Here's the original/complete Anna Banana Song:

Anna Banna I love you a bunch... so kyooot! :) 

Happy Heart's Day everyone! <3

How to pick a Feel Good Song

Last month, during a stop over at a gas station on our way to the Beach, my friend Joy and I heard this song on the radio and she said "This song is my feel good song!"

"How can you say that it's your feel good song?" I asked.

She said that with no reason she just feels really good and it perks her up whenever she hears that song. Now that got me into thinking: "What is my feel good song?"

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You see, there is a big difference between a feel good song, vs your favorite song vs the current "IN" song.  A feel good song is timeless.  It is not a "current favorite", "not the happenin'" nor the "trendy".

Here's how I was able to determine mine:

1. It makes your heart skip a beat. For no reason at all and sometimes without you knowing it.
2. It literally makes you aware of the breath that you take.( Without you knowing it)
3. It warms your heart/chest. Like you had a good cup of coffee.
4. For some reason it makes you pause (whether short/long pause, it makes you take really good notice.
5. It transforms you in an instant and makes you feel good , for some inexplicable reasons.

So one time, when I had the chance to browse my iPod , out of 3027 songs ( I didn't listen to them one by one ha!) I managed to get my top feel good songs and from my target to come up with at least 10, I filtered them and came up with 7. ( I had quite a challenge of distinguishing between a favorite song vs a feel good song)

Here's my Feel Good Songs Playlist:

1. Don't Worry Baby - The Beach Boys
This song inspired me to come up with this post. I was at the office one day and this song came up like 3 times in that day and it made me really stop what I am doing and just listen to it. I wasn't even into The Beach Boys.

2. The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani fet. Akon
I was partying in Cebu when I first heard this song. It was during my first night and I was out with my girlfriends and their friends and the moment that I heard the "Whoohooo" of Akon in the song, I had to ask my friend what's the name of this song. My favorite line is " If I could escape and recreate a place as my own world, and I could be your favorite girl, forever, perfecly together, tell me boy now wouldn't that be sweet... If I could be sweet, I know I've been a real bad girl..." This song always reminds me of how really good I felt and how much fun I had in Cebu.

3. Unwritten - Natasha Beddingfield
I took a break in the middle of being stressed at work and during my 15minute break, I played this song at it instantly perked me up and recharged me.

4. You Stole My Heart Away - Big Mountain
I was with friend's car when  I heard this song and I asked her beau to turn it up. I felt really giddy upon hearing and felt like as if I am in love when I was not seeing anyone at that time. This song will make you fall in love with the idea of falling in love.

5. Sukob Na - 17:28 (Filipino/Tagalo Song)
I'm a sucker when it comes to rain and I heard this song years ago during a television station ID and it's all about having fun in the rain, cuddling, getting cozy, enjoying warm cup of coffee/hot chocolate, those things along those lines. This songs just makes me feel like staying in, sitting in the couch and just reading a good book while enjoying a hot chocolate while it rains outside.

6. Binibini - Brownman Revival (Filipino/Tagalo Song)
I was walking on my way to work when I first heard this song and I was running late. I did not have enough time to put make up on or fix my hair but when I heard this song, it made me feel like a muse. (Lakas lang maka-muse nito mga teh!)

7. Underneath it All - No Doubt
I heard it first when I watched 50 first dates song but a beach trip isn't complete without me hearing this song.


And the most important tip in picking a feel good song:
It should not make you relate to a person you are dating/in a relationship with because the "feel good vibe" will only be just because of that person. Again a feel good song is timeless and is brought upon by something inexplicable and must be really felt.

Now to put it to test, if you get yourself in a bad situation, put on your headphones and play it. If it makes you feel good despite of the negativity immersion, you will know that your playlist works!

Mine does. :)


P.S. 
My prayers were answered. My iPod is recuperating well and it's healing itself. )  Related story here 

Vacation is a state of mind

My cousin told me that one should always take on a “holiday” because other wise one will get sick (read: burn out).

I’m crimping on everything nowadays. I wanted to travel but my work and studies (naks) hinder me from doing so. I want to go to new places this year, but I have to keep up with my timeline. I don’t have the paid leaves that I used to have with my previous job but my work allows me to have flexible time that makes me never late, have option to work from home and still attend school mid-week. Not the slightest complaint will be heard from me. Time-wise.

These itchy feet that I have is itching to go to places to perhaps recharge. I like learning things from people and I love travelling with friends. But since I am on financial discipline, here are the things that I’ve learned where I can get a vacation without the cost of my arms and two legs:

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1)      DVD night with chips – you will never realize how much time flies until you have comfortably popped a DVD and flopped on your bed/couch/bean bag with chips and drinks within reach. I prefer the series. I used to watch Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives marathon and friends but now I am more into How I met your mother, Keeping up with the Kardashians and 2 Broke Girls.

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2)      Read a book in one sitting, undisturbed – my chick lit books have served a purpose and they have served me well. I find it personal when one plucks a book out of my shelf, it’s like getting my underwear and thinking of trying it on. And yet I like to look a people’s choice of books to see what books they are into. I love my chick lit books because they take me in situations that I will not be in. Call me silly but I feel like I can transport my self to the character’s life.

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3)      Totally disconnect from your phone, internet and various forms of social media – this is actually a huge factor. I actually found bliss in not knowing. I’ve been an online junkie and have been addicted to the net since I discovered how far the whole clicking can take me, but I’ve started to get sick of it since last year.

I’ve had long weekends where I did not really go out of town but just spent it with a special someone and felt super recharged when I came back to work. It felt like I flew myself elsewhere, time stopped and the rest did not matter. We just had coffee, played poker, had a few drinks and told stories. It was nothing extra ordinary but I felt I was out of this world.

But then again, I had another long weekend where I flew 750 miles by plane and immersed my self in a whole new cultural level only  to find myself itching to go back home.

So yes, I believe vacays are just a state of mind. 

Louis Vuitton Condoms

First thing in the morning, the moment I turn on my work PC, I go to Twitter first for the news totally ignoring the broadsheet paper delivered daily on my table.

I always check the top trending topic and guess what I saw today? LOUIS VUITTON CONDOMS?!

Tweetpic Source

Excerpts from the Hufftington Post Article:

Georgia Republic architect Irakli Kiziria has designed a Louis Vuitton condom, enveloped in the label's notorious brown packaging and adorned with what looks like raised lettering (for enhanced pleasure, we can only assume). The luxury rubbers are priced at $68 each, according to the "official" website.

In fact, Kiziria has no affiliation with the Louis Vuitton company and drafted the condoms in collaboration with Design Provocation as a design-project,according to the website. The team hoped to launch the product on World AIDS Day and donate the proceeds to amfAR, The Foundation For AIDS Research.

The LV rubbers comes in 12-packs of condoms and will not be sold in the official LV shops. So before you head out and google where you can get these... the condom project is still in the conceptual stage.

And if ever it comes to life, I guess you better NOT buy the knock offs because you surely don't want it to break! :)

The Grad School Diaries: Episode 1

Show me someone who thinks writing is easy and I’ll show you someone who’s never really been passionate about writing.

One of the MAIN reasons I went back to blogging is because I started my thesis season. I don’t think anyone could understand the pain of staring at a blank screen wishing for ideas to come.

I type words. Then I delete. I try again. Then I hit delete.

My hands are getting pretty tired of doing the same thing. I need my hands to work with me, it’s just that I don’t have anything good to write when I am under time pressure as of that moment. It doesn’t help that” 1) I am a mood writer 2) I am constrained to write academically. 3) I must write with a purpose of sounding very academical.

I started blogging again to get my self psyched in writing again, after taking a break in 2009.

I recently found out that there’s MS in Creative Writing in UP Diliman, up until now I am still thinking how did I find my self in Development Communication and minored in Development Management when my background was more of the Arts (Mass Communication) and my work experience had nothing to do with the 3rd world countries, except that we were highly outsourced.

Had I been in UP Diliman, these are the two things that I think I am sure of:

1)      I’m definitely living with my girlfriends who are my “breath of fresh air”.

2)      I have the privacy of my own room in the 3BR townhouse we’ll be sharing. ( I still think of what might have beens, knowing that “my room” there is still waiting for me)

3)      If I am in my thesis season, I’m probably zoned out and my creative juice and imagination is working non-stop.

4)      I’m definitely going to bleed for my  paper to be published. (Regardless if it’s a requirement)

5)      I have the perks of resetting my life and doing my own thing during my writing down time.

Don’t get me wrong. I will be forever grateful to the DevCom community who welcomed me with open arms. I can still remember the look on my face when I got my acceptance letter tagging me as a regular student, and that I can enroll right away. Quitting my job has never been this easy, even if I know that I will have to give up my hard-earned freedom.  Graduate School is something that I will never regret.

But man, It sometimes take a toll on me. It is only in Graduate School that I’ve experience back pains due to staring too much on the computer, reading hell lot of jargon ( English naman to, at naging English Trainer pa ako but why the hell I couldn’t understand what this sentence means?!). And yes, I came to a point na I was running on high fever while presenting a paper. My mind gets more exercise than my body. If all this thinking makes one fit, eh super fit na ako to join Survivor Philippines!

 

It’s only in Graduate School that I really matured (feeling ko) and started to really be grounded and deeply humbled. Only in Graduate School that I learned to give difficult people credit and met such really good friends  that I know I will have forever. Only in Grad School that I met friends that I’ve known for less than a year but it felt like we have known each other forever. It’s only in grad school din that I really have watched how people come and go, and at the end of the day, it’s not a workplace fighting for promotion, it’s not undergraduate studies competing for a LAUDE position, because the hardest battle is really the one with your self.

I’m down to my last 7 units of my MS degree this semester, and I don’t know if I made a wrong move by working while studying, but I’m really crossing my fingers to pull everything through.  It’s so hard to find that Thesis-Writing Vibe. Like right now, I’m supposed to be working on my thesis but little did I know all this typing have made a whole new blog entry.  I don’t know how people do it, but if you happen to be one of those Amazing Grad School People who can multi-task work, family and thesis/dissertation, without losing your sense of balance, please let me know how. 

Dear iPod, Please don't die on me... yet.

Dear iPod,

I've had you for three years already. I never realized you've been with me for three years and yet you still have 49G ready for occupancy. I was talking to my friend Karen today, and I can still remember the day that I bought you. It was lunch hour and I've just taken off work. I saw you, the last piece, and you're the only one in your generation that 160G. The rest were 120G and I saw you there...waiting for me.

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And I went to the nearest cellular phone shop and this guy gave me a really good deal. For Php500, He would fill up the 20G of my ipod just so I would’nt go home lonely. I don’t have my laptop and at that time and I still don’t know how to transfer to iTunes. I just trusted the guy to take care of the contents for me. He filled it up with songs, songs that I listen to and songs that I think I will listen to in the future. He also added some movies that I will like and he asked me if I want to have one tagalog movie. He gave me “One More Chance” movie of John Lloyd and Bea that backfired on my friend Mina when she was browsing my playlist when she was left alone in my apartment.

Because of the really good deal, I can find songs in my iPod that I didn't think that I have, like those of Oasis and other bands.  I could not really call my self a Music Lover, though I appreciate listening to various kinds. I used to have a boyfriend do all the downloading for me, google the song for me, and patiently wait for the movies to finish downloading just so I can watch the movies in my iPod.

And when we broke up, I had to learn  to create a decent playlist in my iPod. It was the Best Break Up songs playlist – all with the theme of not wanting to get back together – and Boy, did it kept me company when I was riding the train.

When I took up graduate school studies and found my self waiting for enormously long hours for professors during my first semester, my iPod was there with me, entertaining me with movies that I’ve eventually learned to download myself. When I will be in an unknown area, my iPod is sure to provide me entertainment so that I will never be bored.

My iPod have saved me and kept me from pestering strangers striking up a conversation when I really want to be alone, when I don’t want to hear my own thoughts, and even though that 160G iPod classic is bulky, I take it with me when I jog around the campus. I have a “Werq it” playlist that go with it.

I’ve lost it’s original earphones and have found some cute earphones, until my sister got my my Hed Kandi Headphones that went well with my iPod. I had to get a separate pouch for my Hed Kandi and iPod just so they would be kept safe in my bag.

I have a relationship with this ipod.

 Just when I finally learned to convert movies and series to mp4 with a really cool software that’s when it starts to act up. I realized I’ve lost the photos stored in it (no big deal). But now, iTunes won’t open up when it’s plugged in, iTunes won’t open manually when my iPod is plugged in. When I drag my new mp4 files to my opened/recognized iTunes in my laptop, it just says LINK, and “won’t drop/copy” when I was able to successfully do it with the other previous files that I’ve transferred minutes ago . I know the files converted is working because I just transferred it to my Achi’s iTouch so I know those files work.

Few weeks ago, my friend Joy showed me her old iPod that she broke. She literally opened the hardware and showed me what it looks like on the inside. She tells me to take a look so that I will know what an iPod internally looks like. My iPod still plays music, it is still charging but I am just having such a hassle with the iTunes part.

Shucks, I am not ready to part with this iPod.  Yes, I did the reset and the other things that I googled. So if anyone in the universe who know a lot about iPods might come across with this post... Please help me. 

Project FEETrail: Introduzione

My cousin told me why not blog about feet in the Philippines because he believes Filipinas have the best feet. ( My cousin's British).

I didn't realize I've been taking many feet shots until I finally tried to clean up my hard drive. I had forgotten to take feet shots when I was out of the country or in another place because I wasn't doing it on purpose. 

I don't have the best feet, but I like taking photos of where I am standing to remind my self of what "state" I am in and where I've been.

Here are some of the pics I've recovered ( I don't know where I saved the others): 

November 2008, Jupiter Street, Makati with my good friend Gino. Gino and I were lost somewhere in Makati and we're scheduled to meet our American clients for dinner. 

February 2009 - Feelin Boracay's powder-like sand with my cousin. My first time in Boracay and I  really don't want to go home after having been there. 

Team Chucks. (okay these are shoes but still...)  May 2009 at Crystal Beach Attic, San Narciso, Zambales. I was with Karen and her then beau and this is after we went surfing.

Ready for me, February?

Blogging this month of last year was the easiest because all I had to do is think of things that I love and blog about them. Next thing I know, I was controlling my self from too much blogging and just chose the one’s that I like to put up in cyberspace.  You know, when February comes to mind, we immediately jump to the 14th, which is (as if you don’t know) Valentines’s day.

When we were kids, my sister and I look forward to Valentine’s day because we always get that heart-shaped cake from mom.  This was before the famous heart shaped chocolate cake from Mernel’s cake house in Los Banos Laguna was even born to life. I don’t know where she had it made but we were excited getting Valentine cakes, especially me most especially for two major reasons: 1) it’s from my mom and 2) it’s chocolate!

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I spent Valentine’s last year with my friends in grad school. I didn’t know that the Valentine’s Day fever in UPLB is sooooper exaggerated! We were initially planning to go the UP fair but little did we know that a whole wave of jejemons have the same idea, so we just wined and dined at  a friend’s house while cyber stalking our past boylets and had an accidental sleepover.

It was nice, fun and intimate. We were only 3.

I’m used spending Valentine’s day in Manila, it usually consists of getting drunk, giving cards to get teased, usually drink, shop, but it was never really the mushy kind. I had my own share of spending the Vday with my then boyfriend, lakas lang maka-pressure to do something nice when you’re with someone.

This year since it’s going to be different, I really made sure to be doing something about that Vday. I have work from 8-5, then I will be driving like a maniac to my college building to attend my  grad school class to make it by 5:30.  And come Feb 15th I will be on a class field trip so no point in getting drunk on Vday since I have to be up and early to do field work in the city the very next day.  Last year I was really amused on twitter about celebrities twitpic-ing OA Valentine’s day promos. I actually enjoyed IC Mendoza’s twitpic collection of OA Valentine promos that I ended up twitpic-ing  something so that I can contribute to his “OA Valentines Bandwagon” and he retweeted it! J

Here are the things that I know I will surely see on Valentine’s day. NO FAIL:

1.      Shape of hearts – in every restaurant, bookstore, shops, malls, etc.

2.      Flowers – holding them, carrying them, smelling them, selling them, delivering them, etc.

3.      Bears – being held or delivered, being sold or bought.

4.      Valentine Promos – I remember twitpic-ing IC Mendoza about the buy 1 take 1 1.5 Coca-cola litro as Valentine’s day promo.

5.      Chocolates – do I need to say more?

So yes, besides Christmas shopping, I’d say Valentines is probably one of the most stressful event in a year. But looking back, I think my most memorable (if not a number of bests) Valentine’s days always had something to do with family.

I'm buckling up my seat belt this month because I fell off my NY resolutions last month due to sickness, but I'm pushing my self back on track. Ready, February?