Throw away your tears, let go of your fears.

At laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast! The term is finally over!

Thank goodness, I passed the first term of my third year in MMA! I really thought that it will be my doom because it was yet one of the hardest terms I had in my life! Talk about Statistics x Photojournalism x DevCom x Pop Culture, man. Just ugh, I was so glad it is finally over and I passed all my courses. I am so happy even tho I didn't make it to the Dean's Listers this term. I don't really give a shit cos partially, I don't expect it because I knew that aiming for one is frickin' hard. And albeit all that, I got a GWA of flat 2, it might be a shocker, but it's okay for me. I still have pizza from my dad and I'm still his favorite hardworking girl. :)

You see, I'm currently in the hype of taking photos and getting into the pro side of photography. Since I saw Shaira Luna and her works, it really inspired me to push through a career in conceptual photography. I dunno, I love how she works with the photos and how she's done it. Makes me feel that someday I'll have a job like that in the future. Even though I got rejected (never got my screening schedule) at the school paper, and was not contacted afterwards when I passed my portfolio in the school's Commuications Relations Department because they were in need of volunteer photographers; I still keep on pursuing on photography and did my best to enhance my skill. I nearly cried when I almost 'fail' my photojournalism class. I remember myself saying that I'd slap my prof hard in the balls if he fails me in the course because I frickin' really doing my best. Good thing the old man heard my pleads and passed me with a flat grade of 2. 

Me and my friends did a photoshoot before our finals because that time we were so bored and our majors were done and we got really nothing to do that time. Me and Bryan were the models and also sometimes the photographer (CJ was our main photographer). It was fun, but it was hella hot and my heels killed my feet. It was my Grandmere's and it was about 25 years old. Good thing we watched a movie in class on that day.

The remaining days of our first term was good, we had fun at Pop Culture, despite its really nervewrecking final exam, and DevCom never had its 'last meeting' because our prof left for a business trip. I was in a state of daze the whole week; never know where to go and I just wanted everything to end. (lol what was that direction of words, Pam.)

And also! My boyfriend's birthday just came last week and it was one of the most frustrating things I have experienced in my life. It was on the same freakin' day as my finals on Math and Science. I had to sacrifice my plans of celebrating it on the exact day, though he kept telling me that it's alright because he understands and he, too, needs to study for his exams. It was a frustrating week, but good thing saturday came and we had the celebration in the most relaxing way, ever. 

Some boyfriends or girlfriends treat their partners with a fancy romantic dinner, or an exciting movie marathon and booze, but my boyfie is different. We celebrated his birthday by relaxation and pampering. It was a gay thing, for both of us, but it was also cool. lol We had a facial and a full-body massage in our favorite spa! It was the perfect term-ender/birthday celebration for both of us because we really needed it and we don't know how to celebrate it more perfectly than that. It was really the best. He was really the best! 

As of now, I just finished deciding on what courses I'll take next term. We had our course enlistment today and I took up Tv production and Writing for Print as my electives. Call me a bitter one, but I'll do what I can to get in to the newspaper because I really wanted to and I wanted to enhance my skills. This was my goal, in the first place anyway. Goodluck to me! Cheers!

Beta Particles

So, instead of reading my courseworks and lecture notes for two upcoming exams tomorrow, I just finished a couple of games in League of Legends and drank till the last sip of my grande-sized cappucino espresso. Talk about productivity and motivation! Hah!

"What's up with my life? 

That's the first sentence that came into my mind once I saw this blog's bookmark under the address bar. At that moment, I recalled everything that has happened since my last blogpost. Remembering just a gist, I made a list of stuff that happened in my life, so far. 

• Student Media Congress at De La Salle University
• An unforgettable issue (personal)
• Hell month of August
• My Aunt died last monday :(
• Trips to San Pedro
• More school hassles
• Getting addicted and sort of pro at League
• Karlosis session almost everyday
• Chopped my hair off

Pretty much, I've been dealing with loads of shitty and depressing stuff the whole month and one of the things that annoys me the most are the things that people talk about everywhere these days. It's kinda absurd to think about, especially on hard times, but it was quite inevitable. Sux.

**Update 08/16/2014

I just got home a few hours ago from my Tita's funeral. She died of fighting cervical cancer last monday, a day before my parent's wedding anniversary, and a few days before my nineteenth birthday. Honestly, it wasn't really a big deal for me not to celebrate my birthday this year, but people are greeting me and my favorite coffee place gave a suprise birthday sylvannas! It was really touching and sweet! :) I also received the best gift anyone has ever given to me yesterday. Of course, it was from the best man I know. I really wasn't expecting anything, though I knew that he was saving up money the whole month just to buy me that kind of gift. :>

As of now, I'm okay. Still mourning for my Tita Isie, but I'm still facing the harsh world of schoolandia and shit. As our finals come closer, more projects and shits pile up. I got a photoshoot and a tarp layout to do, and people are kind of thinking that I'm making excuses not to contact them and do my job, which is kinda sad, because they tend to forget that I'm in a devastated state and I'm just masking my happiness online. Such people :( I just really hope that they would understand how busy I am right now and tweeting/posting/doing something that would make me happy is just a mask and a vent to forget this sad, sad tragedy I'm facing right now.

I need to breathe.

Fifty milimiters.

I feel so lethargic.

To the point of wanting to give up everything and just fall back.

Chos! I just feel so tired all the time, and I am tired all the time. School's back a few weeks ago and since then, assignments and projects piled up like pronto. My majors don't suck, really, everything is really an interesting course, but all the schoolworks tire me and all of them were time-consuming and time-constrained. Even the suckish minors that takes up the small 'time' I have for my personal life. I dunno. It first felt like I didn't have a good time-schedule and I don't manage my time well, but as everyday I try to accomplish one or two assignments, another batch piles up and everything is just like an explosion.

Honestly, it's kinda depressing if I tell you that my body's not keeping up anymore with my battles. Migraine's getting worse each day and my bruises keeps on multiplying every time I accidentally bump myself into something. I'm anemic and my blood pressure always gets low. I'm taking up medicine for anti-anemia but it ain't working anymore due to too much stress and lack of sleep. I got fever two weeks ago and didn't get to have my Pop Culture exam, which was, according to my classmates, ultra-mega-super hard. I was about to take it last week, but unfortunately, typhoon Glenda striked and we had no electricity power and water supply for about three days. Good thing it's gone now but there are more typhoons heading for the country this week :( Sad life.

I am currently stoked for the upcoming Student Media Congress this friday at De La Salle University-Manila. Our class is going to participate and this is the first "field trip" I'm gonna have since NSTP. lol There are more opportunities there and so far, I got three workshops to attend: Glamour Photography, Writing for an online audience, and Fashion Photography! There are also freebies and lotsa events that will follow after. I seriously just can't wait! <3

And oh yeah! I have a new Instagram account. It's a public one I made for portraits and stuff. It has a budding followers so please do follow it for more osom photog~ skillz. And yeah! I also re-activated my ask.fm account because lotsa people are asking me for advices, especially the confused and heart-broken ones. So if you have a problem that cannot be answered by google.com or wikipedia, you may go and visit my ask.fm profile.

I had to make this short, despite the long wait. Sorry!

PS: Some of my photos are blurry on this post because I have a new 50mm f/1.8 prime lens and my photography didn't know how to adjust the focus points.

Student Media Congress website: http://studentmediacongress.com/
New Instagram account: http://instagram.com/fourtraits/
Ask.fm: http://ask.fm/pambabae/

Free from your bullsh*t and stuff

I was busy.

Like literally. I did so many things for the past few weeks, thus the explanation of this very late post. Nevertheless, more adventures means more things to share. :) It all felt like bliss, I'm not even ready yet to culminate the summer. Everything's not yet done and I haven't finished everything. Well, maybe, except for one. A few weeks ago, I taught kids aged 6-8 in our church about appreciating God's creation for us. Explaining to little dreamers about loving this world and everything around it was one of the best things I've done the whole summer. Though it was only for a short period of time, the memories made with those kids was one of the unforgettable moments. I had been teaching since I was in first year high school, but every summer, there were different kids, and everything was a different experience too. 

Another unforgettable moments were also the after school time, wherein we, the co-teachers who also were my churchmates, hang out everywhere we would like. We started playing League of Legends, strolled somewhere in the middle of the city, and did a lot of things only cool kids do. Last wednesday, we went to this field and had a photoshoot, despite the crowd of PDA couples in every corner. I was with my best childhood friends the whole afternoon and it was fun, because we had the time of our lives that moment.

Aside from my church activities, I also just finished watching Game of Thrones just this week, perfectly in-time before the latest episode comes out. Unlike other fans, I'd like to keep my rage against Petyr Baelish, Cersei, and all other fucking cunts (dead and alive) to myself and keep it subtle. I love Daenerys Targaryen (who would not?!) and Jon Snow and Arya because I personally think they'll conquer Westeros someday and end the war foreves. But who knows? The series is so sick and exciting nobody knows. One thing after watching, I'd always tell meself: "I need to read the books!"

Speaking of books, I'm currently reading "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green. I borrowed this from a friend of mine a week ago from an overnight soiree at their place and I haven't read it much further yet. I know I'm supposed to be finished by now, but unfortunately, I'm not that "into" the book-reading state yet. It was the first hard bound book this summer since Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, and I find it hard to push through with reading because of my gaming time and some series and movies that I haven't watched yet.

And maybe before June comes, I might change my playlist here on my blog! (Yay! Sorry for being such a lazy-ass blogger) I recently just changed my phone's music library from punk rock to some indie songs from Phoenix, The xx, Vampire Weekend, and Passion Pit; which I got from Spotify a few weeks ago. I need to replenish my hippie self because school's coming and I need this kind of music right now. So, expect a lot of Spotify-featured songs from my upcoming playlist because I kind of loved what they're playing there right now. :)

Ah yes, school's coming for about two weeks from now. Currently cramming to finish all these bullsh*ts and stuff. Currently crying for help. HELP.

The 'no money, no worry' escape from reality.

Hey! I haven't posted anything for a while now. As per my title, yes I am doing all the things I could just to get some money without asking for my parents directly. lol I believe I have already explained why in my previous posts, but if not, then it was posted somewhere on my other blogs. lol

So far, my life's doing nothing. I wasn't able to have summer classes because my dad protested in the last minute I was about to pay my enrollment fees. He sort of did not know that summer classes are much more expensive than the regular term fee so he told me not to enroll anymore. So here I am, stuck in doing almost nothing all day. 

And so, few days ago, I went to church with my friends to help plan our activities for the Eucharistic Year. After that, we had a mini photo shoot at the front parking lot. It was a fun-filled day with my best buddies Arman, Betina, and Jill. Besides the photo shoot and the crazy McDonald's delivery phone call, we had fun planning our activities. We got excited with our upcoming February activity and talked about it for almost 3 hours. lol 

I also went shopping last sunday in Manila. I went to the cheapstake shopping center in Greenhills to get some staples for my closet and to spend the money I asked from my dad as a reward. I bought a lot of stuff, mostly consisted of clothes and tech stuff I needed in order to live. I was with my sister and aunt and wasted about 10k in just two days. I bought two sets of clothes, a pair of "pang-harabas" shoes, iPad accessories, and other girly essentials. My sister was with me so she bought a whole lot of things too. And I also bought a new Adobe Creative Cloud Master Collection for my pc because I badly needed it and it was my main reason for going there. I know, I may have been such a shopaholic and spending too much, but I deserved it. It was a reward for me being such a good student in class and having good grades. This things also happens in rare moments so I knew that everything was totally worth it. Of course, my parents were sort of furious for not being able to explain how I managed to spend an entire 8,200php on goodies without even a quarter change. Neither do I know that things are a lot expensive on Sundays, but everything was a good buy. Here are the pieces I loved from all the other clothing I bought and all of them are under 600php!

Basic white tee from Zara (200php), Pencil skirt from Regatta(?) (200php), shoes from my Grandmére's shoe closet.

"I don't care" shirt from Doodle Tee (250php), Floral skater skirt (200php), Cheap Vans Era in black (550php)

I am a smart shopper, see? lol. Sometimes I feel bad for not buying in the original stores of these baby goodies, but who cares anymore, right? I can pull off these clothes like they were bought originally and they look great on me. *insert a very bitchy but streetwise kind of girl voice here just like a mocking Max Black on Methamphetamine* 

And speaking of Max Black and meth drugs, that's right! I'm watching 2 Broke Girls and Breaking Bad! I'm almost finished in the first season of 2BG and it gets funnier and funnier in every episode. I'm seriously lovin' Max's really bitchy attitude and Caroline's richy rich shenanigans. Every thing is hilarious, except sometimes that I feel sorry for Caroline and her situation. I kinda wanna smash her with Max's oven to tell her that things won't always get in her way because she's not rich anymore but I'm glad that she's learning in her life as a newly-poor person.

Besides sitcoms, I've been watching a lot more serious kind of series, like BrBa. I wasn't very fond and very disgusted at the first episodes, but as every thing was exciting and every episode ending was a cliff-hanger like TWD, I kept on watching and it was really good. It feels like I wanted to try cooking meth too. Hahahahaha! But I don't get it why I find Skyler so stupid at not finding out what Walter has been doing. I meaaan, gaaah. For the sake of family, right?

Okay. I think I told so many spoilers already, for those who haven't/aren't watching these series. Anyway, so far this is what I've been doing all summer. I still have tons of series and movies and animes to watch in the coming month, and I have to learn so many things in my newly-bought Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Lightroom, and so much more.

Currently, my social life is going down not because I was sort of hiding from everybody and I'm spending every day infront of the computer, but because my mom won't let me go out without a reason. I mean, she doesn't know I saved a couple of hundreds in my money-splurging weekend and now I can't get out of the house without her permission and she's sort of punishing me by not giving me extra money whenever I'm out. She won't even buy me load for my cellphone. Damn! Good thing I can get news from my friends through the Internet, but even so, I still like hanging out with my college buddies on real life and share stories in school, because it feels so right there.

Anyway, I'm having a sort-of tough month of April, and I can't wait for it to be over. I hope May comes so slow so that I could finish every "nothing" that I've been doing before school starts. I'll post more often, but I won't promise, but I'm trying to update my social networking accounts, which you could click on the pages above. :))

xx, Pam.

The Wizard of Oz

A month ago, our HUM124 - Theater class produced a full theatrical play, The Wizard of Oz, which was based on L. Frank Baum's book and the 1939 MGM film. Our whole class contributed to this almost three-month long production and it was fantastic!

We managed to have six runs of our production, one in a local town plaza, four runs in our school auditorium for two days, and one in a mall. And yes, it was really, really tiring but it was fun because we saw the faces our audience having fun watching our show.

We had two months to prepare for this show. Since day one of our theater class, we already voted for the play we were going to showcase. There were a lot to choose from, but The Wizard of Oz got the most votes because it was a great fairytale to portray. Then a few weeks passed and we selected our departments and auditioned for roles. I mentioned in my other blog that I was supposed to audition for the role of Dorothy, but then at the last minute I changed my mind because Dorothy has a lot of singing acts and I cannot sing! I auditioned for the Wicked Witch's role instead and got the part.

Then as the weeks gone by, we had our line readings, and practices which lasted until eight pm in the evening. Super hassle. It meant so many sacrifices, like sleep, study time, and quality time. I missed so many galas with my friends, and some birthdays, and even sacrificed a monthsary celebration just for the practices. There even had a time that I got sick and my throat screeched because of sore throat and fever. I had to take a week of and it happened when the show's about to come.

But I think everything was worth the sacrifice. Everything paid off after our very first show in the mamatid covered court. After that first show, we got so overwhelmed and did our best in our next performances. Originally, our show in the mall was supposed to last for only twenty minutes, but when the college faculty and deans watched our play, they decided to make us do a full show. It was really a great experience!

I was amazed that people liked my portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West. I wasn't an expert in doing antagonist roles before because most of the time, productions chooses me to be the protagonist. I never thought that I'll be accepted at first because the ones auditioned after me were better. I even had a second option role in the production, if ever I wasn't cast. Good thing I did, and then a huge wave of anxiety hit me because I'm not like the character I'm going to portray at all. Also another thing was, I might get laughed at by my friends who were going to watch because I might not act well. But as the practices went on, I got to manage my fears and my practices went well. I also had another dilemma with my role because in the script, the witch talked a lot. She had so many monologues and a solo scene. The fear went back to me as I was practicing solo because I know I'm bad at memorizing lines and making adlibs. It was a relief that I got to memorize them all and my co-actors helped me if I forgot some lines.

The main cast of the play were Pearl and Patch for the role of Dorothy, Ned as the Scarecrow, Ryan as the Tinman, Ej as the Cowardly Lion, and Brandon as the Wizard. Other casts were Kristine as the Good Witch of The North, Bryan as the Munchkin Mayor, Anya as the Barrister, CJ as the Emerald City Guard, Aeron as Uncle Henry, Abby as Auntie Em, and Ver as the Farmer. There's also the bulk casts: Joey and Ram as the evil monkeys; Clinton, Mabeth, Ira, and Marion as the Winkies; Bea C., Bea H., Cza, Sarah, Miya, Yen, Kaye, Joanna, Catcha, Jaymie, Ellen, and Cedric as the Munchkins.




Overall, my theater experience is one of the best, memorable as ever. One of the highlights in my college life. I could use it when I get to the performing industry someday, or in my future video-roleplaying productions, and also in public speaking. It made a lot of development in my self-confidence and acting skills, as well as having to bond with my MMA classmates. Theater class means a lot to me now and I’m forever thankful for this wonderful opportunity.

And if you want to watch the play, here is a video of our third run :)

Link to video

I hope you enjoy watching! :D


Photo credits to the Documentation Team of HUM124

YOLO

First of all, this isn't my first time being on the Deans' List. It's my second consecutive time being on the Deans' List. Whooohooo! I am literally being boastful right now, but who cares?! I am a fuckin' DL student again and I am so worth it! Hohohohoho.

I worked hard for this time. Because I knew that I wasn't gonna make it if I had gone YOLO-ing again. Hahahaha having traditional and digital art majors, program chair as the professor, two seven am classes, and a nerve-wrecking theater class; Oh god. I still can't believe I made it. 

I was even barely alive. All the time, I kept on saying "I want this term to end soon because I don't feel like it anymore." All the time, I was just procrastinating on my other subjects and not focusing on my majors because of theater class. Good thing, everything paid off really well and my fruits of labor was amazing! 

And you know what's the funny thing? This are my 2D flash animations that made the 1.50 mark!

I know, I know. I totally suck a digital drawings. We even used pen tablets to do that and I knew it really wasn't my thing. Hahahahaha! But my lucky ass made it. I'm just wondering why my traditional artworks didn't even make it to 1.75 :( 

Well. I should be grateful, right? Because even though I'm not such an artist and I knew wasn't giving much an effort on my digital ones, I still made it to the list of the lucky-ass smarties in school. I still deserve to be rewarded. Nike Janoski in dark mint, please? 

On another note, I'll be in Manila for a few days next week to buy an Adobe Master Collection and a new pair of shoes for my sister. Prolly I will take some photos and do some photography shit that I've been dying to do for a long time. Hahahaha but I don't know yet. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming summer term! Really, can't wait to see my friends again and take some classes. Hopefully, I'll have my money na after all this tumal shits. xx