Thank God, it's Thursday!

TGIT!  Thank God, it's Thursday!  That's what we say to each other every Thursday at work.  

While most companies require their employees to report five days a week, ours requires us only to do so three days a week - that's Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Tuesday and Friday are spent in the library and at home, respectively.  Hence, in our own little office, weekend unofficially begins on Friday.  

This is not to say, however, that we just laze about on Fridays.  On the contrary, Friday is sometimes my heaviest day of the week, because aside from doing weekly reports, I am at times given a PL (patent leader) task in which I have to make search instructions on a particular Study, and then send these instructions to our team of foreign language researchers.  Making search instructions is easy when the topic is related to chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, or molecular biology, because I've been exposed to these fields before.  However, when the topic is computer or communication technology, that's when I really have to sit down and carefully read the study patent.  Thus, my Fridays can be just as stressful as my other days.  The only difference, however, is that I and my officemates work from the comfort of our homes and are thus spared the monstrous Friday traffic jam. 

So, while the rest of the Metro scrambles to go to work and again scrambles to get home from work as soon as possible, we are happily researching away in our homes, sometimes with a plateful of our comfort food beside us.  Ours is a unique work schedule, and never a day goes by when I'm not grateful for it.  

TGIT indeed.

Celebrating the last office day of the week with milk tea.  Photo from DPV3's phone.

Serenitea.  I love these seats! :)

Hello Again...

It's been ages since I last updated this blog, but I'm not feeling guilty about it.  It's just that there's a ton of tasks to do: patents that need to be read, analyzed, and searched for prior art, reports that need to be submitted on time, and an upcoming horror show of an exam that needs to be prepared for.  Add to that my usual laziness and koala tendencies, and you have an outdated blog.  Hahaha.

Anyway, I do hope and I'll exert all of my powers to update this blog as regularly as I can.

Until the next post, folks! Good night.

An inventor's pickup line. :)

Weekend, How I Love Thee!

I dearly love the weekend.  It's the only time I can relax, enjoy 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, show off my poor cooking skills, and stream movies online.  

Because Friday is work-from-home-day, it is thus safe to assume that, in my present job, weekend starts unofficially then.  I say unofficially because we still need to clock in at least 8 hours of work.  The only difference is that we work in the comfort of our rooms and are spared the horrible morning and evening traffic. Working from home also means waking up an hour or two later than my usual waking time, and not worrying about what to wear to the office. 

My weekend officially  starts when I finish updating the last report, or when I upload all of my good references for a particular study.  It's eating/movie/sleeping time for me then.  I also cook on weekends to compensate for the fat-saturated/MSG-laden food I usually consume on weekdays.  By cook I mean just throwing everything into my multi-cooker and boiling/frying/steaming the stuff for a few minutes.  Hehehe.  Yes, I'm that lazy and I'm that inept when it comes to the kitchen.  So far, I've made spaghetti (nowhere as yummy as my  mom's, but edible), siomai, soup, and chicken rice, steamed chicken breast fillet, etc.  So far I'm still alive and healthy, so that means I'm actually capable of not poisoning anyone with my cooking.  Yay!  That's an achievement for kitchen-phobic people like me. 

Movies are also a big part of my weekends.  I watch anything from Lord of the Rings to Star Trek to Harry Potter.  I also love watching The Big Bang Theory because I can relate to all the nerdiness of the characters.  Because of the internet, I can now also watch re-runs of my favorite college shows like Smallville, Charmed and Friends. This is way cheaper than buying DVD or Blu-Ray sets of these TV series.  

Arts and crafts is another weekend activity I enjoy doing.  It's nothing fancy.  I just string up a few beads and make earrings and bracelets out of them, or I fold a piece of paper to make something useful like a box in which to store my bead jewelry and paper tapes.  I never thought I'd enjoy things like this, having considered myself as above shallow things.  Hehehe.  I know, I was maddeningly pompous back when I was younger.

So, I better get back to my movies and my homemade spaghetti before it gets cold.  Thank God for weekends!  

Cooked by a kitchen-phobic.

Crafts galore.  I made the pink and yellow boxes via origami.  I was also responsible for the red bead Christmas tree on my gift tag for last year's Christmas party.  :)

Updates

Goodness!  It's been six months since my last entry, and now that I've realized it, I'm torn between horror (at my laziness to write more often) and amusement at the thought that I've been blissfully immersed in work since September.  

Not that I mind working hard.  I happen to have the one of the most unusual work schedules there is - three office days, one library day, and one work-from-home day - and I also happen to be immensely enjoying both my job and the people I work with.  Having been in my present job for more than a year now, I guess I can safely conclude that one can have a cool job and officemates who are not from hell if only he/she keeps his/her eyes and mind open to such opportunities.  

So what have I been up to for the past six months?  Let's see.  Reading dozens of patents that range from weird to weirder, from wifi to polymerase chain reaction.  Preparing search instructions for the foreign language researchers.  Preparing plenty of reports.  "Papa hunting" in Greenbelt after several hours in the library (yes, I do my library research in a school in Makati).  Going home for the holidays late last year (will post about that later).  Going with the office guys on our first ever out-of-town trip (will write about that, too).  

Until then, stay tuned.  :) 

My McDelivery avatar.  Haha.  So me. 

A Charmed One's (Handmade) Charms

I've been making my own earrings and bracelets for a year now, after I accidentally stumbled on a blog that extolled the joys of making accessories from beads.  I loved looking at the pictures of lovely handmade bead earrings, and that was when my hands itched to do the same.  

Making my own jewelry has its benefits, foremost of which is the fact that I can make customized earrings without having my ears pierced.  Yes, you read it right.  My ears aren't pierced for personal and health reasons, and this has prevented me from wearing earrings for the first three decades of my life.  Late last year, however, I found out that Papemelroti sells clip-on earrings, and I hoarded different designs that I can wear everyday.  

I was all the more overjoyed when I learned that I can wear dangling earrings if I used clip-on findings instead of the usual post.  With crazy designs of bead earrings in mind, I searched the Web for stores that sold such earring findings.  My online quest directed me to a little store in Quiapo called Wellmanson.  It sells basically all raw materials needed for making bead jewelry and accessories.  If you're someone who likes to work with her hands (like me), you'll spend hours browsing their shelves of lovely beads.  

Because Quiapo is just a few blocks away from my dorm, I visited Wellmanson on my way home from work.  I had to brave the usual Quiapo crowds, but it was worth it.  I immediately bought several packs of clip-on earring findings (similar to the ones I'd found online), strings of beads,different pins, and multi-purpose pliers.  I blew half a week's budget for these little things, but I didn't mind because I was excited to start making my own accessories.  

My first few attempts were really pathetic, and I almost gave up if not for the thought of finally wearing dangling earrings designed by me and made by my own hands.  I succeeded after several more agonizing tries, and I felt so rewarded.  

My first few attempts at making dangling clip-ons.  The item on the upper left is my very first pair.

After some pretty basic designs, I started to get adventurous and combine beads of different shapes and colors.  These turned out to be okay, as in okay enough to wear to work.  From this point, I started a very crazy love affair with dangling clip-on earrings in differing designs and colors.  

My later (and better) attempts.  The pair in the center is one of my favorite earrings.  I wear them to almost everywhere.  The green pair is what I call my "Kryptonite earrings"; I made them to ward off Superman's charms. :))

I later got more comfortable in making these earrings, and I began to closely observe the jewelry worn by the ladies of "The Tudors".  It's one of my favorite TV shows (pre-Big Bang Theory), and I love the elaborate clothes and jewelry so much that I was inspired to make more elaborate earrings whose style more or less reflects the show.  This was when I began to be more imaginative and creative in styling my beaded charms.  Notice that the earrings are longer and heavier than the previous ones I'd made.  They sometimes hurt my earlobes, but that's a small price to pay for looking good in them. :)

Earrings inspired by "The Tudors". 

Aside from earrings, I've also made a few simple bracelets just for fun. 

Not a few people might wonder why someone as geeky as me would choose making bead jewelry over some other geeky hobby like collecting Star Wars or Lord of the Rings stuff.  Mind you, I'm a huge fan and I watch them over and over again, but sometimes it's good to do go into something totally different. It develops the undeveloped part of your brain, and you'll be in for a surprise once you try something different. 

Making pretty beaded things with my own hands is my way of de-stressing after a long day at the office or the library.  It helps keep my sanity and equilibrium intact, and lets me get in touch with my creative side.  

Day at the Museum

I've always wanted to visit the National Museum, but for some reason, almost all of my plans have gone awry.  If it's not work, it's health issues (e.g., colds, sore throat, etc).  Today, however, I finally got the chance to visit the place.  This museum visit is perhaps one proof that a meticulously planned schedule sometimes just doesn't work, and that one has to be a little more spontaneous especially during weekends.  

My only regret was arriving two hours before closing time, so I wasn't really able to see and examine everything.  The PhP 150 fee, however, was worth every centavo.  

There was a lecture on indigenous fabrics on the fourth floor, so I went there first to listen a bit and take pictures.  The talk was already ongoing when I got there.  It was very interesting, and it made me realize that locally-made fabrics are lovely and eco-friendly.  

A lady weaving pineapple fibers.  

After the talk, I wandered into the gallery full of fabric-related artifacts - belts, threads, dresses and gowns.

Abaca threads / fibers

Spinning wheel

This is one cool belt. :)

                             

I love the wedding gown made from pineapple cloth.   I'm not so sure about the train, though. :) 

 
I moved on to other galleries.  I would have loved to stay and examine each object on display, but I was running out of time and SD card memory.  :(

Ancient Filipino alphabet

Philippine flora and fauna... I felt sorry for the poor dead creatures on display.

Various artifacts from pre-Hispanic times.  Frankly, I could stay at the museum all day and not get tired of moving from gallery to gallery, taking pictures and asking endless questions.  

These pictures are only from the galleries on the 4th and 3rd floors.  I still haven't looked at the paintings yet, so I will definitely go back armed with both time and a larger SD card memory.  

I'm Back

I missed writing new entries on this blog, but things have piled up in the past two months and I was kept really busy with my new job and the physical biochemistry course I was required to take last semester.  Most of my time, however, was eaten up by phy biochem what with all the makeup lectures and exams in quick succession.  Still, I was relieved and happy that all turned out well, and that I passed the hellish course while still maintaining a respectable (by grad school standards) GWA.  Those sleepless nights spent memorizing nonsense have paid off, and I'm ecstatic at having successfully hurdled my last course in graduate school.  Which means that my Mondays can now be spent in the library searching for prior art on the patents that will be assigned to me by my boss.  Also, I will finally have time to plan my experiments and see to it that I get very good data, so I can march down the aisle in red stilettos come April.  

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the sem that was.  

Take-home exam on basic chromatography. 

Watching "The Big Bang Theory" in the lab. 

Thermodynamics

More thermodynamics 

Haggard after Exam #2