Nothing Spaces

THANK YOU. // February 26, 2010

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

 

Happy Valentine’s Day. // February 14, 2010

made for school two years ago, but still relevant.
I mean it when I say that I hope you are all happy now.

For Valentine’s Day 2010, I have no plans. I really don’t think much of this holiday. I don’t look forward to it (except maybe for the fact that it is Jamie’s birthday today), and I also don’t really despise it, as some people seem to. Just because you are “alone” on this day, it doesn’t mean you can’t spread the love anymore. There are so many other people you can show your love to. Not just boyfriends or girlfriends or what-have-you.

I showed myself love today, for example, by buying a scarf for myself. I don’t care that the weather is threatening to go to oven-level temperatures, or if people will think I am dumb for wearing a scarf in this heat. I love it, so I bought it:

It’s from Promod, if anyone is wondering.

Tonight, I’m going to show love to my family that I love them by going to dinner with them, instead of being a dork and staying at home, working on schoolwork. In order to do this, I am finishing as much schoolwork as I can before dinner. This practice, I am taking as showing love… to the future of my grades. (!)

Other than this, I am trying to be nicer in general. No more insensitive or overly mean comments out loud (at least I’m hoping). I know that doesn’t really eliminate the negative air and environment in my mind, but it’s a start. I really have been super impatient with people recently, and I think that Valentine’s Day or no, it’s about time that I showed them love in this way—being patient, understanding, non-judgmental—regardless of who they are.

So, those are my two cents. In my whole life, I have only spent one year (out of twenty-one) with somebody, but I’m realizing that being “alone” on Valentine’s Day isn’t really a reason to disregard every other opportunity to express love to other people, even if it’s not the romantic kind.

What about you? Any plans or special insight today?

 

Radical Self Love. // February 7, 2010

For the month of February, I’m going to be joining in on Gala Darling’s Radical Self Love. I am not a “playgirl” and I don’t usually do things like this, but I think it might be good for me. In any case, it’s going to be something for me to do, and if it doesn’t work, then I lose nothing, really. I don’t know why, but I really feel like this will do me a lot of good. Or if not a lot, at least a little bit.

Some anonymous Tumblr reader actually asked me who I blamed for my low self-esteem. I didn’t really think I came off that way, but a complete stranger (at least, I’m assuming s/he is one) seems to think so. I’m not enormously bothered by the comment, but this challenge really seems to be a good idea. So there. I’m embarking on this journey for February. There may or may not be updates, but if things get a little silent around here, it might be because of this. Or it also might be because of the fact that I am scrambling to actually graduate.

In any case, here’s to making most out of the current month. I hope you all enjoy and experience yours in the greatest possible way.

 

Flux: ID Seniors’ Exhibit. // January 19, 2010

Yesterday was the first day of Flux, which was the exhibit of the thesis projects of the ID (Information Design) students of Ateneo. I think it also opened Humanities Week, which is pretty cool. Here are a few photos:

Father Javellana and Dra. Vilches cutting the ribbon.

Paulina making last minute edits.

Tracy making a LED lantern! Over at Meggy Kawsek’s area.

Made one, too. :)
(Photo taken by Glen.)

Children’s books by Kim Ng.

Paulina’s personal lightsaber duel.

Kris Caguiat’s thesis.

Mine!

I have some more (but not a lot) of photos over at my Flickr, if you guys want to see.

The exhibit will be ongoing until Friday, I think. :) The works are mounted over at the area behind the stairs on the first floor of the Rizal (or, old) Library.

You know, kind of like a cupboard.

 

Today = Day of Infamy! // January 15, 2010

LOLJK. I just finished my thesis, is all. I mean, that’s all. Nothing special.

I have loads more to say, and obviously, the insides of this book(let :( it’s really short) has more pages. But I am still swamped, so this little update will have to do. I just wanted to say IT IS FINISHED because I really was getting a little desperate because it seemed like it was going nowhere… but here it is.

And thesis, if I may say so, it is absolutely lovely to see you.

 

Mission 101 in 1001. // January 12, 2010

Due to the immense dissatisfaction plaguing my life, I have decided to jump aboard one of those make-yourself-better, achieve-more, you-can-do-it practices that have been circulating all over the Internet. It’s called “Mission 101″ and is essentially a self-imposed challenge to tick items off a list comprised of 101 things you mean to do in your life, in 1001 days. I don’t really want to get into it right now (the neety-greety and whatnot), so here’s an external link to the LiveJournal community dedicated to the progress reports of participating members.

I’ve attempted this a few times (once in 2008 and another time in 2009) but I found myself abandoning it or not really “giving it my all,” so to speak. This time, I’m going to really have a go at it, though. I’ve listed 48 items right now, and they can be found over at the ‘ongoing’ tab of my Listography account. Here’s a few items I have:

• Learn at least three constellations
• Watch The Big Lebowski
• Submit a story to McSweeney’s
• Write a letter to Jonathan Safran Foer
• Graduate

I’m still in the process of making my list, so if you have any good suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment below. I’m super excited about this, to be honest. Stay tuned! I might blog about the shenanigans I get myself into. Or not. They could be potentially embarrassing things.

STROKES SHIRTS UPDATES: Winners, if you were wondering where your shirt is, they are still at my house because I haven’t sent them, yet. Patience, please. :) I’ve given Kasey’s hers because I saw her in school one time. So, there. You’ll get them soon. I just need to get other things out of the way.

 

2009, GTFO. Hi, 2010. // January 1, 2010

The reason why it’s such a huge file is so that I won’t forget. Hello, 2010. Very glad you could finally grace us with your presence, seeing as 2009 absolutely sucked.

Now that I think about it, though, I have no idea why I thought that 2009 was a suckfest. Nothing really drastic happened to me (except for our dog dying) and to be quite honest, 2009 had a lot of milestones for me, in terms of personal goals and markers. I guess the stress just kept on piling up, and there was collective unrest perpetually present in everyone I’ve spoken to. In the last few months of 2009, people were practically begging the days to go by faster so that they could start over. Like the coming of the new year meant that the sucky cards they were dealt with would automatically change to absolutely fantastic ones.

All in all, I think I actually kind of liked 2009 because that was when I came to terms with who I was. I became less pretentious and more comfortable with myself, which is a little funny because someone called me out for being pretentious. But I digress.

I’m not going to do those year-end posts, where people list their favorite records or favorite films, because I have a knack of getting into things late, and also of forgetting things. I guess I am lucky that Last.fm keeps track of my listening habits. Here are the people I most listened to in 2009:

1. Pavement
2. Animal Collective
3. The National
4. Vampire Weekend
5. Elliott Smith
6. Voxtrot
7. Mark Mothersbaugh
8. Brand New
9. Bob Dylan
10. Okkervil River

The films that stuck out were Adventureland, Up, (500) Days of Summer, Inglourious Basterds, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Watchmen and Paper Heart. My favorite books were John Green’s “Looking for Alaska” and “An Abundance of Katherines,” Dave Eggers’ “The Wild Things,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Penelopiad,” David Levithan’s “The Realm of Possibility” and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Galápagos,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and “Cat’s Cradle.”

I know that doesn’t say much about what my year has been like, but it’s nice to go back and try to remember. 2009 sucked, on the whole, but I think I don’t feel its suckage as much (as I did at the time these things happened), because there was a fair amount of growing up involved on my part.

And all I can really do in 2010 is to try to be better, and that is, I think, the most I can really hope for.