weekend at cornell university

So my sister and I visited our brother at Cornell University up in Ithaca this past weekend. It took a 5-hour and 30-minute bus ride to get there, and it was not a pleasant or particularly scenic ride, but it was all worth it as soon as we got off the bus, breathed in the fresh air and hugged our brother who met us at the bus stop in Collegetown. We only really had maybe 27 hours in Ithaca, and we spent maybe 10 hours of that sleeping and wasting away Sunday morning because we were so pooped. I wish I could have taken more pictures, gone around and really enjoyed the beauty of the campus, but for now I guess these random pictures will have to do. We'll be back in May for shoti's graduation anyway, so I can take all the photos I want then!


Duffield Hall at Cornell University (Below)

should i stay or should i go?

I haven't written anything here in a while. The past few weeks have been crazy at work. Of course, my schedule isn't as crazy as other friends here who are in Finance, but being in a creative rut in this industry is hard when you need to produce something beautiful and worthwhile every day. I feel tired, drained and dazed. Nothing I do seems to look good enough anymore.

I don't know if I'm just feeling this way because I'm confused. I'm not sure if I should stay in New York for another couple of years when I get my work visa or just go back home for good in December. On one hand, I love it here. The freedom, the city, the wonder, the job, the experiences. On the other, all the people I love (or should I say most of the people I love, I love my friends here too!) are back home and I feel like my real life doesn't really begin until I go back to Manila. I don't think I will ever know where my life will actually lead me until I go home. It would seem like an easy choice to just up and leave for the Philippines, but something's holding me here. I don't know what it is, but I somehow can't say goodbye to New York just yet.

I wish I didn't have to make the decision myself. I was hoping God would do the decision-making for me. If I get the visa, I stay. If not, I go back. But from the way things are working out, it seems I will have to do the yes or no myself. I feel like I've made a mess of the situation by delaying the thinking I should have been doing two months earlier. Eeeepp. They say you'll just know when it's time for you to go home. But being the indecisive me that I am, I don't think it's going to be that easy for a while... at least I have only one more month left to suffer through this uncertainty. If I don't have an answer by mid-November I should just go home.

my new watch

Woohoo! :) My mom bought me a Glam Rock watch that I absolutely love. I had no idea what Glam Rock was before she mentioned she got me one. She had gone along with my aunt (who loves watches) to purchase a white one and she thought I could use a black one for the fall! Yes, so I could use it for fall here in New York! *laughs* Mama's so cute.



I'm surprised the watch cost so much though considering it isn't as "famous" as, say, Philip Stein. I have to take real good care of it. I've had two watches taken out of commission and needing repairs already this year. (It wasn't my fault though! I have no idea why that Folli Follie supposedly automatic watch just stopped working and how that Toywatch broke in two places at once when I didn't even hit it against anything. Tsk tsk.)

Anyway, my only complaint about this watch is the leather strap is still too stiff and it hurts my wrist a bit. I will have to wear it for the next few weeks to "break it in"! I don't think I've ever done that for a watch, haha, but there's always a first. And I like it anyway, so no complaints. :)

tattoo design (updated!)

Here's a tattoo design I made for a friend. :) I just needed to put this somewhere online so we could show the design to some of our friends before she commits to it! This key design features her initials and the New York skyline.




Update: September 11, 2009

So she finally got her tattoo made at a place called North Star, which is supposedly award-winning, whatever that means in this kind of business. I'm not sure if they have their own version of the Grammys or Oscars. *laughs* But anyway, this is how it turned out! :) So realistic! And it feels gratifying for me to know she likes it! The tattoo artist was proud of his own handiwork too. I think he did an amazing job with the shading and making it look dimensional.

curly hair and a new blazer.

I was bored this afternoon waiting for Derya to come over and pick up Yessa's Electric Zoo ticket which she forgot even after asking "Do I have everything I need with me?" right before she left haha! :) After he picked up the tickets I decided to curl my hair for the heck of it! I haven't had my hair this long in a year and a half so I thought I could play around with it to help me decide if I want to chop it off again or not. (Sorry Marts, I know you hate curly hair, but haha, it was fun to have this hair for a day at least!) :) I think I'm going to keep my hair long through fall, and then we'll see what happens when I go back home to the Philippines in December.



I was amazed that the curls held even after an afternoon spent going to Borders and buying a book, having a tall iced White Chocolate Mocha and a slice of Banana Walnut Bread at Starbucks while reading the newly-purchased The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl and going to Daffy's for some bargain shopping. And I didn't even put any kind of product on my hair! Anyway, tracking back to that blazer I bought. It's a size 6; I was hoping to find a size 4 but it was the only one of its kind I could find, so I got it anyway. It's roomy and androgynous, which is exactly why I couldn't resist. I know I have way too many jackets for my own good, but, oh well! It was $29, that's not too much to pay for a blazer anyhow.



Hmm, this boredom is not very good for my wallet. I keep going out and buying stuff! Tsk tsk. Well, at least I'm not spending AND damaging my liver like I usually used to do on the weekends. At least I get something more than inebriation for my money when I shop!

Tomorrow is going to be a good day though! Biking and then afterwards a picnic at Central Park, woohoo! :) I can't wait! Those are the kinds of days that make me happy I'm in New York. Last night we went to watch a Mets game at Citi Field. I've never seen a baseball game in my life, not even on TV, so it was a novel experience! I must say, it was a pretty relaxing sport to watch. Everyone was just hanging out drinking beer, eating hotdogs (and Shake Shack burgers! I never get tired of them!), and just having a good time. :) I think I enjoyed it more for the atmosphere than the actual sport itself. *smiles*


Citi Field in Queens

boring saturday.

So I woke up at 11 am. Lounged around in my pajamas for a while and then decided to take my shower so I could go out and buy some food. After I showered though I realized I was too lazy to go out so I ended up eating Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter for lunch. I did some Red Mango work, then paid for my cellphone and our electricity and internet bills, then calculated how much Yessa and I owed each other (because we keep putting things on each other's tabs), watched Season 2 Episode 1 of Code Geass, and started looking for apartments online because our lease is up on September 30th. Hay. So it wasn't an extremely uneventful day, but it just wasn't exciting or happy.

Anyway, because I only had cereal for lunch, my stomach started grumbling at around 5:30 pm. I thought I'd wait it out for a bit, but the growls wouldn't stop so I finally gave in at around 7:00 and headed out to Saint's Alp Teahouse for some Chicken Chop and Black Milk Tea (Yum! This was what I was actually craving for more than the food!) I was so worried that my tummy would embarrass me on the jam-packed elevator on the way down! Luckily it kept quiet for at least that minute. It resumed its complaining as soon as I stepped out of the apartment building! *laughs*

So after my 30-minute subway ride and walk to Saint's Alp, I ate dinner (alone) while writing a to-do list on a sheet of paper I brought along. How nerdy and loser-ish. But, I didn't really care. I was with my jumbo mug of Black Milk Tea and everything was all right with the world. *grins*

It was around 8:00 pm when I finished eating and decided I would walk the 45 streets and 6 avenues back to the apartment. I don't know what got into me, but I was wearing comfy sneakers, it was a cool night and I was bored out of my wits. I had nothing better to do with my time (or at least, I had no work that I wanted to do at the moment. I still have some pending work lying around.) So I started on my trek uptown.

After a few stopovers at 1) a vintage clothing store with the coolest booties, 2) Aldo, which now sells these $60 MJ inspired oxfords that Yessa bought last week (love them!) and 3) H&M (where I bumped into Daniel, our production intern) and an hour and a half of walking, I finally arrived back at the apartment! The "cool evening" had disappeared because I had worked myself to a sweat from all the walking. But I must say, I'm pretty happy I got to do a little exercise.

Back at home, I again started looking for apartments that are up for sublease (and it's not easy at all!) I e-mailed a broker I spoke to before I came to New York back in late 2007. I'm hoping he gets back to me soon so he can help us out. Apartment hunting is never fun. And moving is even worse! I am dreading the day I have to box up all my stuff and move again.

Anyway, I finally gave up on the apartment search for the night and decided to do a little art project instead. I've had an empty gold frame behind my bed for a while, so I decided to finally put something in it. I cut up an Urban Outfitters paper bag and used that for the matting.



I then looked for a hummingbird picture on the internet, stylized it in pink with some gray layers, printed it and put it into the frame. And ta-da, I have new art for my wall. Yey! At least now I've done something semi-productive with my day. Now I can go to sleep. Good night!

studs studs studs!

I found this gray blazer at Daffy's for $19 and thought it would be fun to see what I could do to spruce it up and make it current.



So, I bought some silver studs and decided to adorn the collar part of it. It hurts to do it with your bare hands, and my right index finger especially was a bit sore afterwards from folding down all the metal backs of the studs. But, I must say, the 2 hours spent planning and studding was worth it in the end, at least for me!

Here's how it turned out. This has been hanging on my closet door for close to a month now but it's been so hot that I haven't gotten the opportunity to use it yet. So, I guess I will have to wait for fall to come along before I do.

our new toy!

My brother loves playing the guitar. And like many other aspiring guitarists, he posts his videos on Youtube to share with the world. Well, recently, my mom watched his latest video which he recorded using his 3-year old Dell's internal microphone and an external webcam while wearing his worn-out pajamas. While in person his newly acquired Taylor guitar sounds really good, on video, well, let's just say his recording method didn't do his playing any justice. His sloppy outfit didn't help matters either. "Why did you take a video of yourself while wearing pajamas?" my mom asked. She didn't comment on the playing, but that actually means it didn't sound very good because otherwise she'd be all gushing about how much my brother's playing has improved over the years.

Anyway, so when it came time for shoti's birthday, my mom asked me to do some research on microphones that would do a better job at picking up an acoustic guitar's sounds. We eventually bought my brother a Behringer Xenyx 1204 mixer and an Audio Technica AT2020 microphone over Amazon. I didn't know his Taylor 514-CE had a built-in pickup, so the microphone turned out to be an unnecessary purchase (but I can use it to record my singing if I want to! And Yessa can sing to her heart's content with shoti's guitar!) but we were excited to try things out and see just how big a difference we would hear.

After two trips to the Guitar Center on 14th Street to get the proper cables, and after hours of trying to figure out how to work a mixer (which for the longest time looked like a very scary-looking and intimidating object with tons of knobs that controlled things I never knew existed - hello equalizers, trims and gains) we finally successfully recorded a song onto Garageband and later on to Photobooth. Hallelujah! You can hear this new recording on his Youtube channel. Yey!

I also tried patching my Korg keyboard through the mixer and it recorded onto Garageband beautifully! Now I think my mom's dreams of a band are finally coming to life. Shoti and I can't wait to tinker around with the recording and possibly make a tune of our own! Wheeee! We love our new toy :D

happy.

Since I'm not in the mood to write in paragraphs, I'll write in a list instead! Some things to be happy about this week...

1. I finally got my ID at work! I had been using the Guest Pass for the last 6 months (yes, 6 months!) so receiving my very own ID with my face on it is a big, much-awaited event! Now I can go into the MoMA for free (and bring one other person along for free too!) And I have yet to mention all the other cool stuff that comes with having our company ID like discounts with Apple and Verizon among others. Now if only I can get my hands on a list of these benefits so I know exactly what I can do with my new key to the world.
2. It's restaurant week in New York! We're having dinner at La Masseria (W48th St. between Broadway and 8th Avenue) tonight. I haven't heard anything about this restaurant before. Aldrich made all the arrangements (including choosing this restaurant out of the 200 or so choices) and so all the rest of us have to do is show up and eat! *laughs*
3. We're going to Lake George this weekend! There will be around 15 of us, in one house for 2 nights and 2 days! It's supposed to be a hell of an adventure and a whole lot of fun :) Our drink captains, Jolo and Claud, supposedly bought enough booze to knock everyone out for a week. While I have no plans of getting wasted (please God, never again!) it will be very interesting to see how this weekend will turn out. I'm looking forward to nights spent sharing stories and musings on life around a campfire under the black star-sprinkled sky with the scent of roasting marshmallows filling my nostrils. This is going to be good, I can feel it. :)

apple store and saint's alp!

I was finally able to get my Saint's Alp Black Milk Tea fix last night when D (Diana) and I stopped by for some Chicken Chop after we attended a free AIGA/NY event at the Apple Store on Prince Street. Alicia Cheng and Sarah Gephart from MGMT. Design were there as a part of the Design Remixed series to talk about the work they've done at their studio and their process. It was pretty interesting for me to see the range of projects that they got to work on. The most famous project they've done is probably the design for Al Gore's The Inconvenient Truth book (which had around 85,000 copies printed on its first run.) I have yet to read the book, or to even watch the documentary (shame on me!) I must remember to find some time to do those things soon.


I've always wanted to read this.
Anyway, it was also great that they were real sports about showing one of their "stinker" projects to the audience. :) I found the whole presentation quite entertaining, in large part because I found Alicia's deadpan voice quite funny! She would say these half-jokes in a straight unemotional tone that somehow made whatever she said seem funnier to me. Go figure! *laughs*

What I found amazing is how they were able to keep all the different aspects of their lives in sync: their friendship, their business and their respective families. They have two children each but the way they talked and carried themselves made it seem like juggling motherhood and their careers was the easiest thing in the world. I guess it's to be expected from two Yale MFA graduates right? Now if only I were as smart or gifted... Hmmm... I have to figure out first where I'll be in the next 5 months. I don't even know yet if I'm staying here or going back home in December. Tsk tsk. I hope the answer finds me soon!