caterpillar talk

i couldn’t seem to finish the handprint i was trying to paint. my motivation to do so went on vacation, i think.

i’d like to blame those two eeny weeny whitish worms i saw crawling on my ultra-sweet slice of mango for that bit. who knows, maybe i accidentally ingested one of their equally eeny weeny siblings? (yuckkkk. i feel somewhat sick at the mere thought.) i should have been suspicious when i realized that mango tasted way soooo sweet. those worms, although they seemed harmless, must have scared my motivation away.

hence, this. with motivation to finish ‘the handprint’ out of the window, i decided to work on something else — something not completely different, but different enough. i did away with the chinese brush and the watercolor tubes and the sketch pad. instead, i gripped some colored pencils and pulled from the shelf my notebook of poems. now, this.

from time to time, i encounter beautiful words and enchanting lines; and i have this habit of compiling them. i write them down in a notebook, the notebook which i call my notebook of poems.

using the colored pencils, i added something to the notebook — i decorated the pages with my doodles. see?

someday, i’ll finish that handprint. for now, i’m happy to have doodled on the pages of my notebook.

note: click on the images to see the hi-res versions. you may also  click here to view other pages of the notebook.

“Look at this trove, treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?”
– The Little Mermaid

i collect…

books. i love books. i adore good reads. i collect them. i like owning them. i check out book shops even in unlikely nooks and corners just to find the books i want to add to my collection. it’s my dream to have my own library. i already have a mini one. i have 200+ books to date and i’m still keen on acquiring more.

piled up to the ceiling: how come there’s no more space?

lest you think i only stack ‘em up for mere display, let me say for the record that i do read them. see, i like reading. no, not like, love. i love reading. i can forego eating, drinking water, sleeping, and going to the cr when i’m soooo into finishing a good read. i can be so obsessive when it comes to reading and books. i sometimes think that it’s not me who owns my books. it’s probably the other way around — my books own me.

i intend to add more comic books to my collection. i dig those works by filipino graphic book artists. i also want to own those pcij books, too… and more of calvin and hobbes!!!

movies.

they all come with stickers. they’re not pirated.

postage stamps. during my elementary years, i was into philately — collecting stamps. aside from reading, collecting stamps was my way of discovering and appreciating other countries.

i only managed to put a few of them in an album. most of them stamps i kept in envelopes and i still have to mount them. now, there’s something for my to do list. i have to keep that in mind.

i re-discovered my old stamp collection two weeks ago while i was looking for my ’still-missing-in-action’ unicorn cross-stitch pattern.

stationery. i’ve been collecting stationery since grade school. scented ones, colorful ones, simple ones, small ones, big ones, medium-sized ones, those with people and those without, nicely illustrated ones… i have them in various colors, shapes and sizes. i also have a collection of hotel stationery. i keep a lot of them in a stationery holder i designed myself. some of them i already transferred to a clear book for easy viewing.

some of the sheets in this collection are more than 15 years old

even back then, i knew i won’t be writing on them. i only wanted to collect them… and the ones i have in duplicate, i’d be willing to trade with what other stationery collectors have in duplicate — just like what we girls used to do in grade school.

key holders. i dig key holders but since i don’t have many keys to call my own, i don’t usually use most of them. i simply collect them. sometimes, i use them to adorn my bags… but most times, they’re just hidden somewhere. i treasure them because a lot of them are gifts/pasalubong from my friends.

key holders minus the keys

when i left home for my graduate studies, my younger sisters didn’t know what to do with the pile of key holders i left behind so they pushed pins on the wooden panel in the girls’ room and displayed them there.

the ones that are still inside the packs are reserved for future cars, future houses, and future whatever. hehe.

stickers. a lot of the stickers in my collection date back to my elementary years and were given to me by my classmates and friends.

what will i do with them? just keep them.

trinkets. dangling earrings and hoop earrings. chokers. necklaces with weird-looking pendants. bracelets and bands. hair accessories. i have those.

the dangling and hoop earrings? i won’t survive wearing them. i simply collect them. no, i’d like to think that i buy them para pang-asar, as one of my friends put it. i prefer wearing simple studs.

candy wrappers. back in college, one of my classmates kept lots of coins in his backpack’s pocket. his bag was always heavy but it was never because of books. it was always because of his coins. as for me, i kept lots of candy wrappers in my backpack’s pocket. they weren’t heavy to carry around but they were really many. kanya-kanyang ka-weirdo-han.

…and you know what? it’s been four years since i left college but the said candy wrappers have not found their way to any of the trash bins yet.

yes, the candy wrappers are still with me. no, not really. they’re inside one of the bags i no longer use. i put them there because, while i no longer want to carry them around, i don’t want to really part with them yet. memories, you know. i figure i’ll make a throw pillow and stuff them candy wrappers in it.

aha, another addition to my to do list.

i also collect unused disposable table napkins from food shops and restos (i usually make my friends sign them — the disposable table napkins, not the shops/restos), letters and greeting cards (even those from people i don’t like), travel brochures (for scrapbooking purposes and future travels), quotes (why do you think i keep posting quotes?), travel tickets (for scrapbooking purposes, too), gift wrappers, art materials (i pile ‘em up first before i put my heart into using them), souvenir shirts (wherever i go, i have to have a shirt from that place), movie/concert tickets (that is if they find their way back into my hands), coins, event IDs/name tags, and colorful socks.

i collect nothing and everything. teddy bears, too.

“There’s no man on earth who doesn’t dream about getting away with a girl he loves.”
– from the K-movie, Windstruck

day 16. unfinished business. a needlework i started in 2003 is still far from being done. a quick timeline check says it’s now 2007.

my poor bubbles. i swear you’ll be whole soon.

day 17. it’s confirmed. i am my cousin b-boy’s favorite reading partner. well, we don’t actually read. all we do is flip through pages of kiddie books and he asks his questions about the illustrations. he is only 1 year and 9 months old but he’s so charming and good at saying “ate inday, unsa ni?,” “ngano man?,” and, whenever he wants to move on to another activity, “ihipos na nato ni, tapos na basa si b-boy.”

day 18. cebu pacific’s one-peso airfare promo is back this year! they’re selling the one-peso tickets from the march 2 to march 8 only. the flight period covered is from june 1 to december 15, 2007. got a destination?

day 19. watching the binibinang pilipinas tv coverage made me realize that the hotel philippine plaza now carries the name sofitel philippine plaza. just last october i found out that the westin philippine plaza dropped westin from its name and put in its place the word hotel. little did i know then that it was to undergo another renaming… or re-branding. from westin to hotel to sofitel. by any other name, it’s that posh hotel you see in the manila bay area.

day 20. attitude makes a woman or a man perfect. my father said that to no one in particular today.

p.s. project 365: the fourth five covers the period 02.28.07-03.04.07. future updates on this project will be posted here.

” When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said,
‘You mean they forget?’ “
–Howard Ikemoto

about the images: each of the ten pieces was done on 9” x 12” paper. half of them were my output while i was still staying away from home, the other half were done after i got back.

“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
– Albert Einstein

let me begin this post with recent manifestations of my halfwit-ty tendencies:

“i deserve to dream because i sleep a lot.”

“i like you because i like me.”

…at, dear people, ito ang pinakamatindi…

“yung bata ngang kinain ng buwaya di natin pinatay, yung buwaya pa kaya?”

i was not drunk when i said that, bangag lang talaga.

weeeeeee!!! i’m turning 24 soon.

at 23, i feel quite accomplished yet i still desire to do more. there’s still a lot to conquer out there and, well, things have just begun for me, so to speak.

yesterday, i finally saw the hard-bound form of my master’s thesis and i felt proud of myself. i also went out last night for another let’s paint session and, yes, i also felt proud of myself because of that.

i chose a bigger block of plaster to paint on this time. pictures? sure i’ll be sharing them with you all soon, let me just find the time to transfer the photo files from my phone to the computer. for now, i’ll just share that the block had a fruity design. the table of fruits reminded me of my first few successful painting sessions with my art mentor back in 1989 — a long, long time ago. i managed to transform the all-white block into something very colorful and yummy to the eyes!

11.27.06 update: transformation of my new block

haaay, i used to draw and paint a lot when i was still a wee youngling (as if i really went through that phase of being oh-soooooo wee, hehe). my mother saw my fascination for the colors and clear interest in doing art during my early years, so she enrolled me in a summer art workshop. the school year after that and during the years that followed, i continued pursuing my art by spending a lot of my after-school time with an art mentor. i was made to join art contests and it couldn’t be helped that i emerged champion in some (haha, ang angas ba?). i could say that the highlight of my grade school years was my romance with art. i liked going up the school stage during recognition ceremonies because of the artist of the year award. belonging to the top 5 of the class was just another reward.

art unfortunately took the backseat during my high school years. don’t ask me why, it just happened. my ventures into visual arts around that time only surfaced in the form of projects and as hastily-drawn backgrounds for our plays. i ceased showing up at my mentor’s place; i also ceased being inspired enough to join art competitions. looking back, it was a pity that i pursued other (probably lesser?) interests. i don’t know, maybe it’s just how things were meant to be.

when i got out from college, i told myself i’d get back to my art. my attempts in that direction have not really been full-hearted, however. sure, i’ve gone back to having art outputs but they only come at intervals of several months… and most often, i’m not quite satisfied with them. but then maybe i’m just expecting from myself too much.

it’s been awhile since i last painted and actually enjoyed my painting output. so now here’s hoping you would understand just how happy i felt when i saw how my latest painting session turned out. heaven. i really felt proud.

you know what’s the idea playing in my mind? i’d love to mentor kids to paint during our common spare time… for free! i imagine it would be fun and really rewarding!

back to my turning 24. soon.

i’m sure one of the things that would come to my close friends’ minds when they come across this article would be somewhere along these lines:

“you’re turning 24! didn’t you say you’re getting married at 24??!
so what now???”

haaaay. that’s one dream of mine that i knew will go pffft but dreamt of, nevertheless. dreaming is free, right? dreaming is free alright but reality has a price. i can’t even completely take care of myself. can any other excuse top that? haha, do i hear you mumbling “excuses! excuses!”?

speaking of dreams, there’s another dream that will not be made real.

didn’t jory, sealdi, and i plan on reaching batanes before we turn 24? here’s the update: jory and sealdi already turned 24, jory is in new york now, and i’m soon turning 24 but WE haven’t gone to batanes!!! i was hoping i could have that “batanes before my 24th birthday” dream — batanes being my dream destination and all — but… i just know that current circumstances won’t permit me. a trip to batanes would cost me more than what i can currently afford. plus, my time’s being eaten up by things that i still have to deal with. there will surely be another time. as my travel buddy would say, ‘timing is everything’. aight, timing is important — that’s my take on timing, by the way.

i feel i’m starting to be a little more responsible now. with that, i also get to realize that i have so many fears, after all. but i don’t wanna discuss my fears with y’all now. not a lot of people are privy to them and most, i plan to keep only to myself… for now.

oh, i’ve been checking out cars lately. i’ve been thinking of owning them EVENTHOUGH I DON’T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY ANY OF THEM AND I DON’T DRIVE. it’s just that they’re my new idea of toys. gowsh, what’s happening to me? oh well. oh well. oh well!