Tested Positive

Newborn screening is now being performed to babies immediately after birth. Just to make sure the baby is healthy and also to prepare the parents in case of positive results.

Yesterday was my nephew's schedule for another vaccine. It was also when my sister got the result for his newborn screen tests (my sister forgot about it). She was surprised to find out that Miguel tested positive for glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency! The doctor suggested that they take him to the National Institute for Health to have a confirmatory test. Most of the babies with this condition tested negative on the confirmatory test. We will not know the result 'til July 17. We all hope and pray that the test result will be negative. If he tested positive, he couldn't take drugs with oxidizing agents as this will cause him to have a certain type of anemia.

We are all scared but at the same time thankful that we had found his condition sooner.

The need to work

I've been out of work since June. My review for the board exam I have to say is stagnant. I really have difficulty studying! I think I needed more time. But I will still continue my review and absorb as much information as my little brain can. Hopefully, the time I have left is enough.

Meanwhile, I need to prepare things needed for job application. Updated resume, latest photo and wardrobe. I'll start to look for work on Monday. Being out of work means no compensation. No compensation means that I can't do things that require finances. Like my photography hobby.

I know how important a license is to a chemistry graduate like me. I will get it, trust me I will, I'm just not sure when.....

Short Term Memory Loss

A month has passed since I was out of work. I should have finished my General Chemistry Book, but as of now I'm still at chapter 7. Aside from Laziness attacks, I have difficulty remembering things I have just read. It's so frustrating! It all started after my operation when I was in college. I chose to have general anesthesia so I would be asleep during the operation. After that I started experiencing short term memory loss. I blamed it for failing in Physical Chemistry 3. The reason why I wasn't able to graduate on time.

I really wanted to pass the board exam this time, hopefully 2 months would be enough because that's all the time I have left.

I did a little research on the causes of memory loss and how to deal with it.

Some of these causes can be:

• Blood Sugar

The irregular eating habits of people in the present modern age often causes people to starve themselves, thus leading to instable levels of blood sugar. Brains of people with low blood sugar levels gets groggy and sleepy leading to short term memory loss.

• Hormonal Havoc

Hormonal imbalance also leads to short term memory loss. During menopause, memory loss symptoms are often seen.

• Drinking and Depression Medications

Lots of people these days suffer from depression which is another cause of short term memory loss. People taking depression medications, as well as those involved in intake of excessive alcohol and recreational drug abuse, often face the problem of memory loss.

Natural Treatments

Depending upon the cause of memory loss, short term memory loss can be treated using mental exercises, herbal supplements, certain drugs as well as adopting a healthier lifestyle.

The most important thing is to keep your body as well as mind active to ensure proper blood circulation. Don't fall prey to the contemporary sedentary lifestyle and remain active in mind as well as body.

I can't let this stop me from taking the board exam. I'm scared but I have to face it and fight it.

FFPF Graduation

Before blogging about my graduation at FPPF, I would like first to share what happened during the other weeks of my workshop in basic photography.

On the third day of our class, we weren't able to present our assigment from Prof. Angeles because of her abscence. Instead, we got an hour lecture from Sir Vic Sison regarding proper posing. It was supposed to be a half day lecture but since he was also needed in the advance class, the lecture was shortened to an hour long only. Despite the short time, we have learned so much. How to pose women from men, observations during shoots and a few tips when shooting weddings. These were discussed for only an HOUR! Afterwhich the floor was given to Sir Joey Tañeda who gave us a lecture (which to me was a little boring) about the history of photography, how it all started. I think we we're dismissed early that day.

On the morning of our fourth day of class, I was really anxious because the master of portraiture Sir Toch Arellano will be the one to give the lecture. But, we received a very sad and shocking news. He passed away that day, I think due to heart attack. They told us he was in coma for four days. We were assured though that they will provide us another lecturer for portraiture.

We were surprised to see Prof Angeles there. I thought she had forgotten about our group assignment. We were asked to shoot inside Fort Santiago and we have to show what we've learned from her lecture in composition. My group ( Aperture) was not worried with the assigment. We were more worried with our cheer. Luckily, we were to present last and so we were able to come up with a cheer. My groupmate, Darrin, who is an Australian, composed a song. He said our cheer was baduy. *LOL* We didn't expect he knew that word. Our speaker of the house was Bam. She was amazing! She was very animated when she was explaining our pictures, Everyone was awed..*LOL* Who could have known a 15 year old can do that!

Our group presenting our assigment.

During the afternoon, we were taught by Sir Ador Pamintuan about natural light and studio light. He was the one assigned to replace Sir Toch Arellano. We had a blast during this lecture! Aside from learning lots, it was bonding time for the class.

My Groupmates

Graduation Day

We were asked to submit an 8x10 sized picture of our entry for the contest in environmental portrait and still life categories. I had a lot of choices for environmental portrait. A labtech, student, physical therapist and the one I chose was the forklift operator. I liked it because of the expression on his face and the shadowing. Only half of his face was lighted. In still life, I had a hard time and got so frustrated. I originally chose a figurine of two pigs who got married but when I had it printed it was a disaster. In the end I chose not to pass my still life entry.

When I got to fort santiago, mang boy asked us to pass our entries. It will serve as our attendance and proof that we have fulfilled all the requirements to qualify for graduation. I immediately called home and asked my brother to print another still life picture because it will be so humiliating to pass the married pigs *LOL*. He got there on time so I was qualified to become a graduate, whew!

All entries for the two categories were posted on the board. They invited a few colleagues to act as judges. The votes were casted and tallied and what do you know, my environmental portrait was chosen as one of the 10 finalists. I was already contented to be a finalist but the judges thought better and awarded me fifth place! I received a huge medal. I was so happy!!!

I won 5th place on Envi Potrait

Finalists for Environmental Portrait Category

Finalists for Still life category

After the awarding, FPPF prepared a little snack for us. Then they gave us our certificate of completion. We were officially graduates of Basic Photography.

The day hasn't ended yet. We went to harbor square and had a few drinks to celebrate. A few of our professors celebrated with us.

Our Professors

Some of the boys

I never expected that I would have this much fun with the class. Aside from learning a lot about photography I also gained a lot of friends. Our batch created a website, I'll post about it in a few days. It's our own little way of keeping the group intact.

To Follow

There are a lot of things I want to blog about. One of which is my graduation at FPPF. The problem is, I still haven't finished uploading pictures on the PC. I am also starting OFFICIALLY my review so I really needed the time to concentrate on that. I'll do other stuffs like blogging, scrapping and taking pictures during my breaks. Hopefully, I won't be tired then...

Bitten

I'm still in pain right now, due to the 2 anti-tetanus shots and 2 anti-rabbies shots I had yesterday. It's because of that damn cat last Sunday at Fort Santiago.

Here's the story...

After our lunch last Sunday, one of my classmates in FPPF suggested that we take our group picture. I was standing under the shade when all of a sudden a cat bit me. I didn't even notice it was there. I don't know if I stepped on it. I was shocked! When I checked the wound it wasn't that bad, it didn't bleed so I ignored it because I wa enjoying our photography class.

By the time I got home and told my parents about it they immediately told me to go to the animal bite center near our place. It was a Sunday so I had to wait until the next day to go there.

I informed my boss what happened to me, and that I won't be reporting for work that day. I was accompanied by my father. When we got to the center they told us that they ran out of the anti-rabbies vaccine so they referred us to Pasay General Hospital. Aside from the anti-rabbies vaccine they had to give me an anti-tetanus vaccine as well. The anti-rabbies shots ( 2 shots) were injected on my back. The anti-tetanus shots which were really painful were injected on both arms. In fairness, there was no fever, only pain.

I still have 3 more shots of the vaccine. The second one I had today. Next, on Monday and the last one next month. I'm telling you, getting bitten by an animal is really expensive.

Zaiah's Invitation

My kinakapatid's daughter will be baptized and I was requested to become one of the Godmothers. Since my photography workshop is still ongoing, I was hoping that the event will happen on a Saturday so I can attend. Last Tuesday, I received a text message informing me that the baptism will be on May 24. I checked the calendar and it was a Sunday. Rodney (my kinakapatid) explained that he went to 3 churches already and all of them said that they only baptize on Sundays. That Sunday will be our graduation so I really can't miss it.

Yesterday, as Rodney and I were talking I told him that he should have scheduled it on May 31 so I can attend and at the same time offer my services as the photographer of the event. He was actually thinking of the same thing. Kahit ung mga pictures na lang daw ang iregalo ko. The next thing I know he was calling the church and had the date moved to May 31. Kakahiya sobra so in return I offer to make Zaiah an invitation and here's what I made for her.

Credits

Credits

I was kinda not satisfied with the first one because it looks like an invitation for a birthday party so I made another one.

Photography Class Day 2

I don't know if i'm overly excited but I arrived at Fort Santiago before 8 o'clock in the morning. I really don't want to be late. I also planned to transfer my notes to a new notebook (the first notebook I had kasi was a kiddie notebook I bought at 7 11 *LOL*). When I came to Fort Santiago there was no one there but the lights and the electric fan at the gallery were open. It was the schedule of the Pacquiao-Hatton fight so I thought our class was postponed. I waited. Around 8:15 one classmate of mine arrived. I asked him if he had completed our assignments because I wasn't able to. He showed me his work and they were actually pretty good.

Before our class started with a new professor, One person from FPPF (sorry I forgot his name, will mention it on my next post) gave us a brief recap of what we've learned from the previous lesson. He also instructed us to submit our best photo among our assignments. I really don't know which one to pass. I settled on this one.

Texture

When Prof. Angeles entered the room, the first thought I had was "Mukhang terror ang prof namin. " Eventually that first impression didn't last. Despite her terror look, she tried to be funny and be a little more entertaining. She asked us one by one to vote for the best and needs improvement photo among the photos posted on the board. The winning photographer will have the chance to print his best photo on a mug, his/her photo can also be included if he/she wants to. One by one we voted. I was worried that my photo will get the most number of x's. Luckily, the voting ended without my photo neither having an x mark nor a check mark. But, Prof. Angeles did mention that she liked my photo as well as two other photos. I think she has a thing with abstract photos.

Prof. Angeles criticizing our work.

My best photo winner

My needs improvement photo winner

When classes resumed after lunch Prof. Angeles showed us a slide show of her trip to Babuyan Island. Each picture has a story. It would have been nice if the projector was working properly. All we see is black and white, no colors *LOL*. Before her lecture about composition she made us sing this hymn in photography that she wrote years ago. It was actually easy to learn and she was so happy that we were able to sing it well. I hope she won't ask us to sing one by one 'coz I kinda forgotten the melody of a few lines *LOL*.

For our next assignment we were asked to shoot inside fort santiago. Taking into consideration of course our lesson in composition. We were grouped by 8, aside from the photos from each member we were also asked to prepare a cheer. Yikes! I hope they'll come up with a good cheer even though most of my teammates were male.

Little Dreamer

I am constantly visiting Chikai and Buge's blog to check out the latest freebies in digital scrapbooking. Even though i'm not that active in scrapbooking because i've been very busy lately, I make sure I download digi kits that I like so that by the time my mojo kicks in there's something that I could use.

Our computer at home is very slow compared to what I use in the office so I do my downloading there (secretly *LOL*). Good thing they did not block any digital scrapbooking sites or else I would miss a lot of freebies. Due to the recent National Scrabook day, a lot of great designers posted their digi kits for free download. I had discovered this great site which features a lot freebies, you can check it out here.

Here are the LOs I made using two kits I downloaded. Featured in this LOs is my very cute nephew Miguel Carlisle.

credits

credits

Photography Class Day 1

After 2 months of waiting, I was finally able to attend my first day of basic photography at FPPF. I was so excited. I woke up at 6 in the morning preparing my things and worrying because I forgot to photocopy my sales invoice. It was supposed to be a requirement. When I came to Intramuros, I looked for a photocopying machine before heading to FPPF office.

When I got there I found out that our class will be held inside Fort Santiago, so off I went.

We were briefed by sir boy regarding what to expect on our basic photography class. He also mentioned the five professors who will introduce us to the amazing world of photography.

Our first professor was Sir Ador Pamintuan. He taught us how to use our cameras. From dials, buttons, ISO, shutter speed, aperture, etc. We were very active the whole day. It seemed all of us were amazed on how much our cameras can do. It's usually in auto mode *LOL*.

Lecture with Sir Ado Pamintuan

Bam asking question about her Fuji SLR

Tried the panning technique but to no success

During class

By the end of the lesson, we were given 10 assignments. 10!

1. Shallow depth of field

2. Deep depth of field

3. Motion blur

4. Motion freeze

5. Close-up

6. Patterns

7. Texture

8. Shapes

9. White on white

10. Black on black

Even before leaving I was already thinking of what subjects to choose, how I can achieve it and when can I shoot it.