Today, I had lunch with Raymond, but first! I dropped by the AMP bench to see if I still knew people. I was pretty certain that I would feel like a lola when I got there, but alas! People I still knew. I think I will make it a point to drop by and befriend lowerclassmen just so I will be able to sit with them in case I need to drop by Ateneo in the future.

This is a horrible photo, but it’s the only one I have of people at the bench.

Then, then, then! I have heard of this famed drink being sold in school. So, I have always thought, “I MUST TRY IT!” But I never really go to school, but I did today. Anyway! It’s really good. I think I want to drink it forever. (Play the song to find out what it is!)

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(LOLJK. I have apparently put a clue (i.e., the actual answer) as the post title.)

Then, we looked at Leeroy New’s installation. He was pretty excited about it, but I’ve only gotten to see it now. Franny has a blog post of when he was still setting up. The piece is called “Balete.”

Look, a bug!

Also in this post, loot from his recent trip to Singapore: Rhodia notebook (LOL he bought a lot and said he didn’t like the paper, so he gave me one), MUJI notebook (!), and Battlestar Galactica postcards.

He also returned my copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” and on the way home, I was re-reading the parts that I had highlighted, and this one is pretty relevant to me right now:

“I think about all of the things I’ve done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn’t do. The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did.”

You might be on to something, Universe.

P.S. In case you are a proper geek and want to see the BSG postcards up close, pictures are under the cut. :) Continue reading Horchatas in August & Leeroy New….

Dear Batch 2010,

Here’s a video of the Blue Roast.

We had a time, didn’t we?

Love,
Carina

Ministry Work (and Wood Textures)

I don’t get to do a lot of ministry work anymore, so when someone contacted me to design something for CCF, I got excited. After a bit of bumps, I was able to layout a few pages and I made a cover for the materials. This isn’t the final design, though, but I’m posting it because I’m kinda liking the pretty lightbulb (c/o Jeanine Garcia!) with that wood texture.

 
Television: Watching and Writing About It
Currently spazzing over LOST and a few comedies (e.g. Community, Modern Family, Parks & Recreation). Also getting into animated series (e.g. Ugly Americans, Archer) and this HBO series called How To Make It In America. I know, I’m a little bit crazy but I really can’t say ‘no’ to good T.V.! Sometimes, I can’t even say it to bad T.V. but that’s beside the point.

However, I still do love my old favorites, so I wrote a piece on New Slang about Jordan Catalano and Brian Krakow. Please read it, if you please!

 
Blue Roast
To be honest, the whole thing kind of felt a little exclusive (as in… excluding a lot of us, LOL. Just kidding. But I felt a little alienated is all, I guess), but I was with great people, and there was great music, and there were great films. So more or less, I had an O.K. time. :)

Making a Blue Roast video… Or trying to. Stay tuned for it!

 
Sribbler Too!

I already posted one over here, but it’s so fun to use to write or draw with. Try it!

 
Gifts!
My friend Carla found this little gem and gave it to me. I was super happy because I’ve never seen a license plate with my name on it (I usually end up getting ‘Samantha,’ which is my second name). So, thanks, Carla! I really love it so much, I could cry.

Recent posts to Nothing Spaces will probably lead you to believe that all I care about is television. This is not entirely true. Last Tuesday, I went to the beach with a couple of friends and strangers to shoot a video for Ateneo’s graduating batch, aka ours. So here’s a Things I Love Thursday, concerning the beach and pretty cool people and things in between.

Convenience stores & gas stations.

Sunrises.

Sunsets.

Talented friends. (Hi, Jan!)

Gorgeous views.

Soy milk.

Pretty jewelry.

Happy people.

Funny car rides.

Wading.

Throwing rocks and fistfuls of sand into the ocean.

Ripples.

Good music.

Good literature.

The ocean.

I have some more photos here & here, although the video that Jan & Co. shot will be shown during the Blue Roast program. This excites me, as I haven’t seen it yet.

To close, here’s a video of the day, set to another Thing I Love, a song called “The Next Time Around” by Little Joy.

Unforeseen hiatus due to the sudden onslaught of requirements our teachers needed to compute our grades. But I digress.

Dearest you,

Whoever you are, if you are reading this, and if you have stood by me, and persevered through all the molehills and mountains with me, these past four years. If we’ve stayed up late nights, exchanging frantic messages, whining about ungodly deadlines. If we’ve celebrated victories, cried over losses and hoped for something greater and more beautiful than we could ever have imagined. If we’ve shared stories and laughter, music and things dear to our hearts. If we’ve given each other a piece of ourselves, and if we’ve kept pieces of each other to make us really, completely whole. If we loved life enough to go on, even if the going got really, really tough—

Thank you.

It’s been a great ride. I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss this, but I’m kind of glad it’s mostly over. The world has been so good to me, and God has blessed me so much. I’m so grateful for everything that has happened, because I got hurt and I loved and I learned.

Thank you so much for believing in me.

Love,
Carina

The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight

Not too long ago, I conducted a give-away on this website. I had a lot of fun doing it, and I enjoyed hearing people’s reactions when they got my hastily-wrapped packages in the mail:

Patricia’s Tweet.

Tim’s Tumblr.

On the subject of freebies and giving away stuff: I actually posted a somewhat cryptic post right here, and I am going to update about what went down (haha) and why it was posted, just to illuminate y’all, and I suppose, to let some stuff out.

So, recently, I’ve been posting about the ID Seniors’ Thesis Exhibit, Flux, and I know you’ve only heard good things about it on this exhibit, but some of us were a little disappointed with how some people took the exhibit as. See, a few of us produced some merchandise to go with our thesis projects (mostly badges/buttons/pins and stickers), admittedly to attract people. It was also done partly to help people visualize our projects in the context of actual supplementary output, and also as part of our individual exhibits.

In the middle of the week, we started noticing an influx of people visiting the exhibit, from all over the school. Sure, we told out respective circles (and they were supportive—thanks, bbs) and put the word out on our respective online accounts, but we didn’t really have a solid promotional strategy. So the volume of the visitors were overwhelming.

And then we realized that the freebies were doing their job.

I’m not even going to comment, because it’s such an old topic and it’s stupid to whine about it. I’m grateful for the people that passed by, I really am. It’s just sad to see how the exhibit panned out (in terms of this issue), because we really wanted feedback from an actual viewership, and a few of us never even got any constructive feedback.

I’ll just let the photos do the talking, since that’s what they’re here for:

Kris Caguiat’s.

(The flower corsage.)

Merky’s.

Mark Carandang’s. Someone took his seed packets… even though they were empty.

One of my feedback forms.

And another one.

From our collective guestbook.

Two of the last remaining pins by Derrick. He pinned them on the shirts
because people kept on taking them, even though they were only for display.

From Patricia Magsino’s table. Someone took one even though it was already pinned to the tablecloth.

Tricia Gosingtian’s. This was actually planted by a friend of ours for kicks.

As was this one. (Pats Padla’s.)

And it’s funny because we were apologetic about it at first:

Rich Tuason’s.

Celina Borromeo’s.

Mine.

I hope I don’t sound like an ingrate (because I really am thankful that people went!) but it’s problematic to me because the merch was supposed to be a sort of appetizer, but people didn’t stick around for the main course. (Following my previous metaphor, by this I meant the actual exhibits.) A friend had condoms on his table—for display purposes—and people took those, too! I mean, a condom, really?

I don’t know, I have a feeling I might be overreacting, but it was really disappointing that people only went for the free stuff, and some of them didn’t even look at the actual set-ups or read through our theses or what-have-you. I hope I’m not overreacting, really. I just really had to let this out, because it’s been bugging me for the past few weeks. I’m pretty touchy about it in real life, too. So, if I’m evasive about giving you a pin when you ask me for one, this is probably why. (But if we’re good friends or if I promised you one, then it’s O.K. to bug me about it.)