Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight franchise is arguably the most popular young adult series in the market today. Anyone who argues this statement is an idiot. If you watch television, spend a considerable amount of time online, or go outdoors and talk to people, then you will have heard of Edward Cullen, a “vampire,” and his unmatched love story with Bella Swan — holy crap! — a mortal. Lots of stuff happens in between but that is the main idea and Meyer hammers that into her audience’s head time and time again.

I have not been a very big fan of Twilight. On the contrary, I’ve spent many a-time online devoted to its mockery. A week and a half after New Moon, the much-awaited Twilight sequel’s adaptation to film, opened here and I still had not been able to see it. Until 10:00 P.M. tonight, when the lure to mock the series intelligently was too great for me to ignore for another week.

In case you were interested, New Moon in a nutshell: loads of heavy breathing (not due to sexual activity), fast cars, glittery people with weird colored eyes, Jacob Black!, wolves!, sage advice completely ignored by Bella, and “intense” close-ups and slow-motion sequences chosen to convey several emotions… I’m just never sure what kind.

New Moon in an even smaller nutshell: Facepalm (but sounds good, man!)

In case you are still interested, The Unabridged Version of My Aversion To Twilight will be under the cut. To be fair, I do have some nice things to say about the movie. But, a word of warning, there’s not really a lot of nice things I can say about this movie. So, leave if you think you might be a little sentimental or protective of the characters in Meyer’s universe.

Continue reading New Moon: Something Like a Review….

So, this blog was actually meant for sharing works in progress, and not really as an emotional dumpsite, which to be honest, is what it is shaping up to be. I can’t say that I’m grossed out by it (because I’m not — I kind of like the “feel” of this website, to be honest. If I may say this without appearing to be self-absorbed), but here is an attempt to reconcile what Nothing Spaces is right now, with what I intended it to be in the first place.

While fixing up my Cargo Collective account (which doesn’t really have much up, yet, so there’s very little point in linking to it), I realized that for the past three years, I have been including a certain project of mine in portfolio sites and resumés, and it is called Baraja. I am sure you are familiar with it. In fact, if we do not already know each other from a separate online platform (or in real life), that is probably how you got here in the first place.

Anyway, I got a little bit disappointed because I had this whole idea in my head, when I first registered this website, that I would be the kind of person who would be making stuff all day and posting about the process and the output or whatever on here. Which has clearly not been the case. I’ve actually been posting some exercises I had been doing on my Tumblr and my Flickr, but since I am generally averse to watermarks, there have been a few times where my work has been stolen and reposted without credit, so I don’t really know how safe the Internet is anymore.

I used to tell myself, “Well, at least that means your work is good enough to steal,” or “Well, if they steal something of yours, that makes them pathetic, not you.” But now that it’s happened to me, it really is a sucky feeling. I especially hate it when they take something of yours, and then re-alter and tweak it. Amy Ng from Pikaland.com recently had this to say about the issue: “When someone copies your work, it’s a crime against the spirit of sharing that is prevalent online.”

And it’s true. But I realized that I shouldn’t let them stop me from posting my work online, because it really is the best place to get critique and to get hired for projects or tapped for collaborations. So, here! Some small sneak peeks of the last few projects I’d been working on:

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This is something I made for The Bead Shop, which is going to launch
a collection of luck-themed jewelry.

This was a collaboration with Paulina Ortega.
We were tapped by our friend, Marvin Sayson to design
Don’t Forget, Clementine‘s new album, Grace, and Dragging Her Wings.
It was a lot of fun (I got stressed out a few times, but mostly because of time.)

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Lastly, here are some mock-ups of the book covers for my thesis.
I don’t know what to do about it, but judging from the last meeting I had
with my thesis adviser, I would like to think that it was pretty well-received.

YAY. Hopefully I’ll be making more things or reading more or writing more the next few days. I’ve actually finished reading Dave Eggers’ “The Wild Things,” so maybe I can write about that. One thing you should know, though, is that book really made me really, really sad, and my heart was really heavy after it. I sometimes find Dave Eggers’ prose a little overwrought, but this book really found new ways to break my heart.

But I’ll talk about that tomorrow, maybe. For now, I have to get back to the daily grind and read Aristotle for Philosophy. Sometimes, I really love school, but then I get reminded that I need to be good at it, and then it’s not so fun anymore.

I keep forgetting to put this up, but a few months ago, I tacked two sign-up sheets for Dumbledore’s Army in school. Loads of people signed up — most of them were fictional — but by the time I took the second one down, I knew I had to scan it in and show whoever reads my claptrap this glorious thing:

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Did you find it? Did you figure out why this is so cool?

click the photo to view larger.

I haven’t done this in a while. And technically, it is already Friday, but who cares. (!)

(1) Free things.
(2) Finding things that are lost; friends who help you out.
(3) Breakfast with my sister.
(4) Breakfast in general.
(5) My television class. We are watching Doctor Who, series one right now.¹
(6) Angry kitties.

Also, other things that I love, although not photographed: productivity, kind & good people who are kind & good to me even if I am pretty much unworthy, television in general, learning new things, world history, art history, people on the internet (minus pervs and creepers) and references to popular culture, preferably in the course of normal dialogue.

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¹ I love my professor. He watches the series with his one-year-old baby and he says that every time the TARDIS noise plays, the baby turns to the television screen. So frakking cute. My professor said, “I think he is growing up to be a fine young man.” True story.

If you frequent my Tumblr, which you probably don’t because why would you?, you would know that the past few days have been a little rough on me. By that I mean, you have probably witnessed me whine whine whine, abusively, on that microblogging platform and/or I’ve bitched to your face in real life. In any case, I really have no excuse.

See, work’s been piling up. I am pretty stressed about my thesis, which is, theoretically, going well in my head. Meaning, there is progress, but only in the level of me thinking about what I want to do, and not really putting things down on paper. I’ve also been designing stuff for people, and because these obviously have to do with other people (hereafter known as clients), thesis and other school activities have been taking the backseat.

But, like I said, no excuse, really. A new sort of technique, I guess, that I have picked up from my daily Google Reader time is this practice that guestblogger on Yes and Yes, Gene, has suggested, which is to make a list of good things about the previous day, despite it being lousy on the whole. This way, you start the new day with a renewed sense of optimism in the vein of, “Well, at least, that didn’t happen.” Because I can’t really blog tomorrow (I think?), here is what the good vs. evil about today:

• I didn’t see the Leonid shower, but now I know what Universal Time is.
• I left my phone in Starbucks, but now I know, for sure (not that I didn’t before), that I have awesome friends.¹
• Our car got hit by a tricycle, but it’s great to know that my dad is waaaay patient, and that I probably should take a leaf out of that Patience Book, and hope that it is genetic.

And so on.

OK, so now, here is where I will post photos from last weekend until today. Just because they also cheer me up despite my “hormonal”² self. Enjoy. (!)

So, I went to this exhibit last Saturday.
It was by my parents’ friend, Reggie Yuson.
He made the pretty stone fountain/sculpture in High Street.

Pretty.

Awesome people are awesome. Paulina + me & me + Eira.
Pardon my face.

Jamie gave me these as a late birthday present. <3

Showing the Christopher Walken cover of “Pokerface” to people in school,
because everyone deserves to see its glory.

Paulina was drawing my profile, so I tried to draw her face.

Then we had a one-minute draw-off.

Workspace in Starbucks this morning.
Banana loaf and a tall Americano with caramel syrup.

Free green tea frappuccino = day got better. <3

And then it was really sunny and really rainy at the same time.
(It’s not so obvious in the photograph.)

Phone found! It came in this plastic bag.
I guess people leave a lot of stuff in Starbucks.

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¹ My friend, Evee, offered to check Starbucks if my phone was still there, because I had class. Then she passed it along to some other friends who passed it along to me! GMH.
² I’m probably not really hormonal, it’s just an excuse for my sucky personality. Plus points if you get that reference.