More firsts (A 7-Month Roundup)

i promised myself i would take this weekend to do a roundup of everything i've been up to during the past seven months. it was one of the things i looked forward to all this hectic week. now i'm happy just to be curled up in bed, with the aircon on and a scarf thrown over the lamp, finally taking time for myself to just write. i can hear marlon watching wrestling in the next room, and i know my cat is lying in the hallway watching both our doors! all is good :)

my last post before i sank into radio silence last january was a list of all the 'firsts' i had last year. i had fun doing that -- so that's what i'm going to do to fill you in on the last seven months!

i got my first tattoo! this was the long-delayed mutual wedding gift marlon and i had agreed on.

i went to boracay with marlon for the first time. i had been there twice previously -- first as part of my freelance stint with the philippine star, and the second time to be a bridesmaid at julien and eena's wedding -- but i had always wanted to go with marlon. it was his first time to go too!

i went parasailing for the first time. fifteen glorious minutes riding the wind, hovering over the sea amidst a glowing dusk. it felt like being in a fantasy novel. 

i made my first attempt at skimboarding. this resulted in a grand buttwhacking on that fine boracay sand, which was, i realized, the first sports-related injury of my brief but sedentary life.

i appeared as an extra in one of my own promos! this was for a series of vignettes for season five of "the office" on universal. 

i dragged marlon into the shoot as well. 

his friend allan was a great casting find for this -- he was hilarious, with a perfect sense of comic timing. 

i saw wolfgang live! i know, i know, this is not a first, but it was just such a huge event for me! okay, it's the first time i've seen them in 10 years! is that better? 

basti *swoon*

i went to vietnam for the first time! hanoi was the minibreak of choice for holy week. hanoi's chaos and energy reminded me of manila, yet it also seemed like a city that manila could have been. 

halong bay, a dead ringer for neverland

luon cave, a surreal chunk of outer space carved into one of halong bay's many islets

spiced truffle fritters at our best discovery of the trip: the green tangerine restaurant

last afternoon having vietnamese coffee overlooking hoan kiem lake

first time to visit phuket, too. sorry, no pictures -- our beloved lumix died a few hours after we landed.

... to be continued

Come home and cuddle

... say my lazy-ass cat and my husband, who is working from home today. i use the term "working" loosely, since obviously he has nothing better to do but take pictures of rogue.

Leaving on a jet plane (thank God)

if you're ending your workday at the dhl warehouse near changi airport, begging to make sure your tape gets on the plane to the country where it will air on national tv in less than 24 hours, because client was still phoning in changes an hour before the cutoff for dhl pickup, chances are:

a) you are having a really, really bad day.

b) someone in the food chain didn't do his job, and you have to suck it up anyway because you want to make sure you do your job.

c) you are me. 

d) all of the above.

i took a picture because it was my first time there, and by golly it better be the last. 

to think my boss was just telling me how she had to do the exact same thing years ago to bail herself out of a giant f*ckup she committed when she was a promo newbie. i just laughed like a hyena, not knowing that a similar fate was to befall me. to think the giant f*ckup wasn't even mine. 

to think i don't even really know for sure if the blasted thing is going to make it on air! the only thing i know for sure is that if it doesn't, the head that is going to roll will not be mine. which is almost enough to make the whole mad rush worth it. almost.

damn tapes are like ticking time bombs. am i glad they're out of my hands and on a plane to bangkok. the relief would normally put me out like a light and make me sleep like a baby, but i'm still upset at what i went through today (hence the blogging). 

ugh, upset headache. must sleep this off. good night.

Gimme sum playaz

for my latest project, a big branding campaign for what is probably your top-of-mind international sports channel, i have been huntin' fo' sum playaz. football, soccer, cricket and basketball playaz, to be precise.

initially i was all, "woohoo! the almighty is rewarding me for <fill in name of awful, life-draining project here>!!!" and after we did a rebrand project early this year that had the office boys rejoicing over a writhing mass of boyhood fantasies come to life (including a kick-ass dominatrix, saucy school girl, porny policewoman, sexy santa and a lara croft-alike), i felt like it was about time we girls got our fill of eye candy as well. 

after a few days of scouring the interwebz for reasonably attractive, athletic, buff, singapore-based playaz, woohooo! has kind of turned into.... mehhhhh. i have bombarded baseball players' facebook profiles, emailed over a dozen expat football clubs,  begged to audition an entire cricket team (pila balde na ito!) and lurked unseen at several pickup games in condos and neighborhood clubs. 

cricket. there is a special place in heaven reserved for people who are perpetually online. an officer of a prominent local cricket team replied to my electronic plea within minutes, and before i knew it i had traded my saturday morning for bats, bowls and boys. see ya at the cricket pitch, playaz!

football. i found a korean football club based in singapore, and promptly turned the matter over to our korean intern, kalam. suitably motivated, she proceeded to whip the boys into a football frenzy. "don't call any other clubs! we will do it!" they reportedly yelped. "what do you want? muscle? face? we have muscle! we have face!" talaga lang ha? patingin nga.

basketball. you'd think i could vomit forth a legion of basketball-playing acquaintances, given the number of pinoys in singapore and b-ball being our national sport. but guess how many pinoys i've gotten to audition? zero. maybe because all the pinoys i know are sedentary office guys who play a sluggish pickup game a couple of times a month to keep their beer bellies at bay. or maybe because marlon, my main conduit to the male species, hates basketball almost as much as he hates cars. (when i asked the lord for someone different from all the other guys, he sure delivered.) surprisingly, the only two pinoys who are auditioning for the project actually play not basketball, but...

baseball. strange, huh? one guy is a batchmate and college crush ng bayan who used to play for the ateneo varsity, recommended by a mutual friend. the other guy is someone from the pinoysg forums who was trawling the interwebz for players to join his baseball team. ah, a man after my own heart.

so while i have dug up a few decent leads, i have yet to see the kind of bod that will send my brain slamming against the front and rear of my cranium, sloshing rapidly back and forth in its own cerebral fluid (which is, according to fight science, the physiological effect of a ham-fisted blow to the head).

so yeah. i'm waiting to be knocked out. don't worry -- when it happens, i will let you know.

I'm back!

as in BACK. hehehe. 

microblogging via facebook and twitter slowly crept up on me and usurped the function of this blog. i should probably restore my faith in my brain and my writing by proving that i can still have thoughts that are longer than 140 characters!

but mostly i'm blogging again because my sister told me she missed my updates. awww. 

i haven't even blogged about my first tattoo yet, and here i am posting a picture of my second one. i got this one yesterday from leon lam-hien, the same artist who did my first. i can't imagine having any other artist ink me. marlon even has this whole series of tattoos planned around leon's style. fortunately for our wallets, leon has relocated from france to hong kong in the name of love. whoever this girl is, i sure hope she's the one. 

2008 was the year...

I almost missed my honeymoon flight... and ran straight from my arrival gate to my departure gate without my luggage.

I introduced Marlon to his new Indian relatives, and gave my family in India a new jamai (son-in-law). 

I fell in love with Rajasthan.

I rode a camel for the first time.

I saw my first desert.

I woke up before dawn to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. If there's anything I would ever wake up that early for again and again, this would be it. 

I left home and moved to Singapore.

I began to create a new home -- my first. 

I learned to cook. Really well, I might add. I also discovered a new pleasure -- cooking with Marlon.

my first pasta

my first risotto

I became obsessed with Jamie Oliver.

I started writing beauty articles for Singapore magazines.

I learned that fighting with your husband never, ever means the two of you are doomed.

My grandmother died.

I got the job that I really, really, really wanted – despite having potentially screwed up my chances to get it.

I made a choice that gave me what I really, really, really wanted – despite knowing that there were going to be some people who would absolutely hate me for it.

I started working at BDA.

the office cat, da huay ("big gray")

bda's big black-and-white pre-war office on oxley road

I learned how to take ownership of my own ideas and be responsible for them – thereby killing a long-suffering suspicion that in my old concept team at GMA, the only person responsible for the kick-ass work we did was my brilliant partner. Oh, the dramz!

I delivered my first pitch.

I began to learn just what it takes to bring an idea to life. In short, I started to glimpse what it was really like to be a producer.

I conceptualized, scripted and produced my first spot for a regional network.

I bought my first piece of sculpture (from the Taka project, a piece by Juan Sajid Imao).

I made my first overseas remittance (and officially became an overseas Filipino worker!).

I saw Alicia Keys…

and Rihanna live in concert.

I traveled to Malaysia…

… Seoul, South Korea

... and Shanghai, China (where I turned 27 years old) for the very first time.

I jumped off a pier for the first (and what will probably be the only) time in my life, at Tioman in Malaysia.

I did an overnight shopping junket in Hong Kong.

Marlon and I paid off all our credit card debt.

I started having fun doing monthly budgets. Even beyond cleaning off the card, this to me is the ultimate sign of financial freedom.

I made the switch from PC to Mac… and wondered why I never did it earlier. (Oh, yeah. Macs are expensive. Now I remember.)

I learned that not all badings are fabulous and smart, and that my ACS badings are truly rare treasures.

I adopted a cat, Rogue (and inducted Marlon into the wonderful, adorable, thrill-a-minute world of felines).

I attended my first Promax BDA conference.

I got completely, passed-out-and-dragged-home drunk and had the worst hangover of my life… thanks to an office party.

battling for the honor of "drunkest expression" with my boss, james, and the creative director of our sydney office. i passed out shortly after this photo was taken.

I became a student of flamenco (which subsequently led to the most expensive shoe purchase of my life). 

I started muay thai.

I made my own Christmas ornaments, and set up my first Christmas tree.

I had a choir-less Christmas for the first time in over 10 years.

I celebrated one year of being married to Marlon... and continue to discover the thousandfold reasons why people fall in love and get married.

celebrating our first anniversary at the boutique hotel in tagaytay (i'm wearing my favorite of marlon's christmas gifts this year -- my bikini necklace!)

when i look back and see what a year we've had, how can i believe that 2009 will be any less phenomenal?

Home for the holidays

my flight home is tomorrow morning at 9:45 a.m. i've just finished packing, and have never packed so light for a week-long trip. well, light in terms of clothing that is -- i have two large plastic bags full of presents for family and friends, and that was my biggest motivation to keep my outfits down to a minimum. the presents also serve as placeholders in my suitcase -- for all the things i plan to shop for and bring back to singapore!

i've been in holiday mode since yesterday, a condition allowed by the surprising lack of activity at the office. this year's batch of clients, miraculously enough, celebrate christmas and are thus all on leave. apparently last year, the company was deluged by hindu and muslim clients, forcing everyone to work through the holidays. luckily, this year has allowed me to pretty much bum off. anticipation for my trip home has been building steadily throughout the day -- an anticipation that i've never ever felt before. after all, this is my first year away from home. the rush of excitement is a new and welcome feeling. 

marlon and i exchanged presents this evening after a very lazy dinner care of mcdonald's. i know, we should have some kind of elaborate christmas dinner, us being such foodies and this being our first christmas together, but i guess "holiday mode" has taken over at home as well. nobody wants to cook and clean -- not when there's a flight to catch tomorrow!

anyway, we agreed to do our gift swap (i hate it how they say "swop" here, hahaha) tonight because we were both giving each other something heavy and bulky. i want to do a show-and-tell with pictures, but suffice it to say we both loved each others' gifts! and marlon is playing with my gift to him right this very minute and has been doing so for the past hour. :-)

right now i'm a teeny bit apprehensive about the weight of my check-in luggage, and an itty bit sad about leaving rogue by herself for the next seven days, but all in all i am happy, content, at peace, and sort of full and buoyed up inside. just the way i want to be the day before christmas.

and so before i disappear into my internet void (i'm leaving the laptop here since all we have at mom's is a crappy dial-up connection), i just want to say: merry christmas everyone! i hope we all have a joyful, loving and peaceful christmas!

The tree tour!

it's time to take a mental break from work... which means it's time to take a tour of the paul-plazo christmas tree!

this is one of the first ornaments i made when i was still pretty clueless and just getting warmed up with the christmas spirit. i cut out little chinese children from a vintage - placemat that i shook-ed spirited away from the mint museum of toys cafe many months ago. i glued the cutouts on green paper, drew curlicues around it in gold ink, and stuck it on fuzzy red felt. i'm not too happy with how this turned out, so it's at the back of the tree.


next i wanted to make felt ornaments like the ones i saw on design*sponge, but i couldn't find felt that was thick or stiff enough. (moment of silence for all the "thick and stiff" jokes that are going through my head right now.) i tried, anyway -- they were cute, but i still wasn't too happy.


then i found an english-chinese dictionary in my paper collection -- and made word nerd ornaments! i used silver ribbon, glue and the words joy, reindeer, happy, celebrate, and Christmas.





as i was flipping through magazines for pictures to collage, i noticed that there seemed to be a surfeit of red shoes. so, with a bit of red felt and green paper, i made his and hers shoe ornaments! i was obviously not taking myself very seriously at this point.


so you think everything i made was along these nutty, kweng-kweng lines... think again! ito, career na!

following a how-to from the domino website, i made my absolute favorite and most labor-intensive set of ornaments. i started by printing and cutting out the handy template from the domino website, then gluing each piece on to thicker card stock for more durability. then i cut those pieces out and covered both sides with yellow and red-and-gold handmade paper that i bought on insa-dong street in seoul -- gorgeous, gorgeous printed paper that i've been saving for months. i only made eight of these, but with all the double-siding and reinforcing, i must have cut each individual piece eight times!

and here they are... the reindeer and the dove! i'm already thinking of how to unassemble and pack them so that they survive till next christmas...






we rounded off the tree with store-bought baubles and wide swathes of wired ribbon, as you can see from the photos. the store-bought ornaments are nothing to write home about... except for this super adorable ditzy angel. when i saw the completely clueless expression on its face, i knew our tree wouldn't be complete without it...


and that concludes the tree tour! which one was your favorite?

now let me see if i can get a good enough photo of marlon's masterpiece tree-topper...