One Bookworm-y Saturday

It’s been almost two weeks since we held the very first Bookworm Brigade bookswap + bookdrive at Moonleaf Maginhawam, and I am still overwhelmed of what we were able to do – gather books and book lovers and share it with each other. I’m glad that a lot were commending what we did but little did they know that it just really began with a tweet.

The untold story was Cariza, Jonard and I were just tweeting, actually ranting, how we are out of books and cash and how we want to read more books. We initially thought of swapping books. But then we thought we could bring some more friends over, until the event page was made. Long story cut short, the event grew bigger and next time we know we’re  facing piles and piles of books at Moonleaf Maginhawa. STILL. OVERWHELMING. FOR. ME.

Goofing around while manning our makeshift nooks :)

Team DGNTY dropped some books as well. Thanksies girls!

I really promise, we’ll do it longer next time! A lot were tweeting that they weren’t able to drop by because we packed up just before 5pm! It’s because some of us were heading to Makati to Mashable Social Media Day! I really make it a point to head over there to show my support to my friends who organized it.

When will be the next Bookworm Brigade? I really don’t know. Honestly, if it were up to me, I’d have it monthly. But let’s see where this will lead us. I’m just really glad that people appreciated what we did, and I really think my team deserves pats-on-the-back… and a SPIDER-MAN MOVIE!

Cariza, Jonard, if you’re reading this. Thank you and see you on Saturday for that movie date! Teehee!

Current mood: Young the Giant

I’m still on massive hangovers from 1.) Gay Pride Party shit cray courtesy of the Panty Monsters (blogging pictures soon, haha) and 2.) the humble success of our little bookdrive, The Bookworm Brigade at Moonleaf Maginhawa…

Didn’t really expect to see a lot of new faces. Honestly, I wasn’t confident enough that we got the word out enough, but judging from the crowd and how books piled titles after titles, I think Jonard, Cariza and I had done a pretty good job! Also some of the people who went were really glad and were asking us to collaborate with them on next ones… I haven’t put much thought about it, but it’d be really fun if we can do this again!

I got to let go some of my beloved books my measly high school allowance could buy. Now I have new babies to read! I AM SO HAPPY!

Time to start reading!! I’m just finishing Pictures of Hollis Woods, and a couple magazines, then maybe I’m off to start Lord of the Flies by William Golding… I can’t wait already!

Tomato chambray shirt, Stereotyped graphic tee, Hang Ten shorts, Tomato mustard sneakers

And I am just very grateful because everything was a-ok! That me and my team were able to pull it off. I’m happy about that. Though, really, emotionally I am still… not. But that’s not the point. I guess you can’t have everything (as I always end up saying.) I guess that’s how it goes. Life always has reasons to fuck us all. Life’s pretty damn short though. And why spend it on caring anyway?

Life ‘s too short to even care at all…
One  more spoon of cough syrup now…

So I won’t.

Letting go

I’m… letting go of these babies. I’m already on the brink of crying because of separation issues… and all the asthma I got after unearthing these babies :(

It’s sad, but in one point or another, we all have to say good bye.
But I’m looking forward to getting new titles on Saturday at The Bookworm Brigade! Happening this Saturday already at Moonleaf Maginhawa :)

Map by Jonard

Bring your old books, magazines, and any other reading materials for swapping and/or donating and have some tea with us!

Pub mats by Cariza

Also, we’re giving away felt bookmarks (c/o Moonleaf and Twee Shop) to the first 100 registrants —

Planner not included, hehe

We’ll see you on Saturday! I’m so excited already :)

Official event pub mat by VPG

For more updates, please RSVP to our event page here :)

Current mood: Ron Pope

This song has been on repeat in my BB for a week already. And I just can’t have enough of it… because it’s just so appropriate for what I feel now. I have to thank Cariza for making a mixtape for me, and including this song.

I think this song, kinda speaks for me… when unsung lyrics, unwritten words, undone actions aren’t enough.

A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather
I’m praying that you and me might end up together
It’s like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert
But I’m holding you close than most
’cause you are my heaven

– A Drop in the Ocean, Ron Pope

Anyway. Please help me spread the word for my bookswap event on the 30th! I’m inviting everyone to come and bring your books for swapping and/or donating at Moonleaf Maginhawa this Saturday, June 30!

I’ll blog about the details and some books I’m bringing later! For now, you may find full details of the event here.

And I’ll leave you to another Ron Pope song, haha! Emo-han na!

Dystopia

Amazing infographic from Goodreads! I like how they really put an analysis to the influx of dystopian literature through the years! Among the themes, I can say World War II and Post-apocalypses are my favorites!

This is an instant addition to my LOOOOOOOONG list of books to read. Come to think of it, this one’s my favorite genre. I like reading about dystopia and how people would actually survive the war/government/apocalypse.

I’ve just sold my Hunger Games book to Rsen (thank you, friend) because I’m buying the whole boxed set. I could actually settle with just buying the UK version, but I had the US, so I have to have the same versions. Yeah, I’m OC like that.

Please let me go giddy over the HUNGER GAMES FILM. We’re watching it tomorrow already!! PEETAAAAAAA!!

Oh I still have to have my Panem ID printed! *fanboys*

May the odds be ever in your favor

I can’t wait for the 22nd!!!! My birthday week (and month for that matter) is really getting better by the moment! I’ll stop blabbering before I spoil any detail, but all I know is that Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) is mine (lawlz!) It helped that I got to read the book when I already saw who’s playing Peeta, though I’d prefer Gale to be a hotter character (Liam Hemsworth is a wrong choice.) But having Peeta look like this —

— helps my imagination immensely. Magkasala na kung magkasala haha! GAD PEETA Y U SO HAWT?

I’m printing this ID Card before I watch the premiere!!! District 4 represent yo! Am zeh hottest fisherman alive.

So yeah, forgive the unnecessary fanboying, aside from a hot guy playing Peeta (and that jaw porn, gawd) Hunger Games is really a fast-paced riveting pageturner.

P.S. This is the fastest book I’ve ever read, considering that I’m working and that I have the attention span of a three year old. No, really. Seriously.
P.S.S. Ok. Back to Peeta… PEETAAAAAAAAA —

Waiting for this scene in the movie!

Hello, 2012!

The year 2011 was good to me.

• Graduated from college (FINALLY!) with latin honors
• Passed the Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam
• First time out of the country — and trip was foh free yow!
• I didn’t need to find work, work came to me (which I thank GOD for a million times. I’m truly blessed)
• Not to mention the people I’ve met and worked with this year are incredibly amazing! Twestival, Juanxi, PdP, Moonleaf plus the countless, albeit absolutely fabulous, events that I’ve been to. My most heartfelt gratitude to the plethora of PR agencies that kept on inviting me. I heart you, guys!
• Started up my own venture with the best of my college friends. You should watch out for Stereotyped‘s next collection!
• First talk about blogging — pretty nerve-wracking but is one of my best days as a blogger, indeed!

Thank you all for being a part of the adventurous year, that is 2011. The adventure hadn’t stopped, but it only have just begun… again! Though I’ve been concealing, in this blog that is, I was jobless and no longer in the PdP team. No it’s not them, it’s me. As much as I love to continue working for them, believe me if I could, I would… but some things, as I always say, have to meet their conclusions. Fortunately for me, friendship never dies and I still get to work with them at times. *cheese alert* It’s just that I miss my team badly.

Here comes 2012, saying hello to me. I think my two-week unemployment starting last Christmas season was necessary to open my eyes to a lot of things – especially to those that I really want to do achieve in 2012. Yeah I know, kinda foolish. Christmas and jobless. A perfect match. *basks in irony*

But thank God, because up until now, I still can’t figure out how come these things are happening. I have my plans… but definitely His plans are way bigger than I thought they are. I’ll start work in a few days, and you bet I can’t wait to start… TO START A LOT OF THINGS. I won’t (maybe can’t) disclose for now, but it is indeed an exciting turn and it’s just the START of 2012.

This post is growing in length already, but before I forget, I wanna list down 12 things I want to do in 2012.

1. SAVE. If last year, this was in the last, now it’s coming in first.
2. ACQUIRE a domain name. How does jonverdavid.com sounds to you?
3. TAKE a lot of photos… again. Rediscover photography.
4. TRAIN. I’m so excited, somebody’s funding my social media training. I’ll make kwento soon!
5. READ. I’ve been reading, but I’m not satisfied with the rate I’m running. This forcibly and partly justifies the next goal (haha) —
6. BUY an iPad. So I can read more (!) and mobilize my job.
7. TRAVEL the Indochina Southeast Asia trail. At least even before the year ends. Vietnam – Cambodia – Laos – Thailand and maybe a ferry to Indonesia, Malaysia, and culminate in Singapore before going back to Manila. My good friend, Hanna Samson of 1 Week and After,  and her tips are especially noteworthy!
8. PACK lightly, traveling far away or not. Or at least learn how to.
9. FIX my room, errrr… space. No matter how asthmatic I can get.
10. SLEEP at night, wake up in the morning and work in between. Read this somewhere but I forgot where. I like the idea.
11. START the NYC project. Employ the Law of Attraction.
12. GET tested. ‘Nuff said.

Simple goals for a simple and successful 2012.

Let the chi flow

One of the goals I intended to accomplish is to clean my room. This happens only twice a year due to the fact that I can’t breathe every after cleaning. Bronchioles constrict, rashes appear, itches, well… itch. You do not want to see me after cleaning. More so, you do not want to see my room before cleaning.

What I do enjoy about cleaning though is that I get to browse some of my old stuff – magazines, books, notebooks, planners, etc. Ah, the memory and happy times. I just wish they didn’t accumulate nasty dust that can give me serious asthmatic attacks.

Old magazines: Celebrity Houses, Him Style Guide, Yummy, Bounce, Roam, Reader’s Digest, and some freezines – Juice, Circuit, Sip and the Fully Booked newsletter

To-read’s: Asian Traveler (done!), Monday, Status, Digital Photography Philippines, GQ, Details, August Man, Homme Designare, and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

Monday, Status, Garage, LIFE Guide to Digital Photography, The Prince by Machiavelli 

Former Starbucks Planners. Planning for something different next year. Nothing sure though :P

Bunch of K-Zones and Questors. Those are really old! Above: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (I have to find a way how to understand this book), Falling Man by Don DeLillo, Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff, Bakit Baligtad… by Bob Ong, Deception Point by Dan Brown, and Veronika Decides to Die by Paolo Coelho

Acads, self-help, devotionals, business

Mom gave me this on the day of my graduation

I so love this bedside clock from Levi’s! It’s 11:30pm. I don’t clean in the mornings. Allergy issues.

Ah, nostalgic. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a long, deep breath. My lungs are still not cooperating.

Chi is flowing properly now. 

Reading is the way of the learned.

We are shallow because we don’t read. I go to the hospital on occasion — the long corridor is filled with people staring into the cosmos. It is only I who have brought a book or a magazine. In Japanese cities, in Korea — in the buses and trains, young and old are reading, or if they are not holding books and magazines, they are glued to their iPhones where so much information is now available.

In these countries and in Western cities, the bookshops are still full, but not so much anymore because the new communications technologies are now available to their masa. How I wish my tiny bookshop or any Filipino bookshop for that matter would be filled with people. I’ll make an exception here: BookSale branches are always full because their books are very cheap. But I would still ask: what kind of books do Filipinos buy?

– F. Sionil Jose, The Philippine Star

***

My utter fluctuating habit in reading (I hope not to the point of disinterest) because of my short attention span was called to attention when I read this particular part from Mr. Jose’s article. Though I’m still glad I regularly read short snippets every time I have the moment to stop, flip a page (or click a link) and read away, it’s really bothering how reading has become repulsive to some.

Reading now: House Rules by Jodi Picoult in the morning, and Arena Homme + in the night.

I still think reading is the habit of the learned. And I am in a battle to fight disinterest in reading. And so should you! So here are some tips that I got from friends and the ever-helpful interwebs to help cultivate in us a habit of reading:

• Set a realistic goal. Like, when to finish a certain book for a certain amount of time. This is an important first step if you are training yourself for a lifestyle of reading. It gives you some kind of sense of direction.
• Pick up that book/magazine/e-book/any reading material.Because It all starts with one thing.
• Keep focused. The problem with everything being so fast, is that we lose our focus along the way.
• Keep the phone, the iPad, or anything that may distract you from reading. Reading requires a lot of focus. Take it from the almost self-diagnosed ADHD blogger writing this post.
• If you have excellent focus or if it helps you to, then you may use music. Personally, I am in inconsistent conflict with this.
• Read snippets, like a chapter, or an article, everyday. This will train your attention span.
• Set a definite time of the day for reading. Like for me – I have my mornings and before bedtime. It is a habit that needs to be formed, so one needs a consistent time of doing it.
• Have your corner for reading. The setting you are in must be conducive for focus and flow. My conducive setting is while on the way to the office. There is something with a ride that makes me  read.
• Have someone to read with. It does not necessarily mean that you need to be physically with each other, but knowing that someone is doing the same thing with you makes it more fun. You can even put up a book club if you like.
• Do not be disheartened if you cannot read as fast as somebody can. It doesn’t matter how fast you finished, but how much learning you incurred in doing so. 
  
• Lastly, make sure you enjoy what you are doing/reading. After all, reading, and learning for that matter, should be fun.

There you go, some tips that I picked up from several reading endeavors. As you can see, mostly of my tips are on how to focus while reading. I think it is the most difficult part, and therefore should be trained – especially for people like me. It can get frustrating (I attest to this) but the good thing is, we can always train ourselves. There are a number of ways to get into reading. All we have to do is to pick up that book and flip through the pages.

Go now and read away, kids! And feel free to share your reading/focus/book/whatnot tips below. Who knows it can help a fellow reader.

P.S. I remembered The Traveling Reader while doing this post! Check out her blog as well for book recommendations and reading tips!

Bookay-ukay + TNL Moment

In between searching Lourd de Veyra‘s book signing in a wrong date (read story here) and desperation over dirt cheap good books, my friend Pat and I rushed over Teacher’s Village with hopes that Bookay-ukay is open on a Sunday.

And it was! Good thing, because I was really meaning to review this place. One, it’s a thrift bookstore, and two it’s in Maginhawa. I need no other reasons.

Drowning in an ocean of cheap, albeit very good, books.

Toys are around as well. 

You can never miss this from the shelf.

Pink on pink.

Awesome wall! I like this on my room!

Appropriate.

Oh love.

Yeah. For PhP 10 each.

Struggling book (shelf) model.

And look who we’ve found. Bookay-ukay owners AND apparently Tunay Na Lalake (TNL) moderators. Pat was a huge fan! Eh di mega tumbling lang si Ate Patring ng bonggels!!!

Yeah baby! RAKENROL!!!

Memories of a good Sunday.

Meet my current hairstyle. Lakas maka-high school!!!

The Womenagerie (Jessica Zafra) book came with a note for its first owner. Was stupefied when I saw it.

My second helping for the day already. Can’t help to stop.

Wasn’t a milk tea virgin anymore. Actually. PEACE PAT! :P

Bookay-ukay
55 Maginhawa street
Teacher’s Village, Diliman, QC
(+63) 905 428 3125