Smart buy! Smart books! Ver.2

Book-hunting Part II.

I went to National Bookstore to buy my materials for our LTS trip in Bataan, but the first thing that captured my eyes are books. Waaa there are a lot of new great books! But the bad thing is it's expensive. P300 per book :( Such a pain in my purse. I can't afford it anymore, knowing that I have a lot of books to buy with a very small savings. So, I went to my next favorite book haven next to the Orient Pearl-- Book Sale. The books there are not as new and untouched as the ones in Orient Pearl, but they are still in their best condition sold at its best price.

I only have P400 pesos to spend but I wanted to buy 4 books: Memoirs of a Geisha, Cross (James Patterson), One True Thing (Anna Quindlen) which was adapted as a motion picture in 1998 starring Streep and Zellweger, The Green Mile (Stephen King). Sadly, Cross costs P195, which is by far the most expensive book among my choices, and the rest costs 120 and 95 pesos. Do the math, but my 400 won't be able to purchase those books. I had to sacrifice one. :( So goodbye Memoirs of a Geisha. I chose to sacrifice that because at this moment, I am not yet fond of the old-setting, traditional and Asian novels. It was the recent fondness of suspense novels due to the brilliance of Sidney Sheldon's The Naked Face that made me finally try a book by King and Patterson. Hehe. I want to read Green Mile! I've heard from my friend that the movie adaptation of it, starring Tom Hanks, is a very great film! So apparently the book is better. So so so excited to read it!

It's gonna be a very busy next-week for me. Starting tomorrow, Feb1. Sigh.


P.S. Bare with the wrong grammars/spellings and incoherence in this post. I just wrote swiftly and did not even check what I was writing. Hehehe. Quite in a hurry. See ya.

Last December 2007.....

my hair was pretty and my body was still skinny.
But now... Sigh. I gained a lot of weight and my hair is so dry. I think I was prettier before.

A very superficial and minor change in me.

But that's just what's on the surface. As I look back and think of who I was almost just a year ago, I figured the change underneath. The more significant change. Am I better now? Or was I better before? I don't know..

Smart buy! Smart books!

This afternoon we went to the Orient Pearl, the building that PJ blogged about, to hunt books. I share this same passion for books with my friends that's why I get to share a lot of stuffs about it with them. We even share our books. But books are getting the money off our purses, so we have to find a place to buy cheap ones. And PJ saved the day -- or should I say, our purses. Haha.

The Orient Pearl sells a lot of books! From textbooks to novels, they have it! We found Paulo Coelho's books with a price ranging from just 150 to 190 pesos. Also novels of Nicholas Sparks, Sidney Sheldon, James Patterson and John Grisham just cost 150 pesos too. Don't think that it's secondhand because it's not. I don't know where or how do they get those books. Hope it's not from something illegal. Hehe.

I bought Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks. I was longing for that book for ages, but I keep on stopping myself from buying it since it's very expensive. 315pesos for a 222-page novel. No deal! That's why I grabbed the novel the moment I saw it in the Orient Pearl. It just costs 150! I saved even more than half! :))

I noticed that the books that I've read are just limited in the writings of Rowling, Meyer, Sparks and Coelho so I decided to try another author -- Sidney Sheldon. I bought The Naked Face for again, 150 pesos. This one is a smarter purchase. SS books cost 400 pesos in National Bookstore. Talk about profit! HMP. The plot of this novel is veeeery interesting! I am going to read it before I give it to Eric. Yeah, I bought the book for him since SS is one of his favorite authors. Sweet. Hehe.

I bought another book from a different bookstore in Recto. We were just strolling around when I saw Chamber of Secrets sold for just 250. Waaah. I tried to haggle since my money left was only 200, but they won't give it to me. Thanks to Vaughn for lending me the 50!

I bought these books for only 550 pesos!! I saved 544 pesos!! Grabe! That's almost 50% discount. I could say that today, I did the smartest purchase of my life. HEHE.

Post via Word’07

Wow. I am blogging via Microsoft Word 2007. I didn't know that I could directly post blog via Word. Nice one technology. At least I don't have to sign in and open Firefox every time I wanna blog. Hmmm. Maybe there is a feature here that can generate html and all that? Gotta discover.

You know what!?? I am reviewing for Filipino and Psychology right now and, gosh, memorizing is a pain in my arse! My memorization skills is getting worse as I stay longer in Engineering Grabe. Too much numbers dominated my memory. Hurr.

Okay whatever. I'm just adding word count. Hehe

FRESH FROM STRESS

I’ve been trying to post something worth reading for the past few days. I would always post something then delete it eventually. I dunno. I wasn’t in the mood.

But now I’m feeling madaldal and I want to share and siphon a lot of things. Go go go.

CCP over.
I posted something about it last night. But I realized it was awful like a trash so I deleted it this morning. Hehe.

We’re done with Calculus, Computer and Physics last week. The exams were not horribly hard. I did well except on Comp. I have no idea how to program deviation! Golly. Why didn’t they tell us about that?? Physics was also fine, thank you. But English wasn’t. We all looked over the possibility that English will be a hard test. We all concentrated on studying for Physics so we were not able to study for English. I was devastated with that test. Blown off. :(( I’ll definitely make bawi in Finals. If I have to suck up, I will. Haha kidding. Well, our prof told us that there is no way that we will fail that course if we come to her class regularly and if we do well in public speaking; so no need to fuss.

Sarado ang daan.
There was a “karakol” held this day. I think it’s kind of a parade for the Sto. Nino. I don’t know what’s special about that that they have to close the street from Zapote to Bayanan just because of that parade. So I was not able to come to church since the jeeps are not allowed to enter San Nicolas. Golly. I’ll go next week. Definitely.

A long overdue rest.
CCP drained me last week. You have no idea how eager I was while I looked forward for this day last week. Grabe. I’ve never been so eager for a Sunday than last week--so I bed-rested. May sakit?? Hahaha. I slept and slept then watched TV for the whole day. I didn’t even bother to eat.

Miss Music
Seems like forever since I last listened to music. Yuck. So I am now. I told you I’ll relax myself to the fullest.

My feel-good-and-relax playlist:
1. Make it Mine (Jason Mraz)

2. Better together (Jack Johnson)
3. Lovebug (Jonas Brothers)
4. How deep is your love (Bee Gees)
5. I wanna love you (Bob Marley)
6. On my way & Passenger Seat (Stephen Speaks)
7. Shy that way (Jason Mraz and Tristan Prettyman)
8. One look (Kjwan)
9. Falling in love in a coffee shop (Landon Pigg)
10. If I never see your face again(Maroon 5)
11. King of wishful thinking (Go West)
12. Taylor-Swift songs

//btw, watch Across The Universe! Coz I will. Hehe.

Diet starts now.
I can’t study if I’m not eating. I studied the whole week, so just imagine how many calories I deposited in my body without even using it. So that’s equals to FATS. Awwww. So I’m gonna lose it off. I will. I will. I will.

GOD is GOOD

I'm hearing it many times. He's good to me, to you and to everyone. I know it from every sense of the statement, but just now, at this very moment I am really aware of it. I acknowledge, appreciate and thank Him for His goodness! I was speechless this morning, and all I can say is. "Grabe ang bait talaga ni Lord!". I can shout to the whole world that HE IS GOOD. ALL THE TIME. Praise God!

Before the "Next Time"

Time passes us so fast that we barely notice what it lends to us for that short while. Time brings along moments. Moments bring feelings. Time allows us to appreciate it. Sadly, we’ve got a little of it to realize every moment of our lives. That’s why we’re stuck in place. We get very little from our experiences so we don’t want to move on yet. We haven’t felt the fulfillment.

Why there are many immature adults.Why the rich are still greedy. Why the pretty are still insecure. Why the smart still feels dumb.

Why we are unhappy. And why we feel empty.

"People haven't found the meaning of their lives, so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. They find those things empty too, and they keep running."
–Morrie Schwartz

Let’s live one day at a time. Let’s appreciate every moment of our lives-- every time someone greets us in the morning, every time a friend smiles at us, each meal time that we have food on our plates, every time we are safe and unharmed, every time our heart still beats for dear life. Everything happens for the good: failures, disappointments, frustrations, tears, sorrow. Even those, we have to appreciate and grasp what it means to our lives.

“If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens...Life will be a party for you ,a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now."
-The Alchemist

Time comes and leaves us as quickly as the blink of our eyes. Let’s value every moment it’s still on our hands, so that when it leaves us behind, we are happy to move forward with it. That way, we won’t feel bitter and say “Life sucks!” like the emo kids in town. We won’t feel like our lives are just good-for-nothing.

Time leaves us behind. The moments and the feelings leave with it too. But the lessons we have learned from it will forever be ours... then here comes the “next time”...

"In three words,
I can sum up everything I've learned about life....
it goes on...

-Robert Frost

Do re mi fa so la ti do

A cute and light movie. Hehe. Like it. Suits my mood. The guy is soooooo cute and so bait. Hay. When will I ever meet someone like the guys in my fantasies? Well. Fantasies are just fantasies.

Signed up in Tumblr. I like it there. It's so neat, simple and fast. It's perfect for hosting a blog for just random posts. Hehe.

New layout. I just chose from the available templates in Blogger. I don't really like it. But I don't like my old layout. But(so many but's hehe) I am kinda lazy and tired to make one too. Meebe after the prelims.

I'll be very busy in the next two weeks. The prelims is moved to thurs-sat then tues-wed of the following week. They spreaded it all over January. Haha. :P

EDIT:
I saw Valerie(from PBB Teens) in our building last Thursday. We were near the restroom when we saw her talking to her friend. She. is. so. pretty. Her face is far from what we see on tv. She's waaaaay prettier! Her lips is not the very full one like when she's on tv. Her face is smaller too! She's really like a doll. Now I understand why a lot of the PBB boys fancy her.

I saw Jong too!! Nothing has changed. Haha. He's still the kenkoy guy I used to know. He's going back to Sweden this Sunday. :( But atleast I had the chance to meet him before he leaves again. I missed that nigga! Oh and btw, his skin tone lightened (a bit. just a little bit) Maybe you won't notice it if you didn't know that he stayed somewhere cold for the past months. Hehe. I told him to show up to me on his 10th visit in the RP and we'll compare our colors again.

insert//

Nyt. See ya.
Check me out on tumblr. I'll update it more often. The randommmms are there :)

I.AM.FRUSTRATED

Right now. Sigh.

We just had our quiz3 in Calculus. It's not hard. Just right. But I don't know what happened to me. Ten points din ang pwedeng mawala sa kn :(( I got confused in writing the //du. Gosh. I was really torn into two about that du. Argh. Plus the fact that we were just given a very small space for scratch!! VERY SMALL. It's not enough. And the time was not enough too. I thank God that I finished everything and I was sure of what I was doing, but not of my answers, though. I mean, with the very very limited time, I answered just swiftly. It was not the "slowly but surely" way of doing so. Hay. I really get frustrated and depressed whenever I can't review my answers on a test, and whenever I lack time to do it slowly and surely. Sigh.

But actually, I shan't be the one depressed and vacillated bout that. My problem is minor compared to my other classmates. Some of them weren't able to do four or five items which is worth 9 points each. Aww. But my feelings won't be lifted by others' mistakes. That's harsh. It's myself that I am disappointed to. I reviewed for that quiz for several days!! I stayed up late, as late as 12am everyday just to prepare for that quiz!! Last night, I even said to myself that this is the quiz that I am most prepared to take counting the days I studied for it. But then here I am, siphoning out my frustrations. Sigh.

I pray that my grade will range from 80-90/ 100. But a grade between 75-80 is so so so much okay. Super.

I studied very very hard for this quiz, and I know that God always gives what we deserve. Sowing and Reaping. I trust Him that He will give me the grade that I deserve. And I know that I deserve way more than a pass.


02/22/09
EDIT: WAAAA!! 88/100 ako!!!! Praise God!! (bigbigbiggrin)

It's already 1am, yet I am still wide awake. I'm definitely going to miss this one, though I know that school's still going to keep me awake at the dead of the night once this vacation is officially over. But we, students, perfectly know how utterly different it will be.

Staying awake at this time because I got a very long sleep this morning is so much better than keeping my eyes from shutting because I lack sleep due to school works.

It's feels a lot more better that the reason I stay awake by this time is because I have nothing else to do, than to remember all the things I still haven't finished studying; the thing which always keeps me awake at midnight.

Tell me which one's more comforting idea? Drinking milk for you to, atlast, sleep or drinking coffee as you can't afford to doze off while studying? I'd choose the former.

You could spot me reading books till 2 in the morning every night this vacation. But I wasn't reading College Physics, or Integral Calculus. I was holding a Sparks's, Coelho's or a Rowling's. The latter couldn't have looked less dull.

And the fact that I could sleep in for hours till my mom wakes me up for lunch is the best thing missing whenever I stay up late for Physics or Calculus. I couldn't imagine the struggle. It's always hardest to wake up early on the chilling dawns of January. I don't mind preferring back pain and body sore due to over sleep over the headache and dizziness due to the lack of.

It is the six-letter word that widens the gap and strikes the huge difference -- STRESS. It's the thing that hibernates whenever we are on vacation and strikes back with full force as soon as school piles us up with quizzes and exams. He even brings his bestfriend -- PRESSURE. I missed everything about school but them. They are the two pals that I never, and will never, miss. But I must say that they shouldn't hold their grudges, coz whatever they do they won't beat me. I'm tough enough to handle stress and pressure, and I can do a lot better than cracking up.

Oh well, I'd say I have to say good bye to my midnight detours on sites for now. For the mean time, I am going to face the school world again; prepare for our prelims and the whole lot. Then, voila, I won't even notice that the sem's over again. So I think I probably shouldn’t be saying goodbye. I’d say..



See you in a few!

Somewhere between 08 and 09...

I am saying farewell to a year that had been good to me. A year full of fun, new experiences, knowledge, and love. :)

The year when I was taught how to love without expecting something in return, how to laugh amidst trials, how to find time to be happy while being VERY busy, how to love my friends more and how to be with them when they need someone who would listen.

The year when I learned that success is something achieved along the journey; that it is every bit of contentment and appreciation for every good thing that is happening to you, when I learned that Physics is something that is really a trial to me, and that time is something I make, not something I find.

It strengthened my faith in God, and my relationship with Him.

This year, I have no new resolution. But instead, I made this conviction, that this year, I'll do it better. It's just simple, but it says everything that I have to do in my life, my studies, and my relationship.

I look forward for a better year. I am not expecting anything, but I know that whatever's in store for me this year, it will be for my betterment. Whatever and whoever will come to my life this year will be something that I will again treasure at the end of '09.

I surrender this year to the Lord. I know that by His grace, I will stand strong to face this year. I am not able without Him.

As I turn off my computer, hit the sheets and go to sleep, I greet you a happy, blessed and abundant new year!! God is with us!


love,
Heidy