It's been almost two years since I've graduated, and I've been in a slump for awhile, but I can now honestly say that I'm happy. :-) Career-wise, it's still baby steps, but I think I'm actually getting somewhere, and I really hope this makes it. Just keep doing what you're doing... always.

I just want to be surrounded by beautiful things again. I want to keep being a geek about things I love, and I want to keep immersing myself in what interests me.

I turned 23 this past Friday, and though I usually mark my age changing days with long Livejournal entries about how I've grown, changed, learned a lot, matured, etc., I really don't know how different I am from myself last year. I'm still sort of the same. I must admit, at some point, I really felt like I had plateau-ed, and that feeling is NOT good at all. I want to move on to the next step pretty soon, and I hope I get to in the next year and what's left of this one. This year felt like one big transition, so I'm hoping it does mean there's something else out there for me. =)

Anyway, to "mark" my 23rd year of life, I just want to enumerate a bunch of things that happened to me on the fruitful weekend that will soon come to a close.

♥ A spontaneous birthday greeting with King, Mara, Gino and Marco! Plus yummy Krispy Kreme donuts and wine! Hahaha! No rumbly in my tummy after that so it was all good!

♥ A really nice balloons and half-fail bubbles photoshoot with Mackie and Marco! It was a lot of fun, even if the bubbles were kinda fail -- We'll conquer them next time!! Plus, kids at the park would gather around us and see what we were doing. They were adorable!

♥ A YUMMY dinner in Chelsea!

♥ A somewhat surprise! I'm so touched my friends actually made the effort to surprise me! I've never had a surprise EVER, so it was fun even if it was somewhat spoiled for me. Hahaha! =)

♥ Baked cookies and a nice dinner with the my boyfriend whom I love so much! Hehehe How gross. But really, I'm very happy and I know I'm very blessed to be able to say that I'm 23 and in love. Marco is one of the weirdest people I've ever met hahahaha! But weird in a way that I somewhat understand, and that I find so adorable. HAHAHA CHEESE! Okay, I'll stop now. Hahahaha!

I'm going to admit that I thought I would be much more successful career-wise by the time I turned 23. I guess I thought it would be easy, and that I would be good at whatever I did. And I guess that's what happened -- I eased in to my job pretty quickly and I tried my best at it. I'm just not sure if I'm exactly in the place in my life I thought I would be, but I'd like to go there. I'd like to go to that place in my head that I imagined I would already be in. ♥

Things to remember about myself nowadays:
1 - Just turned 23 and spent the whole weekend celebrating!
2 - Oversleeping. Or rather, my body clock is terribly off.
3 - Wants to go shopping! Even if I have so many clothes na.
4 - Hopes for new things in the next year. =)
5 - Kilig! Hahaha! Just saw the balloon and bubbles pics. And of course, in love. ♥

1 - Jennifer's Body, in concept and idea, is brilliant. A hot teenage girl, the object of all males' affections, literally feeds on them as a result of a supernatural sacrifice gone wrong - by an indie band who wants to make it big and wears eyeliner. But I don't know, somehow it didn't translate on screen...

2 - "It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you're making up all of this. We're all going through this. It's our time at the edge." -- Billy the Kid

And now! To enumerate all the fun things this weekend so as to rid myself of this feeling of ho-hum-ness!

1 - Yes, I was finally able to see Coco Avant Chanel!
2 - And Breakfast Club and Some Kind of Wonderful!
3 - And have a fun window-shopping weekend with Ess and my sister, on separate occasions!
4 - And Cam's birthday on Friday was unlike anytime I've gone out in the recent past -- I felt really young and hip and careless hahahaha.
5 - And hanging out in Toff's just eating and talking with Tels and Gegs was great. =) I always remember how much I miss my friends when I hang out with them again.

Wow, quite fun, but why when I'm alone, this ho-hum feeling takes over?!?! Bleh.

I honestly couldn't say the same for mine.

When I was in my most depressed state at the beginning of the year, I would force myself to list down things that made me happy throughout the day. Stupid things like "saw a baby dressed as a puppy in the mall," and "saleslady gave me a shopping cart." These past two days have been so heavy for me, I can't even explain why and I guess that's the main reason I've been so frustrated -- all this anxiety and nowhere to direct the energy. Today, I force myself to recall the high points of the day, and really now, maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

1 - PRETTY IN PINK! =D I really love Andrew McCarthy, I can only hope we will one day get married and have many beautiful children together. Also, kissing must have been really awkward in the 80's.

2 - My mom gave me a butterscotch fudge brownie!

3 - Wilson Phillips on the radio

4 - Tonight should be the night I finally get to watch Coco Avant Chanel!

Sometimes I wonder if this monster that comes out once a month is not really just hormones but really a part of myself. Maybe PMS gives me an excuse to let it out, with all my frustrations piled up as bullets to shoot everything down. Other times, I can only hope that I'm actually a loving, sunshine-y person that doesn't sweat the small stuff and that doesn't cry over spilled milk. Who knows.

Re: Elections. Ugh, I hate politics! But really, how the fuck can Erap run again!?! My mom (and a lot of people) keep saying, "A country deserves the government it has." But I think we're at a time, and a perfect position right now to turn our luck around. Sure, this country is filled with people who follow 'Filipino time,' and inefficient offices, and salesladies who don't know what they're selling, and corrupt government officials, but that's just so last decade. I think it's about time we grew the fuck up.

The Museo Thyssen-Bornemiza was easily my favorite museum in Spain! It was so beautiful inside!!! I wish I had that art collection! I could stay in rooms M and K forever, seriously! I saw a Van Gogh for the first time in person -- as well as a Monet, Manet, Renoir -- I love impressionists!!! Their work is so pretty! It was the first time I really understood sitting in front of art and being completely enthralled by it. I actually sat in the rooms and just stared -- so beautiful! The colors, the strokes... I even saw a Hopper and a Pollock! I was so starstruck! It was amazing. If I lived in Madrid, I'd go there on my birthday every year, just to those rooms with my favorite paintings. In the Prado, I started the habit of writing down paintings I liked, and buying postcards of them in the souvenir shops. Oh my, in the Thyssen, I ran out of paper to write on, and I bought like 20 postcards!! I loved it so much! I even went back the next day for another round of impressionist art. There really IS so much beauty in the world. =D

Oh, and in the picture, I'm of course outside, and posing with the banners of the temporary Matisse exhibit. It was so beautiful as well. =)

On my sister's birthday, she had some school requirement to attend to in Alcala. So my mom and I went to Madrid for the day to see the Prado Museum, their national museum and a huge ass building filled with classical art I've only read about in books. We got audio guides (the best invention for tourists like me who love to take their time and sightsee alone!), and went through as much as we could. My mom gave up at 2pm, but she and Tita Celia waited for me until I was satisfied with the number of paintings I had covered. There are SO MANY paintings, by such famous artists like Raphael, Goya, Boticelli, and Diego Velasquez, people I've only ever read about in history books and literature. Being here really made me feel like I was a part of the world, despite my really being from a small country that's barely ever mentioned in the news, that barely has anything in their own National Museum.

We were also able to see the Joaquin Sorolla exhibit that was on temporary loan to the museum - it was so beautiful! He paints fabric and light with so much texture, he really chooses when a plain blue ocean, plain white dress, or plain pink cloth is hit so starkly by shadows and peepholes of light. I loved so many paintings of his! My favorite is the one I'm standing in front of at the entrance - a painting of his wife and daughter. I really love stark lighting -- it's one of the characteristics of a photograph that would attract me to it most -- and Sorolla's paintings have that, but at the same time, feel "classic" also in a way.



My mom and Tita Celia outside the Prado, at another Sorolla exhibit giant poster. =)

On our first day in Madrid, my mom and Tita Celia took care of Morocco travel arrangements and left me and my sister to go around. So I took her to the Museo del Traje (Costume Museum!) in the outskirts of the city. It was kinda creepy! When we walked out of the train station nearest to it, that part of the city was so isolated. It was siesta time after all. Inside the museum, I couldn't take any pictures, but trust me, it was beautiful! They really displayed all the collections of clothes they gathered from ancient Spanish history. It was like walking into a period piece! Kind of a creepy one, too. They had the clothes stand up on headless mannequins, and it looked kinda creepy... They also had a Balenciaga exhibit (since he's Spanish! How exciting!)!! =D I really liked this museum because it was well-kept despite its obvious low turnout in audience, and it was something interesting for someone like me (who deals with costumes and design on almost a daily basis) to go to!

Some reminders from and for life:

1 - Stop being so competitive.

2 - Don't sweat the small stuff. You know, like you ALWAYS do.

3 - Just don't force the issue. If it works, it works out... if it's not meant to be, it won't happen.

Sometimes, I'm caught between thinking "these are my flaws, I should work towards minimizing their effect in my life, and how to subdue them, and I should talk about them to people I'm close to, and see what we can do to improve, etc." and "who cares? This is who I am and I shouldn't apologize for it. Deal with me the way I am. It's not like I'm ever going to be NOT competitive or NOT obsessive. So I should just embrace it and everyone else can just shove it."

So now I don't know. I know what I'm being asked for would probably be for my betterment as a person coexisting with other human beings in this world, I'm just too stubborn to believe it. I want to still be a brat and get my way by making a sour face and have people baby me all the time. But no. =( Other things in life are telling me it's time to grow up even when I want to tell them to shove it.

I still want to be a brat!!!! What's the big deal anyway about being one? Why can't you just give me what I want?!?! WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?!?!?!?!!

Walking around the house yesterday, it was hard to believe that I'm already lucky. I know in the end that they're just THINGS, and all THINGS can be replaced, but at the same time, nothing can ever replace what that room meant to me. My props and costumes and all my arts and crafts materials - every button, every needle, every zipper, every small bottle of poster paint, every paintbrush whether for food styling or painting.. even chroma blue backing that doesn't even belong to me. Until now, I don't think I really know or realize what I've lost, but from the looks of it, it's everything.

I guess I always imagined what this day would be like - the great purging of material things. What it would be like to just LET GO of the storage of things that felt like a weight upon my shoulders for about a year. Well here it is, the day has come and I was far from ready for it. I keep playing the scenes in my head of how I would have saved it if I were home. I always wonder how fast the flood must have really risen since it looked like nothing was spared at all. I'll have the memories of tinysaurs and mixtapes lamps and sewn jackets to keep me going.

Walking around the house today, I know for sure that I'm already lucky. Things are starting to dry up, this house looks more livable than yesterday. It's still sad to remember what it was like before, and to slowly realize bit by bit what it is that I have lost. I still think of what it would be like to have been home to have saved what was really important to me. But I guess there's nothing left to do but clean up what I left behind.

Hay nako. For like 3 years, I've been wanting to cut my hair short, but have always feared having a bad hair day and having no solution to it. This fear has since kept me from EVER getting anything too short =( but I always wondered at the back of my mind what it would be like... so today I did it! =) I cut my hair until my collarbone and I like it! Once again, just like everything I set up in my mind - it really wasn't such a big deal. Hahaha.

For some reason, this was saved in my email drafts for over a year! Dated June 2, 2008. =)

( Vanessa Balao: vicky would you convert to judaism for shia? )

If my old self came up to me right now and gave me some advice about mistakes I'd be making, and about this life in general, she'd remind me about a LOT of things... one thing I know for sure she'd say is that not everything in life is a competition. That I should just LET GO of stupid things. That I should stop being so petty! And that it really IS useless crying over spilled milk. But really... the only person I'm competing with is myself, blah blah blah. Hehehe. I still can't believe that now, I'm such a competitive person! Uggh.

Home! Hahaha. I'm finally home after a month of travel. I have to say that I felt very indulgent staying away for so long, and for no real purpose but to shop and tour. Tour and shop pala, culture comes first hehehe. It's been a great month, and I love all the places I went to (maybe Morocco was too much of a disaster, but my pictures have only recorded the nice parts! Hehe)... Now there's only one place left to be in and that's home, one thing left to do and that's work, knowing there are so many other places to go to, in this world. =)

My mom took me to Spain these past two weeks, and I can say that this has been one of the best trips of my life. I've always felt very small in the world. I quietly passed my tests, and I quietly graduated, and I quietly eased into a job, and I still try to quietly fulfill it (hahaha as much as possible, but let's face it, it's a stressful world!). But visiting all these places and seeing objects and paintings that were such a part of history is so empowering. I saw "The Garden of Earhly Delights," a painting I had only read about in a passage in English in college. I saw actual works by Rafael!! Someone who to me was just a name in a history book, just an important figure in art that I didn't understand. And there it was, a painting he made, right in front of me, with my audioguide to my ear and my mom bustling about the same room, looking at the paintings she liked as well. Here, I really feel like I'm part of the world, and not just a quiet passerby. Even with watching the Grand Prix, or watching abull fight, things I only read about or saw on TV... seeing sights that I only read about online. I really feel like I'm taking part in the world, even if I haven't made a sound.

Today, I went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemiza for the second day in a row. It was the first time I entered a museum to really just look at the paintings, and sit there for a long time and understand why it's "soothing" or "relaxing" hahaha like they say in the audioguides, or like people describe in the movies. I could stay in rooms M and K of that museum forever! Well, maybe not.. hahaha but for a really long time... or I'd really just like to have that art in my house when I grow up! hahahahaha!

And tomorrow, we leave my sister (oops, forgot to mention that we're here to drop her off! hahaha!), and we go to Barcelona. I'll never forget these two weeks - from a great Grand Prix experience in Valencia, to the half disaster-half fun of Morocco, to this great final week in Madrid. I just love feeling like a part of the world, and feeling like I'm participating in its events and culture...I go back home in one week, and I can honestly say I'm half excited - there are people I miss very much!, and half very afraid (as usual!). I can't really say how "employed" I am, I'm so broke out of my mind (OMG but if I'm not mistaken, Kada Kwento pay day should have happened already!!!!!!!), and there is no other plan for the future! But I guess that's what this trip was for. I am thankful for every moment, every day that I'm here, and for this next week to come.

No "end/conclusion" yet cos I still have that one week left in this trip and I'll hold on to it for as much as I can!!! Hahaha! =)

I'm scared!! It'll just be my mom and me and my sister... and we might kill each other! Hehehe... No Gisella pa... We'll definitely want to kill each other!! Hahahaha!

I can't remember what Sundays were like before anymore. When I went to school, it was really a day I would just go to the mall, catch a movie with my siblings or family, shop a bit. Now that I'm "working," it's sometimes (or most of the time hahaha you decide) a shooting day. I remember craving for a peaceful Sunday this time last year. I just wanted a Sunday with my family again. Now though, I can't figure out what to do today. It's like I forgot, or got left behind or something... Like my family moved on from what we'd usually do, but I still miss that stuff. Maybe cos it's their "rest day" and my rest days are weekdays... Oh well... hehehe =) I don't know what to do today, and it's always a funny feeling on Sundays now.

1 - I'm definitely guilty of wanting to grow up too fast. When I was a kid, I couldn't wait until I graduated, then I could go out every night, even if I had work the next day. I couldn't wait til I had no more school and could travel all I wanted.

Now, it's still the same. I still want to be years older and more successful monetarily and more independent than I am. In this one year since I've graduated from school, I have to say that I'm in way too much of a hurry to be successful. I guess (and I realized this today), that because in high school and college, changes came by so fast. I was always changing classes, in new experiences, making new friends, finding new creative media to express myself, learning new things (like Philosophy hahaha! which FUCKED ME UP). And now, I want that same rate of change in my life. High school and college were such times of change and transition that every semester was a different story. And now, I feel like after one year, I HAVE TO have changed or learned something new or reinvented my life, just as I had before. But I guess it's called, "early twenties" for a reason. It's an entire klump of experiences that might only make sense when I look back at them when I'm older. It means I have to wait for much longer than just one short year for life to change.

I always thought I was doing something very righteous or valuable in pursuing my "dream" of being in production/film, but I have to accept that success won't come to me one year after starting this career. I want to always improve, of course, but... I have to pay my dues as well. I don't know if that means I will still continue on with this life and pursue my "dream," or allow myself to learn other things and be open to those. My dream just isn't looking as sure as I knew I wanted it to be in my life only one short year ago.

( On dreams, movies, and more things that were here before me, and that will exist long after I'm gone. )

5 - It's fun to write after not thinking in this way in so long. =) Always. =)

I watched Cinemalaya the whole week this week, and attended the awards night just awhile ago. One of the movies, Last Supper No. 3 (which won Best Film!), was a movie about a PD who lost a prop and was in debt and in a civil case for more than a year! Haha Anyway, the point is the movie was about a PD haha and even if the movie wasn't centered around prepping for a shoot, it was just fucking hilarious seeing my life onscreen! From having options for props, and oiling food props so they'll be shiny, and fittings, and piles of random junk and clothes and shit in my room and in my garage! That last shot -- looks like my garage! Hahaha! It was just very touching and funny... to see my life onscreen.. hahaha! I really appreciated the movie for that... and it was good too of course, it won. =)