Because Project Barbie doesn't have to be completely forgotten.

I have been waiting for a follow-up to this wonderful online dress-up party that Andhari, Nikolett and Shirley came up with but everyone is busy these days. When Mae contacted me last week to model for her, of course I jumped at the chance! :D As I said, "We are only young once so it's best to wear what we want to wear now and take lots of photos so that when we're already old, we'll have pretty photos of ourselves to look back to."

Mae, Watcher, Mich and I did the shoot last Sunday at the University of the Philippines-Diliman grounds. It was raining but nothing could stop us! It actually proved a blessing in disguise as the whole place was deserted so no one bothered us :)

Mae brought her camera Maggie and gave Watcher some tips on how he can take better photos using his new camera. Fun!

It was so difficult to choose which ones to post as that 2-3 hour shoot produced over 200 photos. I literally ran out of poses to do LOL! Here are some of my favorites (there are actually more, I am saving them for future posts teehee). I hope you like them ;)

Raw photos from Mae with just the rounded frames and watermarks added:

Raw photos from Watcher with just the rounded frames and watermarks added:

And here are some post-processed photos, all taken and edited by Mae:

Special thanks to these people:

Watcher

Mae

Mich

I did my own makeup and nails, and then I just used a headband and a scrunchie for my unruly hair :D

Leaving you with this photo while you decide which ones you liked best ;)

July's Pretty Little Things

July was such a colorful month for me!

This month I got a haircut, got free Coke-FIFA glasses, got over a heartbreak, got toys, and received a surprise in the mail from a dear friend. Aside from those, I loved July for a lot of other different reasons, most notable of which are:

• Toy Story 3

I saw it on the first day of this month, and I swear it made me cry buckets. I have been meaning to write a review but I never found the time to sit down and just do it. Such a beautiful, heartwarming movie. Very funny, too! You all know how I fell in love with the Aliens from Pizza Planet in this post :D Also, I am decorating our team's bulletin board at the office and the design was inspired by this movie :)

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I love you.

He caught my fancy in 10 Things I Hate About You and stole my heart in (500) Days of Summer, but he totally swept me off my feet in Inception. Have you guys seen it? Please make sure you do if you haven't yet. It will blow you away! Joseph is so amazing it hurts. I was soooo happy when I read my Film professor's  tweet that Joseph is now being considered by Christopher Nolan to play the part of The Riddler in his third installment of the Batman franchise to be released on 2012. My favorite superhero plus one of my favorite directors plus one of my super favorite actors? I am so excited my heart aches! My fingers are typing as fast as they can as my mouth almost froths with excitement (eew?)

Okay Krissy, calm down. Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly now, calm down.

Whew.

So, as I was saying, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is freaking amazing.

PS: Another reason why Inception is awesome is because it let me see the trailers of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on the big screen. Oh cinema cinema, how I love you!

• Seeing one friend slowly but surely make her dreams come true

Herro?

Kym is such a genuinely nice neenja girl so it is very easy to be happy for her success. This month saw her launch herrohachi's website (with the help of Nikolett, of course!). I wish you all the best, Kym! And belated happy birthday again! :)

• Good food shared with good friends

Crispy breaded pork chop lauriat

Pork chao fan

Buchi and Tofu

Shared a good and very heavy meal at Chow King with Mich while I was waiting for Jerome. Good times!

• Meeting up with my best friend Jerome

22 July 2010

Starbucks, TriNoma

I really should get graded lenses fitted for these raspberry frames

Yesterday was his and his twin brother Jonas' 24th birthday. Happy birthday again to my favorite twins! :D

• New shoes!

Got it at The Landmark. So pretty!

I have been in need of a good pair of shoes I can wear to work and saw it first when I was with Mich. It is not the style I usually go for, but thought it was cute. I tried it on and it was super comfortable! I wanted to buy it then and there but I thought the price was much higher than what I normally shell out for footwear so I opted to look around for another pair, to no avail. When Mich went home and I was already with Jerome, I asked him whether we can look for it again. I managed to find it, tried it on again, and thought it was too pretty to pass up. Besides, with its neutral color and style, I can wear it with anything: skirts, shorts or dresses. Value for money ;)

Wore it with one of my favorite dresses last Monday :)

• Cafe Life

I'm on Level 8 (first among all my Facebook friends who also play, btw) and I haven't got much money yet so forgive the mis-matched furniture LOL

I discovered a new game in Facebook and it is so cute! This even has a better interface than Baking Life. You may notice that I named my cafe Eat Pray Love. :) I swear, more than half the time I spend on the social networking site is spent checking on my restaurant, pet, nightclub, cafe and frontier :D

• TL Carlo

Everyone, meet TL Carlo!

He is our new line manager as TL Jimmy has already transfered to another department. He is very nice! If you have read this post, he was the one who made the Whale Done card for me. We are also of the same age. Cool, huh? He likes music and piercings. :)

• A fun photoshoot with friends

The photo at the beginning of this post was taken and edited by my friend Mae. We - together with my close friends/ teammates Watcher and Mich - had a shoot last Sunday at the UP Diliman grounds and it was so much fun! It was raining but nothing or nobody could stop us :D I even went home to my parents' last Saturday just to get the dress I wore. :) I will show the rest of the photos on my next post, for the meantime I am leaving you with a cute photo of us three girls.

 Mae, me and Mich

Fun times! :)

BTW, pretty Georgina is holding a birthday giveaway that ends on 31 July 2010! Click here to join ;)

So that rounds up my list. August is almost here, that means I will finally get to meet Meream! I hope August will be kind to me. And I know it will! The Eat, Pray, Love movie will be shown next month and I've already made plans with my soul sister Ana to see it! :)

I hope you all have a lovely month ahead!

My love affair with journals

Other people express themselves through songs, others through dance, while others create art. As for me, I write. I have always been amazed by the power of the written word and couldn't help but marvel at how beautiful they are. I am thankful that blogging has been invented as it has paved the way for me to reach other people with things I have written even though I am not [yet] a published author.

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes." - William Makepeace Thackeray

For times I cannot have ready access to my blog or for things too personal (or mundane) to share with the rest of the world wide web, there are my journals. Putting pen to paper has always calmed me. Whenever my mind gets too noisy with my thoughts, I write them down and begin to view things in a more objective way. Letting things flow in a stream of consciousness is definitely a therapeutic activity for me.

I have collected journals ever since I was young. Be they in the form of a notebook, an organizer/ planner, or a diary, I make sure I always have one in my bag. They serve as a keeper of the soft whispers of my heart, an instant witness for quick bursts of inspiration, and a repository of quotes culled from books or movies. Some of them, I have had since high school like this one and I wouldn't dream of throwing them away. They are so precious to me and trips to bookstores will always have me walking over to the notebooks section.

Some of the journals/ notebooks/ notepads I have bought or have been given

I did not include my planners anymore :D

Personalized notebooks I got from Post Script Designs a couple of months ago

The ones with cupcakes, I sent to Manju :)

Last week, I received a surprise all the way from Canada. Kym, a very dear friend, sent me something so unique - a Panda Poo Journal! Yup, that's a journal made from poop of pandas!

Here it is with the very sweet message

Click to enlarge ;)

In case you're wondering, nope, this doesn't smell weird at all ;p

I almost didn't receive it. It reached me after almost three months, but all's well that ends well. Thank you so much Kym, I am loved from across the seas indeed. Can't wait to finally meet you when you visit the Philippines next year! :)

PS: Kym launched the official website of herrohachi yesterday! Click here for funny and fashionable shirts, buttons, tank tops, hoodies, and pillows. You can also get the chance to be one of five winners of a herrohachi tee! You might also see my face in there teehee ;)

krissyfied?

Whoah, 143 followers? To think that I started with one and I even convinced my former housemate Asther to make a Blogger account as well just so I can have an additional follower LOL! I remember two of my first followers Mel and Andhari whom I met through 20sb, and then it all ballooned from there. Awesome! Thank you all so much for liking my blog enough to click on that Follow button. Big virtual bear hugs all around! :)

As you can see, I mostly blog about personal things. This is more like an interactive diary for me more than anything else. Everything - from the layout to the widgets to the style of writing - screams Krissy all over. I really inject my personality on my blogging style and my real-life friends can vouch for that. The reason why I am saying this is because someone told me I should blog about more serious topics (more like a investigative journalism-style of blog) or maybe adopt Jessica Zafra's style of writing. Whilst I admire Miss Zafra (she's one of my favorite authors and her blog's link is found on my right sidebar under i have favorite blogs) for her wit and sarcasm, I don't think I would want to copy the way she writes. Aaand blogging about political news and the like won't be much fun for me. So love or hate my blog, I will continue to write in it, krissyfied-style. :)

And with all of your lovely comments (plus heartwarming emails), I cannot help but think that I must be doing something right. :)

Let's keep on writing beautiful stories, shall we?

*Photo is of my pretty bracelet from Get Holly . The heart charm is made of polymer clay. :)

Third week of July

Wow, I feel like I've been away for so long. Missed me? ;D

July 14, 2010 is the most boring day of my life. Because of Typhoon Basyang, electricity went dead at 2 AM (just after I have propped myself up to a comfortable position in my bed, preparing to read a book as I cannot sleep) and did not come back again for 19 hours. I woke up in the morning dismayed that power's still not back on but kept on hoping the problem will be fixed soon. After 12 hours of no electricity = no Internet I lost all hope and tried to find other ways to amuse myself. Good thing the weather was cold and rainy; heat plus brownout would have been unbearable. I rifled through my old stuff and managed to find my old notebooks, organized my closet, sorted my rather sizeable collection of undies, and slept half the day away but still, I knew I HAVE to have my Internet fix but felt frustrated because I can't do anything about it. At exactly 9:42 PM, power came back on and I swear, it was as if heaven has opened! I will never take electricity for granted again! :D

This week saw me shuttling to different places after work and I couldn't have been happier that I have a 5 AM - 2 PM schedule, giving me plenty of time to do other stuff.

Thursday. I went to TriNoma with Mich and her Mom and Dad for a little bit of grocery shopping at Landmark. We saw Miss Shalani - the President's girlfriend - but wasn't able to take a photo.

Friday. I went with Mich to SM North EDSA just because, and got myself this:

One of the Aliens from Pizza Planet as seen in the Toy Story movies

Isn't he the cutest? Three weeks after watching the Toy Story 3 movie and I still can't get over how cute they are! It's a good thing I am not pregnant lest my child turns out to look like those aliens XD

Saturday. I attended my officemate Niño's son Iñigo's birthday party with my other officemates.

wore this :)

Marsha, Mich, Frank and me

kids in costumes participating in the program hosted by clowns :D

Dane and me with birthday boy Iñigo

And guess who got a surprise?

Dane got me this :)

Green pudgy faces, so cuuuute!! :D

Sunday. Saw Inception with Mich and was blown away by genius personified that is Christopher Nolan! I swear, you have to watch it! It was smart, complex, and fascinating! Bucket-loads of awesome, I'd watch the movie again in a heartbeat (the cinema experience is soooo worth it!) Plus, you can't go wrong with the ensemble cast. Leonardo DiCaprio is gorgeousss, but I ♥ Joseph Gordon-Levitt. :) Mr. Nolan certainly does not disappoint. Now I'm having a hard time choosing my favorite Nolan movie if made to pick between The Dark Knight and Inception. My fervent wish is to make a movie with Christopher Nolan, even serving him his coffee will be an honor for me! :)

High five-ing Mr. Potato Head :D

Greenwich after the movie, with my favorite Chicken a la King Baked Rice Melt :)

I just realized Mich and I have been together all week. Well, single girls have to look out for each other, right? :D I hope you are having a rocking week! :)