This was how I moved on..

Friend: May pag-asa ba in the first place?
Me: I dunno.

Come to think of it, "I dunno" shouldn't have been my answer before.
It should have been "Wala".

Coz I remember a friend saying:
"If someone likes you, then this someone will do something about it."

'nuf said. That just sums up everything that I need to hear and know.

It's All in the Green Pill

Running purely on approximately 2 pitchers of margarita, four hours of sleep, a throbbing headache and a wandering mind, I was off to Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn to meet Jill and the others with an unexpected company. Unfortunately, my nagging hang over would have to take a back seat for the next few hours. I was in a more pressing matter.

We met Francis who was sitting in his room, anxiously waiting for the right time before finally dressing up and leaving for church.

A couple of feet away, Eddah was busy putting detail after detail to make her day the picture perfect day in her life.

The breezy morning ushered the hot, humid afternoon tagged and capped with a cool fun night. It was a pretty long day which didn't really decide to cap off until 10pm (at least for the photographers).

It wasn't all perfect. But it doesn't really matter if there were little bumps along the way.

What's important is that at the end of the day, everyone in all shapes..

And in all ages..

Was happy.

I found mine in a pill, of Advil. Thanks Jill!

How My Jaw Dropped on the Floor

I've been here for a week now (with 26 days left before packing my bags home), and my mind doesn't seem to have settled here yet. Looks like my mind didn't board with me on those planes heading here in Canada. And with the bad, bad desire to be in Manila in the soonest time possible, I tried keeping things Manila-esque close to me.

The closest thing authentically from Manila would be those that I read from publications in Manila. And the best stop for me would be the Philippine Daily Inquirer. And upon opening the lifestyle section, I think I wanna go kill someone. Go figure:

"CHRISTMAS Day. At the back of an SUV. My friends and I had decided to drive to Tagaytay for dinner. While our car braved through the traffic, my friends were laughing and shrieking about Jiff's exploits with someone who had a very inappropriate piercing. It was a fun conversation, one I would have otherwise joined; but I was too busy learning how to make takoyaki with Cooking Mama."

-- lifted from Super!

But then again, I love this gal a lot.
And I think I would go kill anyone who'd dare lay hands on her.

Okay, nagulat lang ako. :D
Moving on.

Margarita please..
Isang pitsel!

Flying Out (yet again) to Canada

It's 5:30 am, I am sitting here at Gate 15 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport with David Archuleta accompanying me while waiting for my time to board for my plane heading out to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong will be my jump-off point before I go enter Canada through Vancouver. By the time I reach Vancouver which is like 16-18 hours from now, it's still a 2-hour wait accompanied by a 5-hour flight before I reach Toronto. God knows how long this route I am taking. And by the time that I hop into my third plane, my body's gonna be screaming for a SOFT BED!!!

******

8:30 am and I'm here at the Hong Kong International Airport, sitting right next to the transfer desk. I have been wanting to check into my next flight and get a decent breakfast before finally grabbing a quick snooze while waiting for my 12:40 pm plane. I wanna give my body some sense of rest before a 12-14hour beating of air travel. But the inavailability of the information of my next plane is holding me back at the moment. I guess it's a little to early for that.

The amount of how I dread this day and the sleep deprivation I have given myself (for a really worthwhile cause i thought was worthwhile , with the help of Ruby) has overpowered my sense of fashion (if I can consider myself as having one). Everything I am on right now goes together except my shoes and socks. Black (rubber) shoes with white socks. To me, it looks like a get up of a grade school boy again lost in the center of Hong Kong's vast international airport. Pfft!

*****

19 hours after I left Manila, I find myself lounging here at the Vancouver International Airport waiting for the last leg of my travel to Toronto to start boarding. We landed on a gloomy morning here in Vancouver and just a couple of minutes after arriving, it started snowing covering the already snow-washed grounds of the airport with another centimeter or two. It sounded fun and interesting experiencing snow for the first time. But for the past weeks I have experienced this, I think I have grown indifferent to it. Maybe more like hating it with a passion. There's really not much I could do but loathe (yes, I loathe a lot in times like this) and suck it up, close my eyes and wish..

.. That I have a soft bed I could rest my back and head on
.. That the margarita I was drinking on the night before I left Manila didn't run out
.. That time could've stopped right before the date changed to January 3 or it could've jumped right away to February 7.

A Beginning by the End

After a long, long, looooong haitus from I think almost everything (blame it on my out of the country work assignment) I like and love doing, I guess I am back. Today, 3 days short of the New Year, I've been privileged enough to go and get my hands dirty once again and take some of those momentous photographs in a couple's life. I don't pretend to be a master of this. Nor do I really go after what I juice out from it. I'm all just for the love of putting and immortalizing what I see into the confines of a 2D plane.

I'm pretty far away from what the masters do. All I can do is point, shoot, learn and shoot some more. Learning is fun when what you put your mind into is something you're really interested with. And with someone like the "master" taking the lead, working on-site wouldn't really feel and sound like work at all.

I Don't Look Old Enough

God knows for how long me and my friends have been debating that I don't look my age. A number of people will agree and a number of people would say otherwise. I have a couple of experiences in my belt to prove that I myself could still pass as a college student. Moreover, I have several experiences that'll prove that I don't look like I'm of legal age.

I remember vividly when I was 21 that I was held by the doors of a cinema somewhere in Manila to be ID'd. The movie was R18 and seems like people from the movie house just don't believe that I was 21 during that time. Well, I think they just wanna make sure that I was 21. Being ID'd to be sure you're of legal age is one thing. But assuming you're something that are not is another story.

Last Sunday, together with a couple of friends, we found ourselves with nothing else to do at 7pm. We decided to just grab dinner and watch a movie to cap the night off. It's not your typical exciting movie since we ended up watching "High School Musical 3". I have nothing against the movie, it's just that at this age, I think movies like that should be left to the younger crowd.

Our night took a pretty funny turn when we queued up to buy tickets for the movie. Our friend Leia was the one who bought the tickets while Claire and I stood on the side computing how much we have to split amongst each other. Claire suddenly blurted out that it was Cdn$ 11.50. That confused me. A sign said that the Adults' Rate is more than that. We had a teeny wheeny debate and ended up laughing when Leia handed off our ticket.

We were sold STUDENT tickets! We thought.. Maybe they sold us STUDENT tickets coz it's High School Musical (which is weird)? Or maybe because the three of us don't look so old at all.. =)

That just proves (again) I could still pass a college student! LOL

I am a Mac

It began 2 years ago when I started eyeing one of the hippest gadgets in town -- a Mac. Apple came a long way before it became hip and an eye candy. I think their effort and their wait was all worth it.

After two years of waiting, salivating, dreaming, wanting and itching to get my hand on a Mac that I can call my own, I finally got the change and resources to go out and buy myself one.

No word can express the amount of excitement I got when I entered the Apple Store over at Yorkdale Mall. The store was packed with people -- many of them we're sampling Apple's latest offerings while some bought themselves some stuff from the store. I even say a good number of newly released MacBooks flying out from the store.

At the back of my head, I knew I will be one of them in a couple of minutes. So I approached one of the sales assistants and expressed my intent to buy a laptop.

"Would you want to talk about it to learn if it has all that you need?"
"No, thank you. I think I already know it does."

That was a snobbish answer. LOL. In a few minutes, the sales associate came back to me, carrying the laptop and stood right next to a product display table. He pulled out a trusty device and started scanning the item and my credit card. In a matter of minutes, purchase was done without the hassle of queueing up in line. How cool was that?!

*****

Every new gadget should always have a pretty good reveal. It shouldn't suppose to be a production number, but for me, it seemed like it was one.

I took home a small heavy box.

Pop the box's lid open and
the new Macbook Pro jumps right at you.

"Designed by Apple in California"
..for me!!! LOL

Everything I would need for my Mac.

Ladies & gentlmen.. Drum rolls please..

The New Macbook Pro..

The chicklet keys.. the wide glass trackpad..
The two-tone, slim design..

Gawd! I love the my new toy!