Tracy Monsod

It’s back to school for me tomorrow morning, teaching another InDesign class! Being the perpetual 17 year old that I am, I decided to plant myself in a coffee shop to work (read: cram) on stuff for my class.

I had initially planned to just breeze through my stuff for tomorrow, and just edit pictures all afternoon, but fixing the lesson plan and “practicing” my spiel for tomorrow proved to be more time-consuming than I had expected. So my pictures will have to wait! I think my pen tablet cried a little in my laptop bag, since I brought it along but never whipped it out.

I’m a little excited to teach InDesign again, partly because it keeps my brain juice swirling around in my head. I’m a little curious as to what my students are like this term. I’m hoping I get a nice, happy batch of well-behaved college kids, but I don’t know if that’s a tall order.

Spent a couple of hours alone at Starbucks tonight to de-stress.

Thought not to bring my laptop, since it’ll remind me of work, so I decided on my sketchbook and markers instead. Plus my iPod & headphones for music, of course.

Started out by sketching randomly, until the lead in my mechanical pencil ran out, and I hadn’t brought my extras. /palmforehead Luckily, though, I had a couple of partly done sketches from way before, so I decided to color them.

It was a nice, solid 2 hours of stress-free quiet. The place was nearly empty, which was just what I needed tonight. Settled in the corner of the coffee shop, where the couch was very welcoming.

I suppose I could have just de-stressed at home, but I find that going out calms me more. Plus the drive was a nice addition to blowing off steam, there was no traffic at all, and the driver’s seat was somehow much more comfortable than I remember it to be. Alone time is pretty good, sometimes.

I can never understand why people don’t like the sunny window seats in coffee shops, especially when the air conditioning is set to near freezing. I’m currently in a Starbucks on Bonifacio High Street (migrated from the Fully Booked branch because their WiFi wasn’t working and I need Wifi. For work purposes, honest), and I immediately found this empty seat at the corner of the shop. Pretty convenient that I have an outlet all to myself beside my chair. I’m also pretty amused that there’s some chick outside smoking while solving sudoku puzzles, and I smell zero cigarette smoke. LOL.

Anyway, back to work! Hanging out here while the ever handsome boyfriend is at a meeting in Makati.

Finally figured out how I’d design my Create Your Own Tumbler from Starbucks! (Click on the photos to see slightly larger, especially the first one because it’s slightly cropped!)

Scoured my room for the tiny canisters of undeveloped film I knew I had kept and just stuffed one entire roll into the tumbler. I thought about using developed film with pictures I took back in college, but I was afraid sliding the film against the plastic might damage the film and affect the photos when reprinted (not like I’ll be reprinting them anytime soon, though).

Took another roll of undeveloped film, cut a tiny strip, and wrote my name on it to ensure nobody can claim that it’s theirs, LOL. And to further instill my ownership upon this vessel, I slipped in my Tender Blender business card. You know, subliminal self-advertisement. ~~OHOHOHO I AM SO CLEVER.~~

When I buy things to add to my work area, I make sure that they go well with everything else that’s already there. My Starbucks planner is no exception.

I initially had no plans of availing of the Starbucks 2012 planner, but when I saw what it looked like in the stores, I was immediately taken.

I’m a sucker for wood and paper textures/finishes. This is probably the best Starbucks planner I’ve possessed to date:

Besides the wonderful textures, I’m also a fan of light-ish wood colors. The Starbucks 2012 planner comes in 5 different colors, or five different types of wood. This one is the Cherry planner (which is incidentally the most popular one). The other types are Poplar, Bamboo, Spruce, and Oak. I went with the Cherry one because the colors went perfectly with everything else here in my little work area!
It’s conveniently smaller than the previous Starbucks planners, which makes it so much easier to bring around. It fits nicely in a lot of my bags and…
If my bag is too tiny for whatever reason, it comes with a nice pouch that matches the spine. And the pouch has two inner pockets where my phone and my iPod Touch fit nicely into.
Unlike the old Starbucks planners of yore that make use of ribbons, this one comes with a bookmark made of some percentage of recycled paper that goes with the overall theme.
Instead of 12 Starbucks coupons (one for each month) this one comes with 9 — it excludes December 2011, November 2012, and December 2012. I think it’s more practical, at least for people like me, who usually take longer to finally get the planners and the coupon for December of [insert current year here] goes to waste. As for November and December 2012, I think it’s because the 2013 planners come out then, sooo. Well I dunno, I’m just guessing, really.
The left-hand pages are the ones that contain each date where you can write events or reminders in bullets. If you need to go into detail about certain events, you have the…
The right-hand pages are completely blank for you to write notes, save for the highlighted month and week that you’re currently on, located on the upper and right edges of the page.

The planner actually has a garter strap at the back that you can make us of to securely close your planner, but I prefer not to use it because it’ll eventually stretch out from repeated use. Besides, I have the pouch to keep it closed.

While these planners were more for show when we were in high school (since all we could write in them were dates of tests and exams), this’ll definitely be of much more use now, given how busy I’ve been lately with all the things I’m doing — Tender Blender meetings, shoots, and deadlines, other freelance work things, and so on.

Yay for organization!

When I’m home, I tie up my hair (however much of it I can) and put on my other glasses when I need to work. I decided these will be my working glasses — they don’t slip down my nose when I look down.

Ironically, I’m posting this on Tumblr instead of actually working. Shame on me! Back to work, you.

Good morning, Manila! At work early, because I really hate being late for anything. My first class is at 9, and it’s only 7:30! It’s either I’m here 2 hours before class, or I get here late, so you know.

Picked up Kiks in Katipunan since he has work too! Drove through Starbucks for breakfast, and I was excited to find out they brought back the Creme Brulée Frappuccino! I only got to have this in 2006 as one of their Christmas drinks, and they never brought it back since — until today! Now it’s like early Christmas in my mouth.

(They should put up a CBTL drive-thru, too. Just sayin’.)

Anyway, I’m going to enjoy my waffle and prepare for class whilst I wait for my time card.

One of the downsides to working freelance is that there will always be times when you have a little too much free time that you’ll want any excuse to get out of the house.

I guess it was a lovely coincidence that I was thinking this when I read a tweet from Tricia asking if anyone wanted to go out for some hot chocolate with her. I took her up on the offer, got dressed, hopped in the car, and picked her up. (:

Spent a good 2 hours drinking hot chocolate and just talking about all sorts of things. The best kinds of nights are like this, I think. Just some good food and good friends. Simple, no frills. (:

We all had caramel Belgian waffles for lunch, haha! Mmmm.

Dad, this is me stealing your tumbler that I gave you for Christmas! Because mom cracked mine. ):

Haha, I bought customizable tumblers from Starbucks for my parents last Christmas. I drew “DAD” and “MOM” on them, then I proceeded to put a mustache on my dad’s then a pair of shoes on my mom’s. XD