on wednesday, i woke up to a wonderful, wonderful email from lilian at bda.
i have this small project for you. it's an episodic promo. would you be interested in doing this?
in j's words, tumumbling ako. would i be interested in my first paying job in singapore EVAR?!?!?! hell yeah!
lilian went on to tell me the rate for a 30s episodic promo spot: SGD250. she explained, rather apologetically, that if they had a generic series plug for me to do, the rate would be much higher but would i mind? what did i think?
what did i think? forking over two hundred fifty dollars to a workaholic-turned-housewife who can barely afford to get herself a mani-pedi or keep herself stocked with magazines and chocolates (my weekly must-have luhos) without dipping into the hubby's pocket is like offering a glass of water to a man in the desert.
and two hundred fifty dollars for an episodic? dios mio, marimar! ina-outsource pa ba 'yon? that's nearly a third of my monthly salary at gma for something i used to do every single feckin' day! (and on really long days, i could do literally half a dozen episodics in a day!)
put it this way: two hundred fifty dollars for an hour of logging tape. maybe another hour of scripting -- at most (this generous speed assumes that i am practically brain dead, wear lead weights on my fingers and take a languorous snack break). on my first day at gma, i wrote my first script in ten minutes. and i knew nothing about the job or the show. my fingers were literally trembling as i typed.
then maybe another half hour each for revisions (if any) and brainstorming with/briefing the graphic designer (which used to take me and charlie eons). here i'll have to supervise the voiceover session and edit session, which i never did back home, but that's just another two to three hours tops, five if things go badly or slowly.
so, total it up and it works out to two hundred fifty dollars for less than eight hours of exactly the same type of work i used to do (and love to do) and the chance to wedge my foot in bda's door. who am i to complain?
wait, it gets better. the next day, bda's production manager lay tuan emailed me with the details.
i'm doing a promo for THE BBC!
the promo spot i'm doing is for an episode of BBC's horizon. (clicky on the linky. the promo for the memory episode is awesome.) and i have ten days to do it! kakaloka! toto, we're not in gma anymore!
first of all, i actually received a production schedule for an episodic. at gma, you're fortunate to even get a job order. second, the schedule stretches out over ten days from viewing and timecoding to final edit and dub out (or as they say here, dump out). the long gap between scripting and edit is for client approval and revision. back home, the faster the better! episodics have been known to be viewed, scripted and edited within hours.
i got all my instructions (plus a couple of sample promo spots and a nice tip from lay tuan to bring a jacket) last week, but i'm still thrilled and delighted. i feel totally vindicated to have held out for (and pursued) work that i really love and can get super duper excited about. i don't think i would be in this big a tizzy if i had sold out for an easy-come job like... i don't know, a tindera at an estee lauder beauty counter. which i seriously considered for... one whole afternoon. haha!
tomorrow's the big day! i plan to wear my gray team manila shirt (reprezzzzent y'all!). and right before i step into the bda office, i will put on my nice, new, hard-won hat -- you know, the freelance on-air promo writer/producer one.
*kilig* i can't wait.
Monday, April 7
Friday, April 4
A tale of two interviews, continued
interview #2: beverly
departure time: 930am, 1.5 hours prior
mode of transportation: shuttle bus to mrt station, mrt to toa payoh bus interchange, bus # 145 to tanjong pagar road
background research: i was asked to visit five portals/websites for women and be ready to discuss what i liked or disliked about them. it was a surprisingly easy task -- at some point, i've actually have been a regular visitor to three out of five of them: glam, daily candy and ivillage. (remember those superfun virtual makeovers? those were from ivillage.) one was a fun new discovery, fab sugar, and the last was the beverly site itself. it was, i think, the most reading i've ever done for an interview -- and i have four legal sheets of notes to prove it.
i also had to put together a writing portfolio -- i laid out and printed most of my pieces from the star (i rarely kept up with my articles when they came out in print, so all i had were soft copies), plus the things i wrote for penshoppe, wedding essentials, manila bulletin, candy and gma, and stuffed them into a clearbook.
outfit: cream, brown and pink printed wrap dress from folded and hung. i love this dress, it's so comfy and easy to wear. wore it with my vintage rose pendant and leopard-print heels.
took this photo in the only clean corner of the closet (on marlon's side nonetheless!). in fairness mukhang may blue filter!
the proceedings: after half an hour on the bus, i started to worry that i would be late. so i brought out my trusty street map to try and figure out where i was and how long it would take me to get to tanjong pagar. the skinny, reserved-looking chinese man sitting next to me seemed to notice. he leaned over and mumbled: "are you going to chinatown?"
"sorry?" i said politely, as i could barely hear him. this was to become an often-repeated word in the course of our conversation.
he repeated his question. "no, i'm going to tanjong pagar," i replied.
two-minute silence. then he mumbled something.
"sorry, what?" speak up man!
"half an hour," he repeated.
"oh, it'll take me half an hour to get there from here?" darn, i was going to be late.
we rode on in silence. "is the weather ok?" said my seatmate suddenly.
"what? uh, yeah it's fine," i said, mystified.
"if it's too hot for you, it's ok with me to swap seats." i had the window seat.
"no, no, it's fine, i like the sun," i replied, giving him a little smile. silence again. then -- "do you always take the bus?"
"huh? uh, no, this is my first time to take the bus to tanjong pagar," i said distractedly, as i riffled through my notebook for the number of my interviewer. i had to tell them i would be late.
"oh." he fell silent. "do you take the train?"ano ba 'to, twenty questions? animal, mineral, vegetable? i gave him a small, tight nod. pause. "mumble-mumble-this-mumble-train."
"sorry, what?"
"we can do this again on a train," he said.
ano kamo? i must have misheard. alam mo naman ang ingles ng mga taga-rito. "yes, you're right, i can do this again on a train," i said, somewhere between forced politeness and complete befuddlement. "maybe next time i'll take the mrt coming down here."
our charming little chat was interrupted by a call from my interviewer. after i hung up, my seatmate shook his head. "we can do this again on a train," he repeated, louder this time.
i believe i frowned at him. "do WHAT?"
he smiled a little turtle-like smile. "what we're doing now."
aym zorehhh! bakit biglang may "we"?!!! hindi ka cute!!! at may asawa na ako!!!
by divine intervention, the bus had stopped at the landmark indicated by my interviewer. i grabbed my stuff and quickly got off the bus.
and he followed me off! he walked toward me, calling, "this is not your stop! this is not it! this is not it!"
che! paano mo alam! ikaw ba si madam auring?! i quickened my pace, dialing my interviewer as he gabbered on behind me, and just praying that he would leave me alone. i couldn't believe he got off the bus with me.
when i looked behind me after getting directions over the phone, he was gone. thankfully.
when i got to the office, it turned out that the man i had been talking to over the phone the wasn't person who had set up my interview. and the man who set up my interview had forgotten that he had set it up at all. in fact, he wasn't even in the office -- and wouldn't be back that day!
ganda.
so the only interview i had that day was from the creep on the bus! i do not want to know for what position that would have been.
the verdict: that did not go well at all. let's try that again, shall we?
departure time: 930am, 1.5 hours prior
mode of transportation: shuttle bus to mrt station, mrt to toa payoh bus interchange, bus # 145 to tanjong pagar road
background research: i was asked to visit five portals/websites for women and be ready to discuss what i liked or disliked about them. it was a surprisingly easy task -- at some point, i've actually have been a regular visitor to three out of five of them: glam, daily candy and ivillage. (remember those superfun virtual makeovers? those were from ivillage.) one was a fun new discovery, fab sugar, and the last was the beverly site itself. it was, i think, the most reading i've ever done for an interview -- and i have four legal sheets of notes to prove it.
i also had to put together a writing portfolio -- i laid out and printed most of my pieces from the star (i rarely kept up with my articles when they came out in print, so all i had were soft copies), plus the things i wrote for penshoppe, wedding essentials, manila bulletin, candy and gma, and stuffed them into a clearbook.
outfit: cream, brown and pink printed wrap dress from folded and hung. i love this dress, it's so comfy and easy to wear. wore it with my vintage rose pendant and leopard-print heels.
took this photo in the only clean corner of the closet (on marlon's side nonetheless!). in fairness mukhang may blue filter!the proceedings: after half an hour on the bus, i started to worry that i would be late. so i brought out my trusty street map to try and figure out where i was and how long it would take me to get to tanjong pagar. the skinny, reserved-looking chinese man sitting next to me seemed to notice. he leaned over and mumbled: "are you going to chinatown?"
"sorry?" i said politely, as i could barely hear him. this was to become an often-repeated word in the course of our conversation.
he repeated his question. "no, i'm going to tanjong pagar," i replied.
two-minute silence. then he mumbled something.
"sorry, what?" speak up man!
"half an hour," he repeated.
"oh, it'll take me half an hour to get there from here?" darn, i was going to be late.
we rode on in silence. "is the weather ok?" said my seatmate suddenly.
"what? uh, yeah it's fine," i said, mystified.
"if it's too hot for you, it's ok with me to swap seats." i had the window seat.
"no, no, it's fine, i like the sun," i replied, giving him a little smile. silence again. then -- "do you always take the bus?"
"huh? uh, no, this is my first time to take the bus to tanjong pagar," i said distractedly, as i riffled through my notebook for the number of my interviewer. i had to tell them i would be late.
"oh." he fell silent. "do you take the train?"ano ba 'to, twenty questions? animal, mineral, vegetable? i gave him a small, tight nod. pause. "mumble-mumble-this-mumble-train."
"sorry, what?"
"we can do this again on a train," he said.
ano kamo? i must have misheard. alam mo naman ang ingles ng mga taga-rito. "yes, you're right, i can do this again on a train," i said, somewhere between forced politeness and complete befuddlement. "maybe next time i'll take the mrt coming down here."
our charming little chat was interrupted by a call from my interviewer. after i hung up, my seatmate shook his head. "we can do this again on a train," he repeated, louder this time.
i believe i frowned at him. "do WHAT?"
he smiled a little turtle-like smile. "what we're doing now."
aym zorehhh! bakit biglang may "we"?!!! hindi ka cute!!! at may asawa na ako!!!
by divine intervention, the bus had stopped at the landmark indicated by my interviewer. i grabbed my stuff and quickly got off the bus.
and he followed me off! he walked toward me, calling, "this is not your stop! this is not it! this is not it!"
che! paano mo alam! ikaw ba si madam auring?! i quickened my pace, dialing my interviewer as he gabbered on behind me, and just praying that he would leave me alone. i couldn't believe he got off the bus with me.
when i looked behind me after getting directions over the phone, he was gone. thankfully.
when i got to the office, it turned out that the man i had been talking to over the phone the wasn't person who had set up my interview. and the man who set up my interview had forgotten that he had set it up at all. in fact, he wasn't even in the office -- and wouldn't be back that day!
ganda.
so the only interview i had that day was from the creep on the bus! i do not want to know for what position that would have been.
the verdict: that did not go well at all. let's try that again, shall we?
Tuesday, April 1
A tale of two interviews
last week i had my first ever interviews in singapore. two of them! a monday 11:30 a.m. with bda, and a thursday 11 a.m. with a (from the looks of it, new-ish) women's beauty/fashion/wellness portal called beverly, where i applied as a freelance editor.
i was so excited, i planned both of them obsessively: departure times, routes and modes of transportation, background research, and of course, the all-important outfits. i even printed a copy of my cv to bring with me to the actual interviews, which i NEVER did for an interview back home.
anyway, this is how it went.
interview #1: BDA
departure time: 9:30 a.m. (yes, two hours in itty-bitty singapore. can you say praning? this at least gave me time for a hazelnut latte at tcc.)
mode of transportation: shuttle bus from condo to mrt station, mrt to somerset, taxi to bda's office on kim yam road
background research: hooo boy. major kapraningan here. apart from looking up BDA's clients and viewing their showreel online, i wrote down in my little notebook (just to refresh my memory) how i worked in gma, what i contributed to the team, how i came up with ideas, the challenges that i faced getting each of the 10 plugs on my showreel produced and how i overcame them, positive feedback from my boss... GAWD. what a geek.
outfit: black architectural-cum-smock-type dress from jonker gallery in malacca (my sister has the exact same one in white and told me not to wear it to an interview) plus a cobalt blue shrug with gold nautical-type buttons. wore it with my favorite vintage gold rose necklace and very new open-toe black patent wedges, which killed me -- i had major breaking-in blisters by 11 am. thankfully i am a whiz at minimizing a blister-induced limp, so nobody at bda even noticed.
the proceedings: it was less of an interview and more of a very, very nice long chat with lilian, bda's business director. i started to relax when i realized that there was so much to learn about producing promos outside of gma and the philippines -- and i might as well just soak it up. she didn't even ask to see my showreel!
after an hour-long gabfest, i found myself getting flutter-in-the-guts excited about getting the chance to do promos for all these different shows from all over the world. yup, it's confirmed: nothing gets me going like tv does. i felt vindicated that i stuck to my guns about holding out for work that really, really gets me excited -- such a huge departure from the "i'll take anything" me of yore. i was just overwhelmed that i was even just sitting there. i wonder if lilian got even the slightest bit creeped out by my shining eyes and dopey smile.
and... they have a cat in the office! a huge fat gray adorable cat! it was sleeping in a basket under lilian's desk the whole time i was there. when i saw it, i just melted. it was like... hot damn, can it get any better than this? hahaha!
outcome: i am now part of their pool of freelance creatives! yay! go me! basically it means they'll call me if there's a script to be written or produced that their in-house team can't take on, or if they want me to pitch an idea for a project. super excited to see what will come my way!
verdict: worth every single feckin' blister.
next up: interview #2.
i was so excited, i planned both of them obsessively: departure times, routes and modes of transportation, background research, and of course, the all-important outfits. i even printed a copy of my cv to bring with me to the actual interviews, which i NEVER did for an interview back home.
anyway, this is how it went.
interview #1: BDA
departure time: 9:30 a.m. (yes, two hours in itty-bitty singapore. can you say praning? this at least gave me time for a hazelnut latte at tcc.)
mode of transportation: shuttle bus from condo to mrt station, mrt to somerset, taxi to bda's office on kim yam road
background research: hooo boy. major kapraningan here. apart from looking up BDA's clients and viewing their showreel online, i wrote down in my little notebook (just to refresh my memory) how i worked in gma, what i contributed to the team, how i came up with ideas, the challenges that i faced getting each of the 10 plugs on my showreel produced and how i overcame them, positive feedback from my boss... GAWD. what a geek.
outfit: black architectural-cum-smock-type dress from jonker gallery in malacca (my sister has the exact same one in white and told me not to wear it to an interview) plus a cobalt blue shrug with gold nautical-type buttons. wore it with my favorite vintage gold rose necklace and very new open-toe black patent wedges, which killed me -- i had major breaking-in blisters by 11 am. thankfully i am a whiz at minimizing a blister-induced limp, so nobody at bda even noticed.
the proceedings: it was less of an interview and more of a very, very nice long chat with lilian, bda's business director. i started to relax when i realized that there was so much to learn about producing promos outside of gma and the philippines -- and i might as well just soak it up. she didn't even ask to see my showreel!
after an hour-long gabfest, i found myself getting flutter-in-the-guts excited about getting the chance to do promos for all these different shows from all over the world. yup, it's confirmed: nothing gets me going like tv does. i felt vindicated that i stuck to my guns about holding out for work that really, really gets me excited -- such a huge departure from the "i'll take anything" me of yore. i was just overwhelmed that i was even just sitting there. i wonder if lilian got even the slightest bit creeped out by my shining eyes and dopey smile.
and... they have a cat in the office! a huge fat gray adorable cat! it was sleeping in a basket under lilian's desk the whole time i was there. when i saw it, i just melted. it was like... hot damn, can it get any better than this? hahaha!
outcome: i am now part of their pool of freelance creatives! yay! go me! basically it means they'll call me if there's a script to be written or produced that their in-house team can't take on, or if they want me to pitch an idea for a project. super excited to see what will come my way!
verdict: worth every single feckin' blister.
next up: interview #2.
Friday, March 28
Contemplating Christian
it's friday evening and i've been zonked out the whole day. having a zonked-out, sick husband at home the whole day gives me an excuse to do this.
i had two interviews scheduled this week and i'm tamad to blog about them. they were both really interesting, to say the least, and i just don't have the mental stamina at the moment.
all i am capable of doing now is contemplating a christian bale-a-thon.
the thought was born a few days ago when marlon and i were discussing our celebrity crushes. (brief digression: i actually have a married friend who is shocked that i "allow" marlon to have crushes on other people, and that he and i are so open about each other's celebrity crushes. heller. we're married but not dead.) i named all of his correctly: anne hathaway, natalie portman, keira knightley and scarlett johanssen. he asked me to name mine, for the record: jamie oliver, dingdong dantes, brad pitt only in meet joe black, jude law only in enemy at the gates, and (what a motley crew!) christian bale.
then i realized i have seen a sh*itload, if not all, of christian bale's movies. yes, even newsies. inulit-ulit ko pa yan. so i decided to look up his filmography and check out which ones (at least within a 10-year cutoff, oa na yung mga prince of jutland era) i haven't seen. i realized that with the exception of american psycho and i'm not there (which is coming to town next week as part of the singapore international film fest), watching all the movies on this list will be a major test of the limits of my love for christian bale.
oh my god wait! he's going to play john connor in terminator 4? *squeals* that's going to be soooo hot. casting coup ito! if there's anyone who can revive the terminator franchise after that last red-leather-jacketed monstrosity and claire danes killed it, it's definitely christian bale.
hmmm. i wonder if the local dvd rental has any of these movies. and i wonder when we'll finally have the spare cash for a dvd player!
i had two interviews scheduled this week and i'm tamad to blog about them. they were both really interesting, to say the least, and i just don't have the mental stamina at the moment.
all i am capable of doing now is contemplating a christian bale-a-thon.the thought was born a few days ago when marlon and i were discussing our celebrity crushes. (brief digression: i actually have a married friend who is shocked that i "allow" marlon to have crushes on other people, and that he and i are so open about each other's celebrity crushes. heller. we're married but not dead.) i named all of his correctly: anne hathaway, natalie portman, keira knightley and scarlett johanssen. he asked me to name mine, for the record: jamie oliver, dingdong dantes, brad pitt only in meet joe black, jude law only in enemy at the gates, and (what a motley crew!) christian bale.
then i realized i have seen a sh*itload, if not all, of christian bale's movies. yes, even newsies. inulit-ulit ko pa yan. so i decided to look up his filmography and check out which ones (at least within a 10-year cutoff, oa na yung mga prince of jutland era) i haven't seen. i realized that with the exception of american psycho and i'm not there (which is coming to town next week as part of the singapore international film fest), watching all the movies on this list will be a major test of the limits of my love for christian bale.
- american psycho -- the ever-elusive holy grail of christian bale dvds. where does one find a copy of this in asia??? i am almost tempted to buy this off amazon!
- i'm not there -- heath ledger (RIP) as bob dylan is a major, major plus. must see next week!
- 3:10 to yuma -- a western? errrr...
- rescue dawn
- the new world
- harsh times
- equilibrium -- though this looked like a cheaply produced movie from the trailers, muntik ko nang patulan when it first came out.
- laurel canyon -- sounds cheesy. sounds like a girly movie.
- shaft -- okay, at least i can get marlon to watch this with me.
- all the little animals -- ano kaya ito?
- velvet goldmine
oh my god wait! he's going to play john connor in terminator 4? *squeals* that's going to be soooo hot. casting coup ito! if there's anyone who can revive the terminator franchise after that last red-leather-jacketed monstrosity and claire danes killed it, it's definitely christian bale.
hmmm. i wonder if the local dvd rental has any of these movies. and i wonder when we'll finally have the spare cash for a dvd player!
Tuesday, March 25
Missing bading
if you are what you are nostalgic for, then this speaks volumes about me.
i miss gma! i miss michael v and my other favorite artistas! i miss my beloved badings! i miss being babaeng bakla!
on that note, thank goodness bitchik will be here next week. haha!
i miss gma! i miss michael v and my other favorite artistas! i miss my beloved badings! i miss being babaeng bakla!
on that note, thank goodness bitchik will be here next week. haha!
Home improvement
talk about cause and effect. the following photos, i realized, aren't just the effects of the latest round of home improvement chez plazo. they also contain the cause of our severe end-of-the-month penny-pinching!
note to self: whenever you wonder all the money went for march, open your eyes and look around the house, won't you?
anyway.
one of the first things marlon and i did when i got back from manila some time ago was nurse my segunda mano hangover. i love, love, love vintage clothes and furniture. my mom and i had spent an afternoon poking around second-hand haven evangelista street in makati, alongside a surprising number of very handsome, very well-dressed, very buff and very gay couples. it was all i could do to not cart back any antique glassware -- imagine the potential mess in my handcarry!
back in lah-lah land, my little hands itched to get on some pre-owned furniture. and with a little scouring on the net, i discovered hock siong waste dealers. ignore the, er, unprepossessing name for a sec and get a load of this -- they have a warehouse full of furniture from hotels and model flats. it sounded great on the screen, but going to the actual warehouse on kampong ampat road totally blew me out of my socks, as the unfortunate kristy lee cook would say.
imagine a really good piece of furniture or painting -- then imagine a hundred more just like it. marlon and i had no trouble getting a pair of bedside lamps, or replacing the shade of one when it tore. of course, you can also imagine a hundred pieces of hideous faux french or overblown oriental furniture. there were pieces that just screamed HOTEL too much to ever be put in any other setting.
so, speaking of other settings, i now segue into the pictures of our hotel finds. out of the hotel and into the bedroom!
our little hotel-ish reading corner in the bedroom. the chair and bamboo floor lamp together cost less than a hundred dollars. after throwing a scarf from chatuchak over the lampshade, it is now dim enough to be a nice nightlight. the scrappy little rug was left behind by the previous tenant, and i wonder why i haven't thrown it out yet!
i can totally imagine this white and chrome lamp on a hotel bedside table.
the flowers are part of a spur-of-the-moment bouquet marlon got me one sunday afternoon. we don't have vases at home, so i stole one of the jars we use to store sugar and salad dressing.
marlon and i never had bedside tables, so now that we do, we have to cure ourselves of odd before-bed habits (i stick things under my pillow while he puts them on the floor). it's great having bedside tables. we now have someplace to put before-bed treats like good books, hot chocolate and freshly toasted coffee buns from bread talk. let me tell you, these things totally make our day.
i think marlon particularly loves evenings like this at the end of a grueling day at the office. here he is in "contented studmuffin at home" mode (pre-highlights, of course).
one of his nicest surprises for me when i got home from manila was a new lamp. he actually devised a whole wiring system for the two glass lamps we carted home from jaipur, and fixed them to a wrought-iron stand we bought specifically for this purpose. i swear i learned about circuits in high school just like he did, but i never would have pulled this off! it must be a boy thing.
he painted the whole thing silver and used a lot of chrome wire, which gave it a nice artsy look. it now stands in a corner of our living room and casts pretty patterned shadows on the wall.
the condo happens to have a special lighting fixture in the living room, the type that paintings are displayed under. it seemed only fitting that the first pieces of art that marlon and i ever bought together be hung there. we bought a pair of miniature paintings in udaipur, the first stop on our honeymoon in rajasthan. these paintings are gorgeously detailed beyond belief and i love that they now have a place of honor in our home.
finally, we dressed up the daybed with some ikea cushions, and bought an ikea paper lamp for some mood lighting.
the daybed will probably need another set of big pillows to get the sinfully stuffed look we want, but it's starting to look quite homey, don't you think?
note to self: whenever you wonder all the money went for march, open your eyes and look around the house, won't you?
anyway.
one of the first things marlon and i did when i got back from manila some time ago was nurse my segunda mano hangover. i love, love, love vintage clothes and furniture. my mom and i had spent an afternoon poking around second-hand haven evangelista street in makati, alongside a surprising number of very handsome, very well-dressed, very buff and very gay couples. it was all i could do to not cart back any antique glassware -- imagine the potential mess in my handcarry!
back in lah-lah land, my little hands itched to get on some pre-owned furniture. and with a little scouring on the net, i discovered hock siong waste dealers. ignore the, er, unprepossessing name for a sec and get a load of this -- they have a warehouse full of furniture from hotels and model flats. it sounded great on the screen, but going to the actual warehouse on kampong ampat road totally blew me out of my socks, as the unfortunate kristy lee cook would say.
imagine a really good piece of furniture or painting -- then imagine a hundred more just like it. marlon and i had no trouble getting a pair of bedside lamps, or replacing the shade of one when it tore. of course, you can also imagine a hundred pieces of hideous faux french or overblown oriental furniture. there were pieces that just screamed HOTEL too much to ever be put in any other setting.
so, speaking of other settings, i now segue into the pictures of our hotel finds. out of the hotel and into the bedroom!
our little hotel-ish reading corner in the bedroom. the chair and bamboo floor lamp together cost less than a hundred dollars. after throwing a scarf from chatuchak over the lampshade, it is now dim enough to be a nice nightlight. the scrappy little rug was left behind by the previous tenant, and i wonder why i haven't thrown it out yet!
i can totally imagine this white and chrome lamp on a hotel bedside table.
the flowers are part of a spur-of-the-moment bouquet marlon got me one sunday afternoon. we don't have vases at home, so i stole one of the jars we use to store sugar and salad dressing.
marlon and i never had bedside tables, so now that we do, we have to cure ourselves of odd before-bed habits (i stick things under my pillow while he puts them on the floor). it's great having bedside tables. we now have someplace to put before-bed treats like good books, hot chocolate and freshly toasted coffee buns from bread talk. let me tell you, these things totally make our day.
i think marlon particularly loves evenings like this at the end of a grueling day at the office. here he is in "contented studmuffin at home" mode (pre-highlights, of course).
one of his nicest surprises for me when i got home from manila was a new lamp. he actually devised a whole wiring system for the two glass lamps we carted home from jaipur, and fixed them to a wrought-iron stand we bought specifically for this purpose. i swear i learned about circuits in high school just like he did, but i never would have pulled this off! it must be a boy thing.
he painted the whole thing silver and used a lot of chrome wire, which gave it a nice artsy look. it now stands in a corner of our living room and casts pretty patterned shadows on the wall.
the condo happens to have a special lighting fixture in the living room, the type that paintings are displayed under. it seemed only fitting that the first pieces of art that marlon and i ever bought together be hung there. we bought a pair of miniature paintings in udaipur, the first stop on our honeymoon in rajasthan. these paintings are gorgeously detailed beyond belief and i love that they now have a place of honor in our home.
finally, we dressed up the daybed with some ikea cushions, and bought an ikea paper lamp for some mood lighting.
the daybed will probably need another set of big pillows to get the sinfully stuffed look we want, but it's starting to look quite homey, don't you think?
Monday, March 24
Point of no return
i truly thought my inner cheapskate would never give in. or that it would at least hold out for much longer.
i honestly believed i would have my salon services -- haircut, color, mani-pedi, waxing -- done in manila forever. i have seen local salon prices. i have converted them to pesos in my head and wept. i have heard the stories of women who saved up their salon must-dos for weeks (possibly months). until their next trip home. i really thought it could be done!
maybe it was the euphoria of finally getting my dependent's pass, or boredom with my perpetual ponytail, or a wildly hopeful belief in creating hireability via haircut. whatever it was, i crossed the dotted line, my own personal point of no return, and finally got my hair cut in a singaporean salon.
and i must say...
i quite love it.
the experience was great -- the stylist was unfazed by my wavy hair. he just knew what to do, and i heard nary a whimper about getting my hair relaxed or whatever (although he did sell me a root retouch). it all felt very expert.
it's day three of the new 'do, and even with the blowdry gone and the natural curl kicking in, it's holding up quite, quite well. it just looks a little more george fayne-ish now. if you've ever read the old hardbound nancy drew books and seen the illustrations of nancy's tomboy-ish friend george, you'll know what i mean.
marlon also had his own personal first that afternoon: highlights!
i've seen that hat somewhere before. tee hee.
very sci-fi.
the process was quite interesting. the colorist started out with highlights (what i personally refer to as the jologs phase of the color job) then did a flat color to tone them down.
voila! highlighted hubby!
as you can see, marlon is quite happy with his new look -- about as happy as i was with mine.
we immediately hied off to adrian's farewell dinner to test our new hairdos' performance in a social setting. shrenik was gracious enough to document our experiment with his camera phone.
we tried to go out and party to celebrate our new looks, but the vodka at adrian's just made us too sleepy. yes, i do believe we're getting on in years. so we just sat by the river at clarke quay with cones of hokkaido soft ice cream (one of my new singapore favorites!) before heading home.
i honestly believed i would have my salon services -- haircut, color, mani-pedi, waxing -- done in manila forever. i have seen local salon prices. i have converted them to pesos in my head and wept. i have heard the stories of women who saved up their salon must-dos for weeks (possibly months). until their next trip home. i really thought it could be done!
maybe it was the euphoria of finally getting my dependent's pass, or boredom with my perpetual ponytail, or a wildly hopeful belief in creating hireability via haircut. whatever it was, i crossed the dotted line, my own personal point of no return, and finally got my hair cut in a singaporean salon.
and i must say...
i quite love it.
the experience was great -- the stylist was unfazed by my wavy hair. he just knew what to do, and i heard nary a whimper about getting my hair relaxed or whatever (although he did sell me a root retouch). it all felt very expert.
it's day three of the new 'do, and even with the blowdry gone and the natural curl kicking in, it's holding up quite, quite well. it just looks a little more george fayne-ish now. if you've ever read the old hardbound nancy drew books and seen the illustrations of nancy's tomboy-ish friend george, you'll know what i mean.
marlon also had his own personal first that afternoon: highlights!
i've seen that hat somewhere before. tee hee.
very sci-fi.
the process was quite interesting. the colorist started out with highlights (what i personally refer to as the jologs phase of the color job) then did a flat color to tone them down.voila! highlighted hubby!
as you can see, marlon is quite happy with his new look -- about as happy as i was with mine.we immediately hied off to adrian's farewell dinner to test our new hairdos' performance in a social setting. shrenik was gracious enough to document our experiment with his camera phone.
we tried to go out and party to celebrate our new looks, but the vodka at adrian's just made us too sleepy. yes, i do believe we're getting on in years. so we just sat by the river at clarke quay with cones of hokkaido soft ice cream (one of my new singapore favorites!) before heading home.
Saturday, March 22
It's official
i'm no longer a tourist in singapore.
i am soooo happy i got this just when i did. my 30-day "social visit" or tourist pass in singapore would have been up on thursday. without the dependant pass, i would have had to exit and re-enter singapore (by way of malaysia would be easiest) just to get another 30-day stay until the dependant pass was approved. yuuuurg hassle.
on this pass, i am considered marlon's dependent, which is pretty much how it is until i get a job. my future employer will have to apply for a letter of consent from the ministry of manpower (every time i say this out loud, i almost say "ministry of magic" -- that's seven volumes of harry potter talking) for me to be able to work.
i am slightly bothered that it's spelled "dependant" instead of "dependent." even blogger spellcheck is flagging it as an error. but whatever. i'm free to stay. yay!
i am soooo happy i got this just when i did. my 30-day "social visit" or tourist pass in singapore would have been up on thursday. without the dependant pass, i would have had to exit and re-enter singapore (by way of malaysia would be easiest) just to get another 30-day stay until the dependant pass was approved. yuuuurg hassle.
on this pass, i am considered marlon's dependent, which is pretty much how it is until i get a job. my future employer will have to apply for a letter of consent from the ministry of manpower (every time i say this out loud, i almost say "ministry of magic" -- that's seven volumes of harry potter talking) for me to be able to work.
i am slightly bothered that it's spelled "dependant" instead of "dependent." even blogger spellcheck is flagging it as an error. but whatever. i'm free to stay. yay!
Friday, March 21
Scary successes
the previous post made me think about what makes a good scary movie for me.
i find that the horror movies that i consider really, really good are those that sear one cinematic moment into your mind. as i mentioned in the previous post, shutter and the ring really did that for me. as did emily rose (the fear of 3am), omen II (the three little numbers on damien's scalp, plus his grey-eyed scowl), the exorcist (two words: spider walk), the others (nicole kidman and the children staring stoically into a window), to name a few.
i even remember one scary shot from early childhood, though i was too young to remember the movie: a white-faced, dark-haired girl trapped in the depths of a well, looking up in terror. (can anyone ID this scene?)
those that didn't pull off this brain-branding were pretty unsuccessful with me, and thus became largely forgettable: dark water, the reaping, the blair witch project, stigmata, gothika.
oddly enough, it must be an image; while i will forever remember the creaky-burpy sound the ghost made in the grudge ("aaa-aa-a-a-a-a-a-aaaa"), i thought that film was a complete waste of my time and money. i have no idea why hollywood picked it up for a remake.
the orphanage seems to be, so far, the only exception to this rule.
what are your success criteria for a scary movie? and what scary moments are stuck in your head, possibly for a lifetime?
p.s. if you're wondering why i didn't link to any of the movies i mentioned here, googling the first few and seeing their movie posters really creeped me out. time to go call marlon.
i find that the horror movies that i consider really, really good are those that sear one cinematic moment into your mind. as i mentioned in the previous post, shutter and the ring really did that for me. as did emily rose (the fear of 3am), omen II (the three little numbers on damien's scalp, plus his grey-eyed scowl), the exorcist (two words: spider walk), the others (nicole kidman and the children staring stoically into a window), to name a few.
i even remember one scary shot from early childhood, though i was too young to remember the movie: a white-faced, dark-haired girl trapped in the depths of a well, looking up in terror. (can anyone ID this scene?)
those that didn't pull off this brain-branding were pretty unsuccessful with me, and thus became largely forgettable: dark water, the reaping, the blair witch project, stigmata, gothika.
oddly enough, it must be an image; while i will forever remember the creaky-burpy sound the ghost made in the grudge ("aaa-aa-a-a-a-a-a-aaaa"), i thought that film was a complete waste of my time and money. i have no idea why hollywood picked it up for a remake.
the orphanage seems to be, so far, the only exception to this rule.
what are your success criteria for a scary movie? and what scary moments are stuck in your head, possibly for a lifetime?
p.s. if you're wondering why i didn't link to any of the movies i mentioned here, googling the first few and seeing their movie posters really creeped me out. time to go call marlon.
Not a single scare wasted
marlon and i have just seen the orphanage.i think it may just be the best ghost story i've ever watched in my life.
i'm still reeling.
i wanted to watch it simply because it was billed as having been produced by guillermo del toro, not to mention the really cool movie poster. marlon, who hates scary movies and only ever watches them because of me, had to be prodded with a reference to pan's labyrinth to even consider it.
i don't really expect much when i go to see a scary movie. maybe just three to four scares, which can range from the cheap and predictable ("turn around, it's behind you!" or peek-under-the-bed type thrills) to the deeply disturbing (shutter's backbreaking shock, for example, or sadako's big moment in ringu).
so i really did not expect layers upon delicate, poignant layers lying under every well-thought, well-played scare. i did not expect to walk out of the cinema and think about love and loss, growing up and coming home, childhood and innocence, responsibility and blame, guilt and forgiveness, seeing and believing, and what truly has the power to disturb and terrify us to our very cores.
what is the greater horror for a mother: a creaky house full of the spirits of dead children, or the inexplicable loss of her own child? are ghosts really scary only because we meet them in our world and not, in a manner of speaking, in theirs?
none of hollywood's pointless scares or ghosts jumping out of closets here.
from a writing standpoint, the movie was extremely neat. not a single scene or reference wasted. if you played connect-the-dots with the script, you could most definitely connect one event in the first half of the film with another that would unfold in the second half. brilliant.
marlon and i raved about the movie all the way from the cinema to the mrt. on the train, he fell into a long-ish, thoughtful silence. then he gave me a sudden, tight hug.
if you want to know why, go and see the orphanage. go. just go!
i hope it comes out in manila. if not, get the dvd.
Wednesday, March 19
Getting into the game
i was beginning to get really frustrated with the results of my job search here in singapore. or rather, the non-results. after spending nearly three weeks in couchwifely languor, i had decided to really sink my teeth into the task of finding a job. not just any job, mind you -- one that i love, enjoy and am inspired by. nothing less! (this is also how i am about clothes nowadays. if i don't look spectacular in it, i'm not buying!)
and so i set about creating games for myself, games that i would change around every so often just to keep having fun. the first was the 20 game -- twenty CVs sent out in a week. then there was the 3-to-5 game -- three to five CVs sent out daily.
yesterday afternoon while i was hanging out with phyllis (the doctor wife of one of marlon's work friends) at her flat, i realized how much i had really gotten into my games. "gotta go soon, phyllis," i told her at four p.m. "i told myself i'd send out at least three CVs today."
"wow! you're so dedicated!" she exclaimed. "that's a lot!"
"oh, it's nothing! i once sent out twenty in a week," i said dismissively.
to say that phyllis was shocked was an understatement. she actually sputtered. "twenty?!" she wondered. "my god deepa! i'm so lazy! i've sent out two in the last year!"
now here's the kicker. they both want to hire her. and there i was, pushing thirty applications made, and not a single interview lined up.
after that exchange, i began to feel tired, like all the hustling for a job had suddenly caught up with me. i got very, very frustrated and very, very upset last night, to say the least. while there was no doubt i would return to my various job-seeking games anyway, i felt resigned and very easily pissed off.
i just got my very first "result" -- i'll tell you what it is in a minute -- and now i've realized all i had to do was change my game... again. thank heavens the universe will never run out of games for us to play. sick of looking at my cv? stopped looking at it, stopped tweaking it. and stopped sendingthe damn buggers cvs out and sat at the phone following up past applications instead.
and in this manner, i actually lined up a "chat" (is this a euphemism for an interview?) with the first company i applied to after moving here -- and one that totally got my heart thumping when i saw the job posting! the company is bruce dunlop (BDA), an international creative agency that specializes in doing on-air television promos. how perfect is that?! check out their website to see just why i'm in lust. they're putting together a pool of freelance writer/producers, and i'm dying, dying, dying to jump in and swim with the rest of them!
and the funny thing is, this is like the fifth time i've called them -- and i applied nearly two months ago! i never would have thought i'd still get the chance to come in for a chat.
i don't know how it's going to go on monday. but it's like i've gotten a jolt that's going to power me through the rest of my job hunting. just in freaking time, i might add -- i was not a pretty sight last night.
so it's time to change the game again. and this time the game is called "what am i going to wear?"
any advice... fashion or otherwise? ;-)
and so i set about creating games for myself, games that i would change around every so often just to keep having fun. the first was the 20 game -- twenty CVs sent out in a week. then there was the 3-to-5 game -- three to five CVs sent out daily.
yesterday afternoon while i was hanging out with phyllis (the doctor wife of one of marlon's work friends) at her flat, i realized how much i had really gotten into my games. "gotta go soon, phyllis," i told her at four p.m. "i told myself i'd send out at least three CVs today."
"wow! you're so dedicated!" she exclaimed. "that's a lot!"
"oh, it's nothing! i once sent out twenty in a week," i said dismissively.
to say that phyllis was shocked was an understatement. she actually sputtered. "twenty?!" she wondered. "my god deepa! i'm so lazy! i've sent out two in the last year!"
now here's the kicker. they both want to hire her. and there i was, pushing thirty applications made, and not a single interview lined up.
after that exchange, i began to feel tired, like all the hustling for a job had suddenly caught up with me. i got very, very frustrated and very, very upset last night, to say the least. while there was no doubt i would return to my various job-seeking games anyway, i felt resigned and very easily pissed off.
i just got my very first "result" -- i'll tell you what it is in a minute -- and now i've realized all i had to do was change my game... again. thank heavens the universe will never run out of games for us to play. sick of looking at my cv? stopped looking at it, stopped tweaking it. and stopped sending
and in this manner, i actually lined up a "chat" (is this a euphemism for an interview?) with the first company i applied to after moving here -- and one that totally got my heart thumping when i saw the job posting! the company is bruce dunlop (BDA), an international creative agency that specializes in doing on-air television promos. how perfect is that?! check out their website to see just why i'm in lust. they're putting together a pool of freelance writer/producers, and i'm dying, dying, dying to jump in and swim with the rest of them!
and the funny thing is, this is like the fifth time i've called them -- and i applied nearly two months ago! i never would have thought i'd still get the chance to come in for a chat.
i don't know how it's going to go on monday. but it's like i've gotten a jolt that's going to power me through the rest of my job hunting. just in freaking time, i might add -- i was not a pretty sight last night.
so it's time to change the game again. and this time the game is called "what am i going to wear?"
any advice... fashion or otherwise? ;-)
Monday, March 17
Sinful sugar Sunday
i spent most of yesterday with marlon and his two closest friends from work -- shivaani and shrenik, whose wedding in kolkata we attended two years ago. i love these two friends of marlon's and i'm happy that they're among my first friends here in singapore.
shrenik apparently is a man after my own salt-and-sugar-crazy heart (must have them one after the other), and i saw the full extent of his fiendish powers yesterday. what was possibly more mind-boggling than the amount of sugary snacks he keeps in the house is that, well, they're still around -- if i had all my favorite snacks in the house, they would all be gone in one afternoon. (except a small jar of nutella, which would take me two.)
the amount of sugar we had in the span of eight hours was beyond belief. consider:
but shrenik, diyos ko, totally out-sugared us all. yes, even me! he even brought out another bag of chocolates as if we hadn't already been methodically hustling our collective blood sugar to critical levels. he exhibited no visible delay of his motor functions, while marlon practiclally had to prop me up in the mrt station. it was truly awe-inspiring. i concede defeat.
or maybe not. i thought last night's saccharine bacchanalia was enough to put me off the sweet stuff for at least a couple of days. whaddya know, barely 24 hour hours later here i am blogging while munching on a crunch bar.
so when was the last time you had a sugar orgy?
shrenik apparently is a man after my own salt-and-sugar-crazy heart (must have them one after the other), and i saw the full extent of his fiendish powers yesterday. what was possibly more mind-boggling than the amount of sugary snacks he keeps in the house is that, well, they're still around -- if i had all my favorite snacks in the house, they would all be gone in one afternoon. (except a small jar of nutella, which would take me two.)
the amount of sugar we had in the span of eight hours was beyond belief. consider:
- a bowl of ferrero rocher
- a pack of pepperidge farm dark chocolate chip and pecan cookies
- filipino tablea hot chocolate with condensed milk (our contribution)
- a pint of ben and jerry's cherry garcia
- various starbucks drinks: caramel frap, chai latte, iced tea
- coke zero
- honey dijon kettle chips
- magnum ice cream bars
but shrenik, diyos ko, totally out-sugared us all. yes, even me! he even brought out another bag of chocolates as if we hadn't already been methodically hustling our collective blood sugar to critical levels. he exhibited no visible delay of his motor functions, while marlon practiclally had to prop me up in the mrt station. it was truly awe-inspiring. i concede defeat.
or maybe not. i thought last night's saccharine bacchanalia was enough to put me off the sweet stuff for at least a couple of days. whaddya know, barely 24 hour hours later here i am blogging while munching on a crunch bar.
so when was the last time you had a sugar orgy?
Saturday, March 15
Sneaky sneaky
it's cleanup saturday at the plazos, and while ironing marlon's polos i had the following epiphany.
now that i'm in charge of ironing in this household, i hold the power to banish the polo shirts that i've always hated! since marlon makes a beeline for the ironed polos every morning, the answer is simple. i'll just never iron them! mooooahahahaha!
of course this could totally backfire. then my husband will not only wear icky polos to work, but he'll wear wrinkled icky polos to work.
still, worth a try.
incidentally, i ran out of cds to play while ironing, and turned to the stash i grabbed from chris ong when he moved to the states. i wonder how my conservative chinese neighbors are liking the creepy atonal scandinavian contemporary choral music.
now that i'm in charge of ironing in this household, i hold the power to banish the polo shirts that i've always hated! since marlon makes a beeline for the ironed polos every morning, the answer is simple. i'll just never iron them! mooooahahahaha!
of course this could totally backfire. then my husband will not only wear icky polos to work, but he'll wear wrinkled icky polos to work.
still, worth a try.
incidentally, i ran out of cds to play while ironing, and turned to the stash i grabbed from chris ong when he moved to the states. i wonder how my conservative chinese neighbors are liking the creepy atonal scandinavian contemporary choral music.
Thursday, March 13
A short note on the Twilight series
gutsy dear, i was actually going to post this in the comment section as a response to you. but then i realized it was getting a bit long, and that i had opinions coming out of my ears about these books! so i decided to just blog about it very quickly.
so, stephenie meyer's twilight series -- i liked it, although i didn't think i was going to at the start. started off a bit slow for me, but as i continued reading (especially through the end of the first book), i found that i couldn't put it down.
i liked a lot of things about it, like how the author kept some parts of the vampire and werewolf mythology and tossed out others (garlic, crosses, etc) to really make them out to be the ultimate predators. definitely upped the books' cool factor.
i also liked how the cullens were written -- they were quite fascinating, even endearing. the action sequences and the sudden changes of pace every now and then were great too.
it reminded me of a very goth sweet valley high -- essentially the problems are the same (dad doesn't like boyfriend, boyfriend is overprotective, girl falls into a bad crowd, etc) but in a totally different context.
i found the love 'bits' a bit much, and tended to forward through them. it was actually like wuthering heights in that way, lots of pages spent on declaring passion for each other and all that. i did find that the mushy parts were useful for a bit of a slowdown before the big, set-piece, how-cool-is-that epic action parts. parang... love love blah blah and then biglang BAM! tracker vampire! vampire-werewolf dustup! newborn vampire army! yeah! rrrrawr! bring it on!
funny, while i was back in manila and marlon was alone in the flat, he saw these books in our bookshelf late at night and freaked. paano ba naman, they were lying beside my copy of william peter blatty's the exorcist (which has such a freaky picture on its spine that i store it spine facing into the shelf) and tony perez's spirit questors series (which i bought freshman year when doreen brought up the idea of me becoming a questor).
"what is this black book with the ghosty hands and the flower dripping blood?! why do you have such scary books?!" he demanded. "why are you bringing these things into the house!?!?!"
i think i scared him even more when i said, "what? what black book? i don't own anything like that!" he really freaked out then. "how did it get here then?!" he practically bellowed, before vowing never to pick them up.
when i got home and saw the books in question, i realized that i'd actually borrowed them from my sister, and forgot that i did. oh well.
now i actually think he'll find them more girly than scary. kasi naman, all the passages rhapsodizing on edward's godlike good looks! kind of reminds me of how i would write when i was younger -- all my short stories had some unbelievably handsome, sophisticated guy falling madly in love with plain old me. haha! girl's fantasy talaga.
so, stephenie meyer's twilight series -- i liked it, although i didn't think i was going to at the start. started off a bit slow for me, but as i continued reading (especially through the end of the first book), i found that i couldn't put it down.
i liked a lot of things about it, like how the author kept some parts of the vampire and werewolf mythology and tossed out others (garlic, crosses, etc) to really make them out to be the ultimate predators. definitely upped the books' cool factor.
i also liked how the cullens were written -- they were quite fascinating, even endearing. the action sequences and the sudden changes of pace every now and then were great too.
it reminded me of a very goth sweet valley high -- essentially the problems are the same (dad doesn't like boyfriend, boyfriend is overprotective, girl falls into a bad crowd, etc) but in a totally different context.
i found the love 'bits' a bit much, and tended to forward through them. it was actually like wuthering heights in that way, lots of pages spent on declaring passion for each other and all that. i did find that the mushy parts were useful for a bit of a slowdown before the big, set-piece, how-cool-is-that epic action parts. parang... love love blah blah and then biglang BAM! tracker vampire! vampire-werewolf dustup! newborn vampire army! yeah! rrrrawr! bring it on!
funny, while i was back in manila and marlon was alone in the flat, he saw these books in our bookshelf late at night and freaked. paano ba naman, they were lying beside my copy of william peter blatty's the exorcist (which has such a freaky picture on its spine that i store it spine facing into the shelf) and tony perez's spirit questors series (which i bought freshman year when doreen brought up the idea of me becoming a questor)."what is this black book with the ghosty hands and the flower dripping blood?! why do you have such scary books?!" he demanded. "why are you bringing these things into the house!?!?!"
i think i scared him even more when i said, "what? what black book? i don't own anything like that!" he really freaked out then. "how did it get here then?!" he practically bellowed, before vowing never to pick them up.
when i got home and saw the books in question, i realized that i'd actually borrowed them from my sister, and forgot that i did. oh well.
now i actually think he'll find them more girly than scary. kasi naman, all the passages rhapsodizing on edward's godlike good looks! kind of reminds me of how i would write when i was younger -- all my short stories had some unbelievably handsome, sophisticated guy falling madly in love with plain old me. haha! girl's fantasy talaga.
Tuesday, March 11
Couchwife and comforter
it's been cold, gloomy and raining all through yesterday and most of today -- perfect weather for curling up in my pajamas, under a fluffy comforter, with a good book. so i did just that. in this case, it was three good books -- i turbo-read my way through stephenie meyer's twilight trilogy.it reminded me a lot of high school, which was (eeek!) over eight years ago. reading in bed was one of my favorite things to do on days when school got canceled because of the weather. i used to live near enough school to walk home the minute classes got called off, which was great -- i would practically jump into bed with a book after my ten-to-fifteen minute walk.
in contrast, some of the other girls had to wait for their parents to finish work to pick them up, or their bus services to get to school all the way from paranaque and alabang. there were horror stories of girls who spent the whole night in their schoolbuses in the rain and in the traffic, only to arrive home in paranaque the next morning. all this was were pre-ayala interchange, pre-C5 and pre-skyway, of course.
so i was enjoying myself, what with my bottomless supply of brewed kapeng barako to offset the cold, until i started feeling a little guilty, and well... baboy about spending the whole day in my pj's.
then i realized that i hadn't done this in years... not since i started working! i mean, have you ever gotten sent home from the office because of the weather? i went to work the morning that freaking milenyo struck, for goodness' sake -- and stayed there!
and i realized there was no point feeling guilty, not just about staying in my pj's, but about having this time to myself. i admit i've been antsy about being between jobs lately, but i just got that there's no point in beating myself up about it. that i can actually do things i've wanted to do for a while now. that i can actually have fun with this time in my life. and that there's nothing wrong with me for being who i am now.
which is a couchwife under a comforter, very quiet and very contented.
Monday, March 10
The boss flies budget
i've often wondered if there still exist cebu pacific marketing collaterals with the ill-fated tagline "the new filipino time" on it -- they should be burned, because the new filipino time seems a hell of a lot like the old filipino time.
have you ever read a rant about a delayed cebu pacific flight on this blog? no sirree! they've become so common that i get over the announcement of the delay in the time that it takes me to roll my eyes and sigh. oh, and i always show up late at the airport if it's a cebu pacific flight.
i've taken ten or so flights with cebu pacific over the past two years; marlon has taken about five or six. none of them ever left on time. ever.
which is why, on my cebu pacific flight back to singapore, i could hardly believe that we were all boarding the plane at precisely 8:15 p.m. the flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 p.m.
i was incredulous. and maybe more suspicious than pleased. "wonder of wonders! i think we're actually going to leave on time!" i texted marlon.
i was at the tail end of the queue, since i was seated in the second row of the plane. i was tuned out and shuffling mindlessly into the tube when a couple of middle-aged men in front of me began to turn around and crane their necks behind me. "it's john! it's john!" the daddy types gabbered to each other furiously.
maybe john was their kabarkada who was late, and surprise, he made the flight! i thought idly.
i surreptitiously glanced behind me. at the very end of the queue, waiting for a short distance to open up between him and the rest of us, was an snowy-haired chinese man dressed in a suit and holding a walking stick.
and so, as he stepped into the tube with the rest of us budget travelers, the mini-mystery of "john" was solved, and so was the heretofore unexplainable phenomenon of a cebu pacific flight actually leaving on time.
abah. JOHN GOKONGWEI pala ang potah!
as he waited to step into the plane -- excuse me, his plane, the female flight attendants giggled nervously and joked about petitioning him (in sugary sweet stewardess tones, of course) for a salary hike.
"omigod ayan na siya, nakikita ko na siya!"
"welcome aboard, sir... increase!"
"kindly fasten your seatbelt for takeoff... increase!"
"oxygen masks will drop down from overhead... increase!"
it was hilarious. i remembered being back at gma, and the fog of heightened alertness and mild dread (more from the prospect of making a complete fool of yourself, than from the presence of the boss himself) that would crop up the minute flg would step into an elevator with you.
i sat behind him and his wife for the entire flight. i was pleasantly surprised that he would use a budget airline for his own trips (even if it was a budget airline that he owned). it was really cute to see him eat cup noodles and drink C2 like the rest of us hampaslupa. oh, and in the spirit of eco-chic, his carry-on luggage was a reusable canvas tote stamped with a goldman sachs logo. o diba, sosyal ang lolo mo.
i toyed with the idea of coming up to him, shaking his hand and telling him how glad i was to see him on my flight -- because he was the only person who could ever, ever make it leave on time.
but i didn't. he slept through the entire flight, and we all know how cranky people can be when they're bagong gising. maybe next time.
have you ever read a rant about a delayed cebu pacific flight on this blog? no sirree! they've become so common that i get over the announcement of the delay in the time that it takes me to roll my eyes and sigh. oh, and i always show up late at the airport if it's a cebu pacific flight.
i've taken ten or so flights with cebu pacific over the past two years; marlon has taken about five or six. none of them ever left on time. ever.
which is why, on my cebu pacific flight back to singapore, i could hardly believe that we were all boarding the plane at precisely 8:15 p.m. the flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 p.m.
i was incredulous. and maybe more suspicious than pleased. "wonder of wonders! i think we're actually going to leave on time!" i texted marlon.
i was at the tail end of the queue, since i was seated in the second row of the plane. i was tuned out and shuffling mindlessly into the tube when a couple of middle-aged men in front of me began to turn around and crane their necks behind me. "it's john! it's john!" the daddy types gabbered to each other furiously.
maybe john was their kabarkada who was late, and surprise, he made the flight! i thought idly.
i surreptitiously glanced behind me. at the very end of the queue, waiting for a short distance to open up between him and the rest of us, was an snowy-haired chinese man dressed in a suit and holding a walking stick.
and so, as he stepped into the tube with the rest of us budget travelers, the mini-mystery of "john" was solved, and so was the heretofore unexplainable phenomenon of a cebu pacific flight actually leaving on time.
abah. JOHN GOKONGWEI pala ang potah!
as he waited to step into the plane -- excuse me, his plane, the female flight attendants giggled nervously and joked about petitioning him (in sugary sweet stewardess tones, of course) for a salary hike.
"omigod ayan na siya, nakikita ko na siya!"
"welcome aboard, sir... increase!"
"kindly fasten your seatbelt for takeoff... increase!"
"oxygen masks will drop down from overhead... increase!"
it was hilarious. i remembered being back at gma, and the fog of heightened alertness and mild dread (more from the prospect of making a complete fool of yourself, than from the presence of the boss himself) that would crop up the minute flg would step into an elevator with you.
i sat behind him and his wife for the entire flight. i was pleasantly surprised that he would use a budget airline for his own trips (even if it was a budget airline that he owned). it was really cute to see him eat cup noodles and drink C2 like the rest of us hampaslupa. oh, and in the spirit of eco-chic, his carry-on luggage was a reusable canvas tote stamped with a goldman sachs logo. o diba, sosyal ang lolo mo.
i toyed with the idea of coming up to him, shaking his hand and telling him how glad i was to see him on my flight -- because he was the only person who could ever, ever make it leave on time.
but i didn't. he slept through the entire flight, and we all know how cranky people can be when they're bagong gising. maybe next time.
Tuesday, February 19
Commercial muna
i'm back in manila taking a ten-day break from my couchwife life (as if it was so stressful!). actually, it's a more like an errand break -- i have a marriage license and college diploma to pick up, both of which i need to make the shift from tourist to resident in singapore.
apart from those two must-do's, the other major must on my list is spending time with my mom. we got off to a roaring start when i arrived sunday -- trying on her latest ukay finds (unused zara and h&m goddess dresses!), looking at wedding photos together, getting a "status report" on the home front, and talking about plans for the future.
speaking of future plans, this showbiz-starved kapuso loyalist also plans to drag her with me to see richard gutierrez and marian rivera's my best friend's girlfriend (bfgf) tomorrow.
the rest of my to-do list for this trip is wonderfully mindless.
(i remember attending the creatives' briefing for gma's marimar launch last year and shocking everyone with my intimate knowledge of the original series on rpn-9. i giddily referenced minor characters and subplots that left even the program manager just blinking at me. "bakit mo alam 'yan? akala namin sosyal ka!" one of the corp comm girls said accusingly. for the record, it was my sister who faithfully recorded each after-school episode of marimar on our vhs. juskolord vhs!!!)
anyway. should i still attempt to swing by swap meet on kamuning? hmmm.
apart from those two must-do's, the other major must on my list is spending time with my mom. we got off to a roaring start when i arrived sunday -- trying on her latest ukay finds (unused zara and h&m goddess dresses!), looking at wedding photos together, getting a "status report" on the home front, and talking about plans for the future.
speaking of future plans, this showbiz-starved kapuso loyalist also plans to drag her with me to see richard gutierrez and marian rivera's my best friend's girlfriend (bfgf) tomorrow.
the rest of my to-do list for this trip is wonderfully mindless.
buy funky paper and envelopes for my portfolio
- buy new levi's
- buy a blowdryer, doormat, bath mats, everyday cutlery and a bathroom organizer at landmark
- buy bloom lipgloss and prestige liquid liner at beauty bar
- buy true match foundation
- buy mascara from the face shop
- buy photo paper (teka, puro buy na yata ito)
- stop by lime to check out dresses (ayan, kunyari hindi daw buy)
- visit gene and tatat at lfia
- visit gma friends
- visit acs at rehearsals
- close citibank account
- pay off bpi mastercard
- give out thank-you cards
- pick up last paycheck from gma
- print wedding pics in bulk for mom
- have miniature paintings from udaipur framed
re-do clearance at ateneodiscuss house plans with mom- buy birthday gift for marlon (and figure out how to smuggle it past him)
(i remember attending the creatives' briefing for gma's marimar launch last year and shocking everyone with my intimate knowledge of the original series on rpn-9. i giddily referenced minor characters and subplots that left even the program manager just blinking at me. "bakit mo alam 'yan? akala namin sosyal ka!" one of the corp comm girls said accusingly. for the record, it was my sister who faithfully recorded each after-school episode of marimar on our vhs. juskolord vhs!!!)
anyway. should i still attempt to swing by swap meet on kamuning? hmmm.
Friday, February 15
Home sweet home
i figured before i fly back to manila tomorrow, i should write about life in singapore so far. i don't know why i feel like i should -- although the manila trip is just for ten days to pick up my marriage license and do other odd errands (more on which later), i have the sense of it being kind of a no-man's land between two places. the first place is my life of leisure here in singapore for the past three weeks. the second place is still unknown.
maybe it's because i feel like i'm not going to have this kind of life for long. yes, feeling ko magkakatrabaho na ako. yan naman eh. so what i've had for the past couple of weeks is worth documenting. starting off with where i live with marlon -- former boyf, now current husband.
we rent a three-bedroom condo unit north of the city (which is what they call the main cbd around orchard). back when we first sealed the deal on it, there were already things we loved about the place -- the relatively spacious kitchen, the kitchen counter, the newly renovated feel, the bedroom-turned-tv-room, and not least of all the walk-in closet in the master's.
but living here now, i totally love it. i love the airiness and the big windows, and that it's so bare. i love having three rooms all to myself during the day, which is why i often wander through them doing my little odd things (watching tv, doing chores, surfing) while marlon is at work. lately i've come to love that we have two bathrooms, which is great when we come home from dinner out and both have to poop. romantic, i know.
this is the living room... so far. we have a huge custom-made daybed from tagaytay, outfitted with a mattress and gorgeous white cutwork sheets from india. i tell you, sheets were the heart-racing splurge of our honeymoon (heart-racing refers to us in relation to our present credit card bill). we also got lovely white-on-white block printed cotton as pamalit for the daybed.
the kilim rugs are a gift from my mom, which she's had since i was about eight or nine years old. i hated them back then, because they were twiny and scratchy, not plush and soft like other "normal" carpets. now that i'm grown up i totally love them, and i asked my mom for them last year. four of them are now layered on the living room floor.
oh, right, the bubble wrap on the floor. we had an insane amount of bubble wrap from all the stuff we shipped. having it in the house was fun for a while, but it's all gone now.
not all the stuff we shipped had to be bubble-wrapped though.
my tamad meals consist of vienna sausage (straight out of the can, no cooking, with lots of ketchup), lucky me pancit canton chilimansi, and century tuna spanish style. marlon threw in a couple of bottles of bangus in olive oil for himself.
but back to the living room.
remember this mirror? after being safely shipped all the way from manila, marlon put a nail through it as he was attempting to hang it up with a homemade rig of nylon rope and heavy-duty 3M hooks.
then we found out we could make paalam from our supernice landlady michelle to drill holes in the wall. so we had the cracked glass replaced, a hole drilled above the daybed, and voila!
i have happily organized our conjugal book collection by color, just as i was inspired to do by the domino blog many months ago. isn't it lovely?
marlon is ecstatic about acquiring my library. he started off beautifully with the last unicorn, and says he may even read my christopher pikes and sweet valley twins one day. i can't believe he hasn't read the griffin and sabine books, which he gave me for my birthday when we first started going out.
this is what the master bedroom looked like about two weeks ago.
it has improved by leaps and bounds since then, pretty much because we got a bed and lost the boxes. i've unpacked all my clothes, bags and shoes and put them into the lovely walk-in closet. i've also realized that i want to chuck a lot of my tops.
ikea is discontinuing the whole malm line of bedroom furniture, which we wanted at first. so we went with the noresund instead and spent two days spray-painting it white. that was fun, although cleaning up the white paint dust from 6.5 cans of paint was not. we also had streaky white kulangot for about two hours afterwards. but worth the effort, don't you think?
we relegated marlon's bachelorhood bedsheets to the guest bedroom and gave our (ehem) nuptial bed the royal treatment. when i mentioned that bedsheets were the big splurge of the honeymoon, i'm mostly talking about the pashmina bedspread in that photo. those babies (we got a couple of other colors and designs) deserve a whole blog post of their own. the indigo-and-white block-printed cotton sheets from jaipur (under the bedspread) are but a distant second in the splurge category. we also got nice white paisley quilt covers and pillowcases from ikea.
speaking of ikea, our tv room is a mini ikea showcase. however, it's way comfy and is probably the most furnished room in the house so far. on the left is the very first piece of furniture i assembled myself. i'm quite proud of it. on the right is the catchall for everything that should belong in a desk or dresser, which i don't have at the moment. for photo purposes, i covered it all up with the sheepskin throw.
the guest room, which we vacated just a couple of days ago to move into the master's, is a bleeding disaster. you really don't want to see it right now.
so that's the house, basically. there's still quite a bit of furniture we don't have plus a couple that are on their way from india. still, it's a huge improvement over when i first arrived and was shocked to realize that we had... no wastebaskets. the goal is to have it ready for a housewarming party sometime in late march or early april. plus, the guest room has to be in shape in time for my sister's and mom's visit in mid-april.
a peek outside our doorstep and around cactus drive, next up!
maybe it's because i feel like i'm not going to have this kind of life for long. yes, feeling ko magkakatrabaho na ako. yan naman eh. so what i've had for the past couple of weeks is worth documenting. starting off with where i live with marlon -- former boyf, now current husband.
we rent a three-bedroom condo unit north of the city (which is what they call the main cbd around orchard). back when we first sealed the deal on it, there were already things we loved about the place -- the relatively spacious kitchen, the kitchen counter, the newly renovated feel, the bedroom-turned-tv-room, and not least of all the walk-in closet in the master's.
but living here now, i totally love it. i love the airiness and the big windows, and that it's so bare. i love having three rooms all to myself during the day, which is why i often wander through them doing my little odd things (watching tv, doing chores, surfing) while marlon is at work. lately i've come to love that we have two bathrooms, which is great when we come home from dinner out and both have to poop. romantic, i know.
this is the living room... so far. we have a huge custom-made daybed from tagaytay, outfitted with a mattress and gorgeous white cutwork sheets from india. i tell you, sheets were the heart-racing splurge of our honeymoon (heart-racing refers to us in relation to our present credit card bill). we also got lovely white-on-white block printed cotton as pamalit for the daybed.the kilim rugs are a gift from my mom, which she's had since i was about eight or nine years old. i hated them back then, because they were twiny and scratchy, not plush and soft like other "normal" carpets. now that i'm grown up i totally love them, and i asked my mom for them last year. four of them are now layered on the living room floor.
oh, right, the bubble wrap on the floor. we had an insane amount of bubble wrap from all the stuff we shipped. having it in the house was fun for a while, but it's all gone now.
not all the stuff we shipped had to be bubble-wrapped though.
my tamad meals consist of vienna sausage (straight out of the can, no cooking, with lots of ketchup), lucky me pancit canton chilimansi, and century tuna spanish style. marlon threw in a couple of bottles of bangus in olive oil for himself.
but back to the living room.
remember this mirror? after being safely shipped all the way from manila, marlon put a nail through it as he was attempting to hang it up with a homemade rig of nylon rope and heavy-duty 3M hooks. then we found out we could make paalam from our supernice landlady michelle to drill holes in the wall. so we had the cracked glass replaced, a hole drilled above the daybed, and voila!
i have happily organized our conjugal book collection by color, just as i was inspired to do by the domino blog many months ago. isn't it lovely?
marlon is ecstatic about acquiring my library. he started off beautifully with the last unicorn, and says he may even read my christopher pikes and sweet valley twins one day. i can't believe he hasn't read the griffin and sabine books, which he gave me for my birthday when we first started going out.this is what the master bedroom looked like about two weeks ago.
it has improved by leaps and bounds since then, pretty much because we got a bed and lost the boxes. i've unpacked all my clothes, bags and shoes and put them into the lovely walk-in closet. i've also realized that i want to chuck a lot of my tops.
ikea is discontinuing the whole malm line of bedroom furniture, which we wanted at first. so we went with the noresund instead and spent two days spray-painting it white. that was fun, although cleaning up the white paint dust from 6.5 cans of paint was not. we also had streaky white kulangot for about two hours afterwards. but worth the effort, don't you think?
we relegated marlon's bachelorhood bedsheets to the guest bedroom and gave our (ehem) nuptial bed the royal treatment. when i mentioned that bedsheets were the big splurge of the honeymoon, i'm mostly talking about the pashmina bedspread in that photo. those babies (we got a couple of other colors and designs) deserve a whole blog post of their own. the indigo-and-white block-printed cotton sheets from jaipur (under the bedspread) are but a distant second in the splurge category. we also got nice white paisley quilt covers and pillowcases from ikea.
speaking of ikea, our tv room is a mini ikea showcase. however, it's way comfy and is probably the most furnished room in the house so far. on the left is the very first piece of furniture i assembled myself. i'm quite proud of it. on the right is the catchall for everything that should belong in a desk or dresser, which i don't have at the moment. for photo purposes, i covered it all up with the sheepskin throw.the guest room, which we vacated just a couple of days ago to move into the master's, is a bleeding disaster. you really don't want to see it right now.
so that's the house, basically. there's still quite a bit of furniture we don't have plus a couple that are on their way from india. still, it's a huge improvement over when i first arrived and was shocked to realize that we had... no wastebaskets. the goal is to have it ready for a housewarming party sometime in late march or early april. plus, the guest room has to be in shape in time for my sister's and mom's visit in mid-april.
a peek outside our doorstep and around cactus drive, next up!
Thursday, February 14
A Valentine first
as i put on my makeup earlier this evening, it hit me: for the first time in my life, i have a date on valentines' day. i love that this first is a first i'm having with marlon. my husband! yes, i was (and still am kilig).
i was actually a little nonchalant about valentines' day, mentally shrugging to myself and inwardly dubbing our plans "simple": juno at cathay cineleisure on orchard road, where we typically watch movies, a light dinner somewhere on boat quay, and a nightcap at harry's, where we like to go for live jazz (for that old married couple feeling). nothing elaborate, since both he and i don't buy the commercial hype.
then i realized we had never gone out on valentines' day. that i had never gone out on valentines' day. suddenly it no longer mattered what we were going out to do. just that we were going to finally go out.
this occasion deserves a zigzag part!
i loved dressing up and looking forward to the end of the workday. ganun pala ang feeling. sarap!
--
grabe rumaket ang mga tao dito pag valentines' day. i found out how decent/date restaurants do it when i tried to make reservations for an italian dinner. they ban regular a la carte dining for one night and thrust overpriced set meals in your face. a hundred and eighty bucks for a three-course dinner? noooo thank you.
then marlon found out how florists cash in on v-day when he tried to buy me flowers.
marlon joins the queue of procastinating boyfriends and husbands
i said if he was going to get me something, then i wouldn't mind something a little offbeat like a big sunflower, which he got me a couple of years back. but apparently florists don't let you buy single blooms -- your flower of choice must be grouped with a whole bunch of other flowers, and wrapped with purple or white paper. which is how all the girls end up with identical flowers.. and i mean all, i saw dozens of them today.
lookit! they all have the same paper wrapping! *shudders*
our ninangs had lilac cabbage roses for the wedding.
why would you want to give them to your girlfriend?
finally marlon saw a student hawking flowers on boat quay who only had single blooms left to sell. we seized the lone pink gerbera left in the nearly empty basket.
it didn't quite work behind the ear, so i stuck it in my purse.
it occurred to me that my single flower might have seemed kind of sad to the girls who were walking around with giant teddy bears and factory-issue flowers. only marlon and i knew that i was happy to have exactly what i wanted.
i was actually a little nonchalant about valentines' day, mentally shrugging to myself and inwardly dubbing our plans "simple": juno at cathay cineleisure on orchard road, where we typically watch movies, a light dinner somewhere on boat quay, and a nightcap at harry's, where we like to go for live jazz (for that old married couple feeling). nothing elaborate, since both he and i don't buy the commercial hype.
then i realized we had never gone out on valentines' day. that i had never gone out on valentines' day. suddenly it no longer mattered what we were going out to do. just that we were going to finally go out.
this occasion deserves a zigzag part!i loved dressing up and looking forward to the end of the workday. ganun pala ang feeling. sarap!
--
grabe rumaket ang mga tao dito pag valentines' day. i found out how decent/date restaurants do it when i tried to make reservations for an italian dinner. they ban regular a la carte dining for one night and thrust overpriced set meals in your face. a hundred and eighty bucks for a three-course dinner? noooo thank you.
then marlon found out how florists cash in on v-day when he tried to buy me flowers.
marlon joins the queue of procastinating boyfriends and husbandsi said if he was going to get me something, then i wouldn't mind something a little offbeat like a big sunflower, which he got me a couple of years back. but apparently florists don't let you buy single blooms -- your flower of choice must be grouped with a whole bunch of other flowers, and wrapped with purple or white paper. which is how all the girls end up with identical flowers.. and i mean all, i saw dozens of them today.
lookit! they all have the same paper wrapping! *shudders*
our ninangs had lilac cabbage roses for the wedding. why would you want to give them to your girlfriend?
finally marlon saw a student hawking flowers on boat quay who only had single blooms left to sell. we seized the lone pink gerbera left in the nearly empty basket.
it didn't quite work behind the ear, so i stuck it in my purse.it occurred to me that my single flower might have seemed kind of sad to the girls who were walking around with giant teddy bears and factory-issue flowers. only marlon and i knew that i was happy to have exactly what i wanted.
Tuesday, February 12
Da who???
okay. so the reason i haven't blogged about the wedding yet is that i want to select and upload all the photos first. which is way, way harder than it sounds. with four 4.7-gig dvds full of keepers from the dastardly dynamic dagooc brothers of mangored, it's taking marlon and myself days to plow through everything.
there are tons of beautiful shots, and we're having a hard time keeping it down to the 250 we're allotted for the album. what i'm enjoying most, though, and find irrestible to blog, are the shots that definitely won't make it into the album. and although i know you want to see pictures of the white dress, my glowing gorgeousness, etc etc, i know i won't be able to sleep tonight without blogging about this mystery.
picture this: it's a beautiful december afternoon in our little chapel in batangas, and our phenomenal photographers are attempting to take a lovely portrait of the mother of the bride in her gleaming golden dress.
or of little alexa tamayo, the pretenatually photogenic baby sister of my two flower girls dani and ela.
ngunit umihip ang masamang hangin. because instead, they wind up with a snap of...
MYSTERY CREATURE!!!
she's not related to me. she's not related to marlon. not a friend, and as far as i know, not a supplier.
SO WHO IN F*CK'S NAME IS THIS WOMAN????? ANSWER MEEEEE!!!!
in need of eye relief? check out some of the official wedding photos on mangored's blog.
there are tons of beautiful shots, and we're having a hard time keeping it down to the 250 we're allotted for the album. what i'm enjoying most, though, and find irrestible to blog, are the shots that definitely won't make it into the album. and although i know you want to see pictures of the white dress, my glowing gorgeousness, etc etc, i know i won't be able to sleep tonight without blogging about this mystery.
picture this: it's a beautiful december afternoon in our little chapel in batangas, and our phenomenal photographers are attempting to take a lovely portrait of the mother of the bride in her gleaming golden dress.
or of little alexa tamayo, the pretenatually photogenic baby sister of my two flower girls dani and ela.
ngunit umihip ang masamang hangin. because instead, they wind up with a snap of...
MYSTERY CREATURE!!!
she's not related to me. she's not related to marlon. not a friend, and as far as i know, not a supplier.
SO WHO IN F*CK'S NAME IS THIS WOMAN????? ANSWER MEEEEE!!!!
in need of eye relief? check out some of the official wedding photos on mangored's blog.
Tuesday, February 5
The day that was
before i start blogging, a sneak peek. switch on your speakers or put on your earphones -- although i don't expect anybody to know the song, it's a gorgeous one.
on-site avp by mg digital video.
on-site avp by mg digital video.
Monday, February 4
Comparing notes
a ym exchange with eena, one of my favorite friends from high school. she's married to julien, a jolly, lovable swiss-french bear, and works as a flight attendant in dubai.
discuss.
Eena: so i m sure you're busy fixing your new apoartmentquestions for reflection: are men really like that? if married, what house habits of the spouse did (or do) you find most difficult to break? and will my proposed multipurpose bowl simply go the way of our ill-fated laundry hamper?
Deepa: yeah! unpacking boxes, kind of putting everything in order and dealing with marlon's bachelor habits haha
Deepa: we just spray-painted our bed yesterday
Eena: hahha messy?
Deepa: with clothes, super
Deepa: he tends to leave clothes all over the apartment
Eena: men are like that
Eena: parang snake! i know!
Deepa: exactly!!!
Eena: oh my god! welcome na talaga to da club!
Deepa: i bought him a hamper last year and he doesn't use it
Eena: and you need to remind him...PUT IT IN THE HAMPER. promise it will go on till you guys are 70
Deepa: i was so ticked off today when i found... socks on the dining room chairs, jocks on the floor of our walkin closet, a t-shirt on the daybed in the living room, another t-shirt in the bathroom and... shorts on the floor of our bedroom. TWO FEET from the hamper!!!!
Deepa: ang lapit lapit na lang diba????
Eena: oo hahahah!
Eena: matututo din yan
Deepa: training training! in fairness, na-train ko na siya to buy matching things for our kitchen. we have a red frying pan kasi so he bought red and black cooking utensils
Deepa: kasi he knows i like to match stuff
Eena: oh my god hahahaha!
Deepa: diba? moderate success
Eena: pwede pwede. he's learning..your new pet..haha
Deepa: and then he has this habit of emptying his pockets when he comes home... and leaving the contents anywhere: coins, keys, receipts etc
Deepa: so i figured i just need like a bowl in the living room where he can dump everything
Eena: SAME!!! OMG
Eena: yeah ang mahiwagang bowl is the ANSWER. but like the hamper, you have to remind him ALL the time
discuss.
Thursday, January 31
Hunting from the couch
from the comfortable confines of my black-cushioned, white spray-painted ikea couch, i've begun to take a sniff at the job market for creatives here in lah-lah land. sniffing is as far as i can go at this point -- without my marriage license and thereby my dependent pass, i'm ineligible for any sort of legit job application.
the first ten minutes of my online puttering was quite a roller coaster. i started seeing words like "leverage" and "solutions" and was forcibly reminded of my days at the factory. besieged by the wealth of editorial jobs up for grabs on jobsdb, i went into a mini-panic and considered, for about two full minutes, a return to publishing.
this was totally a return to the old job-hunting me: unsure of what i wanted, but prone to worrying about getting a job and thus even more prone to accepting any job that would take me. when i realized it, the voice in my head did me a huge favor (for once) and said, in no uncertain terms, "NO."
digging deeper into the job forums, i started looking up all the graphic design openings even if i'm not a graphic designer. and what i found really, really excited me: a fistful of witty, irrevent, creative and independent design firms. i found websites that literally got my heart beating and the wheels in my head turning. i would totally customize portfolios for, and whore myself out to, some of the firms i came across this afternoon.
i was just telling marlon the other day that my heart belongs to/my career direction is television (i really don't watch television the way i did two years ago!), but working as a copywriter for a small design firm (even freelance) totally opened up as a possibility for me today!
don't you love how possibilities just give your butt a special tickle? heck, it's enough of a tickle to get me off this couch!
now, if you'll excuse me, i have three boxes of beloved books to unpack and big, downy-scented fluffy yellow towels to hang up and dry.
p.s. i've decided to blog about the wedding when i get the raw wedding photos from our photographer. which should be anytime in the next two or three days.
the first ten minutes of my online puttering was quite a roller coaster. i started seeing words like "leverage" and "solutions" and was forcibly reminded of my days at the factory. besieged by the wealth of editorial jobs up for grabs on jobsdb, i went into a mini-panic and considered, for about two full minutes, a return to publishing.
this was totally a return to the old job-hunting me: unsure of what i wanted, but prone to worrying about getting a job and thus even more prone to accepting any job that would take me. when i realized it, the voice in my head did me a huge favor (for once) and said, in no uncertain terms, "NO."
digging deeper into the job forums, i started looking up all the graphic design openings even if i'm not a graphic designer. and what i found really, really excited me: a fistful of witty, irrevent, creative and independent design firms. i found websites that literally got my heart beating and the wheels in my head turning. i would totally customize portfolios for, and whore myself out to, some of the firms i came across this afternoon.
i was just telling marlon the other day that my heart belongs to/my career direction is television (i really don't watch television the way i did two years ago!), but working as a copywriter for a small design firm (even freelance) totally opened up as a possibility for me today!
don't you love how possibilities just give your butt a special tickle? heck, it's enough of a tickle to get me off this couch!
now, if you'll excuse me, i have three boxes of beloved books to unpack and big, downy-scented fluffy yellow towels to hang up and dry.
p.s. i've decided to blog about the wedding when i get the raw wedding photos from our photographer. which should be anytime in the next two or three days.
Monday, January 28
Creating the couchwife
immediately prior to and after the wedding, i would inevitably get asked whether or not i was going to be a housewife in singapore. and i would inevitably bristle. while on a conceptual level i knew that there's nothing wrong with being a housewife, and that a housewife, in effect is what i'm going to be until i get a steady job here in lah-lah land, the pouty, stubborn and prickly part of me still put its foot down on the term.
that is, until i moved into the conjugal digs on cactus drive, plunked down in front of the samsung lcd tv (marlon's most prized and joyous home purchase), and discovered the wonders of digital hd tv.
lulled into surrender by the comforting weight of my husband's arm, a comforting meal of spam, rice and pokka iced tea, and a deliciously long tv playlist (miami ink, a model life with petra nemcova, kinky boots, gladiator and many more), i gleefully acquiesced to the existence of a sedentary spouse, albeit temporarily and with my own little twist.
"magiging couchwife na lang ako!"
today is day one of the couchwife life, and it ain't so bad. the morning was spent fulfilling the "-wife" half of the equation: i woke up bright and early to cook breakfast for marlon on his first day back on the job.
my sunny side-up eggs over easy (marlon taught me to do the "over easy" part the night before) were quite... aethestically challenged. luckily, marlon loves eggs far too much to be picky. "any egg is a good egg!" he declared, chomping down his morning cholesterol. still, i'm determined to pull off perfectly plump, round yolks in future breakfasts. i know, i know, i'm adding way too much significance to eggs.
after going back to sleep for a good four hours, i rolled out of bed at lunchtime to do more wife stuff. i took dry clothes off the wire drying rack we've temporarily set up on the balcony (a.k.a. future painting and coffee nook). i stuffed another installment of the neverending honeymoon laundry into our tiny washing machine. i swept our bare marble floors and cleared the living room by stuffing the last of the honeymoon clutter into my pink suitcase for future sorting.
and now, to balance things out, is couch time. surfing the net, reading, and making up for lost tv time (i must have been the only tv network employee who never watched tv) with my beloved discovery travel and living channel. all this while waiting for 4.5 cubic meters of stuff to arrive from manila -- my clothes, books, abubots plus our daybed and wedding gifts are supposed to be delivered before 6pm.
i have wedding kwento to spill, honeymoon photos to sort and upload, and a new life to map out and create. but for now, being a couchwife is my easy access to settling in just fine.
that is, until i moved into the conjugal digs on cactus drive, plunked down in front of the samsung lcd tv (marlon's most prized and joyous home purchase), and discovered the wonders of digital hd tv.
lulled into surrender by the comforting weight of my husband's arm, a comforting meal of spam, rice and pokka iced tea, and a deliciously long tv playlist (miami ink, a model life with petra nemcova, kinky boots, gladiator and many more), i gleefully acquiesced to the existence of a sedentary spouse, albeit temporarily and with my own little twist.
"magiging couchwife na lang ako!"
today is day one of the couchwife life, and it ain't so bad. the morning was spent fulfilling the "-wife" half of the equation: i woke up bright and early to cook breakfast for marlon on his first day back on the job.
my sunny side-up eggs over easy (marlon taught me to do the "over easy" part the night before) were quite... aethestically challenged. luckily, marlon loves eggs far too much to be picky. "any egg is a good egg!" he declared, chomping down his morning cholesterol. still, i'm determined to pull off perfectly plump, round yolks in future breakfasts. i know, i know, i'm adding way too much significance to eggs.
after going back to sleep for a good four hours, i rolled out of bed at lunchtime to do more wife stuff. i took dry clothes off the wire drying rack we've temporarily set up on the balcony (a.k.a. future painting and coffee nook). i stuffed another installment of the neverending honeymoon laundry into our tiny washing machine. i swept our bare marble floors and cleared the living room by stuffing the last of the honeymoon clutter into my pink suitcase for future sorting.
and now, to balance things out, is couch time. surfing the net, reading, and making up for lost tv time (i must have been the only tv network employee who never watched tv) with my beloved discovery travel and living channel. all this while waiting for 4.5 cubic meters of stuff to arrive from manila -- my clothes, books, abubots plus our daybed and wedding gifts are supposed to be delivered before 6pm.
i have wedding kwento to spill, honeymoon photos to sort and upload, and a new life to map out and create. but for now, being a couchwife is my easy access to settling in just fine.
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