Living Space

After a month of living in our den, I have finally moved back into my room. *applause*

I enjoyed my stay in the den. While there wasn't any wifi and I'd have to stay in our sala just to go online, I had the luxury of having a TV in the room, staying up to watch CSI and the other telenovelas before finally falling asleep.

But it was meant to be a temporary arrangement, as my excitement over planning my room renovation and seeing it to the finish was mounting. I designed my new storage spaces. I looked for color schemes on Real Home Ideas: The Color Book and headed to Handyman for paint swatches. I thought of which things would go into my new storage spaces and which ones I'd have to let go of. And everyday, I asked my mom what the workers had finished, and what was left to be done.

Over the long weekend, I finally got busy with moving in to my room. I arranged my books on the shelves, sifted through the knickknacks that would find their own shelf space, oversaw the delivery of my new chair, moved clothes into my closet. By Monday evening, the last few items my room needed were finally in place, and I could say I had fully moved in.

Here's how my room looked since 1997:

It's not a great photo of my room, as you can't see the seater and the full length of the L-shaped desk. But the seater and my desk both turned into a dumpsite for all my things. While the seater and desk were added when I hit college, this is basically how the room has been since I was first year high school and it has seen me through so many experiences and heartaches (how emo!).

And here it is today:

This is the area where the seater and the desk used to be. My only request for my room was to buy a comfy chair where I could do all my reading. I'm tired of reading in bed or sitting down on the bed and leaning against the wall, so that's the only thing I really wanted for my room. Thanks to Real Living's recommendation, I discovered Mandaue Foam (along Ortigas Extension) and bought my chocolate brown recliner from them. I designed my desk to fit the bay window, and it's a design my mom wants to copy for their own desk. I love how the white and chocolate brown look against the orange wall.

The accent wall for my room is a nice, bright shade of blue. The cabinets right above my bed house my books, and my picture frames and little figurines have their own shelves as well. I like how my bed sort of has its own niche against the cabinets-- when I lie down and the lamp by my chair is on, the light doesn't get into my eyes. And of course, I love the blue wall!

See how the white cabinets break up the orange and blue walls? This is the main reason why I decided on bold and bright colors for my room, because I knew that all the white storage units would somehow soften the look. The long cabinet is a closet for added storage, and the ladder propped up against it is not only functional (as I'll need it to reach into the higher shelves) but decorative as well.

See how the blue and orange look so good together? Hanging on the orange wall is a cross-stitch I made back in seventh grade. It's a Precious Moments pattern of a boy sitting on a stool, mending the broken heart that a girl holds up for him. By some happy coincidence, the matting is blue with a touch of pink, and its wooden frame matches the frame of the mirror.

This is the component I've had since 1998, I remember that we were new to our house when I received this as a Christmas gift. It's still alive, although the tape deck no longer works and the CD tray gets stuck sometimes. I use it today to listen to the radio and to amplify the sounds on my laptop, whether I'm watching CSI or listening to my favorite playlists. It's especially helpful when the rain is pounding against my window and my laptop's volume can only go so high. The component has its own place now, above the shoe cabinet and below the cabinet that houses all of my kikay stuff.

And finally, I have my photos hanging on my walls. It's funny because I never intended to have them in frames with matting; I was only looking for the normal kinds that I could hang on the wall. Unfortunately, most 8x10 photo frames were designed for desk display and not wall display. Thank goodness a kind saleslady suggested that I buy those frames that already come with a picture, and just replace the picture with my own. The result is photos that look like they were professionally done, and I couldn't be prouder to have my own work hanging in my room.

Now that my room is finished, I can't wait to come home everyday and make the most out of my personal space. I want to sit in my recliner and read more. I want to light scented candles and relax in my room. I want to do more than crash on my bed and sleep. Because this is a room that, with it's vibrant colors, is meant to be lived in, not merely slept in.

Spotlight: "The Pact: A Love Story"

For once, I am speechless.

I started reading The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult last Saturday, and I had trouble putting it down since then. I literally had to force myself to stop reading. But this time, I can't summarize the novel or even give my own thoughts about it. All I can truly say is it was a page-turner that truly kept me hooked and wanting to know what would happen next. It kept me at the edge of my seat up to the very end, and there was no way to predict how things would end.

Jodi Picoult is truly a gifted writer, as this is the second time that she has kept me hooked on her novel. Granted, this is only the second book I've read --the first being My Sister's Keeper-- but I think that she has a way of really unravelling the story as you read, and this is something that may hold true in all her novels. At the turn of every page, you always feel like you're discovering something new, that this new bit of information is important, that all things will only find resolution in the end. She also has a gift of putting to words such complex emotions, making the reader feel how conflicted her characters truly are.

In short, The Pact: A Love Story was one of the few books that really kept me entranced all the way to the end. I'd recommend it, but only to people who don't believe that all things end with a Happily Ever After. That's not how real life is, and Jodi Picoult tries to keep it as real as it can get.

Three books to go: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Prizes, and Good In Bed. I wonder which one I should read over the long weekend. I can't wait!

Spotlight: "Getting Rid of Matthew"

I should have blogged about this right after reading it. Now that I'm so into Jodi Picoult's The Pact, I'm having trouble remembering what this book was about. Hehe.

Getting Rid of Matthew was actually a risky buy, if you think about it. I got attracted to the title, intrigued by the story, and obsessed with finding a copy of it in every Fully Booked branch I visited. Seeing a lone copy on the shelf made me believe that it was mine for the taking. But really, it could've been a bad investment-- like any other thing in life, it could've gone either way.

But as I read on about Helen The Mistress, Sophie the Wife, and Matthew the Cheater, I found myself drawn in by the story. Helen has been with Matthew for four years and --although she has been begging him for years to leave his wife-- is slowly realizing that there is life outside of Matthew, that she does have a chance to really make something of her life this late in the game. But just when she decides that she doesn't want Matthew anymore, he finally tells his wife Sophie everything, breaks up his family, and decides to move in with Helen. The rest of the novel focuses on how Helen intends to get rid of Matthew.

What I found most interesting about this novel wasn't how she planned to get rid of Matthew, but the friendship she forged with Sophie under false pretenses. I loved the twist that Helen actually seeks out Sophie and they truly hit it off, even if Sophie has no idea who Helen really is. It makes me wonder how much messier life would be if mistresses actually went out to befriend the clueless wives. The complications of this friendship provided the novel with a lot of heart.

Of course, I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say that I enjoyed this book and wanted to go back to a couple of passages before moving on to my next book. The fact that I still remember the names of the protagonists also says something about how much I liked this book.

I'm down to four books, and I'm already two-thirds into The Pact. More on that when I'm done with it. Ciao for now!

Spotlight: "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves"

First, I have to take something off my book list. You may call it cheating, but there is some logic to this: I am removing Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life. It's ironic that I can't finish reading a book that is all about getting things done. So... let's just strike it off the list so that I can pick it up whenever I feel like it, shall we?

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to pay homage to the nerd in me by celebrating the fact that I have finished reading Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

As the title suggests, the book is all about punctuation marks. The very title is derived from a joke about punctuation:

A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

I found myself giggling at the joke, and knew that I was the right market for this book. Add to that the first paragraph that read:

Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't. A printed banner has appeared on the concourse of a petrol station near to where I live. "Come inside," it says, "for CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and BOOK's."

If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once.

Of course, I didn't put it down; I went and bought it. Truss is able to talk about the proper use of punctuation marks while educating the reader on the origins of such marks, all in a very light and humorous tone. It's not an instruction book, that's for sure, but it does make you think twice about how you punctuate your sentences.

It's also interesting to note the nuances between British English and American English. One point of contention is the placement of the comma (or period, whichever is applicable) when it comes to quotes, such as the example Truss presents:

BRITISH: Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses".

AMERICAN: Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses."

It was here that I discovered that, as I subscribe to the first option, I punctuate in a British manner (at least, in this instance). But I spell using American English, preferring "color" to "colour" and "glamor" to "glamour" (although the latter does look pretty glamorous). She also points out that what Americans call "parentheses", the Brits call "brackets", and what the Americans call "brackets", they call "square brackets". Confusing much? The book can probably get confusing if you're an American or you prefer using American English, as Truss is herself a Brit.

All in all, it was a very enlightening read that every writer --or grammar stickler-- should indulge in. I will probably find myself rereading some chapters at leisure, especially the one on the semicolon and the colon.

My book list now stands at:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen --stricken off the list
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
18. Something Blue by Emily Giffin
19. The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult
20. Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
21. Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner --New entry!

Yes, yes, I know that that's a new entry right there, but I've always been curious about this author. Upon seeing that Powerbooks was on sale, I succumbed and finally bought one of her books. But since I removed a book off the list, we're still at 20! And now, I have five books to go before I can say I'm done. As long as I don't add to it anymore (let's cross our hearts and hope to die), looks like I can finish this list before Christmas!

The best part is, it's a non-working holiday tomorrow and I get to recuperate in bed! With a good book, perhaps? We'll see! :)

Back from Bangkok

I tried to write an entry to talk about my recently-concluded trip to Bangkok, but I wasn't happy with what I was writing. I hit the delete button, but here I am again, attempting to talk about it. 

Even now, I keep typing one word and hitting backspace, unsure of where to even begin. Do I start by talking about how we started planning this trip in January, and all of a sudden, I've gone on the trip and come home? Do I tell you all about the plans we made and which ones didn't materialize (like the trip to the library and dinner at Baiyoke Sky Deck)? Do I share the realization that Ayutthaya is not a park but an entire province, and how we kissed our dreams of biking around the area goodbye (and besides, by "rent a bike" they meant a motorbike, not a bicycle)? Do I talk about realizing that I'm not a hardcore shopper after all? 

Maybe, where words will not suffice, pictures will.

Wat Pho: Reclining Buddha

Four Pagodas

Dinner at Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant owned by a government official popularly known as "Mr. Condom" because of his campaigns on safe sex and HIV-AIDS awareness.

One of the many, beautiful ruins in Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand

More pictures on my Facebook account (for friends only, sorry). This may be my only trip for 2009, but it was definitely a blast!

Where will the Universe take me next? I can't wait to find out.

August is love!

For the past three years (i.e. ever since I started working here), I've come to think of August as a slow month. After all, we hardly have any events this month, and I think of it as the time to recover from the crazy FHM party in July and the time to build up for the hell month that is September.

But this year, there are so many things to be excited about this August!

First, I finished reading Something Blue by Emily Giffin. A lot of time has passed since I read Something Borrowed, but I remember being incredibly annoyed with Darcy, the self-centered "beauty is everything" PR maven who is now the protagonist of this sequel. At the start of the novel, she was still as annoying as I remembered, but I decided to give her a chance to redeem herself.

What's amazing about this book is Darcy's transformation is very subtle yet real, and you find yourself having a change of heart about her as well. Emily Giffin is brilliant, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying Something Blue. Now I want to read the first book again just so that I can form my opinion on which one I like better!

Second, I'm very excited because I'll be going to Bangkok with a very good friend of mine! I first visited Bangkok with my family in 2001, but I hardly remember anything about that visit. I've always maintained that it's very different to travel with your family because you end up just going wherever you're told. So this Bangkok trip with my friend will be like seeing Bangkok for the very first time.

It's been so much fun planning our itinerary and researching on all the sights we want to see in Bangkok. While we briefly considered taking a two-hour trip out of Bangkok going to Pattaya, we instead decided to take the one-hour trip to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Thailand (in photo). The Ayutthaya Historical Park is now just a bunch of ruins, but history buffs that we are, we're excited about biking around the area for the greater part of our day. Of course, we're also excited about shopping in Bangkok, but more than that, we're looking forward to the Temple Tour, going to the night markets, trying the restos that friends and colleagues have recommended, and even hitting the library! Yes, because we love books so much, we can't resist a side trip to the Neilson Hays Library for the sake of checking it out and relaxing in the library's cafe. We'll be gone for four days, and it's gonna be so much fun! I can feel it!

Third, because I'll be gone for four days, my parents decided that it's the best time to have my room renovated. My room has stayed the same since we first moved to our house in 1997-- the only thing that changed was adding a custom-made seater and desk set when I was in college, but my wallpapers still reflected the choices of a fourteen year old. I've always looked wistfully at the "grown-up rooms" featured in Real Living, and daydreamed about renovating my own room, but never really thought that it would happen.

But now that it's finally happening, my mom and I spent Sunday measuring my room and drawing the new storage spaces. I downloaded a program that generates color combinations for websites, but of course I'm using it to come up with the best color combination for my room. Everything has been finalized (yes, even my choice of color) and I hope that I'll be around when they paint my room so that I can see if it's exactly what I had in mind.

Once they finish everything in my room, I'm excited to look for some new furnishing. My one insistence was there be space for a nice, comfy armchair where I can do all my reading (because I'm finally heeding the warning that reading in bed is bad for your eyesight), so we worked around that. I want to have a nice floor lamp by the chair so that I have ample lighting for my reading, and I want to have a new wall clock. I'm also considering selecting some of my best photographs and either coming up with a collage or having them printed so I can frame them individually in small frames. It's so much fun to plan a room makeover, and I'm so excited to have a room that finally reflects that a 26-year-old woman lives in it.

Last, even if we don't celebrate anniversaries, August was a significant month three years ago, when my love finally worked up the nerve to tell me how he felt about me. Fast forward to the present, and we're still silly as if we'd just gotten together yesterday. For the first time, I have faith that we truly will make it all the way, and we'll continue growing together in love. ♥ ♥ ♥

August 09 is one for the books, and I love it! ♥ ♥ ♥

Spotlight: "Raising the Peaceable Kingdom" and "Baby Proof"

In my quest to become a reader and not a mere book hoarder, I decided to try harder to cross some books off my list. As of last weekend, I have successfully crossed off two: one has been my constant companion to the dentist, and I was determined to finish the last few chapters to get it done and over with. The other was one that I decided to read on a whim. So the list is moving along, and I am proud to say that I have succeeded in not adding to it any further (new discovery: leaving the credit card at home really works!), and that I have avoided any serious browsing in the bookstores.

So, what two books did I cross off my list?

It took me a while to finish reading this book. As I mentioned before, the premise really intrigued me: can a puppy, kitten, two chickens, two rats, and a rabbit peacefully coexist in one home? From the very beginning, I knew it was an experiment. What I didn't count on was the book sounding like a report of the experiment.

In fairness, the author was very personal about it. He shared anecdotes on how he would discover more about the behavior of the animals-- an afternoon on the beach reveals that chickens like to stretch out in the sand, the rats like nesting in his wife's bosom and become most hyper at night, the kitten and the rabbit can become best friends over time. But these anecdotes were also interspersed with his findings and hypotheses, which didn't make for very interesting reading.

I found myself reading until the end just to see what would happen to the animals, if and when his experiment reaches its end. When I was done, I found myself just shrugging and saying, "So he did it. Good for him. On to the next book!"

Which, after much thought, I decided would be Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. I had only read Something Borrowed and am delaying reading its sequel Something Blue, mainly because I'm trying to be fair to my books by reading the ones I had acquired first. I also tried to pose a challenge to myself this weekend: to try reading this book in just one sitting.

It had been a while since I read a book from cover to cover in one sitting, and I just wanted to see how long it would take me. After all, I used to do it all the time (which, of course, led to growing up with glasses, getting laser eye surgery, and wearing glasses again with a more tolerable grade-- but that's another story entirely). So last Saturday afternoon, I decided to forego all plans of watching CSI and instead settled in to read Giffin's third novel.

I realized from the very beginning of the book that I would have trouble liking it. After all, I disagree with the protagonist's stand of not wanting to have children-- even if I do understand that there are women who are not inclined to become mothers, I would like to have children one day. And since reading requires a certain amount of putting yourself in the protagonist's shoes, I had a bit of difficulty doing just that-- most especially when she lets go of the man she loves because he wants to have a baby and she doesn't.

In the end, it was a so-so read for me, which surprisingly makes me even more excited to read the rest of her novels, as I believe that this is just a glitch in Giffin's otherwise brilliant writing. And, despite my misgivings, the book was able to captivate me enough to read it for 4 1/2 hours straight, without breaks. So I may have disagreed with the plot, but it kept me hooked enough to still want to know how it all ends. That, to me, is a sign of good writing and makes me crave for even more.

I've heard that her latest novel Love the One You're With is also really good. I took a look at the summary when I came across it once in the neighborhood bookstore, and in direct contrast to Baby Proof, I think I could relate to this plot too much! Well, just because running into my exes is always a What-If scenario that runs through my head, and my telenovela imagination tends to blow everything out of proportion. I'm scared that Love the One You're With will hit too close to home, but then again, when have I ever been afraid of a book??

Now that my reading list has hit 20 books, I think it's time for a recap:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin --I boycotted this one.
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
18. Something Blue by Emily Giffin
19. The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult
20. Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

13 out of 20 is not bad at all! Whee! :D