New President... New Hope for the Philippines

Today, the Republic of the Philippines, my country has a new president - Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" S. Aquino III. At exactly 12 noon earlier, the former Senator was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines. At exactly 12 noon today, the lives and future of 50-60M Filipinos is now in the hands of Pres. Aquino.

Honestly, I did not vote for Pres. Noynoy Aquino (or P-Noy). But I still listened carefully and intently to his inaugural speech earlier. I kept an open mind while listening to his speech. His words were promising and filled with hope. I just hope he would remain true to his words... that he will be the instrument of unity, integrity, peace, and prosperity - the messiah the Philippines is waiting for.

Personally, I liked the Panata ng Pagbabago - an oath taken by different sectors of society, in response to P-Noy's inaugural speech. I agree to what the oath says. I think the responsibility for our country is not and should not only be placed on P-Noy's shoulders. The duty and responsibility to bring back glory to the Philippines, is and should be taken by ALL Filipinos. It is not solely the President's responsibility. We can change presidents every year, but if we, the Filipino people, continue to live with our crab-mentality, indifference, and selfishness, then true progress will continue to shy away from our beloved country. The change should come from each one of us, from each Filipino citizen. It is about time we do this, if not for ourselves, let's do it for the future of our children.

God bless President Noynoy. God bless the Filipinos. God bless the Philippines.

Photoshop Attempt Part2 (Non-Digital Scrapbooking)

Today's the 2nd day of our Desktop Publishing seminar. Learned more tricks. Have to organize my notes, and remember everything I learned today. Here's a simple product of today's lecture. A small tribute to one of my all-time favorite artist and icon - Bob Marley...

My Photoshop Attempt (Non-Digiscrapping)

Today was the start of my Desktop Publishing class at Nego-Skwela in Quezon City. We will be tackling the basics of Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw for the next 3 days. I already have an idea as to how Adobe Photoshop works, but my idea is only limited to using Adobe Photoshop in digital scrapbooking (see my WaRpEd & TwIsTeD digital scrapbook site). I really haven't maximized its powers by using it for photo-editing and its image adjustment powers. So today's discussion was really exciting. I get to learn the crafty art of extraction, image adjustment (i.e. remove unwanted marks or blemishes, make people look sexier or bloated in their pics, replacing the faces in existing photos). I must say I still have a llllllllooooooootttt to learn and lllllooooottttttttssss of practice to do. But I guess, today was a good start. Hopefully, I'll get to learn more things in the next 2 days. So to give you an idea of how crazy my Photoshop talent could be, just look at the naughty poster that I've created for my brother who has just joined the ROTC corps in their school.

Blog and Self Revival

I think I am going to give this blog a fresh start, some kind of rebirth. Thank you soooo very much *sarcastic mode* to the latest unforeseen and somehow disappointing events regarding my professional life (i.e. my career and work). >:-)

I think this is the best time to revive my knack for the little, yet somehow more fulfilling and finer things in life - reading, writing, traveling, simple photography, digital scrapbooking, and most importantly spending quality time with my only son - while waiting for positive replies from prospective employers.

I know it won't be an easy time for me. But I guess God has a purpose in everything that happens in my life. Perhaps, this time, He just wants me to take a break from the uber-stressful, fast-paced corporate life. "Take time to smell the flowers" as they say. And let me start with this blog. :-)