Inspirability

is my family's raffle curse over? i seem to be on this weird winning streak the past couple of months: the jun-jun shirt from a blog raffle; the white chocolate cheesecake from lori's tea party; and an ice age 2 movie ticket (singapore theaters only) for buying diego at takashimaya.

my newest win is this lovely book called inspirability by matt pashkow (who refers to himself as pash, in the tradition of cher and madonna). i won it at the full-day workshop our department had on the art of broadcast promotions, courtesy of the promax bda roadshow.

the speaker was jeff rustia, an ultra-cool, mulleted (yes, the 80s hairdo) fil-canadian creative director. jeff runs a company called front, which -- i'm amazed -- lives entirely off branding tv networks. no dog food commercials, no corporate stationery. just pure broadcast promo.

learning about front (and the other entities like it) was such a shocker. it's like finding incontrovertible proof that the afterlife truly exists, i.e., there's actually somewhere i can go -- somewhere i can, and should, aspire to go -- after my life in this world.

grimace and the hot lolo

jeff threw trivia questions every now and again, complete with prizes, to check if we were listening (don't know if he does this for everyone, but it's certainly very pinoy). this decadent book (with its sexy, swirly designs and run-your-fingertips-over-it-every-ten-minutes faux-suede hardcover) was a prize for his final question. it wasn't a tough question, but i got it pretty much for two reasons.

one, i was wearing my bright purple sweater -- i stood out from all the people who shot to their feet to answer. the assistant made to spot the first to get up literally blurted out "i saw grimace purple!" color works!

two, the answer was jeremy irons. i could not have missed that for all the world. i love jeremy irons! he's equal only to sean connery on my hot lolo list. in one promo spot we viewed, he narrated a few lines of d.h. lawrence, and i could have ID'd his voice within two words in my sleep. it's so, so, sexy. shameless confession: i went through a recent phase where i listened to "be prepared" from the lion king almost every day.

conversations

anyway, the book. i leafed through it it until i fell asleep last night, and it's great. it's one of those books you can pore over for hours, read again and again, seek out when you're stuck, and suddenly toss aside to do something else because you've just gotten all fired up by something you read.

inspirability contains conversations with forty top graphic designers (none of whom my provincial self knows, of course) on what inspires them, complete with handwritten (and -doodled) survey forms and snapshots of their workspaces. i have yet to truly pore over it, but it was great to find little snippets of insight from these really talented people that resonated with me. i'll share some with you.

"... i don't need inspiration, i just need the fucking pressure."

-- erik spiekermann, typographic designer/font developer

"escape forces you to shut down and get rid of all the bothersome things which have a tendency to make you kind of narrow-minded and prejudicial... and you go back to that point, a kind of open innocence where everything is meaninful and everything has a chance in your mind."

-- mike salisbury, branding expert

"i collect ephemera. [this is a beautiful, empowering new name for all the junk i have in my room and can't bear to throw away -- d.] i've got a storage room... filled with boxes and boxes of inspiration. you would have a blast looking through this stuff. it's just craziness. everything from bottles and jars, to signs, photographs and toys. i don't know what i'm going to do with it yet."

-- david schimmel, creative director

the only thing i don't like about it so far are pash's interjections. it's as if i can't absorb and react to the designers' statements, or find them brilliant, all by myself... he has to help me.

and every time i read one of his comments, i hear a distinct voice speaking them in my mind. it's kind of a cross between oprah and martin short as the bridal planner in father of the bride. do you hear it too? (emphasis mine.)

"mmm. i really like the way you just said that."
"i love it, what a great perspective."
"wow, what an interesting answer. definitely."
"i think it's absolutely true."

what inspires you me?

travel! going on a trip - whether it's to a foreign country or riding the mrt to work.

books with pictures. reading the griffin and sabine trilogy sent me into weeks and weeks of sketching, collage-making and visual journaling. reading the sandman for the very first time was a total mind-boost. and i love taschen books, which are about 90 percent images and about 10 percent text.

working with creative people. like most of my officemates are.

what inspires you?

Singapore snaps

my (stolen) long weekend, in pictures.

thursday

clear skies on the boyf's birthday. (i flew jetstar, as always.)

the customary black pepper crab dinner at jumbo (our spotless white shirts speak of our crab-eating mastery). should probably try the competition, no signboard, on my next trip.

my birthday boy opening one of his three presents from me (wrapped in superman-print paper, as he firmly believes he is superman).

friday

a homecooked meal by the kitchen god himself caps a hard day of lounging, tanning and pre-shopping!

our hearty dinner: pepper beef hamburger with corn on the cob. yum!

saturday

lunch that pressures you to "hurry!! mix them up!" (last line of copy reads: "why? you will see it!")

the boyf instructs me in the art of DIY mongolian at pepper lunch at the takashimaya basement.

a momentous occasion in the life of a young woman: the first chanel! bronzing powder and lipgloss from taka. *hyperventilates*

the one that got away -- the perfect chanel smoky eye shadow that just had to be out of stock after i spent half an hour convincing myself that i could afford it! gah! bakit kasi tinest pa sa akin, out of stock naman pala! *slaps chanel counter girl silly*

my new workdesk guardian, diego!

my first taste of soba -- cold japanese buckwheat noodles. a delicate break from the heavy, flavorful dishes that i usually order. love the texture.

a perfect nightcap at home: crash on vcd over warmed dessert wine from the nurnberg christkindles market, and...

heaven in a little embossed box: world-famous chocolates from royce'! these babies are packed with dry ice for one to enjoy within five hours of purchase (unless you get them to a freezer, that is), plus a tiny plastic spatula to keep untainted by greedy, unworthy human hands. one bite simply opened my mind to the wondrous genius of creation, both divine and human. that's pretty profound for a 12-dollar pack of chocolate. ;-)

(related reading: check out lori's post on the joys of royce'.)

sunday

after dreaming, chilling and cooing over ikea's great sale... we had to fight it out at the checkout counters with, oh, about 80 percent of the singaporean population. the boyf (proud owner of a new ikea bookcase) really wanted to go back for that 9-dollar tool set.

Rethinking Blogger

i'm cooking up a couple of pet projects for the next couple of months, and one of them is an overhaul of this blog. after two years of its existence, parang dapat karirin na ito! my sister asks: hindi pa ba karir ito? i look at some of my favorite pinoy blogs (such as those of lori, marketman, and anton), and say: NO!

some of the things i've done in preparation for the big revamp:

• signed up for a flickr account
• signed up for a wordpress blog for testing and comparison purposes
• created a temporary doppelganger of this blog on wordpress
• currently trying a .ph domain (free from i.ph) on for size

and some of the things i'm still struggling with:

• wordpress vs. blogger. or should i even move at all? if i could figure out how to make the changes i want on blogger (as other enterprising bloggers before me have done), i may very well stick it out here.
• is a .ph domain really worth it? (anton seems to think so. but i'm not totally sold on the idea yet.)
• writing my "about me" section. i write for a living and i've been yakking about myself on this blog for two years. so why am i stuck?

i'm back from my singapore flash vacay, by the way. i documented my trip as only a new digital camera owner can, which is obsessively. snaps to follow.

update: bah. after a week-and-a-half-long trial/investigation, i decided that i don't want and definitely cannot manage hosting my blog independently. and i don't like being stuck with wordpress's canned templates. so congratulations blogger, you may not support tags but it looks like i'm here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Pre-shopping: a discourse

"i think i'll do some pre-shopping."

i bet marlon was struggling not to raise an eyebrow when i told him how i was going to spend my afternoon. over lunch with him today, i realized i've come to take my annual singapore shopping jaunt (it can hardly be called a spree) very seriously. i'm a victim of the impulse buy and queen of the bargain find most of the year, except for this one time that i get to go shopping with no expense to marlon or myself.

it all starts with a set of department store vouchers, which marlon gets from the office for some reason or another (christmas bonus, work-related award, what have you) and promptly informs me about. we blather back and forth briefly about who gets to use the vouchers, and i graciously allow him to convince me to blow the whole wad on myself. i then draw up a wishlist, a thought process that is supplemented by a brief survey of my closet and dresser.

then, when i get here, there's pre-shopping. pre-shopping is a solo trip to the store in question, where i scout the goods -- just scout. no actual shopping is done, which might strike you as a waste of time and effort. but really! pre-shopping serves quite a number of worthy purposes, such as:

• budgeting the vouchers, thus preventing any embarrassment from running out of vouchers and/or cash
  
• allowing me some of the pleasure of shopping alone, which i actually prefer
  
• allowing marlon to preserve his patience and his sanity without having to give up the puffed-up satisfaction of being able to take me shopping (i'm serious! guys love to feel that they can spoil us without actually spoiling us!)
  
• preventing cranky afternoons and potential arguments, thereby keeping our relationship in relative bliss!

last year's shopping jaunt at robinson's took three days of pre-shopping, since i was a bum and had so much more time on my hands. this year, though, i spent only one afternoon scouting the goods at takashimaya.

it was an interesting experience. taka is more upscale, so they had all these... mommy brands. estee lauder, chanel, dior, clinique, bobbi brown. thought balloon: ack! i don't want to turn into my mom yet! i was pining away for the "younger" brands that i wanted to stock up on, like nars, mac, paula dorff, alison raffaele, plus my favorite, bourjois.

plus, only one of the makeup brands (estee) carried one of the items that i want, which is bronzer. most of the other makeup ladies politely turned me away and told me to come back "when the summer line comes in." which is in june a.k.a. philippine rainy season. ano ba yun? i felt so provincial with my two-season outlook on life. basta march, summer na! dapat may bronzer na kayo!

i also got much less attention (read: ignored) than the predominant types of takashimaya shoppers: badly sun-damaged caucasian women and reed-thin chinese women with very big logos on their bags. perhaps the tricycle on my team manila shirt is some kind of symbol that translates to low priority.

well, whatever. i'm going back tomorrow with marlon, and i more or less have a plan. let's hope i stick to it and don't blow my vouchers on a single pair of shoes from nine west. that would just be a total waste of pre-shopping.

Sayona-lah! Year 3

it's the boyf's birthday once again, and i am off to lah-lah land!

wow. my march singapore visit has now become an annual event. parang pilgrimage, haha.

apart from the much-deserved time off from work, i'm looking forward to my singapore trip not so much for the thrill of discovery as for the routine we've built up over the past three years. there are always new little variations here and there, but for the most part our mini-life in singapore revolves around the following:

the happy reunion at the airport. black pepper crab dinner at jumbo on the first night. the takashimaya shopping spree with vouchers from marlon's office. sleeping in on saturday morning. lazy brown-rice-and-tuna brunch in bed. marlon cooking for me. swimming and tanning (my favorite solitary desperate housewife activity). invading our one-dollar bookstore. drinks and indian food at boat quay.

just thinking about these inane rituals both warms and soothes me. they are ours, and they are a product of the three years we've spent together. and they make for a happy, tingly farewell.

see you all in a couple of days!

Mommy's day out

my mom turned 57 this week, and my sister and i decided to "book" her for a sunday junket to tagaytay. it was a weekend long overdue -- the last family trip we took together must have been in my sophomore year of high school, when we still had a car. my mom didn't even know that the tagaytay-sta. rosa route now exists! (she thinks the old way was faster.) but now that my sister has max, hopefully we'll get to take more girl-bonding trips together. thanks ate!

i felt very grown-up and efficient making reservations for lunch and spa treatments -- both of which we were late to, naturally. :-)

lunch at the cliffhouse

after reading about it in a magazine, ate and i set our sights on lunch at the cliffhouse, a new retail/dining complex overlooking taal lake. doesn't the phrase "retail/dining complex" just evoke ugly industrial-type images? (strip malls anyone?) luckily, cliffhouse was none of that.

the cliffhouse is set low in the ridge, so it offers a closer (and clearer) view of taal volcano than our childhood haunt, taal vista lodge. ample space is provided between restaurants, so while the place may be full, it doesn't feel crowded. everything simply feels open, airy and sunny -- perfect for a laid-back sunday. for dining, one can choose from cafe breton, buon giorno, papa vinz' pastries and fire lake grill. there's also a nifty home store/bar (domecillo), a non-cheesy souvenir shop, a sun deck with benches and ample parking.

lunch was at fire lake grill, which has received pretty good reviews so far. while the food didn't quite blow me away (reviews really make you expect a lot, huh?), it was all good. the service is decent, the food is well-presented (if a bit lacking in flavor), and the ambience simply puts you in too sunny a mood to complain. it's probably the priciest joint in the complex, which simply means makati prices.

ladies who lunch

i never realized my sister was so matakaw. (or takaw-mata?) or that my mom was so picky with food. we ordered a a beef, brocolli and cream cheese pasta for her, and she gave most of the beef and all of the brocolli to me and ate. sigh.

rare tuna steak salad, nicoise-style with lime-cilantro dressing (php 260)

cappuccino of pumpkin with cinnamon froth and beef slivers (php 120) -- top pick!

for the family carnivore: coffee-crusted striploin steak (php 875)

darne of norwegian salmon with tagaytay greens and dalandan (php 350)

we also had philly cheese steak-style penne (php 240) and asparagus and mushroom risotto (php 220), but those were demolished before we remembered to take photos.

pampering at nurture spa

my first visit to nurture spa (with marlon) was no great shakes, but the services seem to have improved over time. and of course the ambience is quite relaxing. i got my mom a one-and-a half-hour ginhawa massage (php 1,500) as a birthday treat. rather pricey for a massage, but well worth it when she burst into our massage room afterwards, all aglow and raving about her liberation from assorted aches and pains. :-)

mothers are funny. after an hour and a half, my mom knew the entire life story of her masseuse, as well as half a dozen factoids about the spa and the oils they use. my sister and i passed out after the first ten minutes!

doña imelda in her garden

coffee at bag of beans

after being rendered jellylike by our masseuses, my sister decided we needed batangas's finest barako to perk us up. i don't know if bag of beans does indeed serve batangas's finest, but it sure seems so!

we didn't get to try their famous english pies, since we were too busy chomping down two large, fluffy cinnamon rolls topped with cream cheese (php 35 each) plus a plate of moist, mouthwatering carrot-banana loaf -- a hybrid of my favorites. everything got washed down with free-flowing brewed coffee (php 55). caffeine and sugar bliss.

will update this post with links, contact information and how-to-get-theres when i have more time. stupid internet explorer at the office is making uploading pictures a living hell. i miss firefox. i miss lulu.

Sugar frenzy!

ack! i have so much to blog about! it's amazing that so many pictures and anecdotes have piled up, considering that i only really have a life on weekends. :-P

now let me see... where do i start? ah, yes. dessert comes first, of course!

--

seventy-five eager sugar hounds...

dessert vultures ready to swoop

one sweltering, steamy sunday afternoon...

fabian's and my loot, awash in the late afternoon glow. (yup, it's summer!)

two fab, famous pinoy bloggers (lori baltazar of dessert comes first and carlos celdran of walk this way)...

the witty and articulate lori, whetting our appetites (as if kailangan)

one look at carlos: yep, this is definitely going to be interesting

and a parade of thirteen of manila's most divine homemade desserts...

the first serving of sin! my faves are on the left side of the plate

... make one deliriously happy currystrumpet!

cabbing home in a happy sugar daze

a communal sugar rush (or should i say frenzy) is a strange and happy thing. it's as if everyone in the room has the word "attack!" tattooed on their foreheads. dollops of icing magically appear on arms, elbows, temples, hemlines, and the ends of one's hair. a collective gasp escapes when, after feeding on six sinful desserts, a second set of goodies is announced -- a ticklish mix of shock, delight, and guilt as each one wonders how to make room for more (but really, how could you not?).

manila is so wonderfully small that despite going alone, i ran into two people i knew at the party (my college philo seatmate and one of marlon's debate friends). attacking the desserts with two other people me feel so much less pathetic.

the utter proof that this was indeed a great event: i, of the notoriously raffle-malas family (we only win when raffles are rigged), actually won a cake in the raffle! we enjoyed the creamy delight that was vanilla bean's white chocolate cheesecake for my mom's birthday.

more sugar-frenzied partiers, plus the desserts that drove us batty, here and here.

read about the featured bakers and java sponsor coffee cordillera here. (too bad it was too hot for coffee.)

of the featured desserts, my favorites were karen's utterly sinful xanadu (the first on my plan of attack) roshan's shut-your-eyes-in delight lemon torte (which i saved for last).

we partied at the living room in malate. cool art space in an equally cool apartment building. check it out here.

Saturday, March 11

Jun-jun for the win!

will he get over one million pesos in cash, a two-million peso exclusive contract, a business franchise and a house and lot?

will he become not just hot, but super hot, overworked and rich?

more importantly, will i get to see him on tv (and around the office) for years to come? it all happens tomorrow at 9:30 p.m.!

gad, am i actually going to traipse all the way to marikina to see my pet account go out with a bang? i think i'll let the tea party make my decisions for me -- if i win something in the raffle, i'll go home and watch the delayed telecast. i certainly can't lug a cake or a framed 8X10 photo of one to a stadium full of 13,000 screaming fans.

return primetime tv to the jun-juns! jun-jun for the win!

p.s. i just have one last shoot with him on monday, and then the worst of this obsession will die down. promise. :-)

Sunday, March 5

Glory be

i have seen the light. after years of dodging high school p.e. (and slinking through most of college p.e.), i have now come to the epiphany that physical exercise actually feels... wonderful. who would have known that my body could turn traitor to my slothy ways and actually secretly crave for exercise? not me. but the craving was fulfilled yesterday, and it felt great.

my only experience with capoeira so far had been the virtual kind -- mindless, button-mashing sessions with christie monteiro in tekken 5. but yesterday, thanks to escola brasileira de capoeira philippines and their newly opened saturday sessions at the ateneo, got to try it out for real.

and it was fun! unathletic as i am, i didn't feel as stupid as i normally would have trying out a new physical activity -- a martial art/dance at that. and daunting as all the acrobatics/buff bodies/fluid movements are, i am definitely coming back for more. why?

one: the people are great. the advanced capoeristas are mixed in with the beginners, and you switch partners a couple of times during the class, so you learn a little bit from each new person that you meet.

there is a visible respect for each person's pace. none of that deadmahan you get when you're a beginner at something (such as, say, fitness first's body jam, tee hee) and everyone else is leagues ahead of you.

there is a very strong group dynamic -- warm, effusive, and simply envelops you, drawing you in.

two: anything fuelled by music is a go for me. especially when it's live and has a distinct shout-your-heart-out feel-good factor. such are the songs sung in roda, which are accompanied by instruments like the drums and berimbau (which kind of looks like a big bow with a gourd tied to one end).

the musicmaking takes place during the part of the class called roda, or the circle in which everyone "plays" or "performs", two by two. it's more like what we pinoys like to call an "exhibition" rather than actual sparring, since nobody actually tries to hit each other. which to me is great -- walang patalbugan. plus, the beginners can actually "dance" with the more advanced capoeristas, or even the instructor.

three: that it's so beautiful to watch is quite inspiring. in other group exercise classes a.k.a aerobics (well, the ones i've tried), motivation to get better and practice more doesn't seem quite so strong. i mean, you don't really try to achieve the perfect grapevine, do you?

one of the biggest surprises for me was this huge kid who was totally red in the face all throughout the class (like me). but in the roda, whoa! ang galing niya, cartwheels and all! i thought to myself, syet kung kaya niya, kaya ko rin! i want to do cartwheels too!

i am even more inspired to lose weight just so that there's simply less of me to lift when i attempt the acrobatics. hell, not even the acrobatics. i can't even hop from my left to my right foot while squatting.

i wish i could attend the weekday sessions at the polo club. the more you train, the faster you improve. but... augh. work work work.

four: everyone's buff bodies are really inspiring, too.

demmit. someday, i too will do headstands in white pants and a bikini top. but in the meantime, i will go on huffing and puffing, ginga-ing and kicking away.

oh yeah, and i gotta nurse my poor legs back into shape. they're absolutely killing me.

--

another glory be: the hordes are gone. i can put my jun-jun posts back up now.

Thursday, March 2

Sometimes...

... being in a long distance relationship can be a real... yeah. that.
... drastic spikes in your site traffic can be really unnerving.
... i get praning and wonder whether it's actually ok for me have personal preferences about my work.
... you just gotta do what you gotta do.
... you have to let someone drag you off your sorry butt to exercise (capoeira with my sister on saturday. good luck to us.)
... you just wonder.