I have a backlog of exhibit posts, but I wanted to post about These Portraits, which is a project my friend Gabby has been doing for the past few months. What exactly is These Portraits about?

Here’s the gist, for each portrait I take, I donate P20 to Rock Ed Philippines’ Rock The Rehas project.

It’s super-cool because a) it’s for a good cause, and b) she’s a really good photographer. We were supposed to shoot today, but stupid things got in the way, so I’ll post about the project instead. Here’s a bunch of portraits she took for These Portraits:

One of my favorite photographers, for real.

Since our plans for today, fell through, I ended up drinking coffee and educating myself about current events, via the newspaper. Also, mostly driving around the city with my grandpa. It’s his favorite past-time, aside from watching boxing matches or UFC. Check out his cool digs:

Plaid on plaid FTW.

I love him a lot.

Sundried tomatoes forever and ever, amen.

Bowtie pasta!

Yay, my lunch. I enjoyed it.

And then I kind of just ate some fruit in a cup!:

It came with a tiny spork!

Two Things I Learned Today:

1. The pasta will not get cooked if you keep on lifting the lid to see if it is.
2. You can never have too much sundried tomatoes in your pasta. This is the truth.

OK. That’s basically it. I cooked my lunch and I ate it. Why is this a big deal? Because I’m a lazy-ass and I have no cooking experience at all, except if you count second year high school, when I had to cook, or else I would FAIL the subject. I was so bad at it that I used the wrong end of the knife to slice some garlic — and held the blade against my thumb. I don’t think I need to expound on how bad I really am.

AGH. I really want to eat s’more of those tomatoes. But really, they taste better cooked, and I think I’m all cooked out for the day.

I’d been meaning to post an entry about a recent exhibit that I viewed (the first in a while), but things kept getting in the way. I’m writing it now, so no mo’ complainin’. Anyway, last July 15, 3/5 of my family, plus me and Pau, went to view Mariano Ching’s solo exhibit in the Silverlens space, SLab. It is called Dead Ends and False Starts and it is amazing!

I’ve been a fan since his solo exhibit entitled We Are Not Afraid of You and We Will Beat Your Ass, which was mounted in 2008 over at West Gallery. Here’s a link so you can view the show. And yes, it is pretty much a Yo La Tenga-centric show, title-wise, at least.

Since I’m probably going to butcher the whole experience by writing about it (as I seem to be particularly fond of affectations when it comes to writing about art), here are some of the pictures I was able to take. Not a lot, since I was experiencing a personal crisis at the time (shush), but here:

The brochure-slash-catalog they gave out.

Continue reading Mariano Ching: Dead Ends & False Starts…

I started doing freelance work a few weeks before school started, and since then, I’ve been setting aside a certain portion (almost all) to put in my savings, and also I’ve been using my hard-earned money to buy pretty things that I don’t really, really need but I really, really want. And you know what? It feels pretty darn good.

Here is my current workspace. I de-cluttered it as best as I could.

(click the photo for notes)

Huzzah! Graphika Manila ’09 tickets.
These are of veritable importance because of who will be there.

He happens to have created one of my favorite books:

This is his face:

This is his face next to my face:

I am trying to hide my excitement.

In case anybody else is interested, Graphika Manila is, essentially, a multimedia design conference. It will be held on August 15, 2009 and will feature the illustrious Mr Sagmeister (who I love, but we’ll get into that some other time), as well as Christian Alzmann (from Industrial Light & Magic — a company under Lucasfilm), Brand New School, Everywhere We Shoot, Springboard and Adobo Magazine. Very limited tickets are still available, so if you are interested, do try to get them ASAP. More details can be found over here.

Other than this awesomeness that was quite literally delivered to my doorstep, today, I learned how to deposit money in the bank, and vaguely found out about how to apply for a loan. It made me feel sort of important and a little bit more grown-up, as silly as that probably sounds. It’s funny how almost-menial things like going to the bank and looking at second-hand cars makes someone like me feel like they’re doing something important.

Anyway, aside from Graphika Manila tickets, I have also procured for myself a Genius tablet, because my old Wacom Graphire 3 died on me. My dad helped fund me a little bit. Here is a five-minute sketch of part of a piece I recently sold:

A variation of this little guy was drawn inside the space I carved out of an old book. The book was then mounted on a 9″x12″ canvas. I wish I had pictures, but alas, I do not.

I have other pictures of my workspace, aka DESK, though, so you can clickety-click the following link to read more. Continue reading On Stefan Sagmeister (kind of) and things I’ve been doing lately:…

I have a rather peculiar history with Harry Potter. I started reading it in between fourth and fifth grade, I think (I remember I bought the first book right before a cousin’s party at Racks, and reading the first few paragraphs because I really couldn’t get into the rhythm of the story), but my love affair with The Boy Who Lived was quickly stunted because right after I finished the first book, my parents thought it best to disallow me from pursuing the rest of the series, since they believed it to be potentially harmful in certain ways.

In the sixth grade, I began to sneak off to the library and read the Chamber of Secrets, chapter after painstaking chapter, in between classes and a friend lent me her copy of the Prisoner of Azkaban. The first film, I saw by accident (and without sound), because it showed on a plane I was on, but I didn’t want my parents to find out I was watching so I didn’t wear the earphones. That was really enough for me — seeing the books that were so dear to my heart onscreen, even though it was on mute, was really like magic for me.

I don’t really blame my parents — they were pretty hardcore Christians, and they just wanted the best for me, and I suppose literature on witchcraft and wizardry wasn’t high on their list. I snuck off to watch the films, and read fan fiction (Draco/Hermione through & through), went to HP fansites occasionally, though not very often since each time after, I’d have to clear the browser history and delete cookies. I even got caught a few times, but my parents had been pretty merciful.

Needless to say, my obsession with Harry was pretty covert, that is until I was in fourth year high school and Goblet of Fire was coming out in theaters, and I asked my dad if I could please watch the movie. And he told me that, yes, yes I could. Biggest shock in my life, I tell you. Since then, I’d bought my own copy of the books and have re-read them again and again, and I know you know this: I have never looked back.

Not a lot of people will understand this, but the series really, truly changed my life, and each time I encounter it, still does. JK’s writing is not that great, but holy crap, the things that Harry and all the other characters have taught me. Even the Vatican sees it now. Every time I think about it, I still get shivers, my heart still swells. Because I know that no matter what happens, no matter what kind of shit hits the fan, no matter what new evil appears — the world is still good and it will be safe, as long as there are people who keep fighting for it. It sounds like a stupid thing to do, but whenever I get upset and I can’t stop crying (and this has been happening quite a few times recently), I only get a Harry Potter book, no matter which one, read it, and I calm down almost instantaneously.

I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to get that out. I have a rather complicated opinion regarding the HBP film, but no matter what they left out, kept or added, I still do love it because it’s Harry Potter. I never got my Hogwarts letter, but I never stopped believing.

An extensive blow-by-blow is available on my LJ. I didn’t put it here, because it’s spoiler-laden, and I wanted to be careful.

I, Carina, am admittedly one of the people who are least interested in general politics. I am concerned, however, about the upcoming 2010 Philippine elections, enough to go and register as a voter. Interest in registration stemmed from mostly from a) being so tired of the current government, and b) being (understandably) terrified for the future of the Philippines, given the roster of politicians who currently have their eye on the presidential seat.

Ever since they changed procedures (Before, you could register at your own barangay hall, whereas now, you have to go to your local COMELEC office to do so), I’d been apprehensive about registration because it seemed to be so time-consuming. I heard about so many horror stories from people looking to register and just really didn’t want to have to go through with the whole game.

The registration process itself is easy enough. You just fill out a form in triplicate, bring a photocopy of a valid ID (with address) and wait in line, after which you’d be asked to sign stuff, take a picture and record your fingerprints. Aaaand then, you are done. I wish I could tell you it was that easy-peasy to register. COMELEC uses DCMs (or Data Capturing Machines) to record your data, which sounds really progressive (as opposed to manual encoding), however:

Problem #1: Each machine can only process 200 registrants a day.
Problem #2: Each district COMELEC office has only one or two of these machines to do the deed.

Not to discourage potential voters, but I went to my local COMELEC office twice — my sister went three times — and still did not emerge victorious. Plus, I had to deal with this unsightly, not to mention SHAMELESS, poster:

Talk about subliminal. If you can’t read it, VICE MAYOR Bistek Bautista wants you to EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.

The first time we went to Quezon City Hall, the COMELEC “wasn’t there.” Basta lang walang tao. They went to some barangay or something like that, and left their post, basically. The second time we went, we went before class, and went after a few minutes of waiting because the line was monstrously long and refused to move.

Fortunately, my barangay opened their office today for registrants and I went before going to class. (You might want to check with your barangay hall to see if they are doing this, too, because I kid you not, the COMELEC office lines are always long.) Please note my look of victory:

Was it worth all the trouble to go through all those hoops that the government seemed to purposely make you go through? Absolutely. The way I see it, participating in the elections — especially if we can — is one of the best ways to do something about the things we are unhappy about. I learned from my professor that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won because of only 11 million votes. The Youth Vote is made up of about 30 million Filipinos. You do the math.

Don’t worry about being cheaters during the elections. We’ll cross the bridge when we get there. The important thing is, by registering to vote, you are actually taking one step towards the government that you wish to have, instead of just whining about it. Action begets action. We are all unhappy about the country, but what are you going to do about it?

The deadline for registration is October 31, 2009, but you might want to register as soon as you can. COMELEC offices are open Monday-Saturday, 8AM – 5PM, including holidays. Here are some helpful links because I’m dumb at explaining things:

1. COMELEC Website, where you can see the registration schedule and download the forms
2. COMELEC Blog, for updates
3. Important Philippine Voter Registration Information by Ganns Deen, which explains some of the different process like transfer of voting areas, update of information, etc.
4. Information on Absentee Voting from GMA News.
5. An article on Youth Vote Philippines

On a tangentially related, but funny note, when it was my older brother’s turn to record his fingerprints (they have a scanner, like the one in the U.S. airports), he pressed his digits on the cardboard diagram, declaring afterwards: “I watch too much Sci-Fi.” If only we were that advanced.