Sunday, March 30, 2008

Eden Valerie

















About two weekends ago, I had a "phot
o shoot" with the cute-as-a-button Eden Valerie Sestoso, who will be christened this coming Sunday (April 6). The photos are for her baptismal invitation cards (all 50 of them). Eden is the second daughter of local reporter Edmund Sestoso and his wife Lourdes.

I chose to take the shots at the Freedom Park since the colors there would make a great backdrop for the photos. And I wasn't dis
appointed- the greens and the blues really gave an energetic pop to the shots. But of course I had to digitally tweak the photos at Photoshop and Paintshop to pull in the highlights and give the pics a boost (Thank you Lord for Photoshop Actions! :-)

Eden was a bit camera shy and kept running away from me but soon as she got comfortable with me (and the camera that I kept pushing in her face) she was soon her normal, cutesy self. However, it was a bit hard convincing her to smile for the cam!

I whipped up two designs for her:



































I picked pink, blue and green as the color palette for the two designs, as the colors are whimsical and fun. Edmund chose the vertical (landscape) layout and upon seeing the other design, he decided to turn it into a tarpaulin (banner) which would be hung at the baptismal's reception venue. I just love designing for kids' and babies' parties. It's fun (although sometimes a wee frustrating but in a fun way) to take their photos, plus it's so easy to decide on a color palette for them.

The designs in progress:

















I used Corel Paintshop to pull in the greens and the highlights and then Photoshop to give the photos an over-all boost. (sorry for the crappy photo, I took it with my phonecam which only has a 2-megapixel
resolution. I know, I know, I should have taken a screenshot instead.)This is the part I hate! Cutting them to size, and in this case, all 50 cards. I'm trying to develop an easier "system" of cutting the cards, but so far, I'm cutting them one by one. And notice my "jurassic" paper cutter? It may be almost antique, but it's sturdy and reliable.
Tadaa! The end-result is certainly worth the tiresome cutting. Draining, yes., but I love doing this stuff.

Be well people!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Drama!

I had so much drama today. I once remarked that nothing interesting ever happens to me, that my life is too boring to be blogged. What was I thinking?? In fact, so much has happened to me these past weeks but I never had the time to sit down and blog about it. So much to write about, so little time! I never thought that would happen to me!

Today's drama stemmed from the stir caused by a news item I wrote last week. To cut it short, a police officer here somehow landed in hot waters because of what I wrote. I learned from one journalist that the said police officer was told by the local court to explain herself or else be cited for contempt of court. Wow, all this drama just because of one news item.

However, it wasn't my fault as I based my report on a very reliable report released by the Capitol. This is a trustworthy source, no doubt about it. There was no malice involved in the "mix-up," just pure honest mistake, I guess. The kind that can happen to any journalist. The kind that can happen to me.

Every time I release a news item, I always have this fear that somehow I made a mistake somewhere, or misqouted someone, or have all my facts mixed up. I always feel this way, without fail, every Thursday (the day I release all my press releases to all media outlets). So this fear - bordering on paranoia, I admit - pushes me to review my reports once, twice, thrice until I look at the clock and realize I'm just minutes away from my self-imposed deadline.

I've already had some reporters complain to me about this. Yes, my press releases are much awaited by the local press. As much as I would like to say that this is because because I come up with the most newsworthy items, but the truth is most of the local media just don't have much material for their broadcasts or newspapers. So they need as many news items as they can get.

So what did I learn from today's drama? That I'd rather be late in releasing my news items than be sorry. Seeing that one news item can raise so much furor, I can't be too careful enough.

Another lesson learned- always, always attribute statements, especially when it involves sensitive matters. Let's just say that if I had not properly cited my source in the said controversial news item I wrote, then it would be me in hot waters.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Power problems


















I will never take electricity for granted ever again.

As I write this, the power just came back and I immediately plugged in my laptop and cellphone to take advantage of the electricity. Power has been on and off throughout today, and it's possible that there will be another brownout tonight.

It all started yesterday, at about 4:01 p.m., when the power went out all over the city (I later learned that it went out in all areas covered by the electric cooperative NORECO 2). It didn't bother me that much at that time as I thought it will go back before nightfall. However, dinnertime came and still blackness covered the city. By 9:00, I couldn't stand it. We are in the midst of summertime here in the Philippines and to have no electricity is simply unacceptable! By 10:00 I seriously considered dragging my parents to a nearby hotel where there's a generator to check in for the night. It was that hot. But I know my parents wouldn't go for it. They opted to sleep at the living room where it's cooler.

Throughout the day today, electricity was on and off. It turns out that the
50MVA transformer at the Amlan Substation - which provides power to the areas covered by the electric cooperative NORECO 2- had an "excessive oil leakage" and they had to be placed on emergency shutdown at around 4:01 pm yesterday (the time when $the brownout started).

For the meantime, TRANSCO is temporarily feeding power to NORECO 2 through their 30MVA transformer. Since this is a smaller transformer, NORECO 2 is resorting to power rationing by rotating brownouts in its coverage areas. The TRANSCO management promised that if no major damage is found on the leaking transformer, power will be normalized by tonight. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

It's no joke to have no electricity, especially during hot summer days. Aside from the heat, I realize now how unproductive my day would be without electricity. Today, at work, I had to transcribe my news by long hand- not easy since I am already used to transcribing it directly to the computer. Writing in longhand feels so strange and awkward for me now. Almost 99% of the stuff I do at work involves the computer, so what can I do if there's no power? Sigh. It's worse at night. No TV, no light, no electric fan, no Internet - I feel cut off from the rest of the world.

But of course, the experience got me thinking too. As I was lying in bed last night, I suddenly realized how quiet it was. So quiet but strangely, I can hear the kids next door laughing, dogs barking somewhere, people talking, a door slamming- the sounds of life at night that gets drowned by the hum of electricity. Hearing them felt strangely comforting, like a lullaby. This must be what people before heard at nighttime, back in the days before Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity. No wonder people back then lived longer lives- they slept better.



Thursday, March 20, 2008

Black Saturday (literally)

It's going to be a loooong day tomorrow. Brownout the whole day (again)! Don't blame NORECO 2 for this one, as they said that it's TRANSCO that's scheduled to do some power fixes tomorrow.

Imagine this: Brownout + Saturday + Philippine summer= unbearable!

So tomorrow, my parents and I have already planned out what we're going to do to make the day go by fast. We plan to wake up at 6:00 am, go walking/jogging at the Rizal Boulevard then breakfast at Jollibee's. Afterwards, more walking around the city, taking photos, then straight to Jo's By The Sea at Sibulan for lunch. We haven't been there yet and my Dad has been wanting to go there for some time now.

Hopefully tomorrow will be bearable, despite the heat and everything. It will be a fitting way to observe Holy Saturday though, as this is the day that Jesus, as man, was dead. So really, there's a lot to look forward to come Easter Sunday: God has risen and the power will be back! :-)

Be well!

Yummy theme

Now, isn't this simply yummy? My super yummy-licious template is from the wonderful Gisele Jaquenod whose templates for Blogger (and Wordpress) are simply lovely! If you visit her website, you will know what I mean.

I am one of those people who place high marks on packaging. I simply can't stand a boring design. I have tweaked this blog's design for like..oh I don't know, a hundred times maybe. In fact, chances are high when you visit my blog next week, it will sport another new theme! I have relentlessly searched for a blog design that fits what I want. I like it clean. I like it whimsical. I like it stylish and chic. I don't want a three or four-column layout. I want one which will put my writing and photos on the spotlight. I want a layout that breathes and doesn't stifle my words and photos. I want one that's minimalistic with a pop of color.

So far, this birdie theme from Giesele Jaquenod fits what I'm looking for. With a design like this, I'm simply inspired to keep writing! It reflects the impulsiveness that I have a tendency for, and my love for pink and chocolates ;-).


Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Lenten in Boracay?

For most Filipinos and foreign tourists, all roads lead to Boracay island during Lenten season. The Holy Week is considered a peak season for tourist traffic in Boracay. I really don't know why a lot of people choose to spend Holy Week- a period for prayer and penitence- at a place where acts of penance would be the last thing on your mind.

As a premiere tourist spot in the Philippines and a popular travel destination among international tourists, Boracay is where you go if you wish to do some serious partying and tanning. The whole island is hopping and throbbing, especially during Lenten season when thousands flock to the island seeking a blast and expecting to drown themselves in balmy, tropical parties.

Now, I don't wish to sound righteous. I'm just mystified by the whole thing. Isn't Lent a time for fasting (both from food and festivities) and praying? I seriously doubt if you can do that in party central Boracay.

I looked it up at Wikipedia, hoping to find some answers.According to this, it seems that there is a traditional carnival celebration that precedes Lent in many cultures which have become associated with the season of fasting "if only because they are a last opportunity for excess before Lent begins." The Mardi Gras in New Orleans is one of the most famous of these pre-Lenten carnivals. (The West's version of our Holy-Week-in-Boracay activity).

But there is a difference between Mardi Gras and our Holy-Week-in-Boracay. If I understand it correctly, Mardi Gras- which is French for "Fat Tuesday" - occurs the day before Ash Wednesday. It is celebrated on the final day of Carnival which is the three-day period preceding the beginning of Lent- on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday- immediately before Ash Wednesday. However, as far as I know, our Holy-Week-Boracay thing starts as early as Monday or Sunday and continues through Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Friday, Black Saturday, Easter Sunday and even the week after. The bakasyonistas there party from dusk to dawn, all throughout the entire Holy Week.

(There is a question about spending Holy Week in Boracay posted on Yahoo Answers here. The best answer chosen by the Asker is of course the answer that she obviously was seeking in the first place.)

Oh well, different strokes for different folks. Maybe some tourists do go there to repent and reflect, separating themselves from the throng of party-hoppers to stop by at some quaint and quiet local church to pray. Or maybe some people just have the unique ability to be able to go into deep silence and meditation amidst massive crowds of people who work hard and party even harder. Maybe.

Monday, March 17, 2008

I go public. Yay!

Today, I am going to make this blog "public." Yikes! When I started this blog, I fully intended to make it secret and anonymous, just like the other blogs that I started and abandoned a few entries after.

But a blog, especially for writers, is inevitable. To be able to publish articles whenever you feel like it, and for free, is pretty much like how honey must seem to a bee. Simply irresistibly yummy.

What took me a
long time to have my own public blog is due to insecurity, to be frank about it. Until now, after more than a decade of writing news reports, columns, feature stories, etc., I am still insecure about my writing. It's largely because I'm such a perfectionist that everytime I finish a write-up, I feel that I can still do better. Then I get fearful that my article would open me up to public embarrassment, so I chop and slice through my paragraphs again and again- a viciously exhausting cycle that went on for years until I found no pleasure in writing anymore. Writing became stressful for me, when it should have been therapeutic.

So with my being an OC (obsessive-compulsive) on my writing, a public blog should have been the last thing on my mind. But like they say, "face your fear". I want to recapture the sweetness in writing that once trapped me in its honeyed depths, even if it's at the risk of public scrutiny (and humiliation).

Life is, after all, yummy. I have to spread the sweetness around, one post at a time.


So with this post, I cut the ribbon and officially welcome friends, family and strangers alike to this blog. Please feel free to roam around this blog. Knock yourself out :-) And don't be a stranger! Leave some non-violent comments, and come back often.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Manny wins again!

Ang pambansang kamao punched his way to yet another victory today. Pacman never ceases to amaze me, and the rest of the Philippines as well.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Common courtesy is not so common anymore

One of my major pet peeves is when people I'm talking with would send text messages on their cellphone in the middle of our conversation. It's simply rude. It's indirectly having someone else interrupt the conversation. Imagine talking earnestly to somebody and after a cellphone beeps, you find yourself talking to a bent head. A lot of the people I know are guilty of this impoliteness.

Many times I wanted to bring this discourtesy to the guilty person's attention, but I simply don't know how to do it without hurting their feelings. (Sadly, I'm one of those people who would rather suffer in silence just to avoid tension. It's a flaw, I know, and I'm working on it.) I have to actually pinch myself from saying something after the person I was talking with interrupted our conversation to take a call or read a text message.

With Philippines tagged as the texting capital of the world (Filipinos send an average of 200 million text messages daily) mobile phones have only made an already generally rude Pinoy society even ruder. Why do I say that? Just go to any movie house in the Philippines and you will "hear" what I mean. Inside, you can hear a smattering of beeps and rings, and worse, nobody minds anymore! Not to mention during private functions, such as meetings. In all the meetings I attend, everyone is free to tinker with their phones while the meeting is going on. I have yet to attend a meeting where everyone is reminded to either turn off or put on silent mode their phones. Then there are the weddings, funerals, worship services, etc...

I remember back in college, when cellphones were still a new invention, one of my teachers actually answered his phone in the middle of a class lecture. Seriously. He didn't even say 'excuse me' and turn around, which would have been the proper thing to do if he really had to answer his phone. He just fished his phone out of his pocket and answered it right then and there. Geez.

A lot of people seems to think that common courtesy doesn't apply to how one uses the cellphone. Come to think of it, common courtesy is not so common anymore, whether it's cellphone-related or not.

Google yourself


Have you tried to google your name? Out of curiosity, I did a Google search on my full name the other day. Surprisingly, Google found 1,860 webpages bearing my name. More than a thousand? I was expecting probably 20 or more, but certainly nowhere near a thousand. "Wow, I'm all over the web," I thought excitedly.

When I checked out these web pages, most of them were the write-ups I made for the office I work for (my news items posted on our office website). What came as a surprise though was to find my news reports published in other websites that I didn't know about before.

I don't know if I should be outraged at this, as they published it without my permission. But I guess that's the lesser of two evils, as the worse would have been if they posted my articles without crediting me. I'm not too familiar with copyright laws, but according to Wikipedia, US laws mandate that attribution is not required for work in the public domain since the creator has given up ownership of the work.

So I wonder- is our office website considered a public domain? And I have no intention of giving up ownership of my write-ups. Also, since I work for them, who owns the copyright to my news items- me or them? These details were not included in the fine print when I was hired by our office. So far, none of my fellow writers at work have raised this issue.

This, however, doesn't really bother me that much. What, however, does is
that some of the websites that used my reports are commercial sites. Meaning, they make money from publishing news items - my news items, take note - on their sites without explicit permission from me.

Oh, such injustice. Maybe I shouldn't have Googled myself in the first place. Ignorance is bliss, like they say.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

The rest is still unwritten

I'm a writer, but not much of a blogger. I write for a living, but lately, I can't seem to write for pleasure. I am in a rut. In fact I have been in one for a long time now. What it would take for me to claw myself out of this deep rut, I don't know yet.

Well, writers are pretty much like artists, so I guess what I need is inspiration. Where to look for it, alas, is a question with no answer in sight. If only inspiration comes in a bottle or a capsule, or if only one can go to a 'literary doctor' who can write up a prescription to cure the mental block malady, or if only a writer can snatch up a bag o' inspiration from the store shelves...

It's such a depressing way to welcome you to my blog, but please don't let my dreary welcome scare you off. This just goes to show you that I am human, every 5'1" inch of me, prone to the rise and fall of human madness. From this blog, I intend to share- from one human to another- that the rest of our lives remain unwritten, no matter how desolate some days may be.


Unwritten
Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh, oh

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten...

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