I indulged myself yesterday and ticked one off my wish list: a new phone. I finally got a Nokia 3120 classic and I love it! It is in graphite though because the mobile phone shops in SM Fairview do not carry it in other colors. That's fine, I will have it G-masked anyway. Ü

My baby Elixir died. Ruther sent me an SMS earlier today, saying he found Elixir floating, dead. He surmises it is because he is a different specie of fish; he is an angelfish while Phantasmagoria, Serenity and Chaos are all goldfishes, even though they are from different families. Now I need to buy a blackmoor goldfish later so that Phantasmagoria will have a companion, otherwise he might die on me, too.

Sad sad sad.

I will be back to the apartment later today, and then I will watch Twilight. Work again tomorrow, and then time to glam up for the Holiday Kick-off Party. My dress is ready and I have the sexiest shoes. But I am still clueless about makeup.

Sigh. I cannot get over Elixir's death. He was the most beautiful of the lot, and he's too young. He did not deserve to die.

Sad.

The only way to grow is to have the initiative to get out of your comfort zone and do things you thought you couldn't do.

Ruther, Asther and I went to Bioresearch at SM North EDSA yesterday to buy my aquarium, fishes and all the other what-nots. However for the aerator we were able to buy that at Under the Sea since Bioresearch did not have available stocks.

The aquarium itself has a name, and it is Stream of Consciousness. I got it from Miss Coni Tejada of Real Living magazine from the talk she gave us at the Spotlighting a Travel Piece workshop and it quickly joined the league of my favorite phrases of all time (together with "as mysterious as the dark side of the moon" and "serenity in chaos" but pfft I am veering away from the topic. Must go back must go back.) Anyway, I got the aerator, undergravel filter, background picture, white pebbles, anti-chlorine solution and pellets.

For the fishies, I got four. Somehow the original names I thought of - Deirdre, Altherstan and Gaian - did not fit with my fishies' personalities so I just came up with new ones. I want to post pictures of them but I did not have the camera at the apartment so I just got stock photos from the Internet. I got pictures of fishes who look like them.


What do you think of their names?

I am so thankful to my housemates. Since it is my first time to take care of a pet, I was totally clueless! But thanks to Ruther and his extensive knowledge on fishes I was able to get everything I needed. And of course thanks to Asther as well for augmenting my budget ;)

It is actually my first time to take care of an animal. We had a martinez (talking bird) before, his name was Koji, but he was a family pet. Same goes for Kong the turtle. For my fishes, I am the sole owner. I am responsible for them. And of course I have to make sure I take good care of them. I would not want them to die, would I? They're relatively easy to replace since they're cheap and all, but come on, this is not Tamagotchi. And it sure beats the feeling of having a digital pet!

As a tribute to my fishies I even created a new blog category for them: Ichthyological love.

I am one proud Mama Fish. Here's to showing some Ichthyological love Ü

Miss Arlene Paredes (from PinoyWriters) facilitated the workshop with the assistance of Jude (of last week's module) . Miss Coni Tejada of Summit Media's Real Living magazine also dropped by to share some encouraging words and insights.

It was really challenging and I found it a bit hard since I am not much of a traveler myself. I would want to travel, of course, and see more places and get a taste of other people's cultures, but I do not have the luxury of time (and money) to do so at the moment. Plus, I get prissy. I don't know, maybe it depends on who I am with and on what mode of transportation we will use. So anyway, going back, I found it hard to tap into that "stream of consciousness". Last week's topic was easier since we wrote about success stories and profiling; I have done that all the time so the words just flowed. But travel pieces? Nah. I don't know..

For the writing exercises, I wrote about Singapore. In the Philippines, the farthest I've been to is Albay, Bicol, and I was only 12 years old that time so I did not think I would have remembered much to write about, except that hellish 10-hour train ride back to Manila that I would much rather forget. But if you were young like I was at that time, then that memory would have been seared into your memory and will forever haunt you.

So, enough of my travel experiences (or rather, my lack of). Here is a photo of our group:


I would love to see more of the world and experience things that are different from what I am accustomed to. Hopefully someday I would be able to. And then, by that time I would certainly have a helluva lot more to write about.

Eep! I just remembered! Next Saturday's module would be How to Write Delicious Food Articles and Restaurant Reviews! How would an undomestic goddess like me fare with that? I, who do not even know how to chop onions and tomatoes. I, who am only able to cook rice (with or without rice cooker, hah!) and everything fried. I, whose collection of words in her vocabulary to descibe words is only limited to the basic food tastes. What am I supposed to do?? Oh well. I signed up to learn. I guess that I have a lot of learning to do on Saturday. I am a bit scared yes, but I guess I always have the choice to just walk out and shop; workshop's inside a mall anyway. Tee hee.

*Photo from Ana.