first weekend of spring!

It's the first weekend of spring and we're heading over to Central Park for a picnic tomorrow! I'm excited beyond belief. I'm excited by the prospect of getting to wear shorts, a skirt or a dress again without having to pull on tights or stockings underneath. I'm excited to finally put my aviators to good use under the warm rays of the sun. And I'm excited to go buy a bike! Okay, so that last one might not happen this weekend, but I will get around to doing that hopefully before April is over. I'm actually very tempted to just get one from Republic Bikes online, but I should do my research and go around the different bike stores. I should also ask where people store their bicycles in our building. I've never seen anyone bring one in yet. Hmm...

all i want for spring

I am itching to go shopping, but I don't have the moolah to go buy all the things I want to right now. Luckily for me, my mom is willing to sponsor the purchase of the trench coat! So now I only have to worry about all the other items on my list. It's still going to be quite a big drain on my account. I probably won't get around to buying everything, but I plan on getting at least one of them!

Oh, and there's one more thing I need to get this spring too! I am so envious of Henry who keeps talking about riding his bike around on the weekends. I will get myself a euro-style bike one of these days! :D Here's one from Republic Bikes that you actually customize (choose colors for all the different parts) and they'll send it over to you all built. :) It's like Nike iD for bikes! I love it!

Update: I bought the Club Monaco trenchcoat two weekends ago and I've already worn it a couple of times since then! Yey for spring! It's gorgeous out this week.

my new living room

Yey! :) I finally bought some rug tiles from CB2 (at $13.95 each) to complete my living room! I still want to add more frames and pretty pictures to my wall but I'm feeling really happy with how my living room turned out. All the furniture's from IKEA so the total cost for everything in this picture stands at around $550. That includes the pillows, the frame, the vase, and even the white cabinet in the dark hallway. Not too bad. :)

i love yellow and i love stripes!

things are going my way.

Little reasons for happiness (however shallow they may be) are popping up here and there these days and I've been catching myself smiling out of the blue because of them.

First, I've got some money rolling in, and who says no to money? Last December, I completely forgot to change my mailing address on my employee profile so my last paycheck for the year got sent to my old apartment. I put in a request to have the check reissued and I finally got the new check yesterday! Ka-ching! More money in the bank always makes me happy. :) When I catch the shopping bug again at least I'll have a little more padding. *naughty smile* I'm not even sure what I want to buy as I've already purchased two pairs of metallic shoes in the past 2 weeks. I don't know what the deal with the metallic streak is, but I just couldn't pass them up. I can't wait for spring (or at least a sunny winter day when all the slush from the recent snow days melts away) to come so I can wear them. :D Also, I just got back a cashier's check I issued as a move-in insurance deposit for my apartment a few days ago. I'd forgotten about it so it was a nice surprise. Double ka-ching!

Second, we just got out of a meeting with some clients and they loved all the work we presented them! And it seems my design concept is going to make it to the next round :) Oh yeah! *fist pump* Hahaha :) Little victories like these make work that much more satisfying. As we always say here in our cube, "All a designer wants is to be loved and understood." A little appreciation goes a long long way.

Third, because my apartment finally feels like a home with all the IKEA furniture finally built! Woohoo :) Now if I can only go out and finish purchasing the pots and pans so I can start cooking! I did use my newly purchased microwave for the first time two nights ago though. I can already imagine myself using it for some buttery popcorn on Netflix movie nights!

Fourth, just because I'm in New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made, there's nothing you can't do here. Wahahaha, I'm actually a bit sick of that song now, but yeah, I just love it here and now I can honestly say that I'm really glad I decided to stay. :)

settling in (back in new york)

It's been two weeks since I got back from my little vacation back home. These two weeks have been strange in that they feel long and yet short. So much has happened in so little time; it feels a bit disorienting. If you think about it, 2 weeks is a relatively short time but it feels like forever since I took my flight out of Manila. So much has changed.

Since getting back I've moved my stuff out of storage and into my new apartment (and not without some trouble! Boy, did I have to whip out persuasion skills I didn't know I had just to get my boxes of clothes through the door.) gone to IKEA to buy 4 pallets worth of furniture (and spending $2000!) and built about half of that furniture. The rest of them are still in boxes leaning against the living room wall. I'm excited to finally get everything up and ready but it's proving to be much more difficult than expected. My room is looking more and more like a room now though. I can't wait to finally have pictures of it when it's all complete!

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