The New Madhouse from the one with the Mad Skills

For those who some how wound up in this part of the bloggersphere and for some undefinable reason decided to keep tabs on my posts, you may notice the new layout.

All the props go to Ms. Tin, web designer extraordinaire. Hey, it may seem simple to you but it means a lot to me.

So this is a shout out to you Ate Tin. Many, many thanks for making mg blog look good and purple and wonderland-y.

Check out her blogs, too and witness her mad skills.

• Her personal blog
• Artsyfangirl
• Odds-and-ends

Happy Christmas

Music for the Movie of My Life

This is something I thought would be fun to do. For the past year I've been hanging around a social site and I've been inspired by so many things for it. I thought this was quite funny so I decided to do it, too - on the site and here in my blog as well.

So here's what you have to do: put your music player on shuffle and every song that comes up will be the soundtrack to the movie of you life.

OPENING CREDITS	My Boy Builds Coffins  Florence + The Machine Lungs
WAKING UP	Misery Business  (Unplugged Version) Paramore MTV Unplugged
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL	Tore My Heart Oona and David Tweedie Shhhhout EP
FALLING IN LOVE	Candyman Christina Aguilera Back to Basics
FIGHT SONG	Hot Blooded Foreigner Hot Blooded and Other Hits
BREAKING UP	Hollaback Girl Gwen Stefani Love Angel Music Baby
LIFE'S OKAY	This Love Maroon 5 Songs About Jane

The songs sort of make sense to me. The way I would write the script of my life movie, purely based on the song choices, would go like this: 

My movie starts out miserable, having broken up with someone recently. We can relate the songs Misery Business (which is basically a song about a boyfriend-stealing skank) and Tore My Heart (I think the title says it all). 

Then as the story progresses I fall in love again but Candyman would not be the first song I'd pick as the song I'd fall in love too. Perhaps my love interest is in fact a candy man who works in a candy store. I don't know, really. I just wouldn't pick that song. It's not even in my top 20.

I'm not even going to explain how Hot Blooded can be a fight song. At the most, all I can think of is angry sex. My mind is kind of in the gutter right now.

Of course, there is the inevitable break up. But I'm cool. I am a strong, independent woman. I am a BAMF. I don't need someone to complete me. Insert Hollaback Girl in scene.

This Love is actually appropriate for Life's Okay scene of my movie. I'm taking a stand in this last part of the movie and choosing not to give in and go back to a relationship gone south, after all this love has taken it's toll on me. 

This whole post has been an exercise of my creative mind, though my life is not like this "movie" in any way. I was merely letting the songs write the script for me, if that makes any sense. If I did write a movie about my life, it wouldn't go like what the songs dictated. 

I encourage everyone to try this little thing, even just the part with the songs. You don't have to write how your life movie will go but if you want to, go right ahead. Write an actually script if you want. Just let the creativity shine through. :]

In which I discover I am pretty handsy

I have discovered that I enjoy being crafty with my hands. Something about working and creating something hand-made makes me feel all accomplished-like and oddly peaceful.

Before, creativity with my hands was limited to pen, paper, and the stories or poems I dream up but now I have branched out to other creative, albeit more tedious, but nonetheless fun work. 

I plan on doing more artsy, crafty projects and I see the need to have an Artsy Kit for my tools and materials. It's important to have tool kit of some sorts for these kinds of things. Keeps everything all organized and you tend to not end up like a chicken with its head cut off while running around looking for stuff you need.

Here are two projects I am currently working on:

One is what's called Yarn Letters which I found on this lovely site, jenloveskev.com.

It may look simple enough but it does involve a lot of work and time depending on the words you want to form. Since I'm doing something Christmas themed, I decided to do "Happy Christmas." 

Yup. 14 letters. I've only just formed the "Happy" section and it took me a day just to form the letters out of cardboard and lots of tape.

If click through the link where I got this litter project, you'll see all the materials needed as well as instructions, so go check it out. Like I said, it's simple but it just takes time, so be patient while working on it and you're sure to love the end result.

I've also started on my Purple Desk Project in which I repaint my desk with my favorite color. I'm doing all the works - sanding, painting on primer, the actual painting. But it seems the weather isn't inclined to let me continue with the project. Cold weather isn't exactly your friend when your doing a paint job. The ideal color I want for the desk is more along the shades of plum and turns out I actually have to have this color mixed because there is no available ready color from any of the paint brands we have here. To give you an idea of what Plum looks like here are some sample images from art-paints.com and your reliable Google search engine:

With work as a web writer, I don't get much time to do my projects until the weekend but hopefully I'll be able to get half-way through the Yarn Letters this weekend and once the weather lets up I'll be able to start putting primer on my desk drawers.

Lastly, I encourage all of you out there (if anybody ever reads this blog) to pursue creative endeavours. It keeps you stress-free which keeps you happy, and when you're happy, I think you live longer.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing,

taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, 

and having fun."

- Mary Lou Cook

During Dia de los muertos...

... I went to visit an old friend.

Fertilizer: It helps you grow

Dare to be different

Music. 'Nuff Said.

What is it about music?

Music is one my constant companions in life. I am never without it. I get separation anxiety when I don’t have music with me. At times when I find myself alone or lonely, music is there. It’s one of the few things in life I know that won’t disappoint me and that could brighten my day in an instant.

Music can speak volumes and volumes in a matter of minutes. Sometimes you find yourself just enveloped by it, be it by its beauty or its sadness or its anger or any other emotion that mirrors your heart, and then you feel like you’re living out the words and the melodies. When the music stops you just sit there, trying to bring back that moment, that magic. And you press play again because you just know that the music can answer your questions. Questions that you don’t even know you’re asking.

Music is a product of passion and of heart. That is why music can be different. Because we are all different and we speak from different hearts and we feel passion for different things and different people. We may come from all over the world and we all may have never met before but we share the music.

Music is universal. It is everywhere. It is in our souls and it beats within our hearts. It can convey so many different things and affect so many people. It can bring us joy. It can cause us to breakdown in tears. It makes us want to rebel. It makes us unite. It makes us want to conquer the world.

Music transcends everything.

This why I love music.

Keep Going

Weekend Bliss

This is me on the weekend. In my biggest shirt reading a book with the curtains open.

Quote # 1

How I Learned Not To Give Shit

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will leave psychological scars forever.”

Growing up, I’ve had my share of bullying. I’ve never been the doer of the act though, mostly – nay… always the recipient.

As a young girl being bullied always left me wondering what I did wrong. I always asked myself, “What did I do this time?” Try as I might I can’t really remember anything I did that would warrant verbal abuse from a classmate. I stayed in line; I kept to myself, and only completely interacted with one or two close friends.

The second grade was my first encounter of bullying ­– at least the verbal kind. Before the second grade I was oblivious enough that the first onslaught of bullying shocked me. Name-calling, insults, and extreme teasing were foreign concepts to me. I was content to be the carefree kid until two girls from my grade decided it would please them to put me in my place.

Every day from then on was a practice of patience. As I wasn’t raised to physically accost fellow children who got in my face I was relegated to keep silent and let the tears fall. I was 8 years old. I had no concept of vanity at that young age. I never showed off and, like I said, I mostly kept to myself or hung out with only my closest friends. Now as an adult I do try to understand the why’s of the bullying but clearly no dice.

Often times I would be singled out for a round of degradation. At moments I tried to understand their reasons for bullying me or anyone else; put myself in their shoes, if you may, and yet I could not find one reason that made sense. It always seemed extra special when it came to lambasting me, like an event that only happens once every year. Unable to find reason, I came to the conclusion that there was a particular something about me that attracted that kind of mean attention.

I guess some people are just mean. Truthfully, we all are capable of meanness. I know this because I have lived it and when the occasion calls for it I can be a bitch but I choose not to show that side of me. I understand that it is not pleasing to or hear and as a female, it paints a bad picture for woman kind everywhere.

After the second the abuse waned and I found myself glad to be back in a carefree, unafraid life at school. The years passed and though the bullying was near non-existent I had found that people will judge you, find every little thing to direct contempt to, and talk about behind your back. Needless to say my pre-teen years were spent trying to create an image that would please everyone – one that would grant me my meal ticket to popularity.

Popularity seemed like the Holy Grail. If you were popular everyone liked you ergo nobody was unkind to you and you were treated like – well, like you were human, or a rather awesome human. Around the time I struggled in my quest for popularity I was studying in an all-girls campus. Studying there made me realize how vicious girls can be, and really it was another form of bullying – the silent kind. You see, most girls judge each other very harshly, hence my hardships trying to get to the top of the social hierarchy. When you think about it I was willing to go through the same kind of smack down I got when I was younger to be accepted. I just wanted that reverence that came with being popular.

I was determined to start anew come high school but at the beginning things didn’t go as I thought it would.

Yes. Same shit, different people, different school.

Sophomore year was most definitely the worst year I had in my educational career. As I finally found my niche academically and making good grades, so decides the universe to throw verbal abuse and victimization back into the mix. By this time I’ve given up on trying to discern my classmates’ motives for picking on me.

To enumerate there were name-calling, ridiculous gossip, manipulation of feelings (I had a crush on one of the bullies), and the best – hate for being specifically good at something. Oh, it was hell. I thought it was bad in grade school but apparently it got schooled by high school bullying because in high school there is so much more to judge and the standards are higher.

Yet it was also sophomore year that I learned to stand my ground and let it all just bounce off me. A rubber-glue-back-to-you persona emerged and I grew a thicker skin. I considered bullying part of growing up, part of what made me who I am today. People all throughout life will judge you and paint you a cruel world and they wouldn’t know any better. What is important is how you handle yourself in the face this unkindness. In the end, the only opinions that matter are the ones that you yourself form and those of the ones you love, that’s it.

Know that words may hurt but it will pass, if you let it. Move forward and learn from them just as you learn to shake it off.

A Fledgling Employee's Guide To Good Karma in Work

Work is either a physical or mental exertion of efforts geared toward the production or accomplishment of something. Work is a job, an employment, a trade, a profession, a livelihood. Most of our lives would be spent doing some form of work. It could be directed to academics and knowledge or it could be for the purpose of gaining income. You see, everybody works for something but not everybody works for the same reasons.

As a fresh graduate right out of college and coming from a middle class family, I'm not exactly hurting for money and as a personal view money is not everything for me. My primary goal for work is to gain some experience; dip my toes into the workforce, so to speak. It was important for me to find a job where I would be able to grow, not only as a worker, but as a person as well. I shied away from jobs that seemed robotic in a sense. I didn't want to end up a worker bee with nothing to live for but the endless cycle of droning tasks. I am grateful for the work that I do now, but at the time I was on the job hunt, getting this my dream job seemed like a long-shot and grudgingly I set out to apply for other companies but they all seemed uninspiring and I knew that there would be no drive to work or at least do stellar work. That and the fact that I felt like my soul would be sucked out of me if I took a job from any of the companies I was potentially applying for. I had no qualms for taking my time in finding work. I cannot stress enough the importance of finding a job I would enjoy and enliven me, physically and mentally. I wanted to be sure of the career path I was taking because that's not something you can just pick out then discard easily just because you don't like it anymore or it gets too hard for you to deal with. A job takes on several responsibilities and doing your job well creates a lot of impact, which was why I chose to trod on the path of job hunting carefully and pensively, however tedious it was.

Successfully, I found the right fit for me jobwise. I am elated and I am often stimulated creatively in my work and this further re-enforces that I had made the right decisions. But getting a job you like is not all there is. You have to work to keep your job interesting. Your work must always challenge you otherwise there will be no growth. Your brain becomes stagnant. Give justice to the neurons that sacrifice themselves for the sake of cognitive function and use them properly.

Treat your first like it is your last and your last like it is your first - an apropos mindset when it comes to work. Some people tend to fall into monotony with their work; generic and nothing special. Sadly these people also tend to be blinded by the concept that their work is enough, that the outcome of their efforts is up to par when their work is sub-par. Never settle for just "enough." I believe that your work is directly proportional to your worth as an employee, so aim for quality work in lieu of "okay" work. This isn't just about impressing your employers or getting paid; personal growth is at stake here. If you tackle one aspect in your life with such tenacity it would reflect that you do the same in others. Wouldn't it be better to live up to that rather than be the second rate worker?

You will meet different people in the span of your working career, make connections and impressions. It is up to you put your best foot forward and make every action count. You may think that some people that you encounter at work do not matter but keep in mind that people talk and news travels fast in the grapevine. If you think copy machine guy’s opinion is irrelevant, think again. Gossip can be damaging and it does not have to be true. It could be that someone could be out for you. These things can and will affect your job and your future in it. Always bear in mind that you should always act accordingly. Be polite. If you have to, keep the façade of poise and calm. Employ your “work face.” It will help you much in dealing with the demons at the office.

Griping never gets you anywhere. You can complain all you want and it still won’t make a difference. So your boss wants you to redo a layout or he demands that you find a way to make nothing out of anything to become something; my advice is you do it. Sure you can whine, but do what I do, in your head. Keep it to yourself. Even if you are asked to do something over and over and so many overs you feel like bashing your head in, YOU DO IT. These things will make you better. You’ll learn from this and next time around you’ll come up with better work that will impress the crap out of your superiors.

In the end, you learn the ropes and you come up with your own way of doing things, an operation that satisfies your bosses and makes sure that you get something out of it too. Being a fledgling employee won’t be forever but you have to work hard, then all the good come, however don’t be fooled. Good always comes hand in hand with the bad. What is important is how you deal with adversity and coming out on top, in spite of it. Also remember that you can’t please everyone, at least not completely, but you’ll manage to find that balance of work and fun. If you can’t, to put it bluntly, find another job, and if you’re still unhappy then you must be doing something wrong.