My friends love spontaneity

Heidi My friends have rotten timing. I woke up yesterday and was roped into a photoshoot at an international school in Antipolo. Aside from the fact that I hadn’t had time to prepare (my DSLR’s batteries weren’t charged), the weather wasn’t looking pleasant either.

But I agreed just for the heck of it. We arrived there at 2:30pm and started shooting at around 3:00pm. About thirty minutes into the shoot, it started raining. We brought reflectors, but in the end decided against using them. Since my friends weren’t fussy, we continued shooting in the rain – I had an umbrella so my camera wouldn’t get wet.

It was fun. It’s been a long time since I had done this kind of shoot, so it was refreshing. Plus, working with new “models” is always fun. The weather wasn’t pretty, though, I should have brought compact fluorescent light bulbs. Anyway, the photos are in my Flickr account. The thumbnail on the left is one of the photos from the shoot.

More music

I’ve been listening to some new music lately. I recently found out that Nickel Creek has gone on hiatus and they’ve been working on their own projects so I hurriedly did a search of their music. I was able to download Chris Thile’s albums, as well as Sara Watkins’, and Sean Watkins’ project with Jon Foreman, Fiction Family. I’ve recently discarded my ipods and am relying on my cell phone to be my MP3 player. Toting too many gadgets feels so tedious and burdensome sometimes.

I’ve also started to listen to Bethany Dillon and Francesca Battistelli. There are so many good Christian artists out there – who are still listenable even if you’re not Christian. :)

A Quick One

I’m about to leave for dinner and a movie with the family, so this will be quick.

I feel like redesigning Photocurious. Do you guys have any suggestions pertaining to the color scheme, or arrangement, etc? I just don’t like the current design, but I have no idea how to go about redesigning it. It’s a little frustrating, really.

Anyways, I’m off to see Night at the Museum 2 with my family – I hope it’s good, because it’s what my dad wants to see, and I already got my way when I insisted that I wanted to see Star Trek for a second time. Oh well, it beats looking at discount lingerie. I’ll try to blog about the movie soon.

Also, I think it’s finally time to start working on the Extra section, so suggestions are appreciated. If inspiration doesn’t strike, I’ll probably just scrap that section.

Exercising again

I’ve started making a habit of exercising since I noticed that my stomach isn’t as flat as it used to be. I still have a small waist, and people still think I’m a little girl (haha), but I stopped doing crunches about a month ago – I only have my laziness to blame. So now I’m going to start doing 25 squats and 25 crunches every morning, right after I do my daily devotions.

I’d rather exercise than use Betastax or other fat burners out there. Nothing against them, I just want to do it the hard way. Hopefully, in a few weeks, I’ll be able to see results.

Taxes on book importation, lifted.

Some time ago, I mentioned the Philippine book blockade, an appalling incident in the Philippines where importers were suddenly required to pay a duty for books being imported into the country – a clear violation of the 1950 Florence Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials. I’m happy to say that the taxes on book imports have finally been lifted.

Being a bookworm, I’m happy to hear about this. I was very frustrated when Aja told me about the book blockade a few weeks ago. But anyway, I’d rather not rant anymore, since I’ve done enough ranting to my fellow book lover friends. I’m just happy that I don’t have to rely to my balikbayan friends from overseas to buy books for me, and books won’t cost as much as a Blue Advantage plan anymore.

On a lighter note, I had dinner with my church small group tonight. At the moment, there are only three of us in the group, which is okay, but I hope we increase soon. Maybe at least up to five people. I’m looking forward to finally starting our sessions.

Anyway, I’m off for now. It’s 10:30 and I’d like to sleep early tonight. :)

Stranded

My friend went with me to a Bible study tonight and we got stranded at the mall. Our fault. We knew it was going to rain hard, but we blatantly ignored the weather and stayed for a couple of hours to window shop and hang out at Fruit Magic.

We decided to go home around 7:00PM, after buying weight loss pills for my mom. It was raining so hard, we decided to get a cab home. We spent about an hour trying to hail a cab – we had lots of competition: other shoppers who also decided to take a cab home because of the frightful weather.

I was drenched when I got home. Fortunately, my nanny prepared a hot bath for me since I decided to text my brother as I was going home.

Lazy Sunday

I’m currently at home, contemplating whether to take a nap, play Gundam on the PS2 with my brothers, or blog. I decided to blog.

I’ve just gotten home from church. I was supposed to meet up with my small group leader, but she decided to reschedule and meet up with me tomorrow night instead. So I went with my older brother while he met up with this small group leader, and we both went to get shawarma.

My cat is having fun sleeping in my room. :D He likes making messes though. I woke up this morning with bits of shavings all over my room. He kicked pieces of shaving off his litter box after doing his business. Otherwise, it’s been great.

This computer is starting to become really slow. I think it’s time to consider computer memory upgrades. Oh well. Soon. I am going to go and answer e-mails now. :)

Searching…

I hate it when people reorganize my stuff. I always lose track of where I’ve placed certain items, and results in temper tantrums.

A few weeks ago, our nanny reorganized my things and now I’m missing a couple of books. I’ve looked everywhere for it – rifled through cabinets containing my mom’s weight loss supplements, looked through our camphor chests and even my older brother’s shelves. No luck.

I hope those books surface soon. I really would like to reread them, and I’m very obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my beloved books.

Dinner with friends.

A few days ago my mom and I went to dinner with a few friends. We hadn’t seen these friends for a while now, and we were surprised to find out how many of our other friends and their relatives had passed away without our knowledge.

A lot of people we knew about a decade ago had lost battles with various types of cancer. It was a little scary. My mom then decided to bring up the topic of cervical cancer vaccines and wondered if it would be appropriate to have us vaccinated.

So I guess I’m about to get the shots soon.

Brainstorming and changes

I spent most of last night making sure that my bedroom was cat proof. My parents have finally allowed me to let my cat sleep in my bedroom, mostly because of a rodent problem (for some reason, there’s a lone rodent running around our house and we’re having trouble exterminating it) which resulted in my older brother having anti-tetanus shots and a bandaged index finger. My brother should have listened when he was little and my grandmother told him that rodents find ways to take revenge.

So my room now has a litter box, a cat blanket, and I have to make sure that the curtains (lace) are always drawn, or else they’ll be destroyed. Having my cat in my room is actually fun, though. He knows he’s not allowed on the bed, and stays on his blanket.

Something I neglected to mention the past few weeks is that I’ve switched churches. Adjusting is a little difficult, but I think the switch is for the better. It’s a little hard making new friends, though. I had been with our former church for about three years until we decided to switch, so the meeting new people at church part is a little unfamiliar to me now. I’m optimistic, though – for a change. I’ve signed up for a small group, so I’m pretty sure I’ll start making more friends soon.

On a lighter note, a friend of mine has asked for my help in assembling her modeling portfolio. She wants me to shoot photos for her portfolio. I’m not very familiar with portrait photography, but I’m grabbing the opportunity and I’m enlisting the help of other friends such as Kendrick. Currently thinking of concepts for the shoot, but not anything related to the most effective diet pill. I’m still ironing out the details, but I’m looking forward to it.