Bottled Sky

My college friends and I hung out at Eugene’s condo this weekend. It had been months since I last saw some of them — Tin! Nas! Albert! — so I was really excited. We went swimming, had dinner at Pancake House, played PS2 (they played; I just randomly pressed buttons), (re)watched Golden Boy, drank, slept a little, then woke up and had leftover alcohol with our breakfast. Good times. Check out the photos from Chrissa’s camera.

Of course there was gift giving, too. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t have much money to spend on gifts this year, so I did a lot of DIYing. This time I drew cartoon alter egos of the girls, had them printed, and found matching desktop frames for each drawing:

Check out my illustration portfolio for the bigger versions.

They loved it! Seeing their reactions to the cartoons got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. The guys pretend-pouted and asked why I didn’t do the same for them, so I mock-complained about how hard they were to draw because they all looked alike, hehe. I did try, but unfortunately I can’t draw boys as well as I can girls. I got them uber-geeky squeeze flashlights instead. Maybe next year.

Happy holidays, everyone! And thanks to Rose for being extra cool

While I am still working on a way to achieve my goal of traveling the world, one of my books has gone ahead without me. My friend Chrissa went on a vacation to London last month, and I lent her my copy of The Lovely Bones to read on the plane. In return she photographed my book all around the city, much like the Traveling Gnome in Amelie. Here’s the jet-setting novel in all its London glory:

Check out the full-size photos here.

Doesn’t my book look like it’s having fun? I’ll find a way to get there (as well as to Santorini, Venice, Tokyo… well, you get the picture) myself someday. I’m sure of it.

My old high school barkada (Filipino for “clique” or “group of friends”) got together for our annual holiday dinner last night. It’s been getting harder and harder to schedule our gatherings, because everyone’s so busy these days. A couple of our friends weren’t able to make it, but we still had a great time just talking and catching up on each other’s lives.

Berns, me, Jo and Fatz
Photo by Fatz. More pictures here.

As we talked about what we’d been up to the past year, what our plans were for the near future and how silly we’d all been in high school, it hit me — we’re all grown up! When did that happen?!

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