Fall semester , done!

Cory & I, at his work Xmas potluck, in front of an F-22

Wow, this last week has felt like a blur. Last week, I studied for my finals everyday. It was like I was literally glued to my notes. Time flew and before I knew it, I was taking two finals last Friday, back to back. Although I did get free pizza from the math department because there was a potluck. Yummy. Today, I took my last final for the semester. I did it. Now, I will wait for my final grades and hope I did good.

This semester was so busy with coaching volleyball, my photogtaphy business, and classes. All my classes were all math and that's all I'll be doing until the day I graduate. I've met a handful of awesome math majors and now I will be taking the same classes as them in the future. I've met only two that are expected to graduate the same time as I, which will be next December. Now I have more motivation because we will keep supporting each other to graduate then. The mathematics major is a very challenging and difficult degree and I'm proud to go for it. I hope this is all worth it :)

For now, I will be taking a month off awaiting next semester, which I will be taking 2 math and 2 stat classes. Yep, I declared my minor in statistics. Go me! Tomorrow, Cory and I will be hopping on a plan to Oregon to visit his family and spend the holidays there. Should be a blast! Taking our finals early was so worth it, even though I had to push myself to study hard.

Cory and I celebrated christmas early with my family. We also exchanged gifts early since we are leaving. Cory got me some awesome gifts! He got me a new GHD straightener, an xbox360 with kinect, and just dance 3. That game is so fun and I had fun playing it with my family. My new straightener is top notch. I got Cory new cologne and a new snowboarding outfit, which he likes them very much. We both got what we wanted, it seems :)

We only bought presents for the "kids".  Here they are about to open their presents just from us.  

Mommy!

Until then, I hope I have time to blog while we are in OR.  Have a great holiday!

Mini-break from classes

Well an important birthday just passed.  My Grandma Dominga, moms side, just turned 85 on the 13th.  She really helped my parents when raising me, because they work a lot.  In September 2010, last year, Grandma decided she wanted to move back to the Philippines.  She wanted to just stay at her house there instead of visiting the Philippines twice a year.  I understand, but it was sad to see her go.  She has been here all my life, but now I get to visit her in the Philippines.  We plan on seeing her next winter and I can't wait to show Cory the Philippines and the culture there.  Anyways, Grandma is an amazing woman raising 11 of her own children and watching their children also, she is the most patient person I know.  Grandma is very humble, patient and absolutely the kindest.  She is also a fantastic cook.  She has a great heart and I hope she is around to meet my future children too.  Thanks to Facebook, I was able to see a photo of her that my cousin posted and she looks great!!  Go Grandma, it's your birthday ;)  I just love seeing her so happy.  I love you Grandma <3 and we miss you so much!

Anyways, I am so ready for our super extended weekend due to Thanksgiving.  I don't know what we plan on doing exactly yet, but snowboarding would be really fun.  For Thanksgiving, we plan on going to my parents place for an assortment of awesome filipino food and turkey.  Cory and I also plan on taking a handful holiday portraits and an engagement shoot for a number of clients [I'm booked until Sunday except Turkey Day!].  My brother, Justin, who is in middle school, is going to do his first photo shoot with us as his models!  Cory and I want updated holiday portraits together, being that Justin is getting into photography, we asked him to do it.  He was delighted and it will be great practice for him.  I will even let him use my big camera.  Pretty excited for that!

We have already signed up for our classes for next semester, so we are good to go for that.  It is looking like this spring semester is going to a pretty tough one for both of us because of the classes we are taking.  Cory will be taking 15 credits and I with 12.  It is getting down to the nitty gritty with school.

This last weekend was pretty eventful for us.  We got to hang out with some friends, we watched my brother play his basketball game, watched the UFC fights, had a date to Sea Galley, I got a hair cut and we played volleyball.  Here are some photos of our weekend!

My Haircut!  I was very nervous to cut it this short, but Cory really wanted me to.  I have been attached to my long hair for years, but I wanted to do something different.  Well I did it and I am happy Cory likes it!

Here we are at Sea Galley.  It is definitely one of our favorite restaurants in town.  Their food is amazing and it never lets us down.  We also love the feel of that place and the decorations.  It feels like you are in an old ship.

Tes, Wayne and their daughter Kahlia, came over.   It was nice to see and hang out with them :)  They finally got a place together and I can't wait to see their apartment.  

Here is Cory jamming to his guitar in front of us.  Wayne really wants to learn to play.  

Here is my brother, Nor, playing his basketball game.  It's a league sponsored by Kendall and games are at the Spenard Rec.  It is called the Fil-Am League.  I was very impressed with the organization of this.  I also found out one of my cousins is playing too, but on a different team.  I can't wait to watch the game where they play each other.  

Another sweet shot of his skills :)

Amanda and her husband invited us over to watch the UFC fights.  It was really fun and the fights were awesome!

Another Successful Season & SNOW!

So, looks like Cory isn't getting the full time reservist job on base that we had planned for him to get.  We are coming to accept the fact that he may never get it here.  It could be a sign that God has a better plan for him and us.  If we wanted, he could apply out of state, but that is not what we want right now, especially with us trying to finish school.  Until then, Cory will be working hard in the books to obtain his Bachelor's in Accounting.  We estimate that he will finish spring of 2013 and for me, hopefully I finish fall of 2012.  I am so proud of him and his determination to obtain his bachelors.

Last weekend was our last tournament of the year for my volleyball girls.  This year the tournament was at East again.  My girls played very well. It was a double elimination tournament with games best 2 out of 3.  There was some challenging times for them, but we got to Championships against South(the undefeated team).  My girls put it all out on the court and I was very proud that they, at least, played their hardest.  In conclusion, we took 2nd.  Second the best right? At the start of season, I started with 11 girls and ended with 9.  One moved out of state and one was ineligible due to grades. I'm going to miss those girls and I am happy this season was a success!  They all showed great improvement :)  It is the positive results that comes out of these girls that make coaching so worth it.  Which is why I love it so much.  Which is another reason why, I want to teach.

2nd Place at our last Tournament 

Cory and I after coaching our last home game

Last Sunday, we had our first snow fall!  Good thing Cory bought sand bags to place in our truck bed the day before the snow fell.  Great timing.  We had a scheduled engagement shoot out in Girdwood at Winner Creek.  I was so happy it snowed because the trees were so dead and the snow would of boosted the engagement pictures.  We all wanted snow and it was awesome that it happened to fall.  The pictures turned out great and I cannot wait to finish editing them.  They are Crystal & Brandon and we clicked with them very comfortably.  They also brought their son out to the hike, who is 3.  He was the cutest!!  I will follow up with their pictures at the photography blog.  Until then here is a sneak peak.

Cory and I on the Hand Tram :)  A winter first

Crystal & Brandon

Since volleyball is coming to a close, I am slowly getting more time back in my life.  More of my time now has transitioned to time studying.  I am now also tutoring a former student of mine, John Davidson, in his college trigonometry class.  He personally requested me to be his tutor.  So, the state pays me to tutor him, great stuff!  John has cerebral palsy and I was his teacher assistant for a year when I was working at Dimond High.  Since we worked so well together, he thought he would ask me to tutor him again, instead of a stranger. 

While I was on campus for classes and studying, November 1st, Cory texted me with a picture of our Christmas tree up in our living room.  I was pretty excited to see this.  He put the tree up all by himself and took all the holiday stuff out of closet.  Since we are going to Oregon for Christmas break, we agreed we wouldn't put the tree up, but he could not resist :)  He is starting a new tradition in our family and now we put the tree up the day after Halloween.  We did it last year too.  I mean, if the stores have Christmas stuff up, why can't we in our place too?  Cory says, this way, Christmas lasts longer and Thanksgiving is still Thanksgiving, just with a nice, lighted tree up.  We still need to put the ornaments up, but maybe we won't because we won't be here for Christmas.  The lights suffice :)

<3

This has to be it

After losing hope and getting frustrated over and over again, Cory got a call from his reservist supervisor and told him some key words to put in his resume.  This way his chances of landing the job will increase.  Cory has been trying to get his job back on base when he was active duty for more than a year now.  We are still in transition.  I think it is a good thing his supervisor called but at the same time, it was like not again!  Hopefully get in this time around!  He applied for the flight crew job which is connected to the back shop, where he was working during his active duty time.  The job closed end of September.  I am hoping so much that this time around works.  I hope the next phone call we get is one where he was accepted the job.  It has been too long being put on "hold".  We want him to get this job so bad!  Praying for this to happen...

Other than that, we have been doing same old stuff.  School, photographing and coaching.  I only have 2 weeks left of coaching volleyball season.  I can't believe it is almost over.  This season really tested my coaching abilities.  I am so proud of how much they improved.  We are 12 - 1 now with 3 games left and the last tournament to go.  Yesterday, I invited the girls out to the UAA vs UAF volleyball game.  A good handful of them showed up and I am glad they did.  They were super amazed with the college level.  I hope they learned something.  The girls continuously asked me questions about what was going on.  It was awesome seeing them so into it.  I just remember my high school coach had us watch a UAA game for team bonding and now I am just keeping the cycle going.  The volleyball community here is amazing in AK.

Heidi & Lauren [Breast Cancer Awareness Night]

The volleyball program [Breast Cancer Awareness Night]

At the UAA vs UAF volleyball game

Keeping it short and sweet <3

Visiting long time friends, movies, more volley and tattoo idea

Kaden showing us his "boobies"

What a nice week it has been.  I had taken 3 days off of coaching volleyball this week.  1 of which was just a cancellation of practice just because I said so and the other two days were because Coach Rachel, the other cTeam coach, let me take two days off.  Well, she persistently asked me to take two days off where she gets to coach my girls on top of her girls because the week before, she went down to California with the varsity team.  That meant I had her girls alone to myself for 2 days.  So it was a fair deal =]  And I am so glad I agreed to take 2 days off.  I was able to visit my good friend, Heather who is visiting with her husband, Kyle and their son Kayden.  It was so great to see her.  I wish I got a picture of all of us, but there wasn't a good moment to capture a picture.  We all hung out at her Aunt Eva's, where they are staying for the week.  Heather and Kyle used to live here in Alaska.  But after they had a son, they moved to Washington, where Kyle was raised.  At the time of living in AK, Kyle was active duty Army, but now he is out with a honorable discharge.  Heather and I used to hang out a lot, especially when Kyle would be gone because he had duties overseas.  Visiting AK was something Heather wanted for a long time and it was so great to see them all.  She has missed AK so much and now she is here reminiscing her past life.  We plan on seeing them again this Tuesday, for probably the last time :(  Here is a picture on the left of their son, being a silly!  He told and showed me where his boobies are.  How funny and I got it on camera!!

Anyways, Cory and I finished watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  His mission was for me to watch all 3 since I have never gotten into those movies.  Now I see why it is so popular because it is an epic story!  Cory owns the first one, so we were able to watch that right away, but we had to Netflix the other two so there was time from watching in between.  I am hooked and cannot wait for the Hobbit to come out in theaters next year.  Which, I am now reading The Hobbit on my new NOOK!  Yes, I finally purchased one.  I have been wanting a nook since the summer.  It is a great buy!  I love it.  It is touchscreen, so lightweight, and I can carry as many books as I want on it.  I can download and purchase books directly from it too.  Plus if I don't know a word, I can highlight it and it will look up the definition right away.  I have to admit, I have been watching too much television and it is time I get back to reading again.  My nook motivates me to read again :)  Thanks Cory love for letting me buy one <3

Yesterday, my cTeam girls had a tournament out in Chugiak.  We won all our games in pool play which lead us to the gold division.  We played Chugiak in the semifinals and South in the Championship match.  My girls played superb and I am very proud of them.  All was well except for our last match when my outside hitter rolled her ankle.  I had to take her out and she begged for me to go back in.  I wasn't going to risk it especially since tears of pain came out of her eyes once she got hurt.  I loved her determination though.  Gosh my girls are getting hurt too much, dropping like flies :(  3 of them have ankle injuries, 2 have thumb injuries and 1 has finger injuries.  Yes yes, I do a lot of taping before games and practices.  We only have 13 more practices, 7 games and 1 more tournament and the season ends.  Can't believe season is almost over but I am liking the progress the girls have made.  It was also Coach Rachel's birthday on the 1st, so I took this photo of the girls during the tournament and posted it on her Facebook wall!  Win!

Other than that, I have been contemplating what tattoo to get next.  I was thinking maybe a hummingbird, because they are my favorite bird.  They are small, energetic, fast, and elegant.  I feel like if I were reincarnated in the past, I would of been a hummingbird.  But then... I thought, no.  Then I thought of getting a sampaguita, which is the Philippines national flower.  But then... I didn't see any designs I liked that were beautiful.  Now I am thinking of getting the symbol of the Sun from the Philippines Flag on my shoulder.  I photoshopped one on my shoulder to see what it would look like.  I am really diggin' it.  I will have to contemplate more.  I mean it definitely represents my birth nation and my nationality.  Plus it is in a perfect spot because it would be covered all the time, unless I wear a tank top, which wearing one isn't allowed in a professional job anyways.  I just need to find an artist that can do straight lines really well :)


 











Well that closes my entry for the night.  Time to get to bed.  I was supposed to have a senior photo shoot today out in Kincaid Park, but I had to cancel due to rain.  We are planning on tomorrow evening :)  I also have a test tomorrow in linear algebra, bright and early, and I hope to do well!

Volley, Tie Dye and Photo Shoots

I don't know where to begin, but let's just say not much has changed.  I am still busy as always.  Lots of volleyball, school and photo shoots.  My CTeam girls now have a record of 8 - 1.  Not too shabby at all and in our last tournament we placed 3rd below Service and South.  The other weekend, the girls had a sleepover at one of the captain's house.  I decided I would come over and we would tie dye pink shirts for the upcoming Breast Cancer Awareness night, October 11.  I checked out a tutorial on YouTube on how to tie dye the awareness ribbon onto the shirt, like the photo on the left.

Let's just say the guy on YouTube made it look so easy and then when we attempted it, it was frustrating.  I called it a mental patience test, haha.  Most of the shirts looked pretty good, but not perfect.  I decided we use puff paint to outline the ribbon and they can write sayings like "Set for the Cure, Dig for the Cure, Spike for the Cure" depending on their positions.  After tie dye, I introduced the girls a game called CatchPhrase.  We had a lot of fun yelling and screaming at each other. It was pretty intense.   I left around 11pm and said good bye to the girls.  I had fun getting to know Oakley's mom, Katie.  She is an amazing person and mother.  I am glad she let the girls sleepover and bond.  It was just so nice to see all my girls bonding together and having fun with each other.

My CTeam girls and I <3

Other than volleyball, school is going pretty well.  I had my first exams in Mathematical Proofs and  Ordinary Differential Equations(AKA ODE), which is pretty much Calculus II extended.  2.5 more months to go for the semester.  I already can't wait for it to be over.  Just one more year if all goes well.  Can't believe how close, yet so far I am from obtaining that degree.

Cory and I also purchased tickets to Oregon to see his family December 13 - January 11.  We are taking our finals early so we can leave ASAP.  Awesome!  We made this decision because it has been more than a year since Cory has seen his family.  It is like we either go in winter or we go in summer.  We didn't think next summer would work because we would probably be in summer school, which is why we didn't go this last summer.  Winter wins.

So, we are celebrating Christmas, New Years and my 24th birthday down there.  I am excited to see Oregon in the winter for some reason.  The summers impressed me, so let's see how winter goes.  It is a bummer we won't be spending the holidays this time around with my family.  Now that I think about it, this will be the first time I won't be spending the holidays with them.  It is like one families gain is another's loss.  If only we all lived in the same state.  Hopefully, while we are down there, we can also catch some concerts or something awesome too :)

To close, here are the recent photo shoots I have done.  Two couples and one senior.  My next one is a family shoot with a 7 month old with her mom and dad.  Now that I realize, Cory and I need some updated photos too.  I have been so focused on taking other people's photos, but not ours.  I need to get back on that and capture photos of my life.  Photos are forever, a snapshot of a memory.

Back to classes

1 week down of classes and 15 to go for the fall semester.  I am now booked with classes beyond Calculus III and it just gets more arduous for this math major.  First week of classes went pretty good.  I have one professor with a strong Indian accent who teaches intro to proofs.  He said, "this class is about sets, sets and sets"  It sounded like "sex, sex and sex".  I couldn't help but laugh in my brain. He wrote down the word, set theory, on the board to clarify.  Every year his speech about set theory gets confusing for students because it sounds like he said sex, which the class has nothing entertaining like that.

Now to complain:  I already have one professor to complain about and that is my linear algebra professor.  He is horrible!  I don't care if he has a doctorate, he needs to treat us students with respect.  He is the most arrogant human being I have ever met.  If I could, I would of switched out, but this class is needed now for it is a prerequisite for another math course.  He barely teaches and doesn't even let us use the text book for reference.  He puts us in groups like we are back in high school to work on homework.  This is how it went last wednesday morning when we got in our "groups" for homework.

*Gly searches in book to figure out how to do the first problem, because classmates are clueless.*
*Professor comes up to Gly's desk and says "You don't need to look in the book, just do the work"
Gly "But I don't know how to do the first problem"
Professor "We just learned about it.  Know your definitions"  *Professor walks away*

My group looked at me with a 'oh no he didn't' attitude.  We were all in the same crappy boat of confusion.  Anyways, what a jerk!  How can he expect us to understand fresh material right away?  He pretty much told me to close my book that I paid $150 for!  Maybe I will start a blog on how he makes me angry everyday I meet him in class.

Enough about school.  Well, my volleyball team is doing really good.  We are 3 - 0 right now.  We have 2 games this week and a tournament for the upcoming weekend.  I have a good group of girls.  My goal is to inspire them to be a better player and a better person.  I found a pair of my old volleyball shoes.  Well, only 3 years old.  They are in good condition and I only used them in the gym. I bought new ones that are lighter to replace them last year.  I decided to give my old pair away, so it doesn't sit in my closet.  There are 3 girls on my team with that same shoe size.  So to be fair for competition, I am having them write an essay on their favorite motivational quote due Tuesday.  The essay will entail, what the quote means to them, how they use it in life and how they use it in volleyball.  The winner will receive the nice Mizuno volleyball shoes.

Just a few other things that have happened:
-I won a $500 scholarship from UAA by writing an essay.  I am now waiting for it to be in our bank account.  I plan on paying off one of our credit cards with it.  Well we used our credit card for text books anyways, so that pretty much cancels it.
-We watched Gabriel Iglesias perform at the State Fair with Banan & Crystal.  It was a grand time!  It was hilarious!!
-Cory applied for another job on base.  He is so persistant, I love it.  I really hope he gets it THIS TIME because, it would be great for us.  Although, you never know in the military.
-Check out my updated photo shoots that I have done Here

Upcoming events:
-Engagement photo shoot on the 11th.
-Little brother, Justin, turns 13 on the 13th (Golden Birthday!).
-Senior photo shoot and Mom turns 49 on the 17th.
-Adult league volleyball starts the 18th.

Well now we plan on going outside to take a little hike or something.  We have been doing homework all day and now it is time to give ourselves a nice brain break!

<3 Gly