come back

It’s been a while since I wrote something in my blog. I have been busy, as in really busy – I haven’t gone to conventions like I used to. The shifts and demands of a normal work life, requires me to focus, and even more so since I have been gone from work for more than a month.

It was not so long ago, I was diagnosed with a respiratory ailment known as pneumonia, I had a hard time breathing back then, I spent up wheezing and coughing like a dog while spending my vacation on the beaches of Boracay. I was with my ex back then, and when I got back home from my vacation I immediately saw a doctor. Coughing out pools of blood was not a pretty site, and having your ex, or my girlfriend that time worry. The doctor gave me two options, bed rest or hospital confinement, I chose the approach of staying home. Fast forward 4 years later, I should have chose to stay at the hospital, my pneumonia caused a big scar, a rip or a wound in my lungs. Which never much healed back then, it stayed dormant, waiting for it to rupture. Thank you for pollution and work stress and over staying at the sleeping quarters of the office plus my allergies, helped caused the wear and tear, or maybe it’s me catching my niece’s pneumonia, whichever is which both caused me to cough immensely to this date.

Angelica Loon, Okun Fiesta

Yhu Mei, Lolita Season 2

I did attend some a con during my time off, and did one shoot, at the least, all to divert me away from my work stress. Shooting with a surgical face mask, was a bother, because I had to peel it off just for me to cough up phlegm or blood. I lost much weight but my hunger would fight back. I wouldn’t know.

Today was supposed to be the day that I have my final check up, only that my doctor cancelled. There goes an unscheduled leave, unpaid go to waste.

A lot has happened in my life, working on a food business, which is debut next year, if I am still lucky to be the business partner to this. Aside from being sick, I just celebrated my folks’ 50^th anniversary, hooray for them, my mom is so thrilled *sarcasm*, and there is where I inherited my humor. We had mostly steaks, and mom’s salad. Good meal. A month ago, we as a family suffered a loss as I lost my aunt in her fight against the dread ills of liver failure and poor management of the insurance in the U.S. She was an aunt that everyone loved, just like my sister before she passed on, she was the giving aunt and she was the aunt who was hip and fire to every reunion when she visits back here in the country. It was a grim July, more so but we feel that life had to move on, so my dad tries to do so. It was also the successful launch Of Baguio Edition, of The Asylum thanks to hands of Rina Riz.

As we approach the middle of August, I am preparing myself for my shoot this September, in which I pray it hopefully becomes successful and my shoot in November, in which I pray that I push through as I have a lot in plan. I can’t give much details except I am working every detail by the note, which is unusual for me to do since I like working on the fly, spontaneous was always my weapon of choice, and come what may was its bullet. Now, I want tarps, posters, ad placements, the whole works and etc. I just want people to experience an “event” like no other.

Good for me, a lot has happened.

Anyhow, this maybe one of my long entries… a good write, and it is good to be back.  I will be writing more, once I have something to work on. Until then stay tuned!

three conventions and a delayed photoshoot

It has been pretty a long time since I wrote something in my blog, and I still feel the falling out from a colleague who helped me get to where I am at. A lot has happened over the course of the month itself, tragic or joy – thankful that I got through. May, was a busy month, where I was able to attend three cosplay conventions from Saturday to Sunday to the end of the month, and tried to pull off a photo shoot in the same but got delayed due to unforeseen things.

 I never realized how much the month of may drained me, that to this very day I still felt never so tired – never again will I do something like this but down the line I had fun.

April, O-Kun Fiesto

Nica, Nexcon

Shion Goddess, Animax

On the 16^th of May I attended the O-Kun Fiesta which was held in the SMX of SM Mall of Asia, sad to say the event pretty much disappointed me, in which I felt the event proper felt flat – I got bored right away where I took a few shots and left home early. Maybe it was the crowd that got to me or maybe it was the lack of sleep, which I think I had only 3 hours of – I came in to see two of my daughters, April and Yuriko, and did a small shoot with some friends that I knew who were present in the area. I was pretty much convinced that I will not go the event the day after which was Nex Con, but sure enough with a few tugs from Vincent aka No-face and Nica, I surprised myself by boarding the cab heading out to the function rooms of SM Aura. With all the cosplay events I have attended, I have never gone to something that felt organized and clean with Nex Con. Though the cosplayers wore western influenced characters such as the likes of TV series the Game of Thrones to Lord of the Rings to DC Comics characters – it was fun. More so that Vincent and I helped opened the 2^nd day to the event with  a game called Face Palm the Music, in which we had to guess the theme or song by face palming a human buzzer. I lost by one, because we had to spin around before buzzing… I lost to “Mortal Kombat”.  And my friends, this is how I humiliated myself with loads of people, but I can't stop smiling from then on.  I had a number of shots, from shooting a gang load of Daenarys attacking a Tyrell, to seeing the New 52 Joker harassing a Batman mannequin, to bumping in person the famous Jin and Tadashi cosplayers, and scream my lungs out on a Lip Synch battle in support of people who I just met. I went home late with a smile as oppose to O-kun.

The very next week I had to go to BGC for a photo shoot I organized with inked friends, unfortunately I had to postpone due to having one of my models not feeling so well that day. I was pretty much tired, I didn’t want to go to any other events until my officemate the cosplayer, Shion Goddess pushed me to attending Animax which was on the 31^st of May. To be honest, I never wanted to go and support Alodia events because I felt cheated on overpriced tickets and felt it was not worth m time – but it was Shion Goddess’ return, I had to pay my respects and help get her career going – thinking nothing could top the experience and fun I had with Nex Con, the event of Animax was rather almost as par, same chaos though, but meeting colleagues like my idol Sir Christian Mack, seeing my old model Ysa, meeting up with Cjaze and others I had a decent amount of fun. From the cheesy lanyard I got from the ticket to laughing my ass off seeing Shion Goddess try to grab a soda, and ended up almost half an hour or so because the fanatics just can’t stop admiring and take a shoot of her, to having mysef just chilling and having a good time without stressing myself too much.

Maybe I should keep on having this mentality of not stressing myself too much on the next cosplay events – and just really feel and rock the vibe of people and meet new friends. I am ever grateful to all of the time I have had – it helped me overcome the depression I had along the way, especially dealing with my Mom’s cancer and work performance blues… I hope the momentum keeps on going.