20 Ways To See The World; 20 Ways To Start A Fight

"You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say that you love the sun,..."

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:53:08 +0800

“You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say that you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot when the sun shines. You say that you love the wind, but you close your windows when wind blows. This is why I am afraid, you say that you love me too.”

- Unknown (via concupisco)

Coded

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:41:56 +0800

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Styling: Tin Ledesma; Makeup: Clarence Paul; Hair: Gerald Bryan Yakota; Model: Nathaniel of Mercator}

I assisted a shoot for Manila Bulletin last January. I also took photos on the sides. Hee hee~

Go, Grow, Glow

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 02:49:49 +0800

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Hair & Makeup: Lloyd Luxie; Styling: Dale Marcus, Jomah Chu, Xyza Ragunjan, Aileen Aala, Kris Sese, Ellen Gersava and Micah; Model: Jodilly Pendre}

One of the most fun and awesome-st shoot I was ever part of! The styling team (FIP Style Society January-March 2012) did an amazing job! They were very creative. It was really fun working with them. It was such a treat to be able to experiment with them.

Raquel

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 02:39:33 +0800

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Styling: Theresa Bello; Makeup: Czarina So; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Raquel of ELITE Manila}

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Styling: Theresa Bello; Makeup: Gayle Zabala; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Raquel of ELITE Manila}

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Styling: Theresa Bello; Makeup: Dee Millosa; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Raquel of ELITE Manila}

Cora

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 02:30:46 +0800

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Makeup and Styling: Theresa Bello; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Cora of ELITE Manila}

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Styling: Theresa Bello; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Cora of ELITE Manila}

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Makeup: Jayme Silvestre; Styling: Theresa Bello; Hair: Katchie Mejias; Model: Cora of ELITE Manila}

"You’ve got a bad case of being over there. The only cure is being over here."

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:05:56 +0800

“You’ve got a bad case of being over there. The only cure is being over here.”

- I Wrote This For You, The Distance To Me

Taking Back Sunday (Live in Manila)

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:53:00 +0800

Taking Back Sunday was all kinds of awesome last night. I really wanted to cry during and after their first ever show in Manila. (Heh~) The crowd was really great, too! I went home limp (I totally regret nothing!). I was too hyper. I think I’ve consumed all the allowed jumps per person in my entire lifetime. I nearly lost my voice. They were really ten years worth the wait! Fucking hell yeah!

During their cover of Straylight Run’s Existentialism on Prom Night.

Spot the mockingjay on Adam’s guitar! /hungergamesfanalert

I took a lot of photos of John Nolan (if you’ve noticed). He was conveniently right in front of us. And we made damn sure that we’re standing front row for this! All or nothing. Lol. Okay. I’m going back to watching videos from last night’s show on YouTube now. Tyfyt.

We got trouble.

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:27:39 +0800

visiblechildren:

For those asking what you can do to help, please link to visiblechildren.tumblr.com wherever you see KONY 2012 posts. And tweet a link to this page to famous people on Twitter who are talking about KONY 2012!

I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.

KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m not alone.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on supporting African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

As Christ Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”

Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children supports military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.

Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.

Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on supporting ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.

If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

~ Grant Oyston, visiblechildren@grantoyston.com

Grant Oyston is a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. You can help spread the word about this by linking to his blog at visiblechildren.tumblr.com anywhere you see posts about KONY 2012.

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Makeup: Raizel Dy; Hair: Raizel Dy and Jay Wee; Styling: FIP Style...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:13:41 +0800

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Makeup: Raizel Dy; Hair: Raizel Dy and Jay Wee; Styling: FIP Style Society; Model: Monika Sta. Maria}

Finally! An update! I’ll be posting photos from shoots I participated in last year. I really...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:53:38 +0800

Finally! An update! I’ll be posting photos from shoots I participated in last year. I really need to gain some confidence in showing my photos to everyone.

{Photo: Christina Zabat; Grooming: Rxandy Capinpin; Styling: FIP Style Society; Model: Terence Lloyd of Elite Manila}

28 January 2012 Japanese Food Night

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:25:06 +0800

28 January 2012
Japanese Food Night

Agedashi Tofu + Salmon Sashimi

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:15:56 +0800

Last Tuesday, my sister and I made Agedashi Tofu for dinner. I’m a sucker for Japanese food AND tofu. I asked her to help me out since I came home a bit late from the grocery. It was almost dinner time when I came home. I’ve been thinking about putting up more food posts in my blog. I figured it’s a way for me to get back into blogging again. (Side note: I haven’t been in the blogging mood for about two months now.)

What you will need:
One block of soft tofu
Japanese bread crumbs
Cooking oil

Tentsuyu Sauce
150ml Dashi Stock (If you can’t buy one you can use fish broth as substitute.)
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Mirin
3 tbsp Sake (Rice Wine)
Sugar

Garnishes
Sliced Spring Onions
Peeled Daikon or White Radish
Grated Ginger

I’m kind of a mess when I cook. There’s no right structure for me but I get the job done. Hee hee~

Cut the tofu into blocks. We cut it into 12. I initially wanted to cut them in circles like in restaurants but I didn’t want to waste any tofu. They’re too precious. Use paper towels to dry them.

Here’s a bottle of Mirin (450ml at P155.25) and Sake (240ml at P94.75; I got a 20% discount for this item). I got them from the Asian Food Market inside Market! Market!’s Metro grocery store.

Since we didn’t have Dashi stock, we used fish broth. Thank goodness we have one at home! Just heat 1 liter of water plus the fish broth until it boils and voila! Instant dashi. I don’t know how this works for others but we didn’t do proper research on how to make our own dashi. But this one sufficed for that evening.

For the Tentsuyu sauce, add the mirin first. Wait until the smell of alcohol disappears. Add dashi stock, rice wine and soy sauce in. Add sugar. If the sauce doesn’t taste sweet and quite salty at the same time (weird, I know), add more sugar. I added about 3 tablespoons of sugar for this recipe. Wait for the sauce to boil and then turn the stove off.

The batter is made up of bread crumbs, egg, and milk.

Dip the tofu in the batter and coat it with bread crumbs. Heat up the oil and deep fry the tofu. The tofu is cooked in about a minute. Don’t wait for too long. Drain the excess oil using a paper towel.

Funny story while deep frying the tofu. I accidentally dipped my index finger inside the deep fryer. I didn’t feel the pain at first but in about a minute or so, I was shouting, “Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!” My sister just laughed at me.

Once you’re done frying, you may now put in your garnishes. Yay!

And here’s what our Agedashi Tofu looked like:

As a bonus and to make it more Japanese-y, I bought Salmon Sashimi from Cold Storage. We also used chopsticks for this meal!

As another reference, watch this video:

"Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?"

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:43:18 +0800

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”

- Emil Cioran (via comfortably-dumb)

Birthday Post

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:40:00 +0800

(I know it’s already late but I have to post this. It’s been in my drafts for more than a month now. LOLOLOL Forever lazy.)

I celebrated my birthday last December 19. I know. It’s been two weeks and I couldn’t be bothered to blog about it. But I am now. I haven’t even visited my own blog in a month! I was too lazy to update, too. I shall blog and fix thy portal until the thirty-first.

Onto the blog poast!

I spent half the day with Louie, Raizel and Ryuji. We went to FIP Ortigas first to drop off our donations for the victims of Typhoon Sendong. We were supposed to have lunch after but ended up leaving at past 4.

I’ve been wearing this bonnet A LOT. It’s my fail-safe headgear. It’s my protekshun from bad hair days or when I’m just too lazy to comb or style my hair.

We ate at San Sung Korean Restaurant. My family and I have eaten here before but I didn’t catch the name so I referred to it as ‘Korean Restaurant. Plus, you couldn’t see their sign along Makati Avenue right away. And when you get to the restaurant (which looks like a house, btw), San Sung is written in Hanggul characters and below it is Korean Restaurant. (Should’ve taken a photo of their sign.)

San Sung used to serve UNLIMITED appetizers (earlier this year). I was too bummed that they had to change it. They now refill the appetizer plates once. :( We had two orders of Sam Gyup Sal, Bulgogi Jungol and a plate of Salmon Sashimi.

Patrick, Ryuji and Raizel

Me, Louie and Kyle

Always the smallest in the group.

After my early dinner with my friends, I went home to eat dinner with my family. My mom cooked my ever favorite Kare-Kare and Lengua (Ox tongue). Lalalalove. I was so full, I couldn’t move right after. I even forgot to workout.

We ate in the same restaurant 3 days after with my relatives. I tells ya! Korean food is inexpensive and so addictive! Right now, I want me some Bibimbap and Sam Gyup Sal.

BTS: UP Shoot

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:27:32 +0800

26 October 2011

Photo

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:26:31 +0800

TheCapitol.PN

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:41:37 +0800

TheCapitol.PN:

I’m officially a member of District 5. May the odds be ever with me at this year’s Hunger Games. What’s your District? http://www.TheCapitol.PN

OH HAI

I forgot to blog about this. LOL. Check out this link to see the tutorial for this makeup....

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:20:37 +0800

I forgot to blog about this. LOL. Check out this link to see the tutorial for this makeup. It’s not the best but I had fun doing it. I messed up the teeth part, right?

Anyway, I didn’t actually get to attend any of the Halloween events two weeks ago. We had a village trick-or-treat for the kids and I didn’t participate because of Lee’s PFW show. Then the next day, we were supposed to go to Rue Bourbon’s event but didn’t push through with it! I was so ready for my Rosie the Riveter costume. :(

The close thing I ever got to feeling the Halloween vibe was trying out the Horror House near our village. For 80 bucks, it was all right. I wish the maze inside the house was longer. We were there for ten minutes or less.

"You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of..."

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:21:38 +0800

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.”

- Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)

PFW S/S 2012: Jerome Salaya Ang, Noel Crisostomo and Sassa Jimenez

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 03:02:22 +0800

Jerome Salaya Ang

Noel Crisostomo

Sassa Jimenez