A SERIES OF FORTUNATE EVENTS
Life can truly catch you with your pants down. The past few days have suddenly shifted my mood from somber and elusive to beaming and excited. Let me hope to capture the reasons for the sudden transformation into writing.

FIRST OFF, FIVE MONTHS NA PO KAMI!




My PANDA BEAR and I celebrated our fifth month together last July 15th. I still cannot fathom how such an intelligent, beautiful and creative woman like her would find me attractive and worth all the fuss. I guess some guys (like me!) just find themselves blessed. Every day we get to spend together is a day filled with so many happy memories and love. I love her so much. I willingly go crazy over her.

THEN, A GOOD FRIEND FINDS HIMSELF A DREAM...
...Catcher that is. Johnboy was among the short list of entries in the recently concluded 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, an event joint-sponsored by FullyBooked and Neil Gaiman himself. Though he didn't make the final cut on who won, the fact his work was read by Gaiman and given some comments remains a memorable fact he will definitely be proud of having experienced. Some people (me included) we a bit let down that Neil Gaiman couldn't make it to the event. But upon realizing he was literally hands-on watching over the shoot for the upcoming Stardust movie, that made me smile with the knowledge the movie was bound to be a very good depiction of the said story.



We also bumped into a few old friends. There was Wanggo Gallaga, son of Peque Gallaga, who was our schoolmate back in College. There were Arnold and Cynthia Arre who have become very nice friends of mine. There was Quark and Robbie, both of whom I highly admire and hope to someday call my friends as well. Vinnie was there too, with his sweetie, whose name I sadly forgot. And finally, Azrael and Lace were there to share with us the moment and to join us for some pictures.

AND A NEW WORLD OF ALLIANCES FORGES NEW GROUNDS
In the recently concluded New World Alliance 4: A Broken Time Machine, I was given the task to be part of the Writer's Forum as well as be a judge in the cosplay event. In both instances, I found myself worrying and fretting over whether or not I would have something to share and say. As a writer, I never saw myself as truly that prolific or someone who warranted being in a panel that contained Manila Critic's Awardees (Vinnie), Palanca Awardees (Dean and Nikki) or established academic and literary people in the field (Emil). Thankfully, I was able to share a perspective which many of those present were able to relate with more (at least according to some people.)



As promised, those who have any inqueries and questions in relation to writing are free to contact me and ask. I will do my best to help out those I can. I do remind you all that like most of you, I am still working on further gaining more recognition and skill in my craft. But hey, everyone has something to learn from everyone so feel free to send me a note.

Judging for the cosplay event was difficult, with many initial hang-ups that were not properly ironed out. Further more, judging was made even harder by the huge number of impressively accurate and beautiful costumes. The winning differences, as it turned out, became much heavily based more on both the performance of the contestant to project the character he or she was dressed as, as well as the ability for the contestant to grab the audience's attention.

My congratulations to the winners!



Finally, had a load of fun sharing ideas with Emil Flores, Adrian and Nabs, Rocco, Nicco, Nicole, Adam and with my Panda bear while enjoying dinner at an Italian restaurant all the way at Jupiter street. The conversations and chatting felt like it was the beginning of a new world of communications to be forged (and if you don't quite get what I meant by that, perhaps later entries I plan to post would help.)

LASTLY
I guess it shouldn't be bad to share now my (not so good) entry to the 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction awards. Here is my comic entry to that contest.

1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards


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Cheerio!