Bottled Sky

I suck at blogging. I wrote only one entry last month, and I failed to mention that I moved to another country last week. To quote my friend Chrissa in her latest e-mail:

I’m surprised you haven’t broadcast to the world that you’re already in Singapore! I mean, it’s a freakin’ change of permanent residency!

Bad, Nikki! In my defense, I had every intention of posting a pre-flight entry last weekend, but as they say, the best intentions are fraught with frenzied last-minute packing

So how have I been? I won’t say I’m homesick, but I do miss many of the people and things I left behind. I miss my occasionally grumpy dad, my crazy friends and my hyperactive dogs. I miss watching TV with my aunt Cecile. I miss hanging out with my aunt Irene and her 500 cats. I miss having inane, three-hour-long phone conversations with Chrissa. I miss eating my mom’s pasta.

But that’s to be expected. I have a great life back home; of course I miss it! All things considered, however, I think I’ve been adjusting very well. In fact I’ve already found several things to love about this country. Public transportation is a dream here compared to the dingy buses and annoying jeepneys of the Philippines. I can walk to the supermarket at midnight without fear of being mugged. And have I mentioned how insanely clean Singapore is? It’s so clean that there’s only one brand of alcohol-based hand sanitizer available, and it’s thrice as expensive as any of the many brands sold in the Philippines.

I have a feeling that the longer I stay the more I’ll appreciate this country. Now if only I can get my family and friends to all move here, too…

Last Friday I had dinner with Aggie and Chrissa, my closest friends from high school. Chrissa and I hang out pretty often, but we get together with Aggie so rarely that we were quite excited to see her. I also met Aggie’s boyfriend, Art, for the first time, and he shot what would become my new favorite photo of us:

Aggie, Chrissa and me. Photo snagged from Aggie’s Multiply album.

We talked until the mall closed, but it still wasn’t enough. It’s crazy how much we’ve all changed since high school, from the way we look and dress to how we think and approach life. Elaborating would probably make this a long-winded and mind-numbingly boring post, so I’ll just say that the last seven years has brought a lot of positive changes to our lives.

Speaking of changes, I asked Chrissa to adopt Boo, because I won’t be able to take her with me when I move to Singapore. She seemed anxious on the drive over to Chrissa’s house, like she “sensed something big was about to happen” as Chrissa put it. However, she quickly adjusted as soon as we got there and excitedly explored every nook and cranny of her new home.

Anxious Boo turned into Happy Boo. More photos?

I, on the other hand, am not adjusting as well. I miss her so much — and it’s only been three days The house feels kind of empty without Boo lying around belly-up, waiting for someone to scratch her tummy. I know it’s for the best, though, because Chrissa and her family are already in love with the little sweetheart. I just know they’ll spoil her rotten.

In other news, I finally got to see Transformers last Sunday! Since everyone has already blogged about how awesome it was, I’ll make this super quick: Shia LeBeouf was hot (he’s the newest addition to my “To Do” list), Megan Fox was hot (if only I looked like that), the robots were hot (I want a Bumblebee of my own). The end.

My sneaky friends gave me the sweetest, cheesiest surprise last Saturday. There I was at our favorite pizza place thinking we were all there only because it was Kathy’s birthday, when suddenly they whipped out a video camera and proceeded to almost make me cry! I’ll be leaving for Singapore soon, so they decided to send me off with a few speeches and a box full of fond memories. Each gave me two gifts — one that reminds him/her of me and one that’s supposed to remind me of him/her — which they put in a lovely box that the uber-talented Phin made. I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised or more touched. I wub them *squishes friends*

Group photo snagged from Kathy’s Multiply album

From Kathy I got something floppy and something squishy: a Stitch (my favorite cartoon character) pen that flops about as you write and a koala-shaped, gel-filled wrist supporter to remind me that — major cheese alert! — she’ll always be there to support me. (You can click on the thumbnails for a full view.)

Continue reading A Sneaky Surprise »

I am PMSing in the worst possible way. This means for the past several days I have been jumping from one of the following moods to another:

• cranky, as in becoming irritated by the most random and trivial things, such as people walking too loudly (I’m not kidding);
• hungry, as in eating the entire contents of our refrigerator every two hours; and
• horny, as in wanting to pounce on every hot (or even not-so-hot) guy that I see.

Even more interesting is when I experience two or all of those moods at once:

• cranky & hungry, as in becoming irritated by the fact that I’m eating my third bag of chips for the day;
• hungry & horny, as in wanting to pour melted chocolate over every hot (or even not-so-hot) guy that I see;
• horny & cranky, as in BDSM; or
• all three, as in BDSM (melted-chocolate edition).

As much as I love being female, I can’t help but wish I didn’t have to go through this hormonal yo-yo every single month.

Several people — Sara being the most recent — have e-mailed to ask how I go about creating my mixed media illustrations. I tried my best to write a coherent reply every time, all the while thinking to myself, “I really should blog about this one of these days.” After Skye asked how I colored yesterday’s tiger-in-a-suit drawing and then gave me a shout-out and some imaginary strangulation on her blog, I finally went ahead and wrote this little how-to article.

I suppose you can call this a tutorial, even though it’s not as detailed as the better tutorials you’ll see around the Internet. Just for kicks I used the previously posted tiger’s decapitated head for visual aids.

Continue reading Coloring with Adobe Photoshop »