how to prepare for an evacuation

because we have an unstable status here right now, and i saw our embassy's contingency plan this morning, i would like to share an evacuation plan in case we need one.  i can't make this all up by myself, of course i got it from the internet... high five internet, high five!

i did panic buying like everyone else last thursday, but i think i have to do it again coz i finished most of the biscuits and bread over the weekend ^_^

1.  make sure you have enough water for at least two weeks.  especially for me coz i have my little one, i stocked extra in case the cold stores run out of bottled water.

1. 1. i have also stocked some milton sterilising tablets, which kills bacteria, fungi, viruses and spores.  it will take over sterilising the baby's bottles in case of a black out.  and to sterilise drinking water in case of a water shortage.  cool huh...

1. 2.  have extra cans of powdered milk for the little ones.  and diapers.

2. i have also stock rice, bread and other carb and protein-rich food, and easy to cook noodles.

3.  make sure the important documents (passport, birth certificate, etc) are in a safe and easy to find location.

4.  prescriptions and medicines should also be on-hand. especially for the babies.

5.  keep cash on hand for emergencies.  also make sure that you have extra load on your mobile (and batteries) and petrol on your car.

6.  a first aid kit may come in handy.  alcohol, cottons, lighter (for sanitizing items), scissors, flashlight, thermometer and other stuff you may need, like hand sanitizers (for water-free cleansing) and tissues.

7.  hygiene products, if you are going to be stuck in an evacuation site, at least you don't have to ask others for shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, etc.

8.  if you are going to bring canned foods, don't forget the can-opener ^_^

9.  three change of clothing is acceptable.  but more for babies.

10.  if you are expecting a water shortage, disposable utensils and resealable plastic bags are handy.

11.  contact lens wearers, don't forget your solutions.

12.  most of all, don't panic.

life can be stressful at times but if you prepare beforehand, you can at least save time and worry about the more important stuff.  like finding an airplane.  ^_^

man vs wild

he is the one who throws himself to a remote location to show how to survive such tasks, and he's so amazing! i watched his top 25 last night and i could believe the things he did!!!

from what i remember, once he was in a desert and for hydration he opened a dead camel's stomach and squeezed the undigested stuff to his mouth, and once he also used snakeskin to store his pee and drank it a little while later... and he also ate big grubs (white worms resembling catterpillars but without hairs) and spiders RAW! and my most favorite: using his fingers as bait. he actually caught a 20-pound fish!


after "bite me", his show is my next favorite!!!

see details here: Discovery Channel's Man Vs. Wild

my most favorite free mac app

sweet home 3d!

it is so easy to make a model of your dream house, and it has 2 views : layout view and 3d view.  i think i have 4 houses modelled from this app complete with stairs and curtains and wall paints.  the only downside is that you have to model each floor one by one (no, you cannot make them like you do in the sims!)

you can see from their gallery here what you can do

but the good part is that now we are going to start our house and im gonna finalize the layout i made before so i can send it to the philippines then they can start with the blueprint stuff, etc....

i love our new speakers! boom boom!!!

logitec 5.1 speakers with subwoofer

super nawawala ako sa sarili ko pag nakafull volume ang "halo" ni beyonce, i love iiittt!!!  what's more, hindi sya mahal... ahahah!

new year's wish #12 granted!

because real men don't sparkle

go team jacob.


i hate the word twihard. but i guess, seeing that i'm one of the swooning, ive been bitten by the bug, er, vampire, whatever.

but as much as i love to swoon over edward especially in midnight sun, upon watching the new moon trailer i cannot believe that i'll go over to jacob. he has more expressive eyes, and yes, he is more, um, toned...

im over to team jacob now.

so there, i wasted two hours of today searching for photos, images, and wallpapers of jacob black. i didn't even visited edward cullen's photo gallery. then i put them in a collage and uploaded it in friendster. i would have also changed my ym image if i just didn't love my own pix.

so...





i cannot wait until november.

damn book. i can't put it down!

breaking dawn. currently at page 290/702.


it had never had me gripping a book like this. i honestly didn't want to get out of bed. good thing it's ramadhan and we get off at 2, otherwise ill go crazy in the office waiting to go home and continue reading.

i.am.such.a.dork.


and an idiot. i don't need another fixation! pretty soon i'll never be able to sleep until i have the dvd's, cd's, images, poster, whatever it is i can find....

so much for hating sharie, the twi-hard in the other room.

but when i listened to rob pattinson's never think, i just melted... you know that helpless feeling when you hear a song and you kind of see yourself on a car, driving on a cold night and just listening to that music? dammit, it's making me homesick.

it's just too melancholic. i would probably cry to sleep later.

balance

today i realized that as much as i want to concentrate on one artwork i have to try and switch between three just to keep my boss happy and to get him off my back as much as possible.

it was irritating for him to assume that if i was concentrating on only one artwork then it means im not working hard enough.

the truth is, as a graphic artist, i have to. otherwise the momentum of the design will be gone.

but after six years i started to realize that he will not wake up to the fact that im only human. he thinks of me as a superhero. or maybe more of a magician. and how couldn't he?

i can't blame him for that. not only am i the graphic artist, im also their secretary. their HR. their personal family secretary - and they have 7 members of the family (and growing by the minute). sometimes i get calls at 11pm from his daughter in newcastle UK. or his son in texas. my expertise in the internet seems very helpful to them. plus the fact that im the only one who can put reminders on my phone.

so as i was saying, i started to switch three artworks every 45 minutes - a brochure for their new construction material showroom; a brochure for their (also new) chocolate shop; and 5 requests from a computer shop client.

would you believe it worked? not only did i have three updates for him, i was also able to answer smartly about the progress of our projects. i wish i'd done it sooner, but i know im too stubborn for that.




so speaking of balance, instead of continuing the fourth twilight saga (im still in the bella part), breaking dawn, i decided to check on friendster and my blog. it's hard for me, coz when i start to read it's difficult to stop. i will not sleep, i will delay eating, and i will procrastinate for as long as possible.

and also since i have been asking out loud after finishing the third book "When will Bella finally be a stupid Vampire???"

and every chapter in the fourth delays the answer.


i also watched the movie this afternoon to help me visualize the most exciting part of the fourth book (you know what it is).

robert pattinson is so perfect for that role. it makes me like the visualization of edward cullen more. although i get distracted by kristen's washed out face. jasper is cute too. and 'dr. fang' carlisle would'nt be left behind.

i love the books.




what can i say? im officially cullenized.

photography workshop

the banner on the wall said:

Advanced Digital Photography


okay, i didn't really intend to apply for that.

at first i thought it would be a good idea for francis to join, but since he doesn't want to, i might as well try.

i wanted to take good pictures as long as i remember, i was really annoyed if my targets were photographed without a blurred background (like it was supposed to be focused on them but it ended up having everything clear), or knowing how to use the light correctly, you know, stuff like that.

but i wasn't planning on joining a workshop.

but i thought, this is perfect timing. since jared isn't here yet, i have the time to attend. and of course when i get him back, then im more knowledgable and ill be able to take good photos of him, the kind that you would be proud to hang on your wall, life-sized or even bigger.

so i was excited this morning, even though i slept at 2 reading eclipse.

here are my favorite shots:

(remember though, that i didn't use any automatic feature in bambi's 400d. i really worked hard to get the correct mix of lighting and new settings like aperture, ISO and shutter speed. you will see in my friendster album that most of the time i failed :p )

im sleepy. ill write more about it tomorrow night.

the bookworm crawling inside of me

i am so excited, bambi finally bought me the twilight book package!! i am such a dork :D

actually the first one i have read is new moon, which is the 2nd book, but since i saw the movie of the first book, i was familiar with the story. i just saw in in the living room and read it before we went for our vacation. unfortunately there wasn't enough time so i was left with 5 pages unread. now im going to start from the beginning...

unlike dan brown's books, of which bambi also bought me the 4-book package, i kind of like twilight the movie. maybe because i saw twilight the movie first. i have read the four books from dan brown and when the da vinci movie was released, i couldn't stand watching it because i hated the way the movie was going. maybe because i really liked the book and i was disappointed that the movie was slightly far from what i've read. i only watched 7 minutes of it.

that was not a problem with me with harry potter, with books from 1 to 7 still occasionally picked up when we miss reading about hogwarts. although the movies were a little different, those were still excellent movies. especially the 6th... which is the one with the nearest movie-to-book percentage.

along with these series i also had bob ong's books, although my sister borrowed it and brought all of it home. those were really good reads, my favorite is the first one (abnkkbsnplako?!?) i didn't read his last publication, though... (mac•art•hur). i felt that it was so dramatic and i was scared of breaking down...


anyways i was also perusing the bookstore for other books when i saw these coffee booklets and i was so touched by the contents, when i showed them to bambi and tried to read one passage, i was not able to finish it because i quickly walked away from him when i couldn't fight the tears anymore... (*emo mode daw ba sa bookshop?*)




some passages:

"if i have a monument in this world, it is my son." -maya angelou

"when nothing's gone right all day.. it only needs the rush of small feet pounding down the path, a leap, arms locked around about you, a grin, a pouring out of the day's news - and everything goes your way." -pam brown

"a son can be guaranteed to astound you all through his life - astound, bewilder, unnerve, flabbergast... you name it. he'll do it." -charlotte gray

"sons fling themselves. they bounce, bump, duck, dive, slide, paddle, fidget - and fall. then they pick themselves up and do it all again." -pam brown

"he makes me laugh and i feel through him that the world can be a wonderful place." -peter howarth

"... whatever sense of hurt or injustice a man may hold, he knows, in the depths of his soul, that his mother is waiting always for his return." -dame enid lyons


and the ones that made me cry:

"there are many things i would do for my friends - but there are limits. with my son there are no limits. i would give my money, my time, the proverbial right arm. and the wonder is that he never asks, he never pushes. and the nicest thing is that i know he feels just that way about me." -helen exley

"a son leaves home and there's a gap in one's life that will never completely close." -helen thomson

i really miss jared...

my current wishlist

don't you just have that list, maybe saved on your mobile phone's draft folder or a scratch of paper somewhere in your wallet about the things that you would buy if you have a lot of money? sigh...


so im compiling my wishlist today in preparation for christmas because i'd like to have my presents early... don't you?




Number 1 (with capital letter N!): The Imac..

omg i almost fainted and played dead on the floor when i was looking at this one night (my most favorite way to surf is to lie on my stomach on the floor) ... it is totally awesome! im already awed by macs since 2003 and never got back to pc again but they still continue to taunt me. i am actually tempted everytime they release a new one because, if you look at their site, who wouldn't be? i have g4 at the office in 2003, and at 2005 bambi bought me my ibook, and last 2007 he bought my super-loved macbook. didn't you notice the 2-year difference? didn't you also notice that it is 2009 already? i am really waiting for santa to pass by apple centre one of these days... ;)





No. 2: Hello Kitty flip phone

hihi... just look at the photo and tell me why i shouldn't get this!!













No. 3: More bags

i promise to be a nice person if i can just have this bag. tell me why does the things that i want is in hongkong???











No. 4: Hello Kitty wallet

WHY? Why does the bidding of this wallet end today??? i have noticed that all the stuff i want on ebay ends sooner than my salary? is there any scientific expanation for this???










No. 5: Lacoste Love of Pink

this is probably the most unnecessary thing that i need, since i have 4 scents to choose from every morning: escada ocean lounge, be givenchy, a green tea inspired perfume from bench, the super-fresh-im-just-gonna-hang-out-today baby's breath, and some samples from sephora, but i just can't get it out of my head. don't you have that nagging feeling about some things too?










i think i should only visit ebay every first week of the month... from now on i'll ban it on my safari once the date is past fifteen!

la casa de mis sueños

my dream house, i designed it in sweet home 3d, a free software you can download to design your house, a long time ago. it's on the third floor, because the first floor's the garage, ill have the 2nd floor rented but i want them to have their own stairs, and the third is ours.

since we already have a place of our own, we just have to save for the actual building... i think 2 years is enough for that.



everytime i miss jared i just think about this house. this is what makes me stay here and save up. by the time jared's ready for school i will be in manila and i will send him everyday and pick him up, with matching umbrella.



*emo*

my favorite things!

in keeping up with each blogger's universal solemn promise to brag, here is a list of material things that keeps me happy in this sad and lonely world :)

syempre mawawala ba ang macbook ko? anjan ang lahat - pictures, music, movies, at videos ni jared since nasa tyan ko pa sya at naglilikot...









my trusted n95. like my macbook, it's super multi-tasking. phone, camera, video, karaoke mp4s, music, office files for quick checkings... but most importantly it's my alarm clock :D







green eyeshadow! kase kahit malungkot ka, maganda ka pag may green eyeshadow ka hehe!








the chosen ones. my favorite kikay stuff: bare escentuals foundation and mineral veil, nivea 9hr lipstick, bodyshop lipNcheek stain, hello kitty contact lens case, makeup brushes, perfumes, pink nailpolish, magiff buff, konads, bodyshop retractable blush brush, mascara and eyelash curler. if only i use a bigger bag...





white eyeliner...

i call them my polish therapy... kase when im depressed pumipili ako ng bright colors :)







the mask : my bare escentuals foundation and veil, with rev-er upper as my primer / bodyshop and bare escentuals face brush & concealer brush.




syempre my boys. mawala na ang lahat wag lang sila!









what are your favorite things?