Choosing her crib 6:07 PM

This is what Ginny's cage looks like today, more or less. It wasn't like that 9 months ago, as you can already gauge from the photos in my previous post.

Taken before Christmas 2012. As of January 2013, the ladder's been removed, and there's a new chewable log treat that's been added in. P.S. Ginny looking very alert and curious here.

This is what her cage looked like when I first got it from a local supplier. The cage came with the tubes, the stairs, the water bottle, the green bowl and pink house. I got the pink hamster wheel from a hamster/small animal carrier which I also bought. The orange mineral stone and the bedding are of course also purchased separately.

Her cage is on those first few days. Ginny resting in her sleeping spot on the tubes as always.

The cage has seen several changes over the past few months, as I keep replacing or moving around the furniture to keep Ginny from being bored, but mainly also to find the layout that suited her needs best. There are more than a dozen factors I obsess about when it comes to Ginny's cage in order for her to get the best kind of hamster care I can get, and I'll be telling you more about that.

One of my favorite cage layouts in the first few months, and then I was forced to remove the pink house  (another story in itself.)

But first of all: the hamster cage.  Before getting Ginny, I scoured the internet for a long time for local suppliers who had the kind of hamster cages I wanted. It was clear to me what cages I was looking for, and if you're a good hamster owner, you would consider these 3 main factors: size, ventilation, and layout.


Size

Most people assume that just because your hamster is a small pet means that it only needs a small cage. This is probably one of the worst things you can do to your pet hamster.  So the advice is: get a cage that's as big as possible. Hamsters need room to run about, nest, burrow, and do their thing. In the wild, they run for miles, looking for food and then tunneling their way below ground to hoard their grains.

A lot of hamster owners, especially those in Germany, the US, UK, and Canada, recommend 360 square inches as the minimum cage space for one's hamster. Unfortunately here in the Philippines, one is hard-pressed to find really decent hamster cages that size, and I was in agony for a long time searching for a proper-sized one. (I envy hamster owners in Western countries!).  It was good that I managed to finally find a cage (the one that you're seeing in the photos) that offered enough space for Ginny.

Its floor space, if you consider both first and second levels, is around a total of 290 square inches. It may be 70 square inches shy from the recommended 360 square inches but those 290 square inches don't even include the tubes yet. The tubes are super important to me (and to a hamster's overall well-being), so I feel that the tube space adds significant value to the cage I got. All in all, I don't think I've deprived Ginny of decent space--although I know I could do better, if I had a bigger apartment. Maybe someday, I can link another cage to the main one so that she has more room for running around and whatnot.

Ginny has a small cage which doubles as a carrier, where I put her while her main cage is being cleaned. Naturally, I put my little critter in a place that's safe and contains familiar stuff (e.g. her toys, water bottle, and food bowl), so that she's properly distracted as I scrub and rinse her big cage for 2-3 hours.

Ginny stays inside her carrier for 2-3 hours while I clean her big cage.

Ginny has already stuffed her cheek pouches with food while biding time inside her carrier.

This was what her carrier looked like when I brought Ginny home from the pet store 9 months ago. :)

Most hamster owners--the irresponsible kind, I should say--would normally use this kind of carrier as the pet's main cage, which is completely cruel. If you're getting a hamster for the first time, please don't get this small a cage for your pet.  If I were a hamster living in a space as tiny as Ginny's carrier, I'd die of boredom and despair.


Ventilation

The best hamster cages are, in my opinion, made by German pet owners. They believe in offering the most natural-looking habitat for their pet hamsters, and the IKEA Detolf and Expedit shelf models are really popular amongst German hamster owners. You can find amazing examples online on how IKEA shelf units are converted into hamster cages.  Floor space is usually massive when using a Detolf or Expedit, and the Germans certainly don't seem to scrimp on hamster cage space. I wouldn't be surprised if the 360-sq. in. floor space policy originated from a German.

The only thing that is holding me back from getting an aquarium or glass-style cage for Ginny is not really the size but the ventilation. Aquariums offer poor ventilation for those small animals living in a tropical country.  Nor are purely plastic cages (which a lot of US-based hamster owners are fond of) necessarily the best. They don't provide good ventilation as well, and it's easy for hamsters in tropical countries like the Philippines to die of a heat stroke if they're living in plastic cages.  Aquariums and plastic cages only work for those living in cold climates.  So unless you're willing to switch on the A/C for your hamster 24/7, please do not get an aquarium or a plastic cage if you live in a country with year-round tropical weather.

The best type then would be a wire cage with a plastic bottom to hold the base bedding and all the hamster stuff. Wire cages provide really good ventilation for Syrian hammies, and I've seen my Ginny sleep like a baby in her cage all the time whether under semi-humid or cold conditions. There's an electric fan right beside her cage, so that she always gets a nice breeze.  And at night, she enjoys the A/C like the rest of us humans.  Whenever I'm not at home, I'm forced to switch off the fan, of course. But before I leave, I place a solid frozen ice pack (the hard plastic kind, NOT the gel one) on top of the cage so that the cool air travels down to her cage, and she gets to enjoy a cool atmosphere for hours.  The ice pack, which I keep inside the freezer whenever I'm not using it, does last for several hours, and I'm usually back at home after work to give her the fan breeze that she likes. I've contemplated getting a rechargeable fan with an auto timer one of these days, so that I can leave a fan switched on beside her cage while I'm out of the house.


Layout

There are hamster cages that offer one, two or multiple levels. There are those with tubes, and there are those with none. The way hamster cages look these days depends on how the pet owner cares about their hammy's 'lifestyle.'

I read up a lot on hamster's burrowing tendencies even before I got Ginny, because I was concerned about how much deep bedding I can offer to my hamster and I honestly wanted my pet to be able to burrow as much as he/she wanted. When I had Joey, he had a smaller cage than Ginny (forgive me, Joey--I was younger then and I didn't know much about hamster care back then as much as I do now *sad face*), and I wasn't able to give him enough space for burrowing.  More about bedding in future posts--but essentially, I just wanted to get a wire cage that had a deep enough plastic bottom so I could give Ginny loads of bedding.

Ginny loves burrowing. At the time I took this photo, I haven't even finished filling up the cage to its maximum bedding depth!

Fortunately, the wire cage I got allowed for 3.5 to 4 inches of bedding in terms of depth, which made me happy. The barest required minimum is a depth of 2 inches, and one can go even more than 10 inches in depth.  Hardcore German hamster owners construct 2 or 3 layers of glass or wooden shelves so that their hammies can get as much as 12 inches worth of burrowing.

However, many of these German-owned hamster cages don't normally include tubes. I read on several internet sites that hamsters in the wild usually assign different holes or burrows for specific needs. One burrow is for their nesting/sleeping area, another for their food, and still another for their toilet. Aside from the cage's 4-inch bedding depth capacity, I was able to give Ginny tubes which brought out her natural burrowing instincts.

She loved the tubes right away. So much so, that I could immediately tell that she chose a spot for her sleeping area, another spot where to hoard all the food she collects from her food bowl, and the most downward part of the tube which she uses as a potty. It's very intelligent of her to choose that particular place for her toilet needs because it was far away from her bed and food area--and any pee or poop that she might have excreted doesn't get mixed into her hoarded stash at all. Ginny's also clever enough to block the end of that tube (where her potty is) with a thick layer of bedding, so that any pee smell is immediately absorbed by the bedding and prevents the rest of the cage from smelling. In fact, if you stick your face right inside Ginny's cage and take a good whiff, you can hardly smell anything weird at all.

I'm pretty lucky to have a neat freak of a pet. She's totally into hygiene. I barely saw the need to potty train her because she already had the proper hamster instincts in keeping her home clean.

Once you've observed your hamster designate certain spots for basic needs, it becomes easier for you to fix the rest of the cage layout, so that you can create a fun, liveable space around those needs.

Will do a 'cage tour' kind of post next time to describe Ginny's home more in detail. :)

Meet Ginny 2:32 PM

Why is it that I always have the energy to start the new year with a new blog post?  And then that energy wanes and peters out as the year progresses. Work can kill all that extra energy I must say.

I've been way behind in all my blog posts, and I've been meaning to tell you all about Ginny.  Now that she's 9 months old, I suppose I really should start writing.

Remember that dream I had about Joey, my first hamster?  Those recurring dreams of my beloved Joey affected me so much, I realized that I missed having a hamster. I haven't had a hammy for more than a decade now, and I felt it was high time to get another one.

I got Ginny at a pet store on April 1, 2012.  I wasn't planning to get a female Syrian hamster because females have a more excitable, agitated temperament, and I was sort of looking for another Joey--the laid back kind.  But none of the boys in the litter really got my attention, and so I turned to look at the next bin, where the females were. (By the way, pet stores aren't really the best places for animals, especially sensitive ones like hamsters. These stores can be borderline heartless when it comes to taking care of pets.  That was why I felt compelled to rescue a hamster from the pet store rather than get one from a breeder.)

And then I saw her. She was one of the plumper ones, but her weight didn't stop her from scurrying about.  While her litter mates were just snoozing away or hiding inside the tunnel, she was all over the place, an active little one.

I loved her the moment I clapped eyes on her.  She's a Syrian hamster, with a white and brown band--exactly like Joey. Her coat looked more orangey than brown, and that reminded me of the Weasleys of the Harry Potter books with their carrot colored hair.  And because she's a girl, I named her Ginny after Ginny Weasley. Some people think I named her after myself. (Gina? Ginny?).  I say--WTF.

Before I got Ginny, I had to prepare for her arrival in a big way.  As any decent hamster owner would, I had to buy her cage, food and accessories first before bringing her home.  Because hamsters get stressed easily when moving to a new environment, you need to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible. I set up the cage and everything else before going out with my small animal carrier to choose a hammy. And where I live, I'm fortunate enough to be 15 minutes away from the pet store. As such, the travel time for Ginny wasn't bad at all. When Ginny finally arrived, she took to her new home right away, and that was a huge relief. At that time, she was already around 3 weeks old--and most probably ready to be weaned from her litter mates.

Here are her first photos in her real home:

Negotiating the stairs

...and finding it fun.

She learns to drink from the bottle for the first time.

Food, glorious food! She probably realized she no longer has to share food with her litter mates.

With Joey, I regret not having a point-and-shoot to record his life. I mostly shot video footage of him on a digicam, and now I don't know where those tapes are. :( 

I'm afraid the next few blog posts will all be about Ginny and proper hamster care. So if you folks feel like tuning out, that's okay.  I suppose these Ginny-related posts will appeal more to hamster owners looking for tips on how to care for hamsters in the right way, and I just want to do my bit. After all, the internet has also become my resource when searching for hamster-related topics.

Hamster care has progressed dramatically in the past decade; most of the cages, bedding, food, and accessories that I'm able to get now were not available then. I'm still amazed by the array of choices in the market today. In many ways, Ginny is luckier than Joey--although they share equal places in my heart. :)   


 

Turning 32... 1:50 AM

... somehow didn't seem as tragic as hitting 30 itself.

Am looking forward to doing a lot of things this year, meeting targets and ticking things off my bucketlist.  Here's hoping 2012 will turn out to be splendid! 

I've been incredibly busy with work in UNICEF, and I hope to post more updates soon. Ever since the social media boom, life in the digital age has been a bit more complicated.  Aside from maintaining Facebook and Twitter accounts, I'm forever doing stuff on my Instagram, TripAdvisor and Flickr accounts. (lol, such problems) Sadly, my blogging has seemed to have taken a backseat in the age of instant-gratification Facebook posting.

Will try to be back very soon! In the meantime, you can check my amateur travel photos in Flickr. I've started uploading my travel photos bit by bit. :)

#WhatMakesMeSmile 1:02 PM

Well, this video, for example.

Who would have thought that, in this day and age, dancing to the tune of "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music would be so cool? For a few minutes, this wonderful flashmob made passersby stop and forget about their day's tasks and obligations. People stood and watched, and smiled and even danced on the spot.

Childlike expressions of delight are always a nice sight to behold.

My Met 11:27 PM

Because I have this never-ending love affair with The Met, I couldn't help but join the museum's newest social media campaign: My Met.  Talk about a perfect way to get people emotionally engaged.

I was just expecting to be one of the many people submitting entries without ever getting an acknowledgement; with The Met's thousands and thousands of visitors and fans, it's hard to expect anything. So you can imagine my happiness and surprise when I got a notification from The Met on Twitter just this Friday saying that my submission is the featured entry of this week!

It is really so sweet of them. They even linked my entry on their Facebook page, and I'm amazed to see that their announcement on my submission garnered 200+ likes and 40+ shares. Wow, thank youuu!! I hope the MyMet campaign spurs more people to submit.

Me being such a big starry-eyed fan of The Met, I took the opportunity to make a screen grab of my submission, which I hope stays in the museum's web archives forever! If you want to see previous MyMet submissions, click here.

What also bowled me over is that The Met has now started following me on Twitter. Oh. Wow. I'm starting to feel pressured.  Should I come up with less inane tweets about my life?

So here's the screen grab of my featured entry. Okay, I know, 'home' must be quite boring and corny for so many, but The Met is really just that.  It's the place where I feel most at home when I'm in New York.  I've been there around 10 times, and I still feel like I can't get enough of it. There's this sense of familiarity, of belonging that washes over me whenever I step inside. Even the lamb gyro and coffee stands in front of the museum have become solid favorites of mine, because they're all part of my Met experience.

Last January, before I was set to return to Manila, I was feeling rather morose going around The Met and The Cloisters, knowing it was going to be a long while before I'd see these places again. So there I was, wandering around the galleries and desperately snapping up whatever souvenirs I could afford to get.

Seeing the MyMet campaign online made me miss my favorite NY hangout even more.  The campaign asks you to choose up to eight favorite art pieces--a difficult task, if you ask me. I have loads of favorites.  Here they are (and I'd most probably update this blog entry to add the ones I unintentionally forgot!) in no particular order.

(All the following images are from The Metropolitan Museum's website, so please don't use them for commercial purposes.)

Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses

Vincent van Gogh's Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

Okay, this isn't obviously an image from The Met collection; I just had to squeeze in a photo of me looking really happy to be inside a room full of van Goghs at the Met. You can tell he's my favorite guy!

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Ugolino and His Sons. One of my all-time favorite sculptures. It is overpoweringly huge and beautiful to look at from any angle. More people should see this; I feel that it's so underrated.  Someday, I hope to sketch this in full...

Georges de La Tour's The Fortune Teller. I love how this painting tells a very interesting story.

The Unicorn in Captivity (from The Unicorn Tapestries). I took the long journey up north to The Cloisters TWICE just to see my favorite tapestry. Seeing this and the rest of The Cloisters are always worth it.

Saw Alexander McQueen's 'Savage Beauty' Exhibit during my first ever visit to the Met. This Oyster Dress is magical. McQueen WAS magical.

Marc Chagall's The Lovers. Just like a dream. :)

Shiva as the Lord of Dance. I drew this once for a history paper on Hinduism which I had to do back in high school. I made it a point to see Shiva on my last winter visit to the Met. It was one of those full-circle moments. :P

Salvador Dali's The Accommodations of Desire. Dali's a genius. And his paintings always give me the heebie jeebies.

From A Hotel in the Cours d'Albret, Bordeaux. In the Met's European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Wing, there are rooms and rooms containing all these priceless artifacts and furniture found in the grand mansions of the European nobility. I stumbled into this wing by accident; I didn't know at first that The Met would have these kinds of sets!

Model Granary from the Tomb of Meketre. Dioramas fascinate me, and anything about Egypt is automatically interesting for me. This miniature model is so wonderfully preserved. I saw other models in the American Museum of Natural History and, if I'm lucky, I look forward to seeing more like it in the Cairo Museum.

The Temple of Dendur. Saved from destruction and carried brick by brick to US shores.

Another shameless photo plug. As you can see from this picture, the Egyptian Wing is a heavy favorite because of the Temple of Dendur.

Johannes Vermeer's Young Woman With a Water Pitcher. For some strange reason, I'm so attached to this painting. I had to see her again on my last visit to The Met. I stayed in the room where 'she' was until it was time for the museum guide to tell me that the place was closing. :(

I have so many photos taken at The Met that I'll probably upload an entire Facebook album of it one of these days.  I miss the place dreadfully.  When I visit New York again (hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years), The Met is sure to be at the top of my to-see list. After all, it's always a second home.

1001 books in one device 11:14 PM

Right now, my printed copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is about as useful as a doorstopper.

It's too heavy, so I keep it on my office desk wedged in between other books. It's pretty to look at, but even as a reference book, I don't get to use it much (weirdly enough).

So I was pleased as punch when I was browsing ManyBooks.net during the Christmas holidays, looking for free e-books for my Kindle--and I came across this massive collection of e-books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list.

The best things in life are indeed free.

This blogger (I love you, whoever you are) has painstakingly compiled and linked all available e-book editions of public domain books from the pre-1700s to the 1900s. Naturally, majority of them are Kindle-formatted. I tried not to be too eager, and just downloaded a few (only just for starters)--those which I haven't gotten around to buying such as Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow and Herman Hesse's Siddharta. This list is just crazy beautiful, and it gives people like me the chance to access books that aren't necessarily on top of one's 'Books to Buy' list, like, uh, Gargantua and Pantagruel, for example.

Books printed in the 21st century aren't available yet due to copyright concerns, but that's alright. Amazon sells Kindle e-books at a good rate of $10-12 if these are hot off the press or are bestselling ones. And then there are those random sales that are held for around 2 hours only; I find myself scouring the Amazon site and even Twitter for sale announcements on a daily basis so as not to miss out on anything good. I managed to get Neil Gaiman's Tenth Anniversary edition of American Gods for less than $4, as well as new titles by up and coming authors for FREE.

The trouble with Kindle, I suppose, is that my list of books to read is now longer than ever. I haven't even managed to touch the ones I bought at The Strand in New York last August 2011...!    

 

It's a paper world 11:42 PM

In case you've been following me lately on Instagram or on my Twitter account, I've been going gaga over this paper miniature Japanese sushi bar I've been working on at home for the past several nights. It's now done--and I just realized I don't know what to do with this miniature set, haha. I guess the joy is more on the making of it.

Here it is! Any takers? It's a lovely little thing, albeit with a few tiny imperfections. I asked my sister to put her hand on the roof top just so you have an idea on how small the set is.

 
Yup, it's all made out of paper. You can download this sushi bar template for free at Paper Museum.  Good luck, though, because the website and the instructions for all the templates are in Japanese!

But if you've been doing papercraft for a while, the set of instructions for the sushi bar should pretty much be a no-brainer.



I started first with the sushi bar's foundation and the entrance to the restaurant, which looks so very Japanese.





My favorite part of the project was making the sushi bar itself. A lot of detail, and a whole lot of patience.





I wouldn't have been able to do all these little things without glue and my X-Acto knives.





My bottle of Elmer's Glue looks like a giant standing next to the set.


There are a few more miniature sets in Paper Museum which are irresistibly cute, like the cafe and the bakery and the vegetable market, but I went for the sushi bar because it appealed to me most.

This Japanese sushi bar isn't my first papercraft project. Since October of last year, my officemate Thess and I have been going crazy over paper miniatures.  It all started when we were brainstorming with the rest of the fundraising team on how we were going to decorate our work area in time for the annual Halloween Trick-or-Treat party for children in our office.

Thess started scouring the web for decoration ideas and came across this fantastic site, RavensBlight, which offers fun Halloween-themed paper projects for free (FREE! Don't you just love these artists who are so unselfish about their work?). Although we ended up making large-scale art stuff for the Trick-or-Treat event, the girls and I created some Halloween papercraft miniatures on the side during our free time.

Being such newbies, we printed on bond paper, cut the designs out, and stuck them on used cardboard. It's amazing what paper, old cardboard, glue and scissors can do.

I made this paper haunted house for my 3-year-old goddaugher, Ashley, to play with. The monster dolls were prepared by Thess, her mother. Fun! Template can be found at RavensBlight.

The haunted cliff house--another miniature which you can download from RavensBlight and assemble. Very easy.

The first paper tree I made for Halloween. A ladder is a must.

Another of my Halloween paper tree creations, which I placed along the corridor

Although the trees I made for Halloween aren't exactly diorama small, I had great fun making them. I taped large black cartolinas together, stuck them on the wall, drew the trees and cut out the parts I didn't need. A lot of the excess cartolinas were used to make the branches. Thank God I don't have any fear of heights, because I was on the ladder most of the time, working on the branches. 

The Halloween trees are largely inspired from the tree wall art I saw in MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York when I visited last August 2011. My trees aren't perfect--and I would have wanted to add more branches, had I the time to do so--but a few people said they found the trees really lovely in a Tim Burton-esque way. (Wow, that already means a lot to me!)

The beautiful paper art beside my trees were made by my colleague Nina, who is the real artist in the team, by the way. As you can see, we had a Haunted Forest Graveyard theme going on here. The rest of the team had a blast sticking cobwebs everywhere, making paper coffins, setting up creepy ambient sounds and placing dry ice in strategic places for that desired fog effect.

I have a pretty good idea already of which paper miniature set I want to work on next. I always want to keep graduating onto more complicated miniature stuff just so I won't get bored. (At some point while I was making the Japanese sushi bar, I was watching a few Doctor Who episodes with my sister Steffi.)

Some castles and a few dioramas would be great to make, although if I keep doing all this papercraft, I'd run out of space at home! My sisters think I'm a bit of a freak, hunched over the table, creating little paper maki rolls. Maybe if I did a paper miniature set of Jersey Shore (cringe cringe), Karla would have a wee bit of appreciation for my papercraft obsession.

 More papercraft blog posts in the near future!

Happiness is... 11:18 PM

 ... getting an autographed copy of Children of the Philippines from its writer and photographer, Dr. Terrel Hill.

Dr. Hill, the former UNICEF Philippines Representative in the late 90s up to 2003, is one of the sweetest people I know. I'd gladly adopt him as my grandfather if he'd let me. He turns 69 this year and is as sprightly as ever despite an injury on his right arm. Last year, he gave me such a strong bear hug that he actually lifted me off my feet for a few seconds. I think if it weren't for his present injury, he would have done the same kind of hug again.

Today, he wrote the most loving message on my copy of his book, which he insisted on giving to me for free in spite of my protestations. Children of the Philippines is a book containing beautiful photos which Dr. Hill took during his stay in this country. He loved the Philippines and its children so much that even when his term as Representative ended, he decided to set up a foundation for Filipino children and make this book.

He visited the office today, on a Monday that's normally like other Mondays which come with a barrage of tasks that all need to be accomplished A.S.A.P.  Whenever Dr. Hill visits, I feel calmer, lighter. And loads happier. People in the office tend to gravitate towards him, smiles breaking across their faces--because he does generate that kind of reaction from individuals. You can tell that he's always welcome in our workplace.

Thank you, Dr. Hill, for your hugs and for your written message, which gave me a galvanic kick to the heart on a day when I welcome it most.

sketching Victory 10:10 PM

Sketch and photo © 2011/Gina Sales

I wish I had the time to sketch more.

It seems I only get to do it during moments when I have to save myself from perilously falling asleep. On one very important yet--sadly enough--dreary conference where you could actually do a counting game on how often the term 'Excel spreadsheet' crops up, I decided to keep my eyes and hands busy even though my brain cells were somewhat shutting down.

So I started sketching on my Moleskine an image of the winged goddess Victory of Samothrace based on a photo I took of the actual sculpture when I was in the Louvre last March 2010.

I can never draw the human form from memory; that's a skill I sorely lack.  But I feel a sense of happiness from being able to sketch on paper whatever I can see from my own eyes. I normally use a black tech pen like Pilot for informal amateur sketches like this. I never use pencil. Art class in high school taught me to be conservative in pen strokes so that I don't have to depend on using a pencil for drafts so much.

I ended up having an affinity for pen-and-ink and even charcoal. I remember bringing home a rough charcoal sketch I made of Charles Dickens to show to my mom.  I'm fearfully disastrous when it comes to watercolor, so I have made black ink my comfort zone. I don't consider myself an artist because I can't create something out of my imagination, but I'd gladly do a decent sketch of anything I clap my eyes on.

Most museums, unfortunately, don't allow pens for sketching. So when I was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (for at least 10 times, damnit), I could only take high-res, close-up photos of sculptures which I would have wanted to sketch then and there. I'll probably set aside these photos for future moments of ennui that would allow me the time and luxury of drawing on paper.

So here's my finished sketch of the goddess Victory:

Sketch and photo © 2011/Gina Sales

It's not perfect, and God knows I would have wanted the wings to have been less 'heavy-looking.' I remember gazing up at this sculpture, surrounded by fellow tourists and art lovers, and admiring how the artist captured Victory in mid-action, as she strode forward with a purpose, her wings elegantly outstretched.  She seemed even more beautiful and mysterious without the head and the arms.

I hope I have done this favorite sculpture of mine a little justice somehow.

I remember too as I sat beside a young Italian man inside the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence on that same month I went to Paris. There was a large crowd, as always, in front of Michaelangelo's David.  It was sheer pleasure just to look at David (for aesthestic, purely non-sexual purposes) and study the tension in his limbs as he held his sling over his shoulder. The young man beside me (who looked like a local student about 21 years old) was using a pencil to sketch the sculpture, and I admired his efforts to capture THE David.

I'd be afraid to try it myself, actually. And if I did, it would take me days to finish the sketch.  But the young man was drawing him reverently--hesitantly too, I'd say, as if he was dreadfully afraid to mess up on paper what was perfect right in front of one's eyes. His drawing was still rough, for he had just more or less started. I could tell he was struggling with the face--which has always been my own Waterloo. At least the young man and I had something in common.

We chatted a bit (he in halting English and I in my atrocious Italian) and I made sure to compliment him on his draft. He seemed grateful and emboldened by my praise, and so he went back to sketching David's face with a noticeably steadier hand. I left his side eventually so he could spend the rest of the day drawing without much distraction. The entrance fee to the gallery wasn't exactly a trivial amount, so I'm sure he wanted to maximize his stay indoors.

Sometimes, I idly wonder how his sketch turned out. And I wonder too if I would dare to sketch something as complex as David one of these days.

Kindle worship 10:11 PM

I received a Kindle Touch for Christmas while I was in the U.S. and it's honestly the best gift I've ever gotten.

It amazes me how much reading I get done with this Kindle, and it's pretty handy to carry around while traveling.  I read in the NYC subway, at the bank while waiting for my turn at the counter, at the doctor's waiting lounge, and any other place that forces me to be in a state of inertia for more than 5 minutes.

In a span of 7 weeks since I've gotten the Kindle, I've finished seven books and am in the middle of the eighth, which is Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Considering how awfully slow I was last 2011 in tackling my book backlog, doing an average of one book a week on my Kindle now is a major improvement.

I find myself scouring the Amazon Kindle bestsellers list for good sales on a regular basis.  Was able to buy Neil Gaiman's 10th Anniversary edition of American Gods for less than $4 (!!!) and bought Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy at a discounted bundled price of $18.50.

I also managed to download a whole bunch of Kindle-formatted public domain books for free. This means I can finally attempt to re-read James Joyce's Ulysses and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace without straining my wrist from the weight of these books. Hurray for Project Gutenberg and all those groups who labor to make such great literature free and accessible.

And now for the vain part. My Kindle in all its Kate Spade-covered glory. Yes, I had to buy a Kate Spade Kindle cover--because my beloved reading device shouldn't be decked out in anything that's less than Kate Spade.

Straight from the box. And my first free Kindle e-book download was Popular Tales from the Norse.

My Kate Spade Jubilee Stripe Kindle cover. Cheery blue-and-green stripes on canvas.

I got this in Target. It's amazing how many Kindle e-books one can buy with $50. I'm trying not to use it up as much as I can. You now know what to buy me for my birthday or for Christmas.

 

My Kindle is small enough to fit into my Kate Spade Call Me Hayden shoulder bag (which, by the way, has the most adorable bag lining ever).

The Kindle doesn't change my love for printed books. Just this evening, I found myself reading A.S. Byatt's Ragnarok: The End of the Gods, and I know that there's still joy to be had in the physical turning of pages in one's hand. But the Kindle does make reading on the go beautifully easy.

And oh that notion of having 3,000 books in just one device...! I can imagine growing old with you, Kindle.

Project Gutenberg 1:12 AM

Most people don't know that I've been volunteering as a proofreader for Project Gutenberg for around a year now. I've been doing it on a casual basis--whenever I have some spare time on weekends and such.  This online volunteer community where I belong is called Distributed Proofreaders, and our task is to proofread and convert public domain books into e-books. After multiple rounds of proofreading, formatting and post-processing, these books are finally submitted to the Project Gutenberg (PG) archive to be preserved--forever, we hope!

I infinitely prefer the sensation of holding and reading a book in printed form, but I have to admit that the idea of preserving a literary work--into something even as terribly modern as an e-book--is still a task both sacred and profound.  Although we don't see ourselves regressing into a book-burning society (God forbid) anytime soon, I secretly would like to think that Project Gutenberg exists not just to make books available to everyone for free, but to ensure that there's a Plan B in the highly improbable but not completely impossible event of the printed book becoming extinct or outlawed some day. (Hey, if you've read Fahrenheit 451, you'd be paranoid, too.)

Distributed Proofreaders (DP)'s concept is simple: to speed up the conversion of thousands and thousands of books into digital form, volunteers can work together on a book at the same time.  That way, a book can be proofread and submitted into the PG archive faster than if it were just a one person-one book assignment.  Workload is divided into pages; all the community asks of you is to edit at least a page a day.  More than one, if you can.  My best day ever was when I did 15 pages straight.  One can't proofread too much in one sitting (unless you're used to it) due to eye fatigue and a subsequently increased likelihood of committing proofreading errors.

Just some really nice overall stats found on the site

The objective isn't to correct or change the meaning of the text at all (what a big no-no) but to proofread and format it in such a way to make it ready for e-book conversion.  We're not talking about just exporting books into PDF and such.  The e-book formatting process isn't as simple as that.

This online project is such a completely organized system, with all the proofreading and formatting guidelines listed down.  There's even a handy one-pager guide for quick reference. Every newbie starts off at the Proofreading Round 1 (P1, for short) level, and has to work his/her way up to the next levels.  To graduate from P1 alone, you need to proofread a minimum of 300 pages AND pass a proofreading quiz.  I like how I can see my personal stats on the DP site--stats such as my overall ranking (my kingdom for a top 10 spot in DP someday!), how many pages I've completed per day, which book projects I've worked on, and how many more pages to go in order for me to move up to the next level.

But the best thing about this project, really, is that I get to read while editing.  DP volunteers are encouraged to work on just around five pages per book and then move on to another book. This is a wise strategy, because you need to have everyone focusing on getting batches of books ready for e-book conversion. Plus, one needs to try out different types of texts in order to be more exposed to various proofreading challenges. But even if editing five pages per book would mean just literally reading snippets of a text, I find the task enjoyable.  It's like reading all these mini stories in one sitting.

Besides, volunteers have the freedom to choose which books they can edit. I normally go for the English novels on the list, with a history book now and then. An unforgettable piece I worked on was Edmund Spenser's poem 'The Shepheard's Calendar.' What a handful. (Click on the screenshot below for a better view.)

It's a nice feeling to get an email notification from DP every time a book I've worked on in the past has been submitted to the Project Gutenberg archive.  Not every person downloading and reading that novel on his/her e-reader device would realize that dozens of individuals actually proofread and transformed it into an e-book that he/she could enjoy.  I always feel like I gave birth somehow (along with the rest of the volunteers) and sent a book out into the digital space for it to be forever preserved and appreciated.    
   
I like to think it's the romantic modern-day equivalent of monks copying and illustrating these manuscripts commissioned by kings and influential individuals in their time.

A labor so sacred and profound.

Joseph Campbell's The Mythic Dimension 1:41 AM

A year has passed, and I've managed to read more than a dozen books since my last blog entry in November 2010. (Note to self: Reading only a dozen or so books in a year is a hideous all-time low record.  Must improve in 2012!)

So.

Here's what I'm plowing through right now.  Not the most accessible sort of reading out there, but Joseph Campbell will always be a favorite of mine. The Mythic Dimension is a collection of Campbell's essays on myth (as always!) and serves as a precursor to the heftier yet more elegantly-written four-volume The Masks of God. So if you're a fan of the latter, then reading Mythic Dimension is like going through Campbell's early musings.

The cover of the book is a detail taken from Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, which is an amazing 15th century painting housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  I feel lucky to have seen this painting up close when I visited the Gallery back in March 2010.

Side note: I've just downloaded a copy of Werner Herzog's documentary 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams', which I think will be perfect complementary viewing while I read Mythic Dimension at this point.  Was reading Campbell's Primitive Mythology (volume one of The Masks of God) around 5 or 6 years back and I remember thinking to myself at that time how good it would be to see those Chauvet caves--which contain the oldest known cave art--in a NatGeo documentary or something. Hooray for wishes that come true eventually.

new Jurlique buys -- an unfinished post 1:23 AM

Wow, I really need to start writing in this blog again. I guess having Facebook and Twitter these days got me feeling super lazy to write something longer. My last unfinished blog draft (see below) was written back in November 2010. A whole year gone unwritten. Hope I find the time to blog again.
Why? Why can't I seem to drag myself away from the temptation of buying new stuff for my skin? This is an evil, evil addiction.

Just last Wednesday evening, I wandered into Jurlique, with the innocent intention of just checking out their hand creams. Then I happened to try Jurlique's Lavender Hydrating Mist and, well, I ended up reaching for my wallet to buy this product. Which is basically herbal-scented water to hydrate the face. Or to describe it in Jurlique terms: "A replenishing mist, rich in the living energy of lavender and marshmallow to hydrate, tone and soothe. Leaves the skin refreshed. Ideal for rebalancing dryness."

Not sure exactly how marshmallow root extract helps moisturize the face, but the nice thing about Jurlique products is that their stuff really works. It may just be lavender-scented water to non-believers of Jurlique, but this Lavender Hydrating Mist works like a charm.

Because I have very dry skin, I need to moisturize my face and body religiously. When I'm outdoors, I need to re-hydrate my skin by spritzing Evian or even just plain water; otherwise, the skin on my face would really feel dry and tight. But water and even the Evian spritz tend to evaporate quickly on my face, so I have to keep at it. But the Lavender