INSTABITS : December 2013

I know I kinda dropped the ball last month in terms of Instagram (I had a total of 9 posts for the entire November), but I think I made up for it this month.  There was so much going on this December that I actually had to stop myself from posting at times because I didn’t want to flood my friends.

Here’s my last INSTABITS post for 2013 😀

On December 1, we had a photoshoot at the office for our new bulletin board.  We were asked to wear a combination of yellow and black.  Kat and I took selfies together while waiting for our turn with the official photographer.  Amie was sick that day so she wasn’t able to make it 😦

Ckloy and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on the 2nd of this month.  I posted an entry with pictures of us through the years  and this was one of the photos there.  It was taken during our Bali weekend.

Before Ckloy left for Texas, we went shopping for some essentials.  While he was looking for new underwear, I found these men’s boxers.  They were 2 for P99, which is pretty cheap, so I decided to get some to wear around the house.  I altered them to make them look more like girl shorts when I got home (shortened the hem and tightened the crotch area XD).

We also dropped by his mom’s house.  She had these adorable kitties 🙂 They knew they weren’t allowed to leave the house so they just stood by the doorway looking outside.

Ezra and I went shopping one day and I forgot my wallet at home.  Luckily she had some extra cash with her and I was able to buy my new boots.  Thanks Ez 🙂

My nails earlier this month. I used nail strips I found at Penshoppe for only P39.

I tried to hide in Ckloy’s luggage before he left for Texas but he caught me

Amie and Kat dropped by one afternoon and Ezra and I decided to put make up on them 😀  Pretty~

Our new game addiction. It’s by the same creators who made Cytus, and the idea is pretty much the same.  Ezra likes this more but I still prefer Cytus because the songs are more upbeat and there are more to choose from.  But Deemo is fun too.

Vain self shots while waiting for Ckloy to login to Skype for our first video chat since he arrived in Texas.

Here are some screencaps of our first Skype session. He had to get ready for work so we talked while he made breakfast 🙂

Clay lab girls 😀  Posted this for Throwback Thursday.  This was taken December of last year.

Random selfie during our office Christmas party. We decided to have it in one of our empty classrooms because some people had exams and we wanted to make it easy for them to drop in after they were over.

INSTABITS : November 2013

In last month’s INSTABITS entry I mentioned that I’ve been neglecting social media.  Partly because I got distracted by the terrible things that have been happening to our country, and also because  the second semester had started. I’ve been assigned to teach APhy 101 lecture this semester, which is a little stressful for me.  Not because I don’t like the subject or the students, but simply because it’s my first time handling the class.  For the past weeks, most of my free time has been devoted to preparing for my lectures.  But I think I’ve got a feel for my schedule now, and lately I’ve been able to squeeze in some blogging, Instagramming and self portraits.

Anyway, here’s my super short INSTABITS entry for November:

Last September, my parents went to visit a fish farm in Dagupan for their project.  The owner is a friend of theirs and he gave them some flowerhorns as a gift.  We woke up one morning to find that one of them had laid eggs!  We were wondering why she kept moving all the pebbles to one side of the aquarium – turns out she was nesting 🙂  We’ve had flowerhorns before but this is the first time any of them laid eggs.

Just before classes began, some of my colleagues and I decided to relax at SM Calamba after work.  We had merienda and did a little bit of shopping.  Kat wanted to watch Thor 2 but it was late and most of us had already seen it. She settled for taking a picture with the movie display.

I ordered a lace choker from eBay and it arrived sometime around the end of the month.  Isn’t it lovely?  I used it in a recent self portrait, which you can see HERE.

I got home from work one day to find that Christmas decorations have popped up at our house 😀  They appeared a bit early this year.  Normally we don’t decorate the house until December 1, but I guess Donna and Joy were a little excited for the holidays.

INSTABITS : October 2013

I just realized that it’s almost the end of November and I haven’t posted my INSTABITS entry for October yet.  Whoops.  Classes have started so naturally I’m once again falling behind on blogging and my 52-week project.  Also, you’re probably aware that things are not going that well in some parts of our country, due to the recent typhoon.  Even someone like me, who don’t watch the news, knows what a terrible state we are in.  I could probably sit here and try to write pages and pages about our situation and paint you a devastating picture but I’m sure that most of you are aware of this already.  However, if you are interested in reading more about it, you can do so HERE.  And if you would like to help out, here’s a link to a page that contains information that you might find useful.

Alright, so on to my photo dump for October.

On the first day of October, my college adviser returned to the Physics Division, yaaaay~  He finished his PhD in Japan last September, and now he’s back in UPLB and teaching again. Welcome back Sir Marvs!! We missed you 😀

The first thing he wanted to do when he came back was take pictures at the torii (Japanese gate) inside campus.  I think he misses Japan already.  Anyway, Dustin, Amie and I went with him since we’ve never been there before.  This photo was taken by a “random” student we spotted in the area (who turned out to be one of my old Physics 3 lecture students from 2012).

JUMP! Sir Marvs looks excited to be back ^__^

A few days after our torii adventure, we had an impromptu pizza party at our house.  Thanks Sir Marvs and Sir Taps for the pizza. Please feel free to drop by again for another Just Dance competition 😀

I was missing my cute Go Launcher themes, so I decided to install this Ohiye live wallpaper and widgets for my phone. Supah kawaii!   I love how the wifi switch is a clam shell, and the little swimming fishies.  I also think it’s cool that the background changes to a darker one with a moon when evening comes.  (I chose not to download Go Launcher this time because I didn’t want to use up so much space on my phone.  I think this live wallpaper and widget won’t consume that much space, but I could be wrong)

I gave my fringe a little trim last month.  My blunt bangs are back:D  Ckloy tells me I look like a little kid again.

I just had to share this – my highest score in 2Fuse to date. And I did it without using a single booster! Yaaaay!  I have no idea how this happened, but I’m one step closer to reaching 2 million 😀

  

Family portrait taken at the photobooth during my aunt’s 75th birthday celebration at the EDSA Shangrila Hotel

Here’s another one with Mama and her babies 🙂

INSTABITS : September 2013

It’s October already~  Just a few more weeks till the end of 2013.  I apologize for posting this even later than usual.  It’s the last week of classes, and I’ve been spending most of my time grading papers and making exams  T__T  In fact, I’m surrounded by lab reports waiting to be checked as I’m typing this.  But I’ve been checking nonstop since this afternoon, and I figured I deserved a break.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last INSTABITS entry, August wasn’t a very good month for me.  But I’m very happy to report that my September was great 😀  Lots of celebration and donuts XD  Here’s my photo dump for this month:

 

I finished watching the Pretty Little Liars’ mid season finale on the first day of the month.  It ended with a major cliffhanger and I can’t wait for the Halloween episode!

One of the reasons why I loved September was because it’s my birth month 🙂  I haven’t really done anything big for my birthday the past few years.  I used to enjoy hosting big parties when I was younger, but these days I prefer to celebrate with just family and close friends.  This year, my officemates surprised me with a cake.  (You can read more about my birthday celebration in THIS BLOG ENTRY.)  Thanks guys!

My birthday outfit 😀  I usually wear red on my birthday, but our family’s avoiding bright colors for the time being.

Simple birthday lunch celebration with the family and some friends at my mom’s office

For Throwback Thursday that week, I posted this old photo of Sinead, Sarabeth and me.  This was when we were in the 6th grade.  Sinead’s and Sara’s birthdays are on September 7, while mine is on September 4, so we decided to have a joint birthday party that year at Sara’s house.  (Look how dark and skinny I was back then!)

That weekend, Ezra and I went to SM Calamba to meet up with Ckloy.  We did a bit of shopping while waiting for him.  Here’s us Instagramming in the dressing room while Ezra tried on some jeans (the ones she’s wearing in this picture – which she ended up buying)

I bought this shirt last month because I thought the print was adorable.  It’s not that obvious in this shot, but they’re actually little Scottish terriers!  Aren’t they adorable??  I love Scottish terriers!  I’ve never had one before, but “Lady and the Tramp” was my favorite cartoon growing up, and thought Jock was really cute with his little mustache ^___^

INSTABITS : August 2013

Hello everyone!  The -ber months are here again.  A colleague told me that she actually heard Christmas carols already being played at the supermarket the other day.  I can’t believe that there are only a few months left in 2013.

Here’s my Instagram dump for the month.  I would just like to mention that August has not been very kind to my family, so some parts of this entry might be a little gloomy.  We lost my grandma earlier this month, and as a result we’ve been dealing with a lot of emotional stress.   But don’t worry, I’m not going to make you sift through all my feelings and emotions.  To be honest I’m not in the mood to go into much detail about it at the moment anyway.  But it does come up, so I just thought I should warn you.

        

August didn’t waste any time sprinkling me with bad luck.  A few hours before the month began, my phone suddenly started going haywire.  It kept showing messages about how one application crashed, and how it’s low on internal memory.  So I turned it off and tried to restart it but it refused to turn on.  I did everything people suggested (taking out the batteries for long periods of time, doing a hard reset, connecting it to the charger, etc).  I got no response every time but the phone itself would get very hot.  I took it to a repair shop to see if they could do anything, but it’s broken beyond repair.  They couldn’t even tell me why it stopped working or how I could have prevented it.  Grrrr~  Luckily Ezra still had her old Nokia C7 lying around and was kind enough to let me borrow it.

As if losing my phone wasn’t bad enough, the fates decided to add insult to injury the next day.  I got a text message from the post office telling me that a package arrived for me.  I opened it to find the power bank I ordered from eBay a few weeks earlier.  Isn’t it hilarious how it arrived the day after my phone stopped working.

August wasn’t all bad of course.  My dear friend Tring had her birthday this month 🙂 Weeee

To celebrate, Tring, Ezra and I had dinner at the newly-renovated McDonalds.  Afterwards we hung out at Carabao Park and talked.  It was a fun and nostalgic evening for me.  Back when I was in college I used to eat at McDonalds all the time with my friends, and we loved hanging out at Carabao Park 🙂

  

For my first August Throwback Thursday, I found this old photo of Ezra, Gilbert and me with our grandparents.  I actually posted this for Iyah since she requested to see baby pictures of Gilbert.  Little did I know that this photo would mean much more to all of us in just a few more days.

Since my phone was still broken, I scheduled a trip to SM Calamba that weekend to take it to the service center.  Unfortunately the only fix they could suggest was a motherboard replacement, which would set me back 10,000PHP.  That’s practically half the price of my phone itself, and I wasn’t willing to shell out that much.  To cheer myself up, I went on little shopping spree.  Here’s some of my haul that day : new sneakers, a magazine and my first Gundam! (The Gundam was actually Ckloy’s monthsary present to me ).  Later that evening, my grandma had a stroke and was rushed to the emergency room.  I remember it very clearly because Ckloy and I were just about to get started building the Gundam (we had all the parts laid out on the floor and everything) when the whole thing happened.

My parents and my uncle spent the first evening watching over my grandma at the ICU.  The next day, Ezra and I went to the hospital to take over so that our parents could get some rest.  Our cousins were all there too (except for Lance since he had to watch their house).  We weren’t allowed inside the ICU except between 6-8pm, so we spent most of our time chatting in the waiting room, trying to distract each other from the situation we were in.

Garcia sisters and the Tan brothers

I ordered these makeup sponges eBay.  Aren’t they adorable?  Unfortunately I don’t enjoy using them as much as I thought I would.  I was too cheap to order the actual Beauty Blender so I thought I could use these instead.  They’re alright, but they absorb so much of my makeup, I feel like most of it is going to waste.

INSTABITS : July 2013

I can’t believe it’s already August!  In just a few weeks the -ber months will be here again~

Here’s my Instagram dump for the month of July:

Received another message from the post office telling me to pick up a package that arrived.  This is why I love shopping online 😀  Feels like Christmas every time 🙂

The small box was for Ezra (it was the BB cream she ordered using my eBay account), and the larger package contained my new iPad mini pouch.  Isn’t it awesome?

Posted this for Throwback Thursday.  Little Raffy and me at Big Bear Mountain, California. Taken sometime in 1996 🙂

We dug up our old reclining chair from our attic.  Ezra and I used to fight over who gets to sit in this chair back when we were kids. It’s perfect for watching tv, playing playstation and napping 🙂  I made Ckloy try it and he loves it.  (He keeps asking if he could take it home with him XD)

When Despicable Me 2 came out, McDonalds offered these adorable minions as part of their happy meals.  The last time I had a happy meal was probably 10 years ago, but I just couldn’t resist XD  I even made my mom and Ninang order their own happy meals so I could get the toys XD  (Ninang tried to use her senior citizen card when she paid but the lady at McDonalds told us you can’t get a senior citizen discount on Happy Meals, lol)

My roots have been showing so I decided it was time for me to dye my hair again.  I don’t know why, but I’ve really been missing having black hair, so I picked up a box of Blue Black dye this time.  The last time I had black hair was in 2009 😀

It took a while for me to adjust to the change.  For the first few days I got a little shock whenever I looked in the mirror.

INSTABITS : June 2013

This will be a short entry since I didn’t post that much this month.  It’s the start of a new school year so I’ve been busy preparing for my classes.  They gave me a NASC3 lecture class this semester, which I’m really happy about.  It’s my first time teaching this subject so it’s a challenge for me, but so far I’ve been having a blast.   My students are great and I’ve enjoyed our first few meetings so far.  The only downside is that I’ve been spending most of my free time preparing my lecture slides for the class so I haven’t had much time for anything else.

Anyway, here’s my photo dump for June:

I got a call from the post office one day, telling me that I had a package there.  Normally they deliver my eBay purchases to our house, but ever since they learned that my office was walking distance from them, they’ve been asking me to pick up my packages there instead.  I don’t really mind.  It’s a 2-minute walk and this way I get my packages faster because I don’t have to wait for the delivery man’s next scheduled trip to our subdivision.  Anyway, this was one of the things I picked up.  It’s a new case for my iPod.  I love my old one but it’s gotten really loose and my iPod keeps falling out.

I bought an iPad mini last month, which means I can now play 2Fuse using two hands.  (I’ve been playing it on my iPod before, so I could only use one hand since the screen’s too small…)  Ever since then, my scores have been much higher 😀

I’ve also been able to catch up on some TV series this month.  My current obsession : SHERLOCK.  If you guys haven’t seen this show, I recommend you try it out.  It’s amazing!  And each season only has 3 episodes so it shouldn’t take up that much of your time.

Gummy vitamins for my tummy. They look adorable and taste so good~

Ezra and I attended the Toycon last June 15 with Raffy and Ckloy.  We only dropped by for about 3 hours and headed back home.  We didn’t even take that many photos since I didn’t bother bringing my DSLR with me.  Ezra and I attended Fanime last May, so we weren’t really excited about Toycon.  But we’ve been attending since 2007 and we didn’t want to break tradition by not going this year.

Since we wasn’t able to take pictures of the cosplayers at Toycon, I posted one of me with a SeeD cadet taken last month at Fanime 😀

INSTABITS : May 2013

Posting this a bit late again.  I’ve been trying to savor the last few days of my summer break, so I’ve been avoiding anything that requires me to think (or move … or get out of bed …).  But it’s back to the grind for me tomorrow, so I should probably get this done before all the craziness starts.

Started the month off by going on a summer outing with my officemates.  We went to Canyon Cove beach resort in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Presenting the Physics faculty XD

Posted this for Throwback Thursday.  This was taken during Moy’s birthday party 5 (or was it 4) years ago.  Aprille, Brinks and I took forever to get ready and ended up being 2 hours late for her party. Oops…

On May 3 our family headed off to Los Angeles to visit our relatives there.  This is a shot of us at the airport lounge in NAIA.  We didn’t have breakfast so we pigged out on the free snacks there.

We had a 3-hour stop over at Taiwan, where we were reunited with Hello Kitty 🙂

Ezra and I had fun playing around with the funny mirrors at the Hello Kitty terminal

On our first day in LA, Kurt took us to see Iron Man 3.  (I actually saw it with Ckloy the week before this, but I had no problem seeing it again.)

I was still pretty jetlagged and only got 3 hours of sleep on our first night there.  Woke up with horrendous bags under my eyes.  Thank goodness for huge shades 😀

On our 2nd day there, we asked Kurt to take us to Little Tokyo for some mochi ice cream.

We also dropped by Walmart and Walgreens.  I’m trying to cut back on buying cosmetics, but most of these were on sale so I couldn’t resist

Kurt took us to visit his school (California State University Northridge) where we had fun feeding squirrels, ducks, and turtles.

After feeding the animals, we went to Westfield mall to feed ourselves.  Itadakimasu! 🙂

INSTABITS : April 2013

Posting this a bit late again.  May has been crazy so far, so I haven’t really had much time to blog.  But it’s the good kind of crazy, so I’m not complaining 🙂

Anyway, here’s my Instagram compilation for April 😀

Started the month off by having lunch with my officemates at Bene Dalcielo.  I love their lengua 🙂

Since it’s summer, Camille, Tring and I have a little more free time to hang out than usual.  They usually visit me at the office and we would grab merienda somewhere.  This was taken the evening Camille craved Moonleaf.  (According to Tring, that was her first Moonleaf experience XD)

About a week earlier, Camille convinced me to install GoSMS on my phone.  I loved it so much that I ended up downloading GOLauncher as well. Supah kawaii~

Another random afternoon with Camille and Tring. I call us the “Agronomy Girls” because our dads used to work together at the Agronomy department in UPLB.  That’s actually how Camille and I became friends – our dads used to take us with them to the office and we would play together while they worked.  Tring’s a couple of years younger than us so I didn’t really get to know her until much later.

It was Aprille’s birthday on the 8th, so the girls and I got together for dinner on the 6th for an early celebration

Happy birthday to one of the sweetest friends a girl can have!  Mwaaaaah!

I attended Ian’s and Fjorda’s wedding last April 7, along with my colleagues.   The wedding had a garden theme and the guests were provided these adorable hats to wear at the event.

More picts from the wedding.  Congrats Ian and Fjorda!

The 9th was a holiday so Ezra and I went to SM Calamba to relax and escape the heat.

INSTABITS : March 2013

Posting this a bit late because the semester is ending and I’ve been busy checking exams and lab reports.  I really shouldn’t let it pile up like this, but I can’t help myself T__T

My parents went to Thailand for a business trip and they brought us back some of our favorite Thai desserts : chendol and red ruby (AKA chewy chestnuts and green uod XD)

I’m so proud my mom. She won the Outstanding Teacher Award for the Social Sciences category this year!  They had the awarding ceremony last March 6 where they gave her this awesome Oblation trophy.

Ezra and I took turns posing with Mama’s trophy.  Maybe one day we’ll win one for ourselves *crosses fingers*

I’ve been obsessed with this game for weeks now.  I play it all the time!  I even got some of my officemates hooked on it XD  I strongly encourage you to download it if you can and give it a try 😀 (Unfortunately it’s not available for Android users yet, but hopefully they’ll fix that soon.)

I convinced Ezra to download it for her iPad too XD