Tuesday, October 30, 2012

COSPLAY


Cosplay: The Beginning

It probably has never crossed your mind to wonder how cosplaying began.  For us, it always has been and always will be.  That’s enough.  But for those of you curious, here’s a little history on the invention of cosplay.

It began in a convention in 1939.  Yes, they had conventions in 1939, even though it does seem like the Dark Ages.  At the World Science Fiction Convention, a con-goer by the name of Forrest J. Ackerman decided that not only did he want to attend, but he wanted to dress up as a futuristic spaceman.  Google him – he’s got his own Wikipedia page.  (He ended up having a career in science fiction as well as an infamous passion for its memorabilia.)  His costume is rather laughable, and only vaguely space-esque, but it sparked the phenomenon that ties us to our sewing machines today.

The term “cosplay” wasn’t actually coined until 1984.  Nobuyuki Takahashi, president of Japan’s Studio Hard, was impressed by the various people dressed up at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Worldcon used the phrase.  It is a combination of the words “costume” and “play.”

Cosplaying as we think of it took off in the 1970s in Japan with the release of Gundam.  The frenzy found American in the 1980s, although most of you will probably want to block out any images from that (80s hairstyles were bad; the cosplaying was worse).  But, in their defense, it was less of an art form and more of a fun experience.  Today, with it so prominent in American anime culture, the talent involved in it as well as the criticism sometimes lashed out has risen significantly.

Since it has grown, various media outlets specifically for cosplay.  Particularly since the internet became widespread, more and more people have delved into the fandom and given it a chance, what with information so readily available to assist them.  With newer technologies, wider community acceptance, and more dedicated cosplayers, it is poised to grow even further in the coming years.


COSPLAY in the PHILIPPINES

        Cosplay is rapidly entering the mainstream in the Philippines, where cosplay events are often held within anime, manga, gaming, or sci-fi conventions. Guidelines made for events are seen to affect the character choices available to cosplayers. While Filipino cosplay rules generally allow fully commissioned costumes to participate in competitions, they also take into account the portrayal of the characters being cosplayed (the "play" aspect). This has led to some debate over what judges are looking for in cosplayers, with some participants complaining of a bias toward female cosplayers who dress up as scantily-clad characters, or a bias in picking some groups over others in terms of costume quality and accuracy in character portrayal.

A new phenomenon in the local scene is "costripping," a word formed from "cosplay-tripping." Cosplayers are said to be engaged in "costripping" whenever they show up in a convention or event where a cosplay contest is held in full costumed regalia, but without signing up to be a part of the said contest. Another way to be involved in "costripping" is to show up in full costume during meet-ups or EBs (eyeballs) where there are no cosplay contests being held.




Sunday, October 28, 2012

Si Lala



From Fortu family:

Anu bang meron kay lala? si lala? sino ba cya? 
sa unting panahon ng ating pinagsamahan masasabi ko na kakaiba ka! 
Nakakatuwang nilalang, masayahin  at mabuting kaibigan na handang ipaglaban ang mga taong mahal nia... Sa totoo lang nde namin alam kung anu meron sau pero nahu-hooked kame sau. Masaya ako para sayo, sa pag alis mo naway gabay mo ang naging magandang samahan at pagmamahal na pinagsaluhan natin bilang magkakaibigan at isang pamilya.. Kagaya nga ng sabe ko sau wala kami pakialam kung anu man ang dati mo at kung anu estado mo sa buhay minahal ka namin dahil kung anu ka ngaun... hangad namin ang iyong TAGUMPAY!!! 

Loveyah much 
Shella Orevillo



The Enchantress


Yoanna

Ken


The Enchantress
Thanks ken and Yoanna for a fun photoshoot again.



Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sky Lantern



A brief overview...

The use of sky lanterns is becoming increasingly popular. Many people use them for informal get togethers or parties. Often people use sky lanterns at birthday parties, anniversaries or even grand opening events for businesses. One of the most popular times to incorporate sky lanterns into a special occasion is during a wedding. Regardless of the reason, sky lanterns lend a festive air to any occasion. They are fun and beautiful to look at. It is no wonder their use is growing rapidly. But, this is not a new occurrence. Sky lanterns have been used for centuries and have a rich history steeped in tradition.




When were Sky Lanterns first invented?

Sky lanterns were first invented by the Chinese and were actually used as a functional tool in times of war.  Troops would use them as signals to other soldiers to message each other briefly.  They would rise in the air to alert the friendly troops of danger or to tell them that all was well.  Then, they would fall to the ground.  Since then sky lanterns have been incorporated into much more pleasant uses.

When it was peace time, sky lanterns began emerging in non military applications.  Commoners would use them to help bless their crops or to request good favour.  They would light the sky lanterns and pray for whatever it is they wanted or needed.  Sometimes they would wish for good fortune, a good harvest, fertility or whatever they wanted.  The belief was that the sky lanterns would float up to the heavens to be closer to the gods’ ears.  The additional belief was that the more sky lanterns were used and the longer they remained in the air, the better chances the people would have of their wishes and prayers coming true.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Magalawa Island



    This year May 4 2012, FORTU Family Visited Magalawa Island as our yearly out of town escapades. I enjoy the sunrise, camachille tree and the starfish. The water really clear but lot of seagrass.To be fair, the beach was very nice and there were sari-sari stores nearby where we easily got supplies.


A Perfect Golden Sunrise at the Beach.

But all in all we enjoy staying there!

Our Camping Site.
Mr. Craby & Patrick is everywhere!

*Be careful of sandflies on this island as these are very small bloodsuckers that are abundant in their sands.
My FORTU FAMILY




HOW TO GET THERE 

From Manila, take a Sta Cruz, Zambales bound bus (Victory Liner). Drop off point is Brgy. Pangolingan, Palauig (cor Radio Veritas Road). Take a tricycle going to Oslet Armada Fishdealer Compound in Brgy Luan. Tricycle fare is PhP 25 / head.

From Oslet Armada Fishdealer Compound, take a mini boat going to Magalawa Island. Boat fare is PhP 100 / head (2 way), while boat ride travel time is approx 10mins.



Sunday, October 21, 2012

Fairy


FAIRY
MODEL: Laarni
LOCATION: Metropark,Pasay City
MAKE-UP by: Carrie 
Photo by: Jhune Ibanez

Imaginary being in human form, depicted as clever, mischievous, and possessing magical powers. 



Pedro Calungsod




About Pedro Calungsod


Blessed Pedro Calungsod (c. 1654 – April 2, 1672) was a young Roman Catholic Filipino sacristan and missionary catechist, who along with Spanish Jesuit missionary Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, suffered religious persecution and martyrdom on Guam for their missionary work in 1672. Calungsod was beatified on March 5, 2000 by Blessed Pope John Paul II. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced at Saint Peter’s Basilica that Calungsod will be canonised on October 21, 2012.

Very little is known about Pedro Calungsod. Historical records never mentioned his exact place of origin or who his parents were. He was merely identified as a teenage native of the Visayas in the Philippines. Historical research identifies Ginatilan in Cebu, Hinunangan and Hinundayan in Southern Leyte, and Molo district in Iloilo as probable places of origin. Loboc in Bohol also makes a claim.

Moreover, no one even really knows how Calungsod looked like. Calungsod is often depicted as a young man wearing a camisa de chino. He holds the martyr’s palm, indicating his death, or sometimes a crucifix, catechism book or rosary, representing his missionary work.

Few details of his early life prior to missionary work and death are known. It is probable that he came to one of the schools run by Jesuits, where he learned Catechism and Spanish language.

Nevertheless, we can be certain of Calungsod’s ecclesiastical provenance since the entire Visayas region was under the old Diocese (now Archdiocese) of the Most Holy Name (Cebu).



MISSIONARY WORK

Pedro was just one of the boy catechists who went with San Vitores from the Philippines to the Ladrones Islands in the western North Pacific Ocean in 1668 to evangelize the Chamorros, according to www.pedrocalungsod.org. In that century, the Jesuits in the Philippines used to train and employ young boys as competent catechists and versatile assistants in their missions. The Ladrones at that time was part of the old Diocese of Cebu.

Calungsod, then around 14, was among the young exemplary catechists chosen to accompany the Jesuits in their mission to the Ladrones Islands (Islas de los Ladrones or “Islands of Thieves”). Around 1667, these were later named Marianas (Las Islas de Mariana) in honor of Queen Maria Ana of Austria who supported the mission.

Life in the Ladrones was hard. The provisions for the Mission did not arrive regularly; the jungles were too thick to cross; the cliffs were very stiff to climb, and the islands were frequently visited by devastating typhoons. Despite the hardships, the missionaries persevered, and the Mission was blessed with many conversions. The first mission residence and church were built in the town of Hagåtña in the island of Guam.



MARTYRDOM

According to Jesuit Martyrs in Micronesia written by Francis X. Hezel, SJ,  the Jesuit mission in the Mariana Islands was the first in Oceania; it soon also proved to be one of the bloodiest. On 15 June 1668, San Vitores and a band of five other Jesuits arrived on Guam, the southernmost and largest island in a cordillera of fifteen volcanic islands. With the missionaries came a garrison of thirty soldiers, many of them colonials from the Philippines, whose responsibility was to protect the missionaries and to pacify the local people if need should arise.

At this time, Spanish missionaries were actively converting Chamorros to Roman Catholicism. This relationship was peaceful at the beginning with the Spaniards, who were led San Vitores. The initial reception of the missionaries by the Chamorro people was enthusiastic and reassuring. However, that changed over time when Chamorros grew resentful of the way their language and other customs were being replaced. Chamorro deaths had also increased due to foreign-borne illnesses.

Very soon, a Chinese quack, named Choco, envious of the prestige that the missionaries were gaining among the Chamorros, started to spread the talk that the baptismal water of the missionaries was poisonous, www.pedrocalungsod.org explained. And since some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptized died, many believed the calumniator and eventually apostatized. The evil campaign of Choco was readily supported by the Macanjas who were superstitious local herbal medicine men, and by the Urritaos, the young native men who were given into some immoral practices. These, along with the apostates, began to persecute the missionaries, many of whom were killed.

The most unforgettable assault happened on April 2, 1672, Saturday just before the Passion Sunday of that year. At around seven o’clock in the morning, Pedro – by then already about seventeen years old, as can be gleaned from the written testimonies of his companion missionaries – and San Vitores came to the village of Tomhom [Tumhon; Tumon], in Guam. There, they were told that a baby girl was recently born in the village; so they went to ask the child’s father, named Matapang, to bring out the infant for baptism. Matapang was a Christian and a friend of the missionaries, but having apostatized, he angrily refused to have his baby christened.

Meanwhile, despite the growing distrust and animosity between Chamorros and the Spanish, San Vitores and Calungsod visited Matapang’s home and baptized Matapang’s daughter. It is unclear whether San Vitores came unannounced or if he had been invited into the home by Matapang’s wife.

To give Matapang some time to cool down, Padre Diego and Pedro gathered the children and some adults of the village at the nearby shore and started chanting with them the truths of the Catholic Faith. They invited Matapang to join them, but the apostate shouted back that he was angry with God and was already fed up with the Christian teachings.

Determined to kill the missionaries, Matapang went away and tried to enlist in his cause another villager, named Hirao, who was not a Christian. At first, Hirao refused, mindful of the kindness of the missionaries towards the natives; but, when Matapang branded him a coward, he got piqued and so he consented.

When Matapang learned of the baptism, he became even more furious. He violently hurled spears first at Pedro. The lad skirted the darting spears with remarkable dexterity. Witnesses said that Pedro had all the chances to escape because he was very agile, but he did not want to leave Padre Diego alone. Those who personally knew Pedro believed that he would have defeated his fierce aggressors and would have freed both himself and Padre Diego if only he had some weapon because he was a valiant boy; but Padre Diego never allowed his companions to carry arms. Finally, Pedro got hit by a spear at the chest and he fell to the ground. Hirao immediately charged towards him and finished him off with a blow of a cutlass on the head. Padre Diego could not do anything except to raise a crucifix and give Pedro the final sacramental absolution. After that, the assassins also killed Padre Diego.

Matapang took the crucifix of Padre Diego and pounded it with a stone while blaspheming God. Then, both assassins denuded the bodies of Pedro and Padre Diego, dragged them to the edge of the shore, tied large stones to their feet, brought them on a proa to sea and threw them into the deep. Those remains of the martyrs were never to be found again.

The companion missionaries of Pedro remembered him to be a boy with a very good disposition, a virtuous catechist, a faithful assistant, a good Catholic whose perseverance in the Faith even to the point of martyrdom proved him to be a good soldier of Christ.


BEATIFICATION

A year after the martyrdom of San Vitores and Calungsod, a process for beatification was initiated but only for San Vitores. Political and religious turmoil, however, delayed and eventually killed the process. In 1981, when Agaña was preparing for its 20th anniversary as a diocese, the 1673 beatification cause of Padre Diego Luís de San Vitores was rediscovered in the old manuscripts and taken up anew until Padre Diego was finally beatified on October 6, 1985. It was his beatification that brought the memory of Pedro to our day.

Beatification is the act by which the Church, through papal decree, permits a specified diocese, region, nation, or religious institute to honor with public cult under the title “Blessed” a Christian person who has died with a reputation for holiness.

In 1994, then Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal asked permission from the Vatican to initiate a cause for beatification and canonization of Pedro Calungsod. In March 1997, the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the Acta of the Diocesan Process for the Beatification of Pedro Calungsod. That same year, Cardinal Vidal appointed Fr. Ildebrando Jesus A. Leyson as vice-postulator for the cause and was tasked with the compilation of a Positio Super Martyrio to be scrutinized by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. The positio, which relied heavily on the documentation of San Vitores’s beatification, was completed in 1999.

Blessed John Paul II, wanting to include young Asian laypersons in his first beatification for the Jubilee Year 2000, paid particular attention to the cause of Calungsod. In January 2000, he approved the decree super martyrio (concerning the martyrdom) of Calungsod, setting his beatification on March 5, 2000 at Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.


SAINTHOOD

On December 19, 2011, the Holy See officially approved the miracle qualifying Calungsod for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. The recognised miracle dates from 2002, when a Leyte woman who was pronounced clinically dead by accredited physicians two hours after a heart attack was revived when a doctor prayed for Calungsod’s intercession.

Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the declaration ceremony on behalf of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He later revealed that Pope Benedict XVI approved and signed the official promulgation decrees recognising the miracles as authentic and worthy of belief. The College of Cardinals were then sent a dossier on the new saints, and they were asked to indicate their approval. On 18 February 2012, after the Consistory for the Creation of Cardinals, Cardinal Amato formally petitioned Pope Benedict XVI to announce the canonization of the new saints. The Pope set the date for 21 October 2012 (World Mission Sunday).

After Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, Calungsod will be the second Filipino declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic calendar of Martyrology celebrates Calungsod’s feast along with Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores every 2 April.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Life without u

oh my life is incomplete without my gadgets and internet connection.My tools to express my thoughts and my talent. A connection from my past and to my future.

Cape Malabrigo or the Malabrigo Lighthouse



By Public Transport

Ride any bus going to Batangas City at Cubao Terminal near Shopwise Supermarket and have the bus drop you off at Balagtas Station. Then, take a jeepney ride going to SM Batangas City and have the driver drop you off at Lobo Jeep Terminal. Take another jeepney ride and alight at the Lobo town proper. From there, take a tricycle ride to Dream Beach House.


Faro de Punta de Malabrigo

Also known as Cape Malabrigo or the Malabrigo Lighthouse, it is located at the edge of a cliff in Lobo Batangas overlooking Verde Island and the Province of Mindoro. It is one of the 24 lighthouses constructed during the Spanish occupation to facilitate in the growth of maritime traffic in the Philippines and is very much suitable for seascape photography sessions.



Wedding at the beach


Mark & Ely Pre-nuptial

November,2012 a Beach Wedding to be organized with the icreate team at lubo,Batangas.

BIRTHDAY BASH!


A night of laughter, kulitan at inuman...
After our shift its time for us to relax ,to bond with my PDS 2 team and cyempre to celebrate the special day of our two lovely girls Yam and Shie. Daming busog! at nalasing ako dun ah hahahha.

LOCATION: Makati Prime Tower, Makati City

SHARE A LITTLE MORE


      WE invite you to this charity program by ASCEND as they celebrate their First Year Anniversary. 
We would appreciate your presence and your involvement in helping those 350 kids. 

http://www.hecaresfoundation.com/
LOCATION: Project 6, Quezon City


To those interested, join us share your blessings! 
PM me for the details... THANKS!

As a Photographer

There are lots of photographers who can take beautiful pictures
of beautiful people, yet very few who can make the average client look beautiful.

As a wedding Organizer


Our First Wedding organized.  Tiring but worth it!
by: Icreate team

LALA Masahista...


whew! na-miss ko ang massage ni lala...  :)

NAGSASA COVE


A PARADISE...

How to get there?

From Manila, take the Victory Liner bus to Iba. Tell the conductor to bring you to San Antonio, Zambales (3.5-4 hours travel time). Fare: Php265 (including P5 insurance)
From San Antonio, take the tricycle to Pundaquit bay. Fare: Php30/pax (one tricycle can carry 3pax)
In Pundaquit, there are lots of boat tour operators.



Activities:
  • Camping
  • Star Gazing
  • Trek to the waterfalls (half an hour walk)
  • Swimming
  • Photography
  • Surfing (Bring your own board if you will be surfing in Nagsasa, otherwise you can surf in the nearby Crystal Beach with surfing equipments for rent)
  • Skimboarding (Bring your own skim board)
  • Visit the nearby Capones Island and its lighthouse, Camara Island, Anawangin Cove, Talisayin Cove and Silanguin Cove

My DAY


February 10, my special day! celebrating it with my friends and families really makes me complete. 





My Fortu Family...


My Office Friends...