What I have been doing is just staring blankly at my manuscript file a couple of times a day, and watch as the MS Word cursor blinks at me every few seconds, which apparently is waiting for me to do something about the darn document but I just end up closing it after half an hour of trying to squeeze out something from my brain. It’s a waste of time, that I end up making a new theme for this site just to make my day a little more productive.

So going back to reading, I decided to start reading again to kill time instead of doing random things on the web that apparently leads me nowhere than creating a new theme. It’s a good thing that Mac finally had my PSP fixed, thank heavens for that. It took him ages to do it ha-ha! So I installed Bookr in it earlier this evening, downloaded a couple of PDF ebooks and started reading the first on my “to-read” list.

I got the idea of having my own to-read list from my goodreads account, my goal is to read at least five novels a month and the first book that I have on my list is Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin. It’s about a woman in a perfect marriage, who runs into a man from her past after eight long years thus igniting a long dormant emotion. The woman then questions herself whether she’s living the life she is meant to live or not. I fell in love with the plot and so I decided to get my bony hands on a copy and so I did. I honestly am too preoccupied with a lot of things the entire evening, one that involves another McDonald’s dinner with my fiance and our friends, that I didn’t get the chance to focus on reading the ebook on my psp. But I did start reading it, and I am actually in it’s second chapter. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be able to read a good chunk of it and finish it in a day or two since it’s not really that long.

I was thinking of putting up a book review section in this site but I don’t know where that would lead me in the future. I don’t think I could do it consistently while I’m still studying but I might still give it a shot when I get the chance. I try to do a lot of things that I like right now and I guess a book review section is a huge leap so I will take things slow and do things one at a time. Besides, I have a huge chunk of inevitable “responsibilities” that I have to attend to pfft. Boo! I wish I’d get out of school soon… but I still have a year and a half to go. Oh time machine, when will you ever get invented?

Anyway, here is on my to-read list for the month of February :

• Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
• Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

That seems to be a really interesting list if you ask me. ;) Oh and if you have a goodreads account you may follow me goodreads/miavenus ciao!

Here is a list of what I need to work on and if possible, finish over the weekend.

• watch three movies of my choice, and write a paper relating its plot, characters to events, and characters in Greek Mythology. I’ve chosen the Godfather Trilogy, The Phantom of the Opera and I’ll be replacing Jaws. It’s boring. So far, I’ve seen the first movie of the Trilogy, and the entire Phantom movie. Still looking for a movie to replace Jaws.
• Write a paper on interventions that teachers could give their students who are having trouble learning the English language. I haven’t even started writing this paper yet.
• Look for an Aphrodite costume for our Greek Mythology human museum for the college fair this coming week.
• Edit and revise a good deal of things from our thesis.

There is not much on my list, but trust me it’s a heap load of work. I don’t even know how I managed to survive up to my third year in college… Hopefully, I’ll get through this as I did in the past two years.

I honestly don’t think that I’ll be teaching in the future, except of course when I do my internship. But apart from that, envisioning myself as a teacher is a big blur. I asked my mom if I could take a six month course in web and graphic design and she gladly agreed to it knowing that my greatest interest are on those things. I love my mom for that, even if she’s a total pain in the butt at times, I know that she knows me and the things I want to do in life.

If I will really become a teacher, I doubt that I’ll teach in High School as I just realized that I have very little patience with bratty people–young, bratty and spoiled beings we like to call high school girls and boys. If I will teach, it will be children that I will be teaching. Pre-school people are not only cute, but they’re also very adorable, lovable, sweet and are easier to scare. But of course I’ll be the lovely and sweet pre-school teacher… if I ever decided to be one. But so far, I know where I will excel as an individual–if not in the family business, it’s definitely doing the things I love to do like writing and designing.

I know some people would think that I am really immature thinking that I’ll make a living doing the things that I love to do, but I don’t intend to keep it as permanent job trust me. I wish to work with my mom and help her in the business, but at the same time I want to do something that I want. Trust me, coding and draining story or design ideas takes off a good load of stress, I just really wish I had enough time in the day.

Le sigh. For now, I could only work hard towards getting a degree in teaching while listening to The Beatles.

So I got an e-mail from someone, perhaps a blogger, telling me to check this site out called StatMyWeb.com. I did, and searched for my website and it gave me a detailed info about my website including the date it was bought, where is it hosted, how much is it worth and where does it rank on the web. I find it really nifty since I get to know where I rank and what parts of the site I could work on to make it better. If you would like to check out this site’s stat click here.

For bloggers who accepts paid articles or sponsored review on their websites, I suggest that you take a look into this site as to know whether you are being compensated enough according to your blog’s statistics. So far, my blog’s worth does not display perhaps because it’s fairly new (my blog is up for only less than three months). Oh and have I mentioned that it also tracks the total of your daily unique visitors?

Apart from that, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page it will tell you your W3C HTML Validation Analysis. It also has a record of when you last updated your site. It has a lot more feature that I have yet explored myself. Waah I’m beginning to be a nerdok, and I hope you’d forgive me for that. I just feel like sharing it. I suggest you look in to it to know its other features since I haven’t explored it much. Cheers!

I haven’t reviewed yet, and I’m quite nervous about my grades for this semester I’m definitely going to get another three I presume, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for having at least 2.8 as my lowest. I know I have no one to blame but myself, but school is really boring these days… my mind is set on other stuff that I cannot focus on my studies, except for my major subjects. I wish they’d just give us major subjects instead at least they’d be of our interest and perhaps that would make us strive more. I just hate minor subjects, especially when some professors would give out a shitload of tasks as if it’s a major subject. The thing with our school is, both minor and major subjects weighs evenly which sucks–BIG TIME.

I wish I could go back to the time when reviewing wasn’t so much of a chore… yes, reviewing used to be fun to me dunno what happened, but it’s definitely not the sudden change of my group of friends, because my set of friends now are more into reviewing than the previous ones.

In other news about my life, I’ve been out practically the entire day. First, I went to the mall with mom and Mac to get my eyes checked on Ideal Vision since I’ve been whining about not seeing things clearly from a distance for days now. But the people from Ideal Vision told me that I don’t need reading glasses, but I wasn’t convinced because I know that there really is something wrong with my eyes. So my mom took me to a real Ophthalmologist after lunch and there we found out that I’m near-sighted, obviously. So the doctor told me I’d need to wear correction glasses since I’m still quite young, and recommended that I pay him a visit at least once a year to check on whether my eyesight have improved or not. I’ll be getting my bony hands on my new correction glasses in about two days, and I can’t wait to wear them, seriously. The doctor even suggested to just wear it inside the classroom if I’m not comfortable walking around wearing it, but I think wearing glasses is nothing to be ashamed of. I already know that I am a nerd in someway and friends and my fiance already knew that too, so there’s really no problem, and the hell do I care about what other’s would say? It’s not like everyone knows my name to judge me easily just because I’m wearing glasses, right?

So it’s getting quite late… I’m going to watch Jaws now. Ciao!

By the way, I have updated my free wordpress themes page with a theme collection called “Cheesecake”. I made wordpress themes that are inspired by various berry flavors of cheesecakes. This new theme is part of the collection, so head on over to my free wordpress themes page to see and download the other flavors. More will be added soon.

So anyway, I woke up early this morning since Mac and I have decided to jog (again). It was quite successful compared to the last time, and I must say, I ran better this morning than I ever did during our previous morning jogs. Nothing special to some, but I consider it as a personal achievement. Ha-ha! But of course, I get tired easily after not jogging for practically a whole year, so we brisk walked instead and had “Taho” for breakfast. After that, we roamed around town, by literally taking the long way home. It was fun, I love walking in my rubber shoes; reminds me of the time when I was about seven or eight (or was it nine? LOL) when my brother and I would take long walks on a weekend morning and rent a bike… sadly, I never learned how to ride a bike and I get teased a lot by my friends because of that. It’s so much of a big deal now than I ever thought it would be. Ha-ha!

Moving on, when Mac and I got home, mother asked us to take my younger brother, Daniel, to the mall. He just got out of the hospital yesterday after a week of being confined due to a severe case of pneumonia and he badly wanted to go out, so Mac and I agreed. We took him to his favorite place in the “entire world” which is the arcade, he obviously had fun. Reminds me again of the time when I was about his age, my pops would take me and my other younger brother to the arcade every weekend after a movie and we’d play all afternoon. Just watching Daniel play and have fun makes me really happy on the inside, I feel like an accomplished sister for taking him to the mall without our mom. We had lunch at Mang Inasal, but we had to buy Daniel his all-time favorite meal, which is a Jollibee fried chicken because he wouldn’t eat anything else. After that, we went back to the arcade for another hour or so before we finally decided to go back home. Pictures below xD

Finally, this evening… just when I thought I’d be bumming around all night Mac asked me if I would like to go out with our good friends to the church, he promised to eat at McDonald’s after so I agreed. I’m going to be really honest, I’m not a church person anymore, well at least not a catholic church person. But I gave it a shot again earlier this evening, it wasn’t bad and I guess I kind of missed it but it only left me hungry for more of what the gospel and the homily wanted to convey. I’m not anti-catholic or anything, please don’t get me wrong, I was born and baptized as one but I guess some people, as they grow older, starts to question a lot of things and tends to seek their own solace in terms of religious practices. I’ve been there, and I have found comfort and satisfaction in a Christian church. There’s really not much of a difference, we still all believe in one God, I guess it’s only a matter of worship structure that we differ.

So after the mass, we went to McDonald’s and had fries and drinks. I had coffee, as usual while they had their own choices of drinks. It was really fun hanging out with such a great group of people, they are exactly what Mac and I needed right now, a great company to help us ease the great deal of stress that our family and (my) academics had infested on us recently. Mac and our friends is definitely my comfort zone, and my mom of course, but not all the time do I get to have an alone time with mom so most of the time I am out with Mac and our friends to have a little fun. I would definitely want to do it again next time, and I do hope that when I do I’d be done writing my thesis. LOL

How was everyone’s weekend? And, have you seen my latest theme collection? What do you think of the new themes I have for download?

I have previously purchased a Parisian notebook from the said shop, and similar to this new item, the Parisian notebook also doesn’t have lines on its pages.

I ordered one last Thursday and it arrived yesterday. See the picture on the left side for it. Sorry for the poor quality, I used my webcam to take its photo. I neither have a mobile phone and a digital camera at the moment, so yeah a big BOO for me. :P

Collecting cute notebooks is quite an addiction to me, and Hoshigirl’s online shop is a great place to purchase such items. I wonder what I will ever do to the notebooks that I bought.

FIRST STOP : Myth of the Human Body – The Fort

Our first stop was The Myth of the Human Body. At first, I thought that the museum would have something to do with the Greek gods and goddesses, but it turned out that only the halls (and certain body parts) were named after some Greek mythological characters. Cameras were not allowed inside, so I was not able to camwhore with my friends during our hour-long tour of the museum.

I found this exhibit really creepy, knowing for a fact that the museum used real human bodies, preserved in a way that the bodies would not have a terrible stench and that the bodies would not dilapidate, they also arranged the bodies into sporty positions as to feature how our muscles are stretched as we do different activities, especially when we play certain sports. The bodies are all of Chinese decent, as mentioned by the tour guide and among the entire exhibit, only two were European. One of the highlights of the museum is featuring various kinds of internal organs, from its healthy state to its worse, due to poor diet and vices such as smoking and alcoholism.

Another was a disturbing exhibit of the different stages of a baby’s transformation, and even possible causes of death. Most of them, if not premature, stillborn, or overdue were aborted as abortion is legal in China. I could barely look at the poor babies encased in thick glass, some are even cut in half as to show what was inside them and some even showed tumors which caused their deaths. Well, that was the last part of the exhibit, thank God, but the best highlight I must say is the thin red veins that forms the human body. I have no idea how the people behind the exhibit managed to pull those things off a dead body, nor how they managed to put those fragile things in a thick glass, but all I know is that, it was really amazing.

It is a really wonderful (but creepy) experience, if you ask me. It really was made for learning, no matter how some parts made my tummy churn in a funny way.

LUNCH : Mall of Asia – Pasay
After touring the creepy museum, we headed to the Mall of Asia for lunch. On our way there, I sent a text message to my high school best friend, Gel, telling her that I would be going to MOA, and asked if we could meet and have lunch. She agreed without hesitating of course, she studies in Manila Doctors anyway and going to Mall of Asia is just a jeepney ride away. It’s been over five months since we have last seen each other, and perhaps almost a year prior that. I missed her so much.

We had lunch with Abby and Felice at KFC and we tried to catch up with each other’s life, but an hour is definitely not enough, but we had to bid each other good bye after lunch. Having half an hour more of free time, Abby, Felice and I roamed around the mall and had coffee at our favorite coffee shop before finally going to the meeting place to get settled for our next destination…

Manila Ocean Park – Roxas Boulevard
Our last stop is Manila Ocean Park, and I would have to admit that I had so much fun in that place more than I ever expected I would. Upon arrival, we watched an amazing bird show that I enjoyed so much. Seeing such talented and witty animals, no one would dare to say that the place was boring despite of the fact that we had to share the entire place with younger children. Yes, that really was embarrassing at first but we managed to get the hang of it.

After the bird show, we watched sea lions do cool random tricks. They really are funny, and I find them really cute as well. I felt like hugging them tight ha-ha, I think they’re cuddly despite of how they smell. They are smart animals too, they’re practically more human to me than monkeys. Harmless and cute creatures… le sigh. I just could not help but fall in love with sea lions. We watched a sea lion show right after that, which made me want to take photos with them but it’s just darn too expensive.

We had a very tickling fish spa right after the sea lion show, and I guess it’s my favorite part of the entire tour. I have long been whining about having a foot spa, but I just don’t have the time…okay fine, I was just too lazy to go to the nearest salon to have one. So anyway, the experience was really fun–literally. Everyone was screaming and laughing when those cute little (janitor-fish like) fishes swarmed around our feet and started “giving us a foot spa”. I was laughing practically all the time.

Our tour eventually ended with a Musical Fountain Show, and I must say it’ a perfect way to end a very tiring (yet fun) day. I would really love to go back to Ocean Park but next time with my fiance…

That dream started when I was in the sixth grade when I was asked by my music teacher to star as Mary Magdalene in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. It was really a nice experience, and exposure if you ask me. Even if my teacher literally dragged me to the first rehearsal. LOL. I carried that dream until I was in High School but eventually dropped it when I found out that writing and web design is my forte in life.

But I still go to opera productions when I have the time these days, or when our school invite theatre groups to perform in our school. When I watch a production, though, I make sure that I inform my elder sister what I’m going to see, especially if it is going to be a musical. She lives in the states, and is a sucker for musical plays, I don’t know why.

She also happens to love off-broadway shows, which I think are pretty cool. She would often send me photos of the tickets she bought for a show that she would watch, yeah… that really get me envious as I don’t have as much free time as her. Pfft. haha She often get her tickets online from Ticketamerica.com , she said they have many tickets for all different genres of music including musicals and or plays, plus off Broadway productions and all opera and classic music.

Sometimes, when I watch a production I still day dream that I am one of the people performing. I guess, my love for theatre never left me after all, perhaps I’ll give it a shot again when I get the chance. Who knows right?

From the three people that we invited, Mac came first (as always). We decided to swim while waiting for the others. Felice came at about lunch time, and Abby followed shortly. We all swam, except for Felice who was not feeling well, but she took some of the photos while we’re all in the water.

It was really fun having them over, we really enjoyed swimming and singing karaoke. We talked about random things, and played silly games, called each other names and laugh at each other’s voice. It’s something I have not had in quite a long time–a fun-filled and stress free holiday. We were literally in Callospa all day, from about eight in the morning until about five in the afternoon. Felice was the first to leave, while Abby and Mac stayed until everyone was ready to leave. We asked my mom if she could just drop us by the nearest McDonald’s just so Mac, Abby and I could have ice cream and talk about some things that happened the day before that. Things that I am not too ready to open up to public except for those people that I trust. It’s really a serious matter, and I really do believe that it’s taking its toll on me these past two days. I’m seriously at the brink of having an emotional breakdown, but I’m trying my best to cope up with the situation… thanks to my loving fiance and my good friends.

We stayed in McDonald’s for a couple of hours, if I am not mistaken, I guess it was till almost nine in the evening. Not too late for Mac and I, but it is quite for Abby since she still have to go home all the way down to Cainta. We seriously talked about things that bothers us at the moment, and some things that we cannot seem to get over with. It was, I guess, a good way of dealing with personal problems–sharing them with people who understands and laugh about it. Add to that two rounds of coffee.

Sometimes, no matter how your life sucks, still there are people who will constantly add color and meaning to it. There’s no such thing as “forever alone”, people just makes their own downfall.

Nota Bene: I added a contact page, and some new tutorials. I also added a comment form for each write up page that you’ll find in the literary section.

The Dress and the Look

It’s funny that I even bothered to try and design my future wedding gown when I could have just Googled it in the first place. Saved me time and effort thinking of the design I want for my gown, plus it matches the vintage inspired theme that I have in mind. I really love this dress, basically because of its elegance and simplicity. It’s, if I must say, the perfect wedding gown for my wedding day. If you will notice there are two designs of the gown, the one on the left will be for the wedding ceremony, while the one on the right is for the reception. Don’t ask why I wanted two gowns on a single occasion, it’s going to be my wedding day so I guess I have the right to play princess. Ha-ha!

When it comes to hair-do’s and make-up, I always preferred the simple ones. I personally think that they’re more appealing than a foot high hair-do, and a bride’s face caked in make-up. I want my wedding look to be as simple as my daily look, only that it will been done professionally. I think simple things are what makes a wedding perfect, and the bride happy…well, if all brides think like me, that is.

The Wedding March
When my Fiance and I got together, I knew I was bound to marry him. Thus, I instantly knew the perfect wedding march for our wedding day, and that is “Runaway” by The Corrs, and I have a great reason. The day we got together, we were in Lemery, Batangas for a publication press-conference. That same evening, he took me out to the beach and we danced beneath the moonlight–or more like a street lamp, to this song. It was the most romantic moment of my life, and I would have love to re-live it one day while walking down the aisle. Le sigh.

The Church and the Reception Venue

The church where I dream to be wedded is non-other than Sta. Clara de Montefalco Parish in Pasig City. It is where my late pops served as the head of the music ministry for almost a decade and until his death. That church, in my opinion, is the perfect place to celebrate my wedding day, for not only it was where my late pops spent the latter part of his life, but also because it is where his remains are. I would have loved it if he could walk me down the aisle, but since he passed away nearly two years ago, I’d be walking down the aisle alone, but I’m sure and I know that he’ll be there waiting for me anyway… So for the venue, I wanted it to be somewhere beside a beach to serve as a reminder of the place where my fiance and I got together. I love the smell of the ocean, and the cool afternoon breeze of the seaside. I think it’s the significant memory that beaches have in me and my fiance that made me want to spend the reception in such place, and perhaps it’s the glorious sunset that one cannot have any place else than by a beach.

Tables, Flowers and Music

I’m not too picky when it comes to floral arrangement and tablecloth design, but I would love fresh white roses as the centerpiece of each table. Add to that a classic and elegant table set-up with a touch of a very light shade of pink, that would match the vintage theme I have in mind. I don’t want to be too particular, since I might find something better in the future, but for now I’d stick to the classic, elegant and simple table set-up like the picture above.

When it comes to my choice of music… uhm, I’d hate to break this, but I would definitely ruin the entire vintage, classic and elegant feel for a while because I wanted my favorite local band to play a couple of songs during my wedding reception, and that local band is non-other than Kamikazee. Yes, they’re those noisy, destructive and wild men that plays good music on stage, and I’d love to have them on my wedding; I’d personally request for them to play at least three of my favorite songs sung by them. Trust me, it would totally reek awesomeness and elegance but it will surely be one great hell of a night. But of course, I know I can’t have them all night, and I also know that there will be people (apart from old people) that would not enjoy their music much, or would not enjoy their music at all. So I’d definitely hire a good wedding singer that would play “Save the Last Dance for Me” and a couple of Beatles’ songs.

The Aftermath
When the reception is over, my fiance and I will definitely be on a trip to Lemery, Batangas. We’d really love to go back to that one place where it all started. In the morning after the wedding, we’d have black coffee while sitting on the lifeguard’s station by the beach. It’s a definite, and I won’t let anything crash that post-wedding dream.

And that’s the end of this wedding fantasy. Sorry for the long post… but I’ve been dying to write about this stuff in ages. Ha-ha! I hope you enjoyed reading it though.

Le Photo Sources:
Church – Gown – Hairstyle – Table Set-up – Flowers – Kamikazee Band