Way back into love

... Of reading.
Well, I wouldn't really claim to be a wide or avid reader as opposed to some who probably get to digest books at the average of 3+ per week but I guess I try to read from time to time...
It hasn't been the case lately. I took a break from both reading and watching koreanovelas/jdramas in favor of apps galore. It has not stopped me from buying books though. So now, I have 6 books bought as early as july last year which I have yet to read.
I think I am finally making some progress though as I finished two already as of this writing and getting ready to start the hunger games trilogy. (yes, finally!) It took me quite a while to get to finish Love in the time of Cholera but I finally managed to do so after prolly a month or so. Don't get me wrong it's not that the book isn't that good, it actually was. I guess my attention span has just deteriorated so much that genre is not really working for me anymore. So it will be a challenge to finish Zahir (which I actually postponed) lest it be cast together with foucault's pendulum, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, the god of small things among other unfinished-save for whenever ones.
Meanwhile, I find The Emperor's Tomb quite enjoyable in a Dan Brown kind of way. I'm actually lining up his other books on my reading list. Will buy The Jefferson Key as soon as I finish up the books of 2011.
For the most part though, 2011 was a year of YA books. It started with the twilight series some years back, followed by artemis fowl, then percy jackson now there's of course hunger games, incarceron (+sapphique), divergent, mortal instruments... Harry potter is still in the list though and maybe a series of unfortunate events. Given the state of my attention span , looks like YA books are going to be a mainstay in my list.
I guess you can also say this rediscovered love of reading is partly due to the growing fondness for hardbound books with dreams of having a library to store them in, in the future. Given the money, i'd probably buy more but I still have to work on actually reading them. That said I managed to restrain myself from buying those half-priced hardbound YA books on sale at powerbooks. Whew! BUT Donations are welcome especially jimmy liao's which I recently grew to like/appreciate as well. :)

Here I go again..,

A friend is getting married soon and I have been involved lately in the preparations... Prolly it's the most I've been involved in that I have to keep in mind and check myself that it's not my wedding but hers... I'm really happy for her but I guess the downside of all this involvement is that I am again starting to feel restless, anxious, fickle, etc...
Unfortunately, I actually get easily swayed at first despite of what you'd see or what I believe I want the world to see on the outside... The trouble is as things drag on, that's when usually it turns bad... Of course, there have been good ones but not to the point that will get me out of my current state...
I wish. I hope. I pray. Please come over soon. *sigh*
multiple objects. No clear direction. Free spirit. Fickle. Restless.
Again.
Where is he? Who is he?
When will it be me?
*sigh*

Congratulations!

The wait is over for my sister and as it turns out, she passed all three entrance exams she took. The transfer to another more expensive school and the review center paid off. I should say it was probably more than worth it considering... She effectively has erased our doubts and hesitations on her mental capacity to get into what we think to be prestigious schools.
Back in my days, the agony of waiting as the results came out was prolonged. The start of a new year meant one result per month. To me the one that mattered was the middle one (making the last anti-climactic). Nowadays, it's as if the competition for students is that fierce as one result came out after the other in what seemed like a span of just two weeks.
For me though, I knew which school I wanted not to mention we could afford. So it was a proud decision for me to be the first in the immediate clan to get and study in that school. Of course, this was met by a strong opposition coming from my mother. She was still under the 1970's/1980's spell of student activism during the martial law days. None of that is gone but to a certain degree apathy exists especially in the college I ended up in. In the end, I prevailed and from then on our family's eyes was opened to the joy of getting in the university. Of course, it can either make or break you given the whole range of options, freedom, etc available to you. It is a microscopic Philippine society I think. Nonetheless, so far so good. My and probably my brother's best years and most memorable ones were in college. The years that followed shared with college friends were also noteworthy.
So to my sister, whether or not you stick it out in the same college as ours,congratulations on getting in. I hope it defines you and NOT break you. Enjoy UP!

custom ringtones on iOS 5

Since, upgrading to iOS 5, I lost my custom ringtones. It was ok and I didn't really bother trying to figure out how to get them back until more and more people in my work was using the same ringtone which confused me. So after reading several forum entries and losing my music which I don't really back up, I finally found a way to access my custom ringtones again on my phone. This is what worked for me given that:
1. I manually manage music and videos
2. My tones are of course not synced. (unchecked)

In both my Itunes library and devices, I deleted all my tones (bell icon) - they are not purchased anyway. I just use those free apps to make my own (mostly mp3 extracts). From my windows folder where i kept my *.m4r files, I dragged them into the Tones section of my Itunes library. I manually unchecked each and everyone of them. Afterwards, I dragged them to the Iphone under devices (the whole thing and not the tones section with the bell icon). Doing so, will prevent the tones from showing up with a sync icon beside them. Leaving them checked in the library will prevent them from showing up in the Settings>Sounds>ringtones of the phone unless you "sync tones". This will of course wipe out your music and videos. Now, I can select and use the custom ringtones from Settings>Sounds>Ringtones! And I won't have to mistakenly pick up my phone due to similar ringtones. ^_^

Spruce!

This was one helluva weekend... If I were living alone it's probably not even done yet... In any case, i'm feeling too lazy to blog about it yet besides I don't have any pictures yet..
Let me just say though, that, thanks to another promo (double the sticker) and friends who willingly donated, I got another planner which I intend to use! So here it is, my first ever planner. Let the doodling start!