Pretty in pink

Because looking at this goofy adorable face makes me laugh and want to go home and play with her. I hope she grows up to be funny and sassy, confident and kind, intelligent and streetsmart, delightful yet down-to-earth, able to wear princessy pink dresses but still want to look goofy and fun — the kind who wears sneakers under all the frou-frou

[originally posted in tumblr]

Afternoon reading: Crazy Rich Asians

Having an afternoon alone at the National Museum. This book, about Singaporean high society and its foibles, is the perfect late lunch companion. Refreshingly hilarious and gossipy, it’s a peek into the rarefied air of Asia’s super-rich. Now, I don’t know how “drawn from real life/people” the book is, but having hobnobbed with some of the rich folk here at some media events, I could certainly believe that Kevin Kwan wrote his roman a clef with some real people in mind. It’s a delicious read!

Weekend reading: The Eye of God

Spending the day away from people in the company of an elite scientific military team racing against time to save the world. In the mix are dark matter, the Vatican, the fall of the Roman Empire, a skull encrypted with ancient Aramaic, a book bound in human skin, Genghis Khan, a falling satellite that caught images of the Earth’s destruction in the future, Christianity’s true origins… Oh, and there’s a hint of romance and gunfights galore. All in all, this seems like a rollicking good read. Just what I need to forget about humans for awhile.

Tsundoku

(n.) Buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves or floors or nightstands.

Guilty!

Throwback Thursday: The CGs

What do you get when you wake up in a corridor-full of women and there are no classes? Mayhem, that’s what. I can’t remember if this was taken during a weekend or we all just decided to cut classes for the day. What I do remember is that this was in December and that we just woke up and we had just finished exchanging Christmas presents. Then again, even that memory could be faulty. What can I say, I’m old. The girl I was in this picture could have been my daughter now. Any of these fresh-faced girls could have been.

I always get sentimental about old photos — especially ones like these. Maybe because I never had sisters and these girls were surrogates. It was a fun sisterhood, without the attendant angst and drama real-life sibs so often have. Any time I’d get together with this bunch, it’s always going to be a good time.

A few days after this photo was taken, we all went our separate ways for Christmas break. Afterwards, it was back to studying like mad for finals and before we knew it, the year was over. I think this was one of the last pictures we ever took where almost everyone was there. After this, we all started growing up and forging our own paths.

We still keep in touch, after a fashion (thank God for Facebook!). One owns a bakeshop, three are in the US, one in Canada, one’s a doctor, two are lawyers, one’s a flight attendant based in Hong Kong, one is an editor in Singapore, one works in a bank (last time I talked to her), one works in the US embassy (last time I talked to her). Almost all are wives and moms.

Back when this was taken, where we’d end up now wasn’t even something we’d dream about. What was in our minds then was taking a shower, breakfast and spending a whole day that stretched into forever. Fun times.

Good think for the day

Life is for deep kisses, strange adventures, midnight swims, and rambling conversations — yup, that’s what I believe too!

52 weeks of Terrie: Accidental selfie

Time: 9sh in the morning
State of being: Feeling sluggish, like the day hasn’t started. No caffeine in me yet
State of mind: Preoccupied. Got scolded yesterday for imperfect copy that got sent to client, who wasn’t too happy about the result.
Would rather: Go back to bed and sleep (then again, don’t we all?)

This was taken this morning while I was prepping for work. Had wanted to take a still life photo of the mirror and makeup and accidentally caught myself in the frame (of course, because there’s a mirror! Duh! What can I say? It’s morning and I haven’t had coffee yet…). Anyway, the resulting photo was interesting enough to post, so I’m posting it.

Besides, I get comments that there aren’t many pics of myself on this blog. One friend went so far as to say that it’s as if I was effacing myself from the blog, “a psychologist will have a field day analyzing your blog, Terrie!”

On my birthday post I vowed to take one selfie a week — hence 52 weeks of Terrie — just to see if I could and it seemed interesting to do self-portraits of how I’ve evolved in the course of a year. Of course, that never happened — procastination, yo! — and there just seemed to be more interesting things to post/write about than putting up my photo. But let’s see where this gets me, as there are still 50 selfies to get through. Stay tuned!

For our candidates

Translation: “Your campaign jingle is cute, and copied from Justin Bieber, One Direction and other pop songs, but what I really want to hear are your plans so my mom and dad don’t have to go abroad to earn a living, and how you’re going to provide me with a quality education so we don’t end up destitute.”

I hope the Philippines votes wisely this coming May elections.

Wikipedia needs help

Can’t imagine a world without Wikipedia, can you? So I’m doing my bit. Let’s all do our share to keep it alive.

From Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn’t belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.

If everyone reading this donated $10, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. But not everyone can or will donate. And that’s fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of $10, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

 

Corned beef pasta!

Last Sunday, I was having a Whatsapp convo with Mina, Karen and Chiquit (like we do) about what to have for lunch. It being a weekend, we were all in our respective places but managed to have an utterly weird, funny conversation about… stuff. Most of it centering on food, and hunger and the fact that we were all lazy to get up and cook.

As a result of that conversation, I ended up hankering for corned beef pasta. So last night, I finally gave in to the urge and made some. I’m publishing the recipe here, though I am not sure about the measurements because I generally just guess.