Another Shot at Photography

Photography is an expensive hobby. Until now, I don't own a camera, not even a cheap point-and-shoot because my government salary just can't afford it.

But when I started making beaded jewelries I saw the need to grab/borrow a point-and-shoot camera (no one would lend me their DSLRs :() that I will need to take photos of them. I saw the need to practice a lot because I learned (the hard way) that after hours of designing and meticulous piece-by-piece assembly of my jewelries, it become utterly frustrating everytime the photos of my "masterpiece" turn out either blurry or the colors dull.

Yesterday I decided to take another shot at photographing my recent beadworks. I read from a Photography article that backgrounds are as important as the subjects. I saw sample photos of earrings hanging on a foliage or bracelets worn around a piece of ceramic artwork. The problem was, I don't have any of those. Though it seemed to me a stupid idea as first, I decided to just hang my beadworks on unlikely places.

This bracelet, as you can see, is hanging on this whatchamacollit metal for my door's double lock. The bracelet looked dull against the color of my door so I decided to hang it around my study lamp.


And voila, the effect was astounding! The lamp's light enhanced the adamantine luster of the Swarovski bicone crystals. The turquoise colored crystals against the yellow background made the crystals appear transparent whereas the white light showed the true color of the crystals. The background (lamp) became the subject also.


This turquoise and pearl necklace looked dull against the black display bust. So I decided to hang this necklace around, guess what?






..the door knob! If you look closely, you can even see the reflection of me kneeling on the floor just to take this shot. I've also included the photo of the earrings and the lock for the necklace that I customized myself.


















And this necklace I made for Ai is a story in and by itself. I own a similar necklace which I bought in Baguio City last year. When Ai saw my necklace, she asked me to make one for her.. I wanted hers to be different, unique. So I decided to string pearls around a memory wire and make an accent pendant out of 1.5 mm nickel coated wire.

The pendant itself is also a story. The gold metal wirework is a peacock standing on the water (hereto represented by the turquoise pebbles and bicone crystals) with her head surrounded by white clouds (pearls) being blown by the wind (silver metal swirl on top of the pearls). For the peacok's wings, I used metallic blue bicone crystals. It may not be clear to you but for me, it's an abstract piece of art and I'm actually proud of it. :D

Then, scattering the colored pebbles I collected months ago and using it as the necklace's background, I took this macro shot.

It turned out that my ideas weren't as stupid as it seemed to me at first. Maybe next time I should try hanging my jewelry pieces on my toilet bowl? Now that would be really stupid. LOL

The Grinch Who Stole My Christmas. As if.

I will never grow old. Nah, it's not what you think. I didn't mean that in the literal sense. If Mr. Scrooge were within earshot, he'd probably say:

"Bah, hambug!"

I'm talking about Christmas and me not growing up. Already 20-something and a mother of one, I still celebrate Christmas like innocent kids who still believe in Santa Claus. And believe it or not, I've been awfully good this year.

Christmas will always be my favorite holiday for a number of puerile reasons:

1. It's the longest holiday of the year.
2. I love gifts. Gifts. Gifts!! (Oh please, don't tell me only kids get gifts on Christmas!)
3. I love the colorful decorations that people put up during the season.
4. I love staring at Christmas lights that blink like candies until my eyes tear up (and my mouth waters. LOL, kidding)
5. I love decorating my house with lanterns, fake fir trees and Christmas balls, tinsels and stars- the colorful and loud reminder that "Hey, it's Christmas! Where's my gift? Here's yours!".
6. I get to visit my loved ones who didn't see me for months.
7. And last but not the least, bazaars! Bazaars are the best and cheapest place to shop and spend the year's Christmas bonus! Let's shop galore!

But will this conversation with A the Grinch stop me from carrying out my merry plans this Christmas?

Hey baby, I want to buy a tree and put it up at the corner of our sala, close to the TV. Is that okay with you?

Christmas trees are expensive.

No worries. I saw this 5-ft tree at Kaking's in Cogon. It was really cheap compared to the ones in Limketkai's.

Well the ornaments, the garlands and the lights will cost a lot.

No problem, I intend to make my own using my beads so they won't cost a lot. And hello, Christmas lights don't even cost more than two hundred pesos. We definitely can afford those.

Can't we just skip all these holiday schemes of yours and think of the money we'll need for Gugu's christening bash in Bicol?!

Yeah, you're right.



As if. I'm buying my tree this weekend.

My Baby Has Started to Crawl!

On a positive note, my baby has started to crawl. So, last weekend, mommy Grassy and daddy Abner decided to buy Gugu a crib cum play pen. He's so active that we can no longer leave him unattended on our family bed and on a crib even when he's sleeping because he loves to toss and turn and crawl towards his toys.

Yesterday, I decided to buy him a new set of baby bolster pillows, bed sheet, comforter and the regular rectangular pillow. He loves to get his legs on mine when I'm breastfeeding him and bolster makes good substitute when I'm not around. I also chose white for his bedding set because unfortunately, due to rainy season, mosquitoes are also everywhere. And no black mosquito will go without notice against a white background righty?

Since I was in a shopping spree, I also bought myself a bangle that's also a watch. Cute, isn't it?

My baby though, is way cuter:

"Looking at how mommy operates her digicam"

"First solid meal"

"We were on the beach the whole day so my baby got tired and decided to hit the sack early"

"Mommy and Gugu shadows"

"Mommy and Baby Gugu shadows II)

"Gugu and his new toy"

I got the ax

First of all, I'd like to apologize to my readerships about the previous emotionally-charged-uber-disturbing blog post. I was actually so agitated when I wrote that one that I didn't even bother to check for vocabulary lapses. I'm still agitated until now, but not enough not to be objective about the things around me, here at work, particularly.

Have you ever wondered why the phrase "I got the ax" would more often than not correspond to "I got fired"? and people, usually, follow that with a sympathetic question, "oh, what happened?" even if you're holding an actual ax in your hand and is about to chop of their heads for asking stupid questions. I wondered about it myself at one point but the answer dawned on me, or rather the question became important due to a series of unfortunate events (if I may quote Lemony Snicket) here at work.

I'm not a history buff but I know for a fact that succession of kings in royal families had caused so much violence in the past. Loyalists to the incumbent kings were often either beheaded or subjected to other forms of atrocities when a new one is enthroned, particularly if the change of leadership was through a violent war.

A change of leadership at work had resulted to rolling of heads, a cry of "I got the ax!" was heard in every nook of our dilapidated office, it was too loud to be ignored.

When the new director took position, I directly asked him if there's going to be a change in our employment as contractuals. He assured as that our services are needed so neither termination nor change in the contracts will happen. It was therefore a great shock to us when a few days after, the personnel officer approached one of the employees nonchalantly and told her:

"Please receive this."

When my co-employee looked at the paper and read, she was expecting an explanation. Instead, the notice of termination of her service was screaming at her from that piece of paper. What was shocking was that the termination was effective October 1 and the notice was dated September 29 which didn't give the contractuals enough time to adjust and find another job.

No explanation was given verbally. When we asked during the open forum why this was so, they just told us that the notice was written in English and therefore, easily understandable and that there simply is no funds anymore to pay us. But what about the impact of that termination notice to us? Couldn't they care about how we would feel? Couldn't they consider all the accomplishments we made for the office before writing that notice and addressing it in such a "brutal" and inconsiderate manner? It's simply atrocious! I still can't believe how the government agency could hire such incompetent and unprofessional individuals.

And shouldn't they know in advance how the funds are going? What are bookkeeping and auditing for if they keep losing track of all the financial transactions and be caught in such financial surprise? Lack of funds, my ass. In the first place, before we signed our contracts, we were assured that there's going to be enough funds for our salary til end of this year. Where did this fund go?

The notice was addressed to all the contractuals, at that time, all 20 or so of us. 20+ heads rolled across the filthy floor of that office. Because of sheer lack of foresigh, a number 0f families will spend the Christmas quietly, with no festive moods and such. A number of children will cry for gifts and parents will endure these with bowed heads.

Where is justice in that?

In these trying times of global recession and with Christmas time just around the corner, the termination is very untimely.

On the same day, we wrote a letter asking for the union to help us in telling the office to issue a recall because the termination was short notice and simply, unfair. This letter was signed by me and other employees which we decided to send to the central office in Manila for their comments and actions.

The letter shook the regional office like earthquake so the Admin people wrote a retraction letter the next day stating that everything's been settled and that we wish to retract all the complaints in our previous letter. Then they office asked the contractuals to sign. The batch of people who signed the letter to the union, the first letter, didn't sign the rectraction letter of course, except for a few who were harassed into signing. Why won't they sign if they were harassed into thinking that their jobs are at stake here? I can't blame them. But harassing employees like this through blatant manipulation and malevolent schemes, I believe, is against the law.

The following day, a memo signed by the new director was passed around stating that due to backlogs, the contractuals are asked to work til October 15 without assurance of salary.

WTF?!

In the first place, the contractuals (who are mostly young idealistic individuals) were the ones who go 0n fieldworks and accomplish all the targets that the oldies of this office chose not to work on due to plain laziness and sheer incompetence. The contractuals definitely have no backlogs!

And no assurance of salary?! WTF?!

This office is my personal hell.

In hell

I'm currently in hell. This place has given me more pains than joys.. It really is time to move on to greener and better pastures. What else would I be talking about but this stupid government agency where I'm currently working now. It's just too painful to be here at the moment, enduring the accusing looks of people, enduring all the betrayals from people who I considered to be my friends.

Gugu at 4 months Old

Hi everyone! I'm sorry it took me a while to give you updates on my Gugu.. I've been busy with work, "mommyhood", and my projects for Grassy Beaded Abubotz. :) Here are his recent pictures taken on the day of his 4 th visit with his pediatrician.

With Doctor Dublado :)

He was laughing in this picture but I clicked the camera a little too soon! LOL

"Shy mode"

Thinking of his daddy... :-<

Mommy is proud to say that's he's starting to learn how to crawl! ;)

The Ladies Man
After sneezing.. hehehehe

Semantics!

I was in a meeting last Thursday where I was tasked to identify areas in Iligan city that are prone to geologic hazards such as landslide, liquefaction, coastal and riverine floods, the works. Before the workshop where I was officially needed, a number of speakers gave lectures about the city's biodiversity, forest reserves, waste management and plans on industrialization.

Everything was going on smoothly. That was until this guy from a NGO talked about disaster risk reduction. I was extremely taken a back when at the beginning of his talk, he defined hazard and disaster.

Hazard is natural.

Disaster is exclusively man-made. Take note, exclusively.

And then to further define these two, he cited that the 2004 Asian Tsunami incident was not a hazard, but a disaster.

So people are to blame for the tsunami? My dear readerships, would you blame yourself for the earthquakes? For the landslide? Or worse, the freakin' tsunami?

Although people have done so many things which directly or indirectly harmed Mother Nature and have paid for them dearly with loss of lives and property, I refuse to agree that disasters are "exclusively" man-made. Earth's processes which result to landslides and other hazards are often natural. What man did was to speed up these processes through irresponsible developments that are neither sustainable nor environment-friendly. So technically:

Hazard occurs naturally as a result of earth processes. Tsunami, for instance, is a hazard that results from high intensity earthquakes caused by plate tectonics, submarine landslide or extreme volcanic eruptions.

Disaster happens whenever these hazards reach human settlement causing loss of lives and livelihood.

I also refuse to believe that by statistics, man are to be blamed for every disaster that occurred on earth. We shouldn't blame God neither. The planet has its ways of reaching its equilibrium through processes that may sometimes harm us (an understatement, pun intended). And God gave us intellect to understand so many things around us and adjust accordingly for survival. The proof that a lot of us do care for Mother Nature is the existence of environmentalists in the society.

But for pete's sake, an enviromentalist should know his semantics!

Just so you know my dear readerships.

Fezbokya

If this blog is human and capable of feelings, she will be acid green with jealousy. For the past weeks since I got connected to the internet, I thought I will be hyper blogging again. No. Instead, I am getting hooked on another site, the devil's advocate, that has been steering me away from work and this blog. *Not from Gugu though, cheers!*

Facebook. Or Fezbokya as Dennis fondly calls it. Not only is Fezbokya successful in enhancing networking, it also has in so many ways put to shame MySpace and Friendster. Who hasn't heard of Facebook? Who hasn't heard of Farm Town, Pet Society and Mafia Wars?

Sheesh. Fear not my dear blog site. I will still be around. I promise, this will be the first and last time that I will talk about Facebook. I won't even write about my farm and my mafia; the number of harvest and gains; the wars and heists I have gotten myself involved in, virtually.

Facebook will be my virtual life, and you will be my virtual diary, still. ;-)

Leech

About a few tens of meters from Lake Venado, Mount Apo, was a spring. This spring has mysterious and sad beauty that only hikers could fathom. Formed along the crevices of old lava flows deposited by volcanic eruptions many years ago, its water flows into a tiny stream and little pools confined within its little valley and surrounded by lush vegetation. Despite its sad beauty, it is surrounded by mystery as well because of the urban legends that permeate its surroundings.

We were told by our guide that a long time ago, a father asked his 11-year old son to wait for him near the spring while he go hunting for games. When he came back after a few hours, he found his son, stone cold and lying on the bushes in fetal position. He was already dead. In those days, there were beliefs that when a person dies in a forest, that's because his spirit was taken by supernatural beings and therefore belongs to them. For this reason, the father put his son in a sack and hung him on a tree. Since then, there were sightings of his ghost wailing among the mist and calling out for his father.

The horror around this tiny spring doesn't end there. Hiding among the leaves of the lush vegetation are tiny black ninjas that spring towards unsuspecting hikers to suck their blood. I became a victim of one of these leeches when by sheer stupidity, I took a bath on the tiny brook and exposed my warm skin to their hungry mouths and heat sensors.

I was reminded of this leech when the other day, I caught a guy red handedly trying to open my backpack presumably to take my wallet and cellphone. I snatched away my bag in time after which he took off towards the unsuspecting people nonchalantly, as if nothing happened. I was agitated and angry and I couldn't help but feel the same way when I found a tinyleech in Mount Apo spring crawling on my right foot and was about to latch on my skin to suck my blood. I couldn't help but compare the snatcher to the leech in the forest. These snatchers are social leeches who hide within urban valleys to victimize people, even someone as poor as they are; even killing for money.