Fourth-of-July Weekend Top 10

I've been so stressed out with work these past few months. For us working in the publishing industry , the month of March up to the month of June is very very toxic, especially if you're providing elementary and high school textbooks. From getting orders , processing , shipping , and delivery is very very exhausting and an emotional roller-coaster rides.

Today, I can now say that I can breath in a regular rhythm because as of  today all my textbook deliveries were done. What a relief! So, before I will tend to my college clientèle it is but right for me to take a break and relax a bit. And the best way to relax is watch a movie.

Speaking of watching a movie. Let's us rank the top ten fourth-of-July weekend box office.

10. Cyrus - $ 1.0 M

Synopsis:

Still single seven years after the breakup of his marriage, John (John C. Reilly) has all but given up on romance. But at the urging of his ex-wife and best friend Jamie (Catherine Keener), John grudgingly agrees to join her and her fiancé Tim (Matt Walsh) at a party. To his and everyone else’s surprise, he actually manages to meet someone: the gorgeous and spirited Molly (Marisa Tomei).

Their chemistry is immediate. The relationship takes off quickly but Molly is oddly reluctant to take the relationship beyond John’s house. Perplexed, he follows her home and discovers the other man in Molly’s life: her son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill). A 21-year-old new age musician, Cyrus is his mom’s best friend and shares an unconventional relationship with her. Cyrus will go to any lengths to protect Molly and is definitely not ready to share her with anyone, especially John. Before long, the two are locked in a battle of wits for the woman they both love—and it appears only one man can be left standing when it’s over.

9. Shrek Forever After - $ 1.3 M

Synopsis:

The wisecracking green-tinged ogre returns in Shrek Forever After, the newest installment in the successful DreamWorks Animation series. This will be the first time that the franchise will be presented in the IMAX format in addition to a normal big-screen rollout.

8. Get Him to the Greek - $ 1.7 M

Synopsis:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Nick Stoller writes and directs this buddy comedy starring Jonah Hill as an insurance agent who's forced to follow a rowdy rock star (Russell Brand) on a trip from London to L.A. in this Universal Pictures production.

7. The A-Team - $ 4.3 M

Synopsis:

1980s TV action gets a reboot with this new version of The A-Team, which shifts the Vietnam vet backstory to a group of Iraq War vets who become mercenaries for hire. Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces) directs from a script by G.I. Joe's Skip Woods.

6.  The Karate Kid - $ 11.5

Synopsis:

The Karate Kid franchise is resurrected with this Columbia Pictures production starring Will Smith's son, Jaden, as the youngster who learns more than simple karate lessons from a whimsical martial arts master (Jackie Chan).

5. Knight and Day - $ 14.0 M

Synopsis:

A fugitive couple (Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) wages a war between truth and trust while speeding across the globe in an attempt to avoid capture by a determined federal agent (Peter Sarsgaard). Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Olivier Martinez, Maggie Grace, and Marc Blucas co-star.

4. Grown-ups - $ 26.5 M

Synopsis:


Boys will be boys... some longer than others.



3. Toy Story - $ 42.2 M

Synopsis:

Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo co-director Lee Unkrich strikes out on his own with this installment into the popular computer-animated series detailing the adventures of wide-eyed cowboy doll Woody and space-ranger action figure Buzz Lightyear. Oscar-nominated scribe Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) handles screenwriting duties.

2. The Last Airbender - $ 53.1 M

Synopsis:

Suspense auteur M. Night Shyamalan takes a break from crafting original screenplays to tell this tale of a 12-year-old boy (Noah Ringer) who provides the last hope for restoring harmony to a land consumed by chaos. In a world balanced on the four nations of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, people known as the Waterbenders, Earthbenders, Firebenders, and Airbenders have mastered their native elements. Though the masters can each manipulate their native elements, the only one with the power to manipulate all four elements is a young boy known as the Avatar. When the Avatar subsequently appears to die while still mastering his powers, the Fire nation launches a global war with the ultimate goal of global domination. One hundred years later, two teens discover that the Avatar and his flying bison have in fact been locked in suspended animation. Upon being freed from his prison, the Avatar embarks on an arduous quest to restore harmony among the four war-ravaged nations.

1. The Twilight Saga : Eclipse - $ 82.5 M

Synopsis:

The third film in the Twilight series explores a love triangle between Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward (Robert Pattinson), and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) as the werewolf pack and the Cullen clan join together to fight a new breed of vampires. Melissa Rosenberg provides the screenplay for the Summit Entertainment adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel, with director David Slade calling the shots behind the camera. Bryce Dallas Howard joins the cast as Victoria, the role originally played by Rachelle Lefevre in the first film.

Source : Hollywood.Com

Out of the ten box office movies, I've watched four of it and definitely The Twilight Saga : Eclipse is not part of the four. Guess, i'm going to watch M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender later tonight.

Concert Riders

Here is an excerpt from a concert rider of  Mandy Moore , Vanessa Hudgens , and Rihanna. What is a rider? A rider is a list  which includes specifications on stage design, sound systems, lighting rigs, as well as an artist's wish list--from transportation and billing to dressing room accommodations and meals before they will agree to perform at a certain venue.


Mandy Moore's Rider :

Here's Vanessa Hudgens Rider : 

Here's Rihanna's Rider :

Top 5 EC Droppers

Wedding Photography

Local Brown

Google Movie Search Engine

Juan Dela Cruz Blog

My Second Trial

Bonsai

What is Bonsai? The word Bonsai is a Japanese word which literally means planted in a container. It is the art of growing trees, or woody plants shaped as trees, in containers.

Although Bonsai s a Japanese word, the lineage of bonsai derives directly from the Chinese.

Here are some photos of  Bonsai I took during the 5th Mindanao Open Bonsai Competition and Exhibit held at Event Center of SM City Davao

The show bannered its theme “Growing Peace in Mindanao, Bridging Friendship through Bonsai”, was the first indoor Mindanao Open bonsai exhibit. It was spearheaded by the Mindanao Bonsai Society (MBS) in cooperation with the Philippine Bonsai Society, Inc (PBSI) and supported by local bonsai clubs like the Davao Bonsai Society and General Santos Bonsai Society.

Not always an independent woman

I always believe that I have to take care of myself first before I will let anyone take care of me because I think I am an independent woman.I hate to play damsel in distress because I do not want to appear weak . I want to do things all by myself.

As a woman , I take pride that I can do my nails and change lightbulbs in the house. I don't need a man to do things for me. I have been independent eversince and being married now does not change things. I rarely ask help from my husband. Opening a door for me is not my cup of tea.I guess,my husband had been used to this set-up , that is why he let me enjoy it.

But sometimes, the set-up some kind take it's toll on me. An independent woman has it's lows and downs also , sometimes she also needs someone to lean on to and sometimes an independent woman needs to be taken cared of also.

Birth Order, Defines Who You Are?

Do you believe that firstborns generally are more responsible, smarter, and make better leaders? Are last-born children destined to be "babies," even when they're grown up? And what about those long-suffering middle children?


These maybe true or not but one thing for sure that determines our personality is the order in which we were born, our relationship to our siblings and the role we played in our family.

So, does knowing the birth order of a person, tell us much? Dr.Spock.com explains it better:

The oldest child : the leader, a good citizen, responsible, responsive to parents’ expectations, well-organized, precise, and prone to perfectionism.

The youngest child: takes on the baby role, easygoing, spontaneous, used to being noticed and fussed over, charming, and manipulative.

The middle child: has less of a clear-cut role in the family; instead, she often makes a place for herself outside the family, creating a network of close friends, venturing away from the family physically, and breaking the mold intellectually as well.

The only child: often has characteristics both of first children (capable, perfectionistic) and of youngest children (attention-seeking, self-centered).

Do you like walking in the rain?

Do you like to walk in the rain? I love walking in the rain because, there is something in the rain that's soothing and no one knows you're crying...

I want to take photographs while walking in the rain...

love & kisses

Home School for my Son

This is a repost from Inquirer.Net .  An article regarding my son's school and the curriculum they are using . My son studies at Green Meadow Christian Academy and I'm proud to say that he is doing well. Please click here for the original post.

Kids learn discipline in Davao home school 

By Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Fronting the gates of the Green Meadow Academy at the far-end block of predominantly poor Barangay Ma-a in Davao City is an old mango tree, its fruits yellow and supple, many within arm’s reach. Unknown to his flock, Baptist Rev. Allan Omar Bonzo uses the tree to measure his success in instilling honesty and discipline to his students in the academy.

“I was very happy to learn from the owner that not a single fruit from the mango tree was missed. You look at those mouth-watering fruits, you can imagine the discipline and self-control my students had to muster,” says Bonzo, who is also fondly called Pastor Allan, with pride.

Decades ago, when he was 27, Pastor Allan, then an employee in a sales company, worried about the kind of values his children would pick up from their slum neighborhood.

“When my children go out, I worry that when they get back home they will be using bad words already,” he narrates.

It was also at this time that the young father was, as he calls it, “called to the ministry.” His new-found faith and the inspiration from the community pastor gave him a clear perspective on how to overcome his anxiety.

“I enrolled at the Bible School. It was here that I finally decided to put up a home school. I adopted the School of Tomorrow system,” Pastor Allan recalls.

ACE system

The system of education originated in the US state of Tennessee. It induces learning in a free environment of a home school while adopting innovative, individualized techniques in education, with emphasis on Christian education and values formation.

Also known as the Accelerated Christian Education or ACE, the curriculum is used in almost 600 schools all over the Philippines. According to the website sotphil.org, the School of Tomorrow “is more than quality academics.”

“The curriculum is built on a theistic philosophic foundation. Students learn to see life from God’s point of view. Their personal relationship with God and their personal responsibilities to family, church and community are of primary concern,” it says.

The education standards set by the ACE are recognized in the academe as top quality and advanced.

Delbert Hooge, executive director of the School of Tomorrow Philippines, says of its curriculum: “The school of tomorrow will do (wonders) for those who use the curriculum (which is individualized, scoped and sequenced) and procedures (developing character with each component). The different programs...all combine to make us a system of value.”

For Pastor Allan, the purpose of establishing the home school was mainly personal. “My original objective in putting up the school is as simple as ensuring that my children and maybe the children of my neighbors will get good education and proper values,” he says.

Finally in 1996, the Green Meadow Academy opened with 30 students. Through the support of his church mates and community, Pastor Allan strived to build a modern school in a lot he purchased from his own savings.

He supervised the construction of a three-story building that houses two big classrooms, one each for elementary and high school, and two airconditioned rooms for the pre-school. Within the compound, he built the chapel and his own house where his family had been staying all this time.

Over the years, the school grew to a full preschool, elementary and secondary learning center with 160 students and eight teachers or learning center supervisors.

Cornerstone principles

The school uses as a guideline the five cornerstone principles adhered to by the School of Tomorrow system:

• Students must be at individual levels where they can perform.

• Reasonable goals must be set.

• Students must be controlled and motivated.

• Learning must be measurable.

• Learning must be rewarded.

Nonconventional

Pastor Allan’s school is totally different from conventional schools with a typical formal classroom setting. Instead of a classroom, the student goes to a “multigraded learning center” with individual cubicles for each student.

Grades 1 to 6 students share the room which is overseen by three supervisors and three monitors.

Ensconced in his own cubicle, the student gets busy with his PACE (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education) module which he receives at the start of the semester. He learns Math, Science, Araling Panlipunan, Filipino and English, as well as minor subjects using separate modules.

For every module he finishes, the monitor or teacher puts a star on his chart posted at his cubicle.

“If the student works fast, he can be accelerated to the next grade level. Grades are based on the final exams,” Pastor Allan explains.

“When we were starting, there were criticisms that the curriculum we use is ‘Americanized.’ This may be true at the start because we get the modules then directly from Tennessee. But now we are allowed to revise the modules and print them here,” he says.

flowers, ambitions, and quotes

I have been fascinated with PHOTOGRAPHY eversince I can remember. Everything about photography excites me. For a start , I am sharing to you my all-time favorite photography quotes and some of my works.

1. You don't take a photograph.  You ask, quietly, to borrow it. - Author Unknown

2.  It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary. - David Bailey

3. The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking. - Brooks Anderson

4. I love the medium of photography, for with its unique realism it gives me the power to go beyond conventional ways of seeing and understanding and say, "This is real, too." - Wynn Bullock 

5. In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular . . . sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice. - Ansel Adams

6. A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.  - Henri Cartier-Bresson

7. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. - Aaron Siskind

8. To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” - Elliott Erwitt quotes

I hope you get inspired with the quotes I post. =)

love & kisses...