When I started out in the magazine industry, my friends would often say things like, “Wow naman! Ang exciting naman ng trabaho mo!” To which I would reply,
“Anyone who thinks this job is all glamour is so misguided!” Sure, there are fun events to attend, interesting people to meet, cool products to try out. But there’s so much more to it than that.
The readers see the final product—a beautifully set-up living room, a perfectly made-up model, impeccably styled clothes. But they don’t see the hours spent pulling out (mag-speak for “borrowing items for photo shoots”); the time spent in the bowels of shopping malls, waiting for said pullouts; the grunt work required to lug a piece of furniture to the shoot location; the tediousness of carefully unwrapping and re-wrapping borrowed items.
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While we’re on the topic (see comments in previous entry)…my teammates have been calling me “stalker.” It’s not what you think, I am totally committed to H—I’m just sort of stalking a high school girl.
Wait, that sounds even worse.
Let me explain before anyone calls the cops. Haha. The next Ultimate league is the Malakas at Maganda league—each team should have seven players on the field, all of just one sex, either “Malakas” or “Maganda.” Our team’s minimum requirement is two lines each (meaning 14 guys and 14 girls) so that we could have subs. We have enough to field a Malakas team, especially since we’ve joined forces with once-archrivals MC2 (how’s that for “spirit of the game”?). But the girls…well, a few people have gone abroad for work, so we barely have enough to field one line of Maganda players.
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I have a newfound respect for people who work in parenting magazines, and magazines that require kid models. Recently, we had a shoot involving children ranging in age from two-and-a-half to nine, and it wasn’t easy!
For starters, it’s hard to get someone who’s barely three years old to understand exactly what you want him or her to do. (I think it was Johnny Depp who said that toddlers are like little drunks. Haha.) And then there’s the matter of trying to get them to stay still, and asking them to be patient while you’re setting up a shot—the feeling is akin to being constantly asked “Are we there yet?” Except you aren’t on the road.
It was a very tiring shoot, but I must say it was fun! It’s not for everyone though—if you’re going to work with kids, I think you have to be the type who loves being around them. It can’t be just another job.
Got wind last December that Mishka flew back to the homeland and was scheduled to sing at Conspiracy and Magnet at High Street.
Preferred Conspiracy, given the more Bohemian vibe, but sched was screwed. So settled for Magnet. Mishka was wonderful, asyoosh…though I wish she’d sung more of the stuff from her album and not just covers…
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Do you have a friend who works for a car manufacturing company? If you don’t, well, I suggest you make one pronto.
I’ve made quite a few friends from the motoring industry this year, and what I discovered was this: car parties rock hot ass.
I always scoffed at the idea of going to a shindig held by some corporation that made metal modes of transportation for a living. Let me demonstrate: Exhibit A: “Hey, let’s go to that Absolut Vodka event!”, then Exhibit B: “Hey, let’s go to the Christmas party of Toyota!” C’mon…no contest, right? If it’s a liquor event, then the bar list promises to be off the chain! A Japanese car manufacturing company party? Visions of ho-hum corpy types giving away keychains with the corporate logo as primo prize for the best karaoke rendition of “My Way” at a small function room wasn’t even the worst conjecture my steroidal imagination came up with.
And boy was I mistaken.
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I’m a few years away from having my own children (God willing), but all these kiddie parties I’ve been attending lately have got me thinking. I’ve been to some elaborate birthday parties for kids turning a year old, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the type who would throw such a party for my future one-year-old. I keep thinking, the kid won’t remember a thing! But I’m trying to understand that it’s something mommies and daddies really want to celebrate. “It’s really for the parents,” a friend of mine reasoned. I kind of agree with her about throwing a big seventh-birthday party. At least by then, the kid would have some idea about what’s going on! (I remember my sixth birthday party quite fondly.)
I don’t know. Perhaps my views would change once I have a one-year-old of my own.
(Photo from DK Images.)
These were the words of advice my half-French, half-Pinay close friend shared with me in second year high school - she with the light brown, silky, wavy hair and a body that developed two years ahead of everyone in our class. Marie was obviously very popular with the boys. But she never hooked up with anyone our age. She went out with college guys. So cool.
I hadn’t had a real boyfriend by this time. Just “boyfriends” I talked to on the phone, exchanged letters with, and ignored when we would accidentally see each other in the mall. Marie had, by this time, French kissed, and a whole other stuff I didn’t even know could be done. Every Friday, her college boyfriend would pick her up from school with his sports car and they would go out on dates. He was tall, dark and a man, unlike all the other boys I knew.
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