In your face

I was supposed to write about our Wensha Spa experience but my friend beat me to it. I don't mind really because she summed up our evening perfectly. I enjoyed the food, the massage and the dip at the jacuzzi. Never mind that the pressure points on my back ached the next day, I'm thinking that this is evidence that the massage was effective. I still yearn for the most relaxing massage though. Maybe the hydrotherapy massage at Ace Water Spa will do the trick. But that's for another post.

What I do want to write about right now is how busy I've been ... with facebook. When before I would just log in when I receive email notifications for friend requests and wall announcements, now I find myself logging in everyday, sometimes even several times a day! It all started with the Hatchlings game application. I'd collect the eggs in my profile, and in my friends' profiles, hoping that I could acquire the those with limited edition designs. I soon grew tired of searching for eggs, then I got invited to Sorority Life and that's when I got really hooked. From then on, I started trying out what my friends are also playing: Mafia Wars, FarmVille and Restaurant City. I haven't tried Farm Town and Barn Buddy but I'm guessing they're pretty much similar with FarmVille. I'm hoping that I won't get addicted to the point that I start neglecting my tasks for the day. I'd like to think that I have better self-control than that. But just in case you're looking for me and I'm nowhere to be found, just login to facebook and you'll find me there ;-)

Soon-to-be Dancing Queen

I can't believe it took me more than a year to start working on my "To-Enroll-In" list. Well, better late than never, I say. Just this month, I enrolled in Cardio Hiphop and Bachata dance classes at Studio 116, together with my officemates. Cardio Hiphop is at Tuesdays and Bachata on Wednesdays so that's a total of 8 dance sessions for this month. We started last week and we found it really enjoyable. Although I found myself wishing I was more fit so I didn't have to stop every now and then to catch my breath and drink some water.

Going once, Going twice, Sold!

Last Sunday, my boyfriend and I attended the auction meeting of the Filipinas Stamp Collectors' Club (FSCC). It was held at the Philippine Postal Corporation at Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila with members and non-members in attendance. I was not a member yet but I did sign up on that day.

Following the money trail

I'm beginning to like the sound of Numismatics, a new hobby I would like to venture into. Just like my stamp and postcard collection, my starting point is courtesy of my father's travels abroad. Just last week, I remembered that my mother has in her keeping, a small bag full of coins originating from various countries the world over. Being a ship captain, his work brought him to different ports in different countries so every time he would return from his seafaring, he would have these loose change which could not be exchanged with the banks and money changers so my mother just dumps them all in this small bag. I asked the coins from my mother and I decided that I will sort them and store them properly. I remembered that I had a classmate in college who was also into coin-collecting so I asked him for some pointers. I also found this cool site for coin-collecting newbies which has very helpful information on how to get started, minus the info overload factor. Presently, I have not finished sorting the coins by country yet. But I'm enjoying the experience so it's not a problem. What I'm seeing that would pose some problem for me is finding the proper storage materials for my coins. It's important to store the coins in non-PVC flips or albums and I'm afraid there's a shortage of that where I live. Never mind, I'll worry about that later :)

I'll let you in on a secret. The real reason why I arranged my father's postcards and why I want to sort those coins is because I want to chronicle his travels; I want to know what countries he has been to and when he was there. Who knows, someday I may be able to visit the same places he's been, retracing his footsteps in a sense. And when that happens, no doubt it will turn out to be a truly nostalgic journey for me.

Postcrossing, anyone?

Remember my postcard collection (I wrote something about it here)? I decided that aside from waiting for my friends to send me postcards (or asking them to buy some for me when they go to other places), I decided that I will add to my collection by joining the Postcard Crossing Project. It's a site that "allows anyone to receive postcards (paper ones, not electronic) from random places in the world." Of course, I will still be doing the legwork of actually mailing a postcard to someone, somewhere, but with the site's tracking mechanism, I'm assured that I will receive at least one postcard from another postcrosser somewhere in the world every time I send one to another postcrosser. I still have to read the FAQs on the site first (how to obtain an address, what to write on the postcard and what language to use, etc), then I will try to send my first postcard next week. Then all I have to do is wait for a postcard to arrive in my mailbox. Goodie :)

The Wheel Turns On and On and On

I have just finished reading the tenth book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. I took me more than a year to finish all ten, only to find out that the story's not finished yet. Just a few months ago, the 11th installment came out in the bookstores and what disappointed me was that it has a cover illustration. The book does look more interesting when you can see the images of the characters, but damn it, my first ten books only have a black cover with the title in gold text! If I buy the new one, they won't look all the same. Worse, I don't think there will be a reprinting of the 11th book to have it look like the first ten because what happened was the other way around. The first ten books were reprinted to have cover illustrations. So I decided, I won't buy the first ten books again just so that my book shelf will look pretty when I have all the books lined up. I will just buy the 11th because I just want to finish the story. Then I went to the bookstore to get my copy. But just imagine my shock when I found out that there's a new addition to the WoT series aside from Book 11: Knife of Dreams. A prequel also came out entitled, New Spring: The Novel. I suspected that the story won't be finished just yet so I told myself I'll just buy the rest of the books when the story is really, really over because I don't want to be left hanging again. Anyway, I don't remember most of what's happened and the characters are all jumbled up in my head already so I don't have to worry about forgetting the storyline if I stop reading for a while because I already did. So instead of buying a book, I just went to the music store and bought JoJo's latest cd, The High Road. Hehe :)

PS. I searched the web to know how many books there will really be in the WoT and found this link in the WoT website that shows video interviews of the author. There will be twelve to thirteen books for the 'main sequence novels' and three prequel books which will serve as the prologue.

Digitize it

Yesterday, I had this crazy idea that I should scan my collection of stamps and postcards and put up an online album. Today, I found out that I was not the only one who thought of doing the same thing. There's Jim's Stamp Album which showcases an impressive collection of US stamps, all properly mounted, documented and scanned. For the postcards, I found , POSTCARD COLLECTING AND PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTING SITES, a site that boasts of being "Perhaps the largest online postcard collection on the net!" My collection would be so small compared to theirs, but yeah, I still would like to put it online. I can just imagine my sister giving me a quizzical look as I scan each and every piece, the same look she gave me when I was scanning my elementary and high school pictures. But what the heck, I can't help it. I like having backups in digital format :)

Unfinished Business

In search of a hobby 3 years ago, I thought of getting my hand into model kit building. I didn't like the usual model ships, airplanes, battle tanks and toy soldiers; I wanted something more "pop-culture-ish" so when I saw the Horizon 1/6 scale of Catwoman from the 1992 film Batman Returns, I fell in love. I immediately bought the kit from a shop in Greenhills, as well as the other materials I will be needing like a hobby knife, white putty, super glue and sand paper. I had a friend teach me the basics of putting together the pieces and after weeks of hard work, I was able to come up with my unpainted catwoman as shown in the pictures above. Sad to say, I stopped and it is only now that I'm beginning to think of continuing my unfinished piece. I still have a lot of sanding to do because the seams and other hard to reach places are not yet smooth and even. Once that's done, then I have to face a bigger task -- painting. I don't know how I'm going to go about it but I do hope I'll be able to come up with something that looks like this.

Arrow-Deflecting Monk

This is my character's profile in the game, Neverwinter Nights. I was able to finish it last Saturday, of course with the help of my boyfriend. He and I formed a party and we went adventuring every weekend until we were able to go through all the chapters. He has finished the game a lot of times already but I think this is only the first time that he has used a cleric for his character. As for me, I've tried playing the game before but I never got past the first chapter as a halfling ranger with Tomi Undergallow (a halfling rogue) as my henchman. This time, I chose a human monk and formed a party with Geer Goodman (my boyfriend's human cleric) and together, we were able to battle dragons, goblins, orcs, undead, giant spiders, evil wizards and ultimately all the people and creatures that were behind the plague and chaos in Neverwinter.

Next in my agenda are the expansions for this game, Shadows of Undretide and Hordes of the Underdark. After that, there's Neverwinter Nights 2. I just hope that my pc can still handle the games, if not NWN 2 then at least the expansions of NWN 1 :)