My Vitamin C

The weather was quite harsh today.


I got a day off from work today but I had to make a few errands. And one of these errands was processing my passport at DFA. But it didn't turn out as bad as I expected. I was able to complete everything that had to be done within an hour and a half.


And so for the rest of the day, I was curled in my bed sipping my daily dose of warm Vitamin C while watching TV.

My Vitamin C isn't Ascorbic acid FYI, but caffeine. But don't get me wrong, I do get my required Ascorbic Acid intake but I get more of the other Vitamin C in a day.


Caffeine addiction runs in the blood. My dad, on average, consumes three cups of coffee everyday. He used to consume more when he was younger. 

As for myself, I can consume, on average, two cups a day.


It used to be more than two cups back in college, when I had to stay long hours studying. It was as bad as seven... I know! It sounds ridiculous. Only when I started palpitating would I stop drinking coffee. But it gradually decreased. When I started working and my job demanded that I stay up at night, I'd consume about five cups.

But those were the days when I looked at coffee, only, as an upper. 

Now, my day is never complete without it. 

Food Photography

I love food...oh wait... no.... I worship it! 


I like looking at it, smelling it, tasting it and chewing it. 

Taken from the album, "Random Eats".

I cook too if I have the time. With my tight schedule, I find solace in restaurants or worse --fast food. But there's one thing I definitely have  time for --photography!

Taken from the album "Healthy Eats".

Whenever I visit a new restaurant and the food looks good, I make sure I take a picture before digging in. 


I used to love taking pictures of my friends when we'd hang out at restaurants and I realized that there was more to these gatherings than "cam-whoring" friends. There was food. And I mean food with better appeal! ;)

Taken from my album "Cook/bake at Bak's Kitchen".

Since then I've been hooked and now my friends are complaining why my Facebook has nothing but food pictures in it. What's worse is that they were with me at the restaurant where the food was taken and they weren't in any of the pictures. 

Taken from the album "Barcino".

Ok. I admit I have fixation issues because when I enjoy something, I keep on doing it until I'm completely fed up. And food... I don't think I'll ever be fed up with it unless I want to starve myself to death, which by the way will never happen! 

Whether it's my daily caffeine dose or my occasional fine dining,
photography is  an essential. As the pictures above show. Taken from
the album "Life On The Go".

So that means you'll be seeing my food posts for a while...maybe even forever. I mean... don't you appreciate good looking food? C'mon!

What I Really Want

When we were young, people would ask us about what we want to be when we grow up. Our answers depended on our parents' coaxing or on what we like watching on TV. Your answers might have been --doctor, teacher, soldier or superhero. Did I guess it right?

This is from my album "Basking In The Sun".

What did I want to be when I was a kid? I can't even remember. My parents never asked me that question nor do I remember anyone asking me. 


But I had very encouraging parents who let me do, pretty much, whatever I wanted. When they saw the potential of me being an artist, they bought me coloring books, watercolors, crayons and left me tons of paper while they were at work and I was left home. My mom didn't even mind scrubbing the walls when I ran out of paper and the walls served as emergency canvass for my artwork. When I started humming tunes and it sounded right, they sent me to study music during school breaks, so I could focus on my god-given talents. And I sung on every school program and joined every school contest. 

One of my works in pencils from last year. 

But did I want all of it? I guess I did. Looking back at how hectic my schedule was as a child, I'd truly think I liked what I was doing. My singing helped me build my confidence. Being on stage and being in tune was already a difficult thing to do, that it opened other opportunities for me, like joining the drama club, the dance club, the art club, the speech club and pretty much everything that tickled my competitiveness.

This is from my album "Basking In The Sun".

When I was growing up and my family moved a lot, all of us in the family had our share of tasks in the house. One of my tasks were cooking. It was something I enjoyed doing. And the more people liked my cooking, the more I did it. I fed the entire neighborhood when I mastered my Chinese noodles recipe.

I have definitely moved on, since I mastered the Chinese noodle recipe to cooking the best Italian.

When people saw what I could do, they all thought I would probably be an artist or a singer or a chef or an actress or a politician or a dancer or ... the list went on and on. But with all these things that I could do, what did I really want to be? I had no idea.

Crafts I learned from Christmas 2010. This is a part of my album "Shabby Chic"

It all started going haywire when I entered college and took up Medical Technology. Who would have ever imagined that? Then people started wondering what I was going to do next. I myself was wondering why I did it. And it took me four years in school, a year in interning in a med. lab. and three months being a hermit to study for the Medical Boards, which I passed and fancied so much, to realize that I did it all for nothing. I didn't want to work in the hospital.


Now I was in a crisis. I didn't know where to go after getting my license as Med. Lab. Scientist. 

This is a part of my album "Shabby Chic"

And after six more years working in an industry, not related to medical science or art, I'm still not in a place where I want to be. And I often find myself wondering what I really want to do. 

This is a part of my album "Shabby Chic"

Last 2008 a very good friend of mine gave me a point and shoot camera as a gift for Christmas. And then I discovered PHOTOGRAPHY.

This is a part of my album "Shabby Chic"

I have had prior exposure to photography. My dad owned a Yashica SLR when I was ten, but I was ordered to stay away from the equipment because it was a gadget my dad was very protective of. And besides, back in the day, you'd spend film roll after film roll to practice photography only to find out the photos were no good after spending for photo processing. So I wasn't so thrilled with photography as much as if you'd put me on stage to sing in front of a huge crowd.

This is a part of my album "Shabby Chic"

But now that I have found \photography, again the same question is asked --Do I want it? Yes I do, ofcourse. It makes me happy and it makes other people happy when they look at my photos.


BUT WHAT DO I REALLY WANT?


I just want to be happy. 

This is a part of my album "Cloud-Watching"

Whatever happened to wanting to be an artist, musician, chef or actress? I have for most of my life been going with the flow, with goals that change after the fulfillment of another. I guess when you get older, you become less adventurous and your wants are reduced to more substantial needs and your sky-high goals are upgraded to the single, most realistic dream of HAPPINESS.