I’m not sure if this is a side effect of her medication or underdeveloped frontal lobe, but my younger sister Joyce’s thinking is that of a thirteen-year-old ever since her schizophrenia started. Sometimes it seems like she’s “stuck” being young, and she doesn’t really like doing things a well 22-year-old would usually like to do. She’d rather watch cartoons or play with her PSP console than go out and party.
But even if my sister is sick, she’s actually more thoughtful than a “normal” person would be. She showed her deep appreciation every time I cooked for her by taking out Shantee for a walk for me if I’m too busy or helping me wash the dishes in our kitchen. She even made me a home-made card for my birthday. Last Wednesday when Joyce and our dad were taking out china and glasses out of the moving boxes, she went to my home office and gave me this:
I know, I know. It’s just a mug. And I would appreciate anything my sister gives me—because I know for a fact that it came from the heart. But there’s something more to this mug. I didn’t want to accept it at first, because I knew our late grandma gave it to her and that Lisa Simpson is her favorite character. But Joyce insisted, and said that this mug fit me. I turned the mug and this is what I saw… continue reading
My husband Marc had been covering Shakey’s V-League volleyball games ever since he started his volleyball blog. He’d been successful gathering the “Friendster crowd,” a fan base that you’d probably call “photo-happy.”
Marc often tagged along my dad whenever he covered it for The Philippine Daily Inquirer, and got free training from one of the country’s best sports photographers in the process. Eventually, dad trusted him enough to forward one of his photos to Inquirer’s chief photographer, which gave Marc his first-ever print byline.
That Inquirer stint made Marc cover and take photos of V-League diligently for his blog and as a “standby” just in case Inquirer needed a photo but all of their photographers were busy covering more important things. He was so diligent that sometimes he forgot his work priorities.
Marc’s just one of the amateur photographers who covered V-League diligently and gave the league free online exposure—there are a lot of them out there. Some have blogs like Marc, while other share their photos through their social networking accounts. We bloggers know better than anyone how blogging can “light a fire and keep it going” in Public Relations (PR). Advertisers won’t waste their time and money inviting us to their events if we didn’t. But apparently, the management of Shakey’s V-League didn’t think the free online mileage they’ve been getting was important: Photographers can no longer take photos of their games unless they have a press pass, even if they paid for their own tickets. No one can take photos other than those with press pass, period. continue reading
Just because Ferdz totally lost his power of speech (literally) in the presence of Marimar star Marian Rivera, he’s going to get a free, straight-from-the-heart plug from me! Hehehe :D
“Living by Water” would be Ferdz’s first one-man monochrome photo exhibit, which will be held at the Filipinas Heritage Library from May 12 (that’s today!) to May 27. Do drop by if you have time! I’ll definitely check it out myself one of these days.
Exhibit/ Gallery Schedule:
- May 12 (Opening Night) 6-8 pm
- Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 9am - 6pm
- May 23 9am - 4pm only
Just a few stuff about the exhibit (from Ferdz’s entry)…
I’ve been a regular user of Xoom’s services for more than three years already. I primarily used it to receive money from my offshore freelance and corporate web design clients, but ever since Paypal became fully functional here in the Philippines, I’ve been using it to send money from my Paypal account.
I already tried using Paypal’s withdrawal service. Albeit free of charge (transaction fee is free if it’s more than a certain amount), it took so long to reflect on my account that Marc and I even thought that the money was already floating in space or that some schmuck got lucky and spent our money. No schmuck got lucky (fortunately), but we received the deposit about one and a half months after I initiated the transaction from my Paypal account.
So what we do now to “withdraw” our money from Paypal is through Xoom. From our Paypal account (which is under my name), we send the money to our Xoom account (which is under Marc’s name). There’s a transaction fee to pay, but at least the money gets deposited straight to our BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands) account in a day or two if we made the transaction during a business day. We never had problems with Xoom or Paypal, until last week, that is. continue reading
Sorry guys, I’ve been sick for the past two weeks, I haven’t really been able to do much. So this is going to be a “quickie” post. I have so much backlog in blogging lately, so I figured a short update will do. I’ve been meaning to post a new entry once I’ve finished my new design (I’m already in the coding phase!), but I got sick and some of these things can’t wait anymore.
Yup, I’m still alive—alive and kicking cement and dust off my feet. My family and I just moved in to our new home here in Antipolo. There’s still some major construction going on here, but it’s livable. Dirty, but livable.
Waking up to the sound of hammers and grinders is not pleasant, I can tell you that. I’m already stressed with the move itself (not to mention issues that needed to be polished, my web host problems, and an awfully slow DSL connection—why they even call it “DSL” is beyond me, dial-up is even faster), and all the noise and dust are just not helping. For once in my life, I was actually glad to attend a client meeting—an out-of-town one at that.
Marc and I took the opportunity to relax (even just for the night) in Tagaytay after our meeting. When I really think about it, it’s a bit weird that we had to have a client meeting in the morning just to get a chance to have a “second honeymoon” (thank you, dear client, if it wasn’t for you we probably wouldn’t have the chance to “enjoy” ourselves). But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. And I’m honestly a beggar for rest and relaxation—anything will do. continue reading
The past few days have been a whirlwind of events. It’s overwhelming how things can change in such a short span of time—it’s like you haven’t got time to even think about it. There are a lot of big things happening here at home that I can’t talk about just yet (but I will soon), but there are also some things that I can—one that pertains to a friend and mental illness.
Just a few days ago, I found out that an old friend of mine was starting to display symptoms of a mental illness. I haven’t talked to her myself, but another friend of ours called me in the middle of the night in panic, telling me that something was seriously wrong with our friend already. I resolved to find the contact number of my sister’s psychiatrist (who was pretty good in my opinion… After all, my sister became ok under her care) and pass it on to my friend’s mom—my dad lost it when he accidentally deleted the contact numbers in his mobile phone :P My sister was scheduled for a checkup soon anyway, so I thought, what’s a few days right?
But no, I was wrong. continue reading
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Yesterday marked my blog’s fifth year in existence. I try to make it a point to redesign my theme every time my blog turns a year older, but as usual, I wasn’t able to make my planned release date. Launching a redesign later than planned is becoming a habit already, I might as well accept the fact that I’ll probably never finish a new Kutitots design every 13th of February. So yup, you can expect a new design soon… Really soon! Besides, I’m really getting tired of seeing this mess (the ads are just all over the place)—it’s about time for a new look.
I might be getting a habit out of delaying my blog’s redesign launch date, but one thing’s changed this year. Marc and I broke our stingy and lazy tradition and actually ate dinner at a restaurant on heart’s day. Traffic is usually awful on Valentine’s—lots of couples heading out for a romantic celebration—and that’s something that I could never tolerate. I was never a romantic (nor will I ever be), and braving traffic for the sake of romance is totally not my cup of tea. So what’s different this year? Nothing really, just the fact that the restaurant we went to was just a walking distance from our home, had great food and ambience any artist would really appreciate. continue reading
For me, letting go is probably one of the hardest things a person can do, but should do. Screw me over and I’ll never ever forget what you did. I’ll eventually forgive you, but you can’t expect that things will ever be the same again. I can forgive, but I never forget. It’s just the way I am, and I’ve long accepted that.
But when it comes to material things and other sentimental stuff, it’s a different story. If I can get rid of clutter, I’d get rid of it—not unless the story behind it made such an impact in my life that getting rid of the thing would be an insult to my memory. I’m the exact opposite of my mom when it comes to things… She likes to keep things even if they’re just taking up space and have no use just because they had some sentimental value.
My dad is like me. So are my sister and Marc. And that, makes moving to a new house twice as hard. continue reading
First off, I’d like to apologize to those who have emailed me about wanting to volunteer for the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards Night. Marc and I joined a few travel and photo bloggers last weekend (January 11 to 13) on a sponsored trip to Boracay. Abe was the mastermind of the whole thing, so it really won’t make much of a difference if he was the one you emailed or me :P Let’s just say that strolling on the white sand beaches of Boracay is way, way better than getting cooped up all day answering emails. I made that mistake once in Puerto Galera—I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.
Our trip was sponsored by Microtel Inns & Suites Boracay, in partnership with South East Asian Airlines (SEAIR) and Zuzuni Boutique Hotel & Restaurant. For a comprehensive review of their services, check out my wedding blog. I might eventually do one here in Kutitots, but first allow me to tell you about what happened. Attending blogger meet-ups is one thing, but spending a weekend with a bunch of them is totally different—you just won’t be able to help but notice funny stuff. So… Read on and allow me to spill the beans on the Philippines’ popular travel and photo bloggers!!! continue reading
Family Stuff
