2x2

ah, the miracles of modern technology. armed with my trusty intern, the office digicam, a white wall and some photoshop skillz, i created these DIY 2x2 photos for my visa interview at the US embassy bright and early tomorrow morning.


they say your ears have to be visible for any official passport or visa photos. my ears are tucked flat against my head so i always have a problem complying with this requirement. however for this occasion, one ear (yes, just one) decided to cooperate. you should also preferably be wearing a collared top, hence the very 80s mint green jacket that belongs to my mom.

this photo makes me realize that my head is a weird shape.

anyway, wish me luck on my interview! new york is just less than a month away!

Barbie girl

i know, gladiator sandals are just about to go the way of hooded t-shirts, buddha beads and jelly kellys. but the siren call of hot pink plastic was just too strong to resist. plus, they're super comfy.

Sunday lunch

i was craving for something rich and hearty all week, but didn't want to have any pasta. you know, the calories. and marlon and i resolved to have more veggie dishes this week. so when i found a recipe for eggplant parmigiana on jamie's site, i thought it would be perfect!

i am not a fan of eggplant, but i figured i could live with it if it was drowned in tomato sauce and cheese.

rogue supervised the culinary proceedings from her new favorite perch: the top of the refrigerator. how she gets there is truly a feline feat.

after pan-grilling the eggplants (no oil! whee!), we layered them in a pyrex with plum tomatoes sauteed in onion and garlic. unfortunately we ran out of oregano, so we used fresh thyme instead. the top layer was a handful of breadcrumbs mixed with grated parmesan. then we popped the whole thing into the oven.

while waiting for the parmigiana to bake, we finally got around to planting the organic oregano and basil we bought in amsterdam... three whole months ago!

inside each foil bag was a tiny packet of seeds and some bulbol nice-looking soil. 

the seeds were like tae ng daga. yeeeeee.

oregano

basil

we just took out a bit of soil to cover the seeds...

and placed them on the ledge of our balcony. done! the whole thing took place in less than five minutes. i wonder why we put it off for so long.

then finally, lunch!

a bit of crunch from the breadcrumbs, plus the hearty chewiness of the tomato sauce and melted cheese. perfect! the best thing is that it was less than 350 calories for a bowl full of baked goodness. that's less than a KFC zinger. and since we made it ourselves, it was so easy to measure and portion out everything. 

how was your sunday lunch? :)

Milestone

i lost 5 pounds in the last two weeks!

my goal is to lose at least 10 pounds before my NY trip in august . so happy to be half way there! this is my first time to weigh in since starting my (tedious) diet and exercise regimen.

another milestone for me this week is that i did two one-and-a-half-hour muay thai sessions back to back, on wednesday and thursday evening. marlon and i recently upped our muay thai from twice to thrice weekly. muay thai sessions are really grueling, and i felt the only way i could manage them thrice a week was if i did a short, one-hour session followed by a longer, one-and-a-half hour session the next day. it's great to know that i can take the additional toil! my endurance is improving and my recovery time is getting much, much shorter.

also, robert (the ultra maniacal terminator trainer) told me i had really good form this week and that i was really starting to get the technique. i can really feel my kicks cutting through the bag now, even my left kick which is usually weaker. it is so satisfying to see a dent appearing in the bag, then getting bigger and bigger with each kick!  

i've decided that my reward for getting to the 10-pound mark will be makeup shopping at MAC! and marlon promises shopping jaunts at the 20- and 30-pound marks.

so inspired to carry on. happiness! :)

JAZA, istatue?

dr. kishore mahbubani, dean of the lee kwan yew school of public policy.

in fairness ha.

if you have 11 minutes to spare or are interested in development or public policy, watch the corporate video for the school. i was astounded by how compelling it was, a rarity in the world of corporate videos for the academe. too bad its mother university's video has all the production value of negosiyete. ateneo's sesquicentennial video is so much better.

by the way, the illustrious LKY is my neighbor. his house is on the same street as my office. bawal mag-picture sa harap ng bahay niya so no visual aids for the blog, sorry.

That's the thing

i'm trying to get this guy (who thankfully not represented by a talent agency) to come in and audition for my sports spot. his face is cute but this is really what got me. you could say he had me at "ugat".


forearms have always been my "thing". one of my high school crushes was a guitarist who had the most maugat forearms and manly hands i had ever seen in my fourteen years of existence (due to all the guitar playing). kalimutan na lang natin ang fez.

later on, when i got into my first relationship, i developed a thing for butts. di bale na kung malaki, basta nakakagigil. my ex had the most whackable butt in the world. thankfully i married a man who perpetuates my butt fetish to this very day. another ex-generated fetish is my love of plump lips. thin kissers are just not my thing, except if they happen to belong to this guy.


each of us has her own thing about guys. justine and i used to notice very clean batoks in college, which is one of the reasons i love marlon in a very short haircut with a nice clean nape. then there are girls who fall in love with fingernails, go into a tizzy over toenails, swoon over shoulders and go bananas over backs.

what's your thing?

update: so nakausap ko na siya. akala ko nung una nagmamaganda siya. pero ayaw niya palang sumubok hangga't conFEERMED na yung petsa ng shoot. may laban daw kasi siya at baka mag-iba ang itsura niya pagkatapos ng laban. oo nga naman.

anyway, gamit ang maikling usapan naming iyon ay nasiyasat ko na siya. at eto siya, mga kaibigan! hindi lang pala braso ang kahanga-hanga sa kanya.

Sales talk fail

marlon and i caught the last full show of harry potter 6 at the lido last week. on the way up, my eagle eyes caught the words "further reductions - SALE" plastered across the window of all dressed up, my favorite local brand. i love this brand, but i just find them waaaay too expensive for me -- the only thing i own is a necklace i got on sale. anyway, marlon agreed that i could have a little treat *squee* and left me to try on clothes while he went and got us tickets.

eventually it boiled down to something almost exactly like this blouse, going for 50% off. i was torn between two very pretty colors - a very pale lilac or a brighter coral. with isetan closing shop all around me, i was completely  befuddled and couldn't choose. i thought about getting both tops, but then that would totally defeat the point of them being on sale.

 

now i have quite a high opinion of local sales staff. since retail is so competitive here, they actually turn out to be very well-trained and knowledgeable about their products. i have actually gotten sales people who have advised me to take a bigger shoe size than my usual because of the cut of a certain shoe, or opt for a classic green christmas tree versus a trendy white tree because it was easier to clean and looked better under regular home lighting. and of course buying electronics here is always great.

so i thought the all dressed up staff could actually help solve my dilemma with some secret nugget of wisdom about skin tones or fabrics known only to sales associates of designer brands. i brought the two blouses to the SA and laid out my dilemma. 

"well," she started out in a thoughtful, earnest, promisingly hermione-like tone, "this one very bright, lah. and this one... very pale."

uh, yeah. that's exactly my problem.

both of us stared at the two blouses, as if waiting for them to whisper the right answer. finally, hearing the isetan closing announcement over the PA, i decided to make an off-the-cuff decision and get the brighter color like i usually do. 

sigh. i wonder if she thought i was blind.

BOHICA

brainstorming for my latest (and potentially huge) pitch today brings me to the land of military slang and jargon. here are some of the noteworthy nuggets (actually used by militarymen!) i found on my exploration.

catastrophic success - a particularly vivid paradox under the "iraq-specific" category, for obvious reasons. defined as "military victory coming much sooner than the plan anticipates, which throws off the overall strategic plan."

BAMF - bad ass mother f*cker

CYA - cover your ass

FILTAB - f*ck it, let's take a break

FUBAR - f*cked up beyond all recognition/repair (so much profanity in the military! i wonder why? :P)

HMFIC - head mother f*cker in charge

motarded - a u.s. marines term for being motivated to the point of being retarded. i guess nobody likes an eager beaver.

snot locker - the nose

SWAG - scientific wild ass guess

and my personal favorite: BOHICA - bend over, here it comes again

drei, that one's for you! ;)

Pleased with myself :)

i just had to blog this because i am so proud of myself today!

back story: after weeks of sitting through reruns of the biggest loser every day, marlon and i decided to get serious about losing weight. after all, if these 300- and 400-pound juggernauts could literally work their butts off and get even thinner than us, what the hell was our excuse? marlon took some opportune downtime at work to look for online tools that we could use to help us. initially, he found us a calorie counter widget for igoogle on labpixie, but with some more digging he turned up this website called sparkpeople.

it seemed a little confusing and tedious at first, but basically what happens is that you input your current weight and goal weight (it caps your weight loss at a very healthy 2.2lbs per week), and it churns out a recommended calorie/fat/protein/carb intake, plus a meal and exercise plan for you. 

marlon and i opted not to follow their meal plans (which seem like the most boring, white-people meals on the face of the planet) and just input our own meals into their calorie counter. you can search through their database or input the nutritional info of the brands that you like.  

it then tallies up the numbers and helps you see how you're doing in terms of the recommended calorie/carb/fat/protein range for the day. yep, it helps you get that good old-fashioned balanced diet that you've been hearing about but never really believed worked. 

this is where i had all my breakthroughs, because i've always just starved myself (which actually forced my body to go into survival mode and cling on to the calories) or cut out carbs (which my body needs to burn calories). and i never even thought about protein (which my body needs to build muscle and pump up my metabolism), a bad habit that which became obvious in my first few days as i was always way below the minimum protein requirement. and fat... hah. it was off the charts.

ANYWAY. i could go on and on and on. but basically yun yung back story. the reason i'm so happy today is that after nearly two weeks of trying to balance my diet (and failing miserably on some days, as the spikes below will show you!), i was finally right on target today! 

the light green area is my recommended range. the out-of-bounds spikes reveal when i had a ton of olive oil in my salad dressing, or when we had a big vietnamese dinner with fried spring rolls and coffee jelly!

not only that, i was actually kulang calories and fat... even after eating a big (for me) breakfast, drinking apple juice (which i don't normally have) and having lunch with a full tupperware of brown rice. i actually had to rack my brain for a snack that would put me just within the ideal range -- and it turned out to be a midnight snack of parmesan cheese and ferrero dark chocolate! 

a diet that "forces" me to have chocolate and cheese? i never thought i would see the day. :)

Urquiola preshosha

i was flipping through an issue of home and decor (a local mag that i buy a few times a year) when i came across this gorgeous stand-alone bathtub by patricia urquiola for axor, one of the brands under hansgrohe. every time a bathroom fixture is so pretty/luxurious/unusual that it makes me take a closer look, it turns out to be made by hansgrohe.

the dream home marlon and i are building in our heads most definitely contains a bathtub, and i think this is the one. it's sleek and pretty, with a slope on which you can rest your head or neck while soaking and a built-in slot for hanging towels. whether both marlon and i will fit in it at the same time is dubious, but if we lose enough weight... who knows?


patricia urquiola is one of the few furniture designers who i actually keep an eye on. i first saw her t-table for kartell in rustans shortly before i got married and i fell in love with it. when i showed it to marlon, he said it gave him the itchies.


it was enough to get me interested in her work. i like a lot of her pieces, like this frilly chair (yes that's really what it's called), also for kartell.


i was instantly drawn to her crinoline chairs for b&b italia -- they reminded me of those woven rattan peacock chairs that were so popular in the seventies, but reinvented in a cool and modern way.


then i found out that the weaving was actually done in the philippines! how cool is that!


i wonder if i can actually own one of these pieces at some point in my life.


i can just imagine myself breakfasting on this re-trouve chair and table, enjoying a fresh pot of coffee with the crisp morning air and lush greenery from my open-air patio.

ting! truly preshosha!

Inspirations for the day

i quickly discovered that one of the most useful survival skills for my job is gathering and maintaining a pool of references. from videos to images and (less often for me) music, sometimes simply pulling the right reference for the right brief is enough to turn a hair-tearing creative drought into hours and hours of writing when your fingers can't fly fast enough to catch up with your ideas.

i started maintaining a reference folder on my desktop shortly after joining bda. i was both amazed that my boss could so effortlessly cherry-pick and develop ideas from his seemingly bottomless pit of reference, and frustrated that he had had least a fifteen-year headstart collecting them. i figured if i was going to be useful to him, i had better start catching up.

anyway, today i found two videos in my stash that helped me write a pitch for the army (yes the army here is very media-savvy), something i usually detest doing, in the matter of a several hours. while both videos work on the idea of a missing element, a "what if" scenario that i found interesting, i'm happy to report my finished concept turned out to look like neither of the two! and my bosses liked it!



a quiet, mood and thought-provoking ad for fotoprix.



a hilariously vivid and very panicky (!) football promo for sky sports.

Getting Gaudior

one last note on the unicorn tattoo.

i had given some thought to what kind of unicorn i wanted on my back. the obvious choice was to get one just like the last unicorn. 

however, google images of unicorn tattoos and most of the ones that will pop up first are exactly like the last unicorn. i love the last unicorn, but the sheer ubiquity of her as a tattoo turned me off. and i knew leon wasn't the artist to go to if you wanted an exact copy of something -- it would be a total waste of his distinctive point of view.

finally i decided that i wanted my unicorn to capture the spirit of gaudior, the unicorn from a swiftly tilted planet by madeleine l'engle -- one of my most favorite books ever.

i wanted a unicorn that was powerful enough to travel through time and ride the wind, rear up on its hind legs and fight, yet be gentle enough to sing with the stars and carry a young boy on its back. and while i didn't tell leon this idea or show him any pictures, that's exactly what i got anyway -- from the strong, thick lines of its body down to the wisps of wind and tiny dotted stars in its tail.

Speaking of tattoos...

i just thought i'd post a tighter shot of my unicorn. it's been over two weeks since i got it, and it's healed beautifully. leon told me it would heal much faster than my first tattoo, and he was right. 

what happened with my first is that i barely felt any pain except for the very, very fine lines around my ankle bone. leon compared being tattooed with thick, dark lines to being scraped repeatedly by a large iron nail, and he was right. 

truth be told, after the endorphins kind of died down, i realized that i wasn't 100% happy with some details -- i thought the tail could have been shaped better, and a bit of the shading on the tail wasn't even. i realized i hadn't gotten it in the best of conditions: it was the last evening on the last day of the tattoo expo and leon was dead tired. after a few days of obsessing i accepted it for what it was: not the exact picture i had in my mind, but a beautiful and unique artwork nevertheless.

the pain may not have been as bad as expected, but the healing process was much longer and more uncomfortable. it bled for a few hours immediately after, and was red, raised and tender for at least a week. on the second week, it began to peel, with the thickly inked lines falling off in scabs. i know it sounds gross, but it was looked ok -- kind of like when you have an old black leather bag and it starts flaking off in your hand or on your arm. 

AND it itched like the devil. i had to keep it constantly moisturized, and lotion was one of the few things that gave temporary relief. i also became a master of precision scratching -- using my fingernail to scratch as close to the lines as possible.

with my second tattoo, the lines are so fine that they didn't bleed at all. but the PAIN. according to leon, finer needles really feel more like cuts than anything and i have to agree. i was expecting the worst pain on the spine (something i had heard about from a former colleague) and received a nasty surprise -- it had nothing to do with what part of the body the needle was on, but with how fine the needle was and what it was actually doing. so the parts that hurt the most were the fine lines of the tail and its teeny, tiny stars, as well as the details in and around the hooves. 

but the pain was worth it. leon was at his most focused and relaxed, having a looser schedule and spending a whole week in singapore. we were in a lovely, airy old shophouse with a proper tattoo bed (or bench?), adjustable lamps, enough space to work in and the prospect of beers afterwards. i'm not surprised it turned out as beautifully as it did. of my two pieces of ink, this is the one that i am truly in love with. 

the fineness of the lines has helped with the healing, too. after feeling like a bad sunburn for the first two days, i began to forget that i had just gotten a tattoo. there was barely any swelling, itching and peeling -- maybe 10% to 20% of what i felt with the first tattoo. even now that the thicker lines on the body of the unicorn are going through a second round of peeling, i can barely feel it. 

Disclosure

the nice thing about being married and living in another country is that my mom can't suspend my allowance, confiscate my cellphone, or ground me. she never actually did any of that (because i was such a good girl, har har har), but it's nice to be safe from parental freak-outs all the same.

in this week's call to my mother:

me: i got another tattoo.

mom: aaaaaaa!!! another one? ano na bang nangyari sa 'yo? itatawa na kita! pag may nagtanong sa akin, sasabihin ko "hindi po sa akin yan! napulot ko lang!"

me: ...

mom: maganda ba?

me: yeah, maganda. you'll like it, i promise. cute siya. it's a unicorn.

mom: saan? baka pag nakita kita, hindi na kita makilala.

me: sa likod. it's small lang, smaller than my hand. 

mom: kasi yung una, ang laki-laki, ano ba naman yon. pero sa bagay malaki naman ang legs mo. hahaha!

me: ano ba. it's not as big. don't worry.

mom: baka mamaya pati braso mo, meron na rin!

me: wala, no. never. pinipili ko yung mga areas na hindi tumataba.

well, at least she didn't say mukha akong preso. or baka pag nakita ako ng taga-gang, pagkamalan akong taga-rival gang (which is what marlon's dad says about tattoos). 

Give me that remote

you know you spend too much time watching trashy tv shows when your husband (husband!!!) starts quoting tyra.

this was a yahoo messenger exchange i had with marlon this afternoon while he was on hold with a customer service rep from orbitz, trying to get a refund.

marlon: wow- i'm really using whatever flirting skills i have with this operator. "yes ma'am, I'll wait as long as you need me to, and thank you for the assistance."
me: i'm jealous.
marlon: don't worry. tyra says, "my man can flirt all he wants so long as he comes home and does ME."
me: *FREAKS OUT* OMG WHAT!? WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT?? i've never heard that until this very moment. hahahahaha!
marlon: it was on america's next top model. some girl was crying because her boyfriend had been flirting while she was away doing the show. and tyra was like, "in this business you gotta be STRONG, girl." hahahaha!
me: haha.
marlon: are you scared?
me: my husband is quoting tyra.
marlon: let me join white collar boxing na kasi, i need more testosterone in my life.

he has quoted heidi klum on several notable occasions ("your outfit looks cheap... and uninspired", "...a sad... brown... dress"), but i must say tyra is a new low. time to start watching more bbc...

Goal!

i love being at home, curling up in bed and vegging out all day, but there is something to be said for being out in the open air. today was a good reminder of that. my hunt for athletes for my most recent sports project brought me out to the padang, a huge green open field smack in the middle of the downtown central business district that i never once noticed.

last saturday's casting effort was thoroughly intimidating -- little old me in the midst of a gaggle of about fifty indian cricketers ("remember... you're indian!" marlon whispered to me as a form of encouragement before he left me to go to his martial arts class). plus i had this irrational, niggling fear that all these men would think i was just there to hit on them. so this time, i made sure to bring my bodyguard, cheerleader and all-around production support. who else?

 i told marlon, "para tayong high school. wala kang perang pang-date sa akin, kaya soccer field ang bagsak natin." but it was a nice afternoon -- uncharacteristically cool and breezy for singapore. and the landmarks around the padang may have made me remember just how tiny singapore is (you can see boat quay! bugis! marina bay! raffles city! suntec! the skyscrapers of tanjong pagar! all from one field!), but they made the setting picturesque nevertheless. 

tall building is the swissotel stamford near raffles city. 

marlon and i used to like going to the bar on the 71st floor.

suntec city and the hotels of marina bay in the distance. 

i like how the colors of the setting sun reflect on the buildings.

skyscrapers - mostly international banking and finance companies - lining the river.

the hall of justice -- err the old supreme court building

what made it extra-nice though was that the captain of the soccer team i was visiting had one of those endearing irish (or was it scottish?) accents, and was so warm and friendly i just wanted to hug him. (hindi siya guwapo. parang tatay. linawin ko lang. hahaha.) he introduced me to his teammates with a friendly quip for each one ("this one was mr. scotland 2002!") and made sure, even in the middle of a game, that i had gotten everything (and everyone) i needed.

and it seemed like they were just having fun. i asked a few guys to do tricks for the camera, and a lot of them just joined in for the heck of it. 

quite a few people on the team are i-bankers, not the best thing to be in these times. i can imagine how enlivening these after-work must be for the truly stressed. the competition, the adrenaline, the fun and camaraderie, the kicking and running and jumping and just feeling the wind on your face -- not to mention the euphoria of hitting a goal! must be wonderful after those long taxing work hours. just sharing that today, and seeing how much these guys enjoy it, was awesome.

and as for casting -- well, the haul wasn't so bad either. you know how adorable scottish accents can be... especially when they come with a six-pack to match.

7-month roundup, part 2

the first and probably the last time that i will ever do this in my life: hop on a plane to attend a birthday party in europe. i can never forget the night my sister called me to say that uncle david had generously offered to have us at his big 70th birthday bash in brussels. i was jumping up and down and shrieking like a madwoman. i can't even begin to describe all the visa drama, all the knuckle-biting will-we-make-it-or-won't we. but we did make it.

and it was wonderful being with family again. i'll say that again: family. even though i'm sure half the guests was wondering who the heck these two asian chicks were. it means as much to me that marlon met the hargitts as he did my family in india, mostly because i had never thought it could really happen. 

a birthday toast to the man himself

i met kathy, davey and patrick's kids for the first time! meeting marie, nathanael, ayla and dimitris was like meeting characters in a book. i had grown up hearing all about them as they grew up (with the exception of dimitris, who was born just last year). i almost couldn't believe i had never met them. it was like meeting anne of green gables or meg murry!

with gorgeous marie

nutty nathanael

patrick with dimitris and ayla

more dimitris! *squee*

i had my first taste of belgian beer. now i know what i was missing during all those childhood visits to brussels!

for the first time ever, i attacked the mind-boggling fresh seafood platter at brasserie georges with gusto. it had always completely repulsed me when i was a child and mcdonald's was the pinnacle of my culinary desires. again, now i know what i was missing!

i ran all the way through brussels airport. don't ask. it was right out of the amazing race. i'm just glad we made it to the flight on time, because otherwise these next few firsts wouldn't have happened at all...

i visited the beautiful spanish town of malaga, on the costa del sol...

view from the castillo de gibralfaro, one of malaga's moorish legacies

outside the museo picasso (he was born in malaga)

one of the chiringuitos a.k.a. grilled seafood shacks along the beach

... and ronda, in my beloved andalucia, for the first time.

ronda's famous puente nuevo. i once saw this in a nick bantock book, but i had no idea it was going to be this massive or this breathtaking!

crossing the puente nuevo with marlon

truly one of the most beautiful towns in one of the most beautiful regions in the world

in malaga, i saw my first flamenco concerts -- as in all singing, no dancing. photography was forbidden in the theater where marina heredia performed, but in the little neighborhood pena (club) where i saw luis perdiguero, i was free to take all the pictures i wanted. 

in ronda, i stepped into my first bullring. 

and it was my first time to be in a location once featured in a madonna video! lol!

i got stuck in a foreign country for the first time, getting my first ever airline-sponsored overnight stay in amsterdam, where i just about had enough time for lunch at maoz (brilliant but cheap falafel chain i discovered in barcelona a few years ago) and a visit to the van gogh museum... which is still more than i ever saw during my week-long visit with the glee club many years ago.

queuing for almost an hour outside the van gogh museum

the requisite canal photo

i love maoz! pwede kayang i-franchise sa manila?

hmmm. is that it? it seems my life ground to a halt after i came back from europe in april. how sad...

oh! i started yoga.

and OMG!!! how could i forget?!?!?! i bought my first designer bag! my beautiful, beloved miu miu gray coffer!!! and i now know why some women call their bags their 'babies'. miu miu is love :)

now suddenly more than half the year is over. and there are new dreams afoot, new adventures on the horizon. time flies, indeed...