Playa Calatagan

It was my first time in Calatagan and I had high expectations. Never mind what people are saying about it being so far away. Basta.

We went there (mom, wacky, alex, ponce, sofie, les, and paul) on an invitation by my sister’s college friend. She wanted to show us Playa Calatagan, the newest luxury residential resort by Landco, the developers of Punta Fuego. The place was still pretty barren but the reception area, the pool, and restaurant were already operational. The place looks great. The theme is ‘Asian Tropics‘ so it’s dark brown wood, thatched roofings, a mixture of hardwood and rattan furnitures, and a cacophony of native plants dotted the whole of the property.

From the cobbled-stone steps that hugged the shorelines you can already see the faint outlines of the neighboring islands, I think it was Mindoro, and miles and miles of sea. The beach, just a couple of meters away, was teeming with small hermit crabs and starfish! The kids had fun just watching the hermit crabs scurrying away from their grubby little hands. It was fun just watching them squeal with delight and panic at the same time. Kids.

I came prepared because I heard that Calatagan was a beautiful place. Aside from my respectable 5mp cellphone cam, I brought my Holga 135 for those funky vintage-y kind of shots. I took pictures of everything, well, almost everything that captured my fancy. Chairs, bridges, stones, starfishes, ceiling fans…there were so many things I wanted to take pictures of with my Holga. Unfortunately I only brought a single roll of film. I didn’t think we’d stay that long for me to need another roll anyway.

After lunch we headed out to see the model house which was a little way away from the reception/club house area. The whole residential resort is being built on rolling hillsides with roads carved to its natural contours. There were already a few houses built on some of the lots but it was still mostly barren. The model house was, as expected, a magnificent display of architecture and interior design. True to its “Asian Tropics” theme, the house was decked in stained wood, from the floors to the kitchen cabinetry and the platform beds.

Floor to ceiling glass adorned the living area as well as the dining room, affording homeowners unobstructed views of the glimmering sea and the sinking sun over the horizon. It was awesome. The scene alone is worth a million bucks in my book. The ‘awsomeness’ doesn’t end there. Just outside of the spacious dining area is a bit of garden and a small, but nonetheless, enticing infinity pool which also looks out to the clear blue sea far off in the distance.

The rooms were spacious and fitted with beautiful wooden furniture and was well-equipped with modern amenitites. Laptop, flat screen television, and air-conditioning. While the master suite had a canopied king size bed draped in silk beddings. It was truly a dream house out there away from the city. By the way, we heard that the model house was bought by the famous Carlos Palanca. The house and everything in it. As in EVERYTHING, for about 16 mil if I remember correctly. Whew! That’s a lot of moolah.

Anyway, as the afternoon rolled on, the children became listless and tired from all the playing and running around. I was to beat up from running after Wacky and taking pictures. I felt grimy from the sweat that mingled with the humid air. I wanted to wash it all away. Unfortunately, we were hours and hours away from the comforts of home. We decided that it was time to go home because we still had a long way to travel.

We got home really late. Maybe past 10pm. I was tired, grimy, and sleepy. I didn’t know which one I wanted to do first. Sleep or take a bath? We had to dress Wacky up first and put him to bed before I was able to finally lie in bed around 11pm. Too tired I was immediately asleep.

In summary, I had a great time with my family. I got to see Calatagan and took home great pictures to remember the place by. It’ll probably be years before I can come back to that place so these pictures would have to do.

Hmm, ang haba na pala ng post ko. =D

Mishu, mishu

Long weekends mean long separations. That’s just how it is with me and Han. We did manage to sneak in a whole day of fun last Saturday. It was a surprise that he let me choose where to eat at lunch. Being the Cebuano that he is, he’s not used to the not-so-tasty food daw here in Manila. Although, he is beginning to discover a few gems out there.

I chose to eat at Mang Inasal’s in Makati Avenue. It’s one of our staple resto choices and we haven’t eaten there in a while. The food was good, except for the sinigang na bangus, the fish smelled rotten! Ewww. Despite that one dish, we stuffed ourselves silly with their all you can eat rice. Well, at least han did. Haha.

Sunday, I was out of the house the whole day. Went to Calatagan, Batangas to look at the newest, exclusive, and poshiest Residential Resort from Landco Pacific Corp., developers of Punta Fuego also in Batangas, Playa Calatagan. More on that on the next post. Anyway, being so far away, having no yaya, and no Sun signal in some parts of the resort, I didn’t get to text han as often as I wanted to. We got to talk before I went to bed though, and that’s enough to make me go to sleep smiling.

Well, tomorrow’s a working day, so I will get to spend an hour or two with han.

Am I A Writer?

I’ve never considered myself as one. Though, officially I’ve been a copywriter for 6 months already, yet it’s still hard for me to believe that I’m actually one. Funny isn’t it? The reason is, I believe, is that for most of my working life, writing was never the MAIN thing that I do. It was just part of it.

I think I just got lucky I know how to string english words together correctly, and that I happen to know a couple of hifalutin words, that my former boss asked me to write a brief news article of an event that we were part of. Short of making me do a task beyond my job description and for lack of manpower, I was in no position to argue, disagree, or decline. Lest I see myself out of a job the next day. So I did what I could and have never stopped writing professionally since then.

However, I consider myself a newbie in this field. Writing notebook after notebook of journal does not make one a writer. Being with real writers all day makes me realize that I have so much to learn about writing good copies.

And speaking of learning about being a true writer, I just recently found out about MOLESKINE. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. How could I? How could I not know of Moleskine? The most revered notebook in the writing and traveling world. With pages that make your scrawny hadwriting look reeeaally good and spines that make it possible for pages to lie flat whatever page you’re writing on, how could I have not heard of this gem before? Ah…I dunno. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been around writers much before now? Ahm, maybe it’s because no one I know has heard of it either. Well, whatever, now I know all about it I am getting one.

I’m seriously thinking of furthering my career in the writing world and my current job makes it all possible. Of course, I’m still a techie at heart and I still want to learn stuff about web designing, photoshop, digital scrapbooking, and maybe programming. For now, I’m going to write to my heart’s content.

The Arts and Crafts Week

It’s been one hell of a week. First week without a nanny. This means having no time to rest, no time for watching tv, and no time for going out. Then here comes my sister, leaving her three precocious kids on our doorstep while she and her husband goes gallivanting the land of white-sand beaches, delicious gigantic home-made shakes, and idyllic Boracay. What the heck?!! I haven’t even had a proper summer vacation myself! And I had one weekend planned destroyed, shredded, and crushed to oblivion because of it. Grrr! I’d wring her neck if she wasn’t my sister and if Sophie-girl wasn’t such a cute and funny little kid who showed off her dancing prowess and pointed to her head whenever you ask, “Where’s your bukol?” Oh well, so much for ranting. They only stayed for four days. It was fun for me and Wacky got to spend time with his cousins.

On the work front, things haven’t been as busy the last few weeks. This means having a lot of idle time on our hands. So aside from the many mini-projects they’ve cooked up for us to do, some of the designers and writers decided to do some arts and crafts ranging from readymechs to origami. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out the different folding techniques and seeing how this piece of square paper can turn into a dog, a bird, a dinosaur, and even a pokemon. LOL.

On my way home I passed by Trinoma, at this everything 10 pesos store I bought 3 coloring books, colored pencils, and a box of crayons for Wacky and me. It’s cool. The coloring books look great. It doesn’t even look like it’s only 10 pesos! I think I might have to go back to buy some more.

Counting Crows and Something More

My LSS for the day: Counting Crows – A Murder of One

“All your life is such a shame, shame, shame. All your love is just a dream, dream, dream…” How depressing is that? It suddenly feels like you’ve done nothing but mistakes your whole life. Anyway, I think I’m through with all the depressing, morbid, masochistic thoughts. I think four days of it is enough torture to last me a couple of months. Ayoko na!

Well, depressed or not, I did manage to make something good out of it. Finally was able to talk with my bestfriend who is in Singapore right now (girl bestfriend as I consider Hanii One as my bestfriend as well). We we’re able to talk almost the whole day about our heartaches and misgivings about the future and a whole lot more. In the end, it made us feel a lot better and puts a lot of things into perspective.

I can’t make you love me if you don’t…

It’s been a while. Stuff happens. Shit stuff happens. I’m in a rarely gloomy mood the past week. I’ve never been the type to stay in a rut for that long. But this time is really different. I just can’t seem to shake myself loose from the cobwebs. Arrrgghh!

I love so much and I hurt just as much. Is it supposed to be this way? I’ve asked myself a thousand times if everything that I gave up was all worth it. I used to answer with a resounding YES. Now, I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not even sure if the guy loves me now. I’m not sure of everything!

Buti pa mga cartoon charaters na ‘to. Na-express ang nararamdaman ko.

{credit goes to kawaii not}

American Idol 2008

Dang! I missed the first day of AI’s audition episode last Wednesday. However, I was able to watch last night’s episode which was done in Texas and it was stupendously hilarious, as usual. I got a lot of laugh out of all those wanna-be AI weirdos. You’d think that after 6 seasons of the show you’d have seen it all. But heck no! There are still people who’ll shock you, make your jaw drop, and send you ROTFLYAO (rolling on the floor laughing your ass off).

Imagine that out of all the thousands who lined-up to audition, they only got 22. And out of those 22 I think they showed the audition of less than five. They showed all the funny, weird, and untalented ones more. Haha, this is entertainment people.

Music and Mandy Moore

Been listening to a lot of new songs lately. Alternative, pop, mushy, name it. I’ve taken a liking to Paramore’s Never Let This Go and Hallelujah that for about a week it’s been on repeat mode in my iPod. A week before that, Fall Out Boy’s newest album, Infinity on High was on repeat mode in my pc and my iPod as well.

This week I’m going mellow with Mandy Moore’s new album Wild Hope. Mandy Moore has come a long way from her teeny-bopper days and has developed a more mature sound. I like her album Coverage which featured old songs that I’ve never heard before but got to really like. Thanks to her I’ve discovered hidden (at least from me) music gems. This time around she hopes to put her own stamp in the music industry and set herself apart from her contemporaries by composing all but one of the songs in the album.

I used to hate the way her lips contort when she sang her songs, so maarte. Now, she doesn’t do that anymore. Thank goodness. What I like about Mandy Moore now is that she goes off the beaten path, which is evident in her choice of movies and songs. Some may call it boring, too goody-two-shoes. I call it maturity.

Thought Snippets 2

It has been a while since I’ve written something down. I’ve decided to take a temporary hiatus from poetry…if only I could do the same for LIFE. Haha. Let’s see if I would be inspired to write a new one in a couple of weeks.

So much has changed in my life over the last year that a mere couple of paragraphs cannot aptly describe what I went through. Even kilometric sentences. It’s not something that could be written for public consumption anyway.

New work, new experiences. Started my new job as a Web Copywriter last December. It’s a whole new chapter in my career as this is the first time I am working as a writer, officially. So much to learn and I’m like a sponge absorbing all I can. It’s great to be learning something new. Venturing into an all new path career-wise.

What goes with a brand new spanking job? Brand new spanking set of friends, of course. If you’re someone who really knows me, you’d know I’d gravitate towards people who have the same interests as me. They turn out to be of the opposite sex most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I like hanging out with my girl friends as well. There’s nothing like girltalk and people who understand what you’re feeling as a girl. But for that non-emo, fun, light kind of days guys are the best to hang around with. Walang hiya-hiya!

Miss my friends from Exist. Dawnie, Tintin & Val. We’ve had some really fun and crazy times together. Kahet mejo killjoy ako madalas, coz I’m the only one with maternal responsibilities, therefore less time for gimmicks and after-work-get-togethers. Anyhoo, I think I’ll be meeting Tintin next week, to fill her in on what’s been happening with me. Dawnie, she’s happily dawdling in the merry land of cheap electronic gadgets, no traffic, less pollution, and high-salaried expats, Singapore. >=)

Digital Scrapbooking

I’m so into digi scrapping. Been at it for 2 years now and I am not about to slow down. Haha! I have a lot of layouts which I made from free kits I found over the internet. I’ve tried my hand at making invitations as well. After all it’s the same process, you just have to make it smaller.

Now, I’ve decided to challenge myself to a new digiscrapping level. I’ve actually ventured into creating my own digital kit. I don’t know how well I’ve done with this but my hanii said it’s really good. I’ve been slaving over this kit for a month or so because I have been trying to learn PS tricks, installing plugins and how to make some of the elements while doing the kit. But I did it! Finally.

Here’s a preview of the kit I named Jumpin’ Jungle.