struggling to lose weight

i've been on a diet since the week after my birthday. i usually eat salad during lunch time at work. i noticed a slight loss of my belly fat but nothing really tremendous because i have yet to exercise much or not at all. hehehe... so i finally decided to enroll on a boxing class. however, i've been lazy to go to the gym and would just want to face my computer and surf the net. hayz... i hope i finally get over this laziness. hehehe...

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i've been studying how to read and write hangul since last sunday. i found this really fun software that teaches how to read and write hangul. i can only recognize a few characters and read them really slow, though. now, i am starting to get confused with the characters and how to properly pronounce them because the lessons are getting complicated. hahaha! oh well, so much for the love of k-culture. lol! i hope to get some progress and be able to understand and converse with it.

anyway, i've always wanted to learn a new language. i just didn't know that it will be korean. hehehe...

i promised myself that i will blog today about my plans for this year. however, something came up in the office that made me feel bad that i can hardly think of anything to write. ughh... i really can't write. hayz... i need to start thinking positive again... optimism where art thou?

holiday bubu

as the holiday season ended and so my desire to resign from work. weird, huh? yup, i find it weird, too. now i find myself inspired to go to work again. so, i've decided not to resign from work and make the most out of my work. hehehe...

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happy thoughts:

- i would like to travel more this year. i hope my finances will allow it.

- looking forward to the hot air balloon festival next weekend. will go with some highschool friends and take photos.

- looking forward to a possible trip to iloilo by march.

- looking forward to a trip going to ilocos by april with jeriz.

- looking forward to our hongkong-macau trip on january 2011 with maie, donna and nina. i will finally get to go out of the country. hehehe...

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my third cousin died today. he is just in his late 30's/ early 40's. again, this made me realize how short life is. sorry, its just something i really can't stand.

i don't feel like working anymore. if only i have a choice.

down, up, up, down...

i don't feel well since yesterday. my work performance had been dropping for a few months now and the bosses are noticing me more than before. if only there is something i can do for my sales to peak up again. for all they know, i already did all the possible things there is. hay...

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i feel a little envious with those people who are able to enjoy their own money...

happy birthday to me

birthday ko na. nothing exceptional is going to happen later. as usual, i need to go to work. its been 3 decades and a year. still nothing expectacular to talk about. the same old boring me only older and i hope wiser. i am not even excited about this day. i think i am just getting tired of my monotonous life. hahaha... don't mind me. ganito ata talaga pag tumatanda na. nagiging melodramatic o baka epekto lang ng mga korean movies na kinaka-adikan ko lately. hahaha... anyway, i am looking forward for a good year. 2009's been a really good year so i hope 2010 will be better. birthday wish ko pala... sana may magregalo ng free trip to hongkong o thailand o south korea sa akin. hahaha! wishful thinking lang po. time to sleep. magandang umaga! :D

bohol trip

i finally had the chance to set foot on bohol kahit short vacation lang. matagal ko nang pangarap makapunta dun. first time ko rin sa airport at makasakay din ng airplane. good thing very supportive ang mga izone girlfriends ko that i didn't felt awkward about the fact na first timer ako. the tour was fun though it is very exhausting kse we arrived in tagbilaran at 6:35am tapos diretso nang tour. tapos umulan pa nung later part na ng tour mabuti na lang malapit na kme matapos. so ayun. will post the photos soon. i am still getting familiar with my new lens. nakakapanibago kseng walang zoom barrel and i just can't switch from wide to zoom in an instant.

i just learned that helping other people has conditions. and that it should go according to the priorities of the giver who has nothing but good intentions. can't it be that complicated? hay...

randoms

finally, i'm back. been busy with a lot of things. serious things. work's been very demanding lately and it's been eating a lot of my time. i even stay up late at night to still work at home. weekends were also spent working. so i still don't get to really rest at all. hay...

i had finally finished the final prints of rio's prenup photos sometime august i think. sorry, i already lost track. thanks to my officemate who is a graphic artist. he helped me finish them. though, rio still has a few demands on the photos which up until now i was not able to do. geez...

then came typhoons ondoy and pepeng which brought too much devastation to a lot of properties and even deaths to a lot of families in our country.

i was too depressed to blog about these unfortunate things that had happened to my kababayans. i was a victim too but we are still fortunate that we still have our house intact compared to a lot of families who lost all their possessions. up until now, mukha pa ring bodega ung bahay namin. nakataas pa rin ung mga upuan. tumataas pa rin paminsan-minsan ung baha sa harap ng bahay namin kaya til now may tulay pa rin.

it has been more than a month and yet my heart continues to break for those who had lost their families and their properties because of those typhoons. i still shed a tear whenever i see the exact same footages i already saw. but we filipinos are resilient and through these tough times, heroes arise. i salute those people who are continuously helping our kababayans. mabuhay kayo.

big brother is back with a new pakulo. yup, i've always been a fan... hehehe...

i have not received any commissions for the past 2 months because of my account's poor performance. yeah, after all the effort, i had exerted. tsktsktsk...

i finally bought a new lens for my camera na hindi ko pa na-testing ng todo dahil sa super busy ako sa work. hopefully sa bohol... excited na ako... first time kong makakasakay sa airplane... sana lang hindi bumagyo...

my internet connection still sucks until now... i hope it gets fixed soon. it's been more than a month...

i had my hair cut and colored and spent a whopping 4k for it. yeah, i know. i hope next time, i remember not to spend too much on this. i hope...

mom's been whining a lot since the floods and all... and it's getting to my nerves...

just when i thought i was doing a good deed to some unfortunate kids; apparently, to someone else, i am not.

ang buhay talaga parang life... hay...

Thank you, President Cory

after more than a year's battle with colon cancer, former President Corazon Aquino passed away last Saturday, August 1, 2009.

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i really had a hard time organizing my thoughts for this blog entry... please bear with me...

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i have always been the type of person who is easily moved to tears. as much as possible i avoid conversations that will make me cry but ironically i still watch tearjerkers. (at least no one sees me cry. hehehe... ) i must admit that the past two days' events made me shed tears. it felt like that there is a part of me that was lost and cannot be found.

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a lot of people tell how good a person she was. how full she lived her life. how good a president she was. i must admit that i was moved with these untold stories about how she handled power. i am surprised to find myself teary eyed. no doubt, she touched a lot of people's lives. even mine. too bad, i just realized it now.

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to president Cory, i hope you get to read this in heaven:

thank you for the freedom i am enjoying right now. i was too young then to understand what you sacrificed for all of these. thank you for sharing your life with us. i hope i could live a life as full as yours and that i can uphold the values that you believed and lived by.

i know you are in a better place right now where there is no more suffering and pain but only bliss.

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the entire nation is mourning for your loss. you will always be remembered madam president. your legacy lives on.

hair talk

i got bored with my hair and finally got the time to go to a salon and had it cut. please see below:

this was my hair before I've decided that I need to cut it.



this is the new haircut I've got

from measles to dry skin then peeling

from catching a viral skin infection without any particular cause (viral exanthem), i experienced having dry skin last week particularly on my hands. to my surprise, it was just the start of it all. my hands and feet are now peeling. it all started last friday. my hands look like that i played with glue... soaked my hands into a bucket of glue and let it dry. and yeah, it looks nasty. hay, i hope it would peel all at once but that was not the case. hay.

new watermark

i feel like a kid. ecstatic with my new watermark symbol for my photos. i know. it's shallow but ain't kids behave that way?!! and i must admit i must boast it today. hahaha... thanks to kuya raul for the new watermark. now, i will save more time putting this mark on my photos. hehehe... below is the photo with the watermark i am raving about. hehehe...

thunderbird poro point, la union

late post of the photos i was able to take during our stay in thunderbird resort poro point, la union. the rest of the photos are here.

aftermath

got home from la union last saturday at about 11pm. we left thunderbird resort on july 4 at about 11:45am. we went to manaoag church to light a few candles and offer a short prayer to the miraculous virgin and had our lunch somewhere in pangasinan. yup, i don't remember because i started to feel worst again during the trip. i had to take a nap in the van while they were ordering our lunch and went inside the resto when the food were all served. i took paracetamol and after a few hours i felt better again. it was a grueling 7 hours travel going back to manila and i never fell asleep. i tried but was never successful. i've decided to get another opinion about the allergies i've got that actually worsened on saturday morning when i woke up. i thought the reason my hands were numb is i slept on it but i was wrong. i noticed that the red spots that disappeared when i was injected antihistamine last friday were now back in new territories which are my two hands. so there, the doctor said the red spots were not allergies, they were measles. i heard her say to the nurse it's viral exanthem. i'm a bit familiar with it because one of my officemate had it a few months before. so i had to have another blood test and had a second blood extraction on the same spot where the first one was taken last friday. now the spot had turned bluish-black. oh, the first person (are they med techs? i forgot what they are called) who extracted my blood did it with ease but the second had a hard time. just imagine how painful it was. the needle is already in your skin but it did not hit the right nerve so she had to redirect it to the nerve while inside your skin... ouch!... after waiting for the results, i went back to the doctor and found out that the results were all the same. i have a surprisingly high number of platelets for some reasons and she was puzzled where my infection is coming from. i told her of the same blood test results i've got last friday and she just gave me a stronger medicine for allergies. so i went straight home because i am starting to feel worst again. i never realized how heavy my bag was, only until the time i felt my shoulder blades, upper back and thighs ache. i thought i will be able to go to work today but i still had fever last night but my rashes had significantly subsided. however, my fingers are still swollen for some reason. i will need to go back to my doctor and give it one more day of rest. i hope i get better soon. there are too much work waiting for me when i get back to the office.

day three

it is the last day of our stay here in poro point. i woke up early just like yesterday, feeling a little more better than last night. i missed a lot of things yesterday because they went jetskiing and wake boarding. too, bad i am sick. i could have joined them. i was looking forward to take photos last night but i was not feeling so well that i was not even able to go down for my dinner. i had to request for a soup to be taken up to our room. at this hour, they went to the lighthouse near the casino. i would like to go there since day one but i guess that's the way it is. i am hoping that we can check out earlier than 12nn today so we will arrive in manila early. i need to rest. i hope i'll get well soon.

day two

maybe you are wondering why the title of this post is day two. well, it's the 2nd day of our stay here in Poro Point, La Union. i will tell you why i was not able to blog about day one yesterday.

yup, finally our trip pushed through this time. we arrived yesterday at about 1:45pm. a few minutes before our check in time. it was a long drive from manila going to la union. probably 6 hours because we had to make a few stopovers to pee and for lunch. i was feeling okay in the morning of july 2 while waiting for the last participant of this trip to arrive. i even had my temperature scanned by the guards in our building when i entered. my temperature was okay. was... because when we arrived here in thunderbird resort, i started not to feel well. i thought i was just exhausted of the long drive. so, i just took 2 paracetamols for that day while i was working on my problematic accounts while wearing the striped bonnet abba gave me. yup, i was on a vacation and yet still working. slept at about 11:30 i think. i know i had fever because i can feel my body was hot. i woke up feeling a little okay this morning and forgot about all of these when che and i started to explore the place while taking photos. when we got back to our room, i tried to sleep again then the morning snack was served. my throat had been sore since june 30 i think, i was just gargling it with astring-o-sol but yesterday and today was different. i had a hard time swallowing but i did not pay a lot of attention to it. while i was eating the morning snack, i noticed that i have a lot of small red dots in my arms and also my body. good thing they have a clinic nearby and was advised to consult their company doctor in the nearby hospital and so i obliged. so i was brought to the hospital. che accompanied me there and was joking around with the hospital staff and the friendly nurse who helped us go to the hospital. it was found out that the left side of my throat is swollen and has white spots on it. i forgot how the doctor called it. so there, i was injected with anti-histamine and was made to drink paracetamol and claritin i think. i was drowsy after that. they even extracted blood from me for platelets test. they even said that i might have a h1n1. good thing, my platelets count was okay and i was released after a few hours. i stayed there i think for 3 hours or more. good thing i have an HMO card to cover the hospital bills. i had to shoulder the medicines though and the antibiotic that was given to me was too pricey. i was even advised to do any activities. great. tomorrow we will be checking out at 12nn. another long drive going back to manila. it's just like not taking a vacation after all. hehehe...

new bag

i just realized today that i needed a bigger camera bag that will accommodate my growing gears. the free camera bag which i got when i purchased my DSLR is no longer big enough to fit all my gears. hay, gastos na naman. hehehe...

my new camera strap

finally, i got to buy this. i had to settle for this one for now because i don't have enough budget for the double strap.

next on my list is a nikkor 18-200mm VR. i hope i could get this in time for jia's birthday party. :)

i did it

i've given my d40 its nice airtight home today. i just made it a DIY dry box. will post the photo soon. i hope i don't forget. now, i am at peace that my beloved little gear will be free from fungus. i hope it enjoys its new home. hehehe...