It was my last day at Worcester and we planned to go to some park but it rained the whole afternoon so we just spent our time painting our nails.

A few people asked me on my tumblr if I use film for my photos. I would love to use film but I think it's just an expensive hobby. So what I do is edit my photos using photoshop CS3 to give it that film feel. So here's a quick glimpse of how I do it.


1. First, of course is open your photo in photoshop. Any version would do since I think I just tweak with the common tools. Resize your photos according to your own preference.


2. Curves Adjusments. On the lower portion of your Layers window, tick that small little circle for some layer adjustments (sareeh, I don't know what's it is called) then click Curves. The curves function may look different in lower versions of PS but nonetheless they serve the same purpose or give the same effects.





3. Color Adjustments. Next is to adjust the colors. Open the curves again but this time, change the channel to Red.
If you want to achieve a different color, create and adjust points to achieve your desired color. You can also change your channels to blue or green.



4. This last step is optional but I add this up to most of my photos so I'll include it here anyway. :)
Go to the Layer Menu  > New Fill Layer > Solid Colors then just press OK without changing anything to the pop-up window. Then a color palette will appear, choose white.
Adjust the opacity to 8% or according to your preference. This adds a little haziness to your photo that makes it look like film. :)

Have you ever experienced a heart ache? Where your chest seems to be on fire and there's nothing else that you can do but crawl up in your bed and cry your self out? Well, because I've been feeling that way for almost a week and a half already though I'm somehow thankful that it's not because of some love-related issue. I've been having intermittent heart burns for a few days and I somehow thought that it would just pass by not until three days ago when I had this really painful heart burn + stomach ache that lasted for about 12 hours. It was the most physiologically painful experience that I've ever had.

It all started during my mom's birthday. We went to Woburn Safari and had a big lunch at their cafeteria. The food here (in England) are served in larger quantities that in the Philippines, and for a hyper-acidic person like me, it's just like pouring oil into fire. Come supper and we had this dinner at a Chinese Restaurant. It was my first time to have a Peking Duck so I really had a lot of it. I even had a very acidic punch that night. Then after a few hours after the celebration, I started to feel the consequences of my bingeing. My stomach started to ache, like its burning deep inside that I can almost feel the sourness of my gastric acids. I tried to sleep it off thinking that it was just a minor acid attack, but I was wrong. I lasted for a few more hours, that I started to panic with the pain. I grabbed a fresh carrot from the kitchen because I know that it can somehow neutralize too much gastric acid. but still, the pain kept going on. I wanted to wake my parents up, but I hesitated thinking that my mom needed a well deserved sleep, it was her birthday after all. So, I called my boyfriend. It was about eight in the morning in the Philippines when I did. I don't know why, but he can me feel relaxed even if I am already very agitated. He asked me take a risk: to drink a cup of milk. Milk can give immediate relief to acid attacks but since it's acid in nature, it will only make the pain worse after a few minutes. So desperate as I am, I had a cup of it and yes, the pain subsided a bit. I had a chat with him for quite a while already when the pain started to start again. I felt severely so I (excuse me for my words) vomited half of my supper, along with the carrots that I had. It was very disgusting but I knew that it was somehow the only thing that I can do to stop the pain from coming back. and true indeed, that pain didn't come back.

Hard headed as I am, I started to drink pepsi the following day, and the same thing happened the following night only that it wasn't that painful as the night before. I had managed to sleep it off. The next day, I did the same thing again. but at that time, I had to force everything out so as to stop my gastric pains. Night after night I've been like a bulimic teenager. Today my stomach was acting fine, tomorrow night, I'll be at the bathroom throwing up. I felt really sick of what I've been doing so I bought this medicine from the grocery one day. It contained calcium carbonate and says that it's "a fast, soothing, and long lasting relief from pain and discomfort brought about by heartburn and acid indigestion". I thought I'd be fine with it. So I took this medication every night. Everything was then under control.

UNTIL, I then again had this really huge lunch from a Chinese restaurant. I didn't have anything for breakfast so perhaps it was reasonable enough for me to eat too much at lunch, and also reasonable enough for my stomach to act up again. I had a few tablespoons of the medicine and I thought I was already fine. The following day, my step-brother came over with his son. We went to this park and I came home a little exhausted though I pretty much didn't do anything. I had a can of soda and I totally forgot about my hyper-acidity until I started to have attacks again just before I finished the entire can. I took the medicine, the pain's gone, I was feeling fine. Later that night was then my most painful experience. I had stomach aches and heart burn at once. My epigastric area was really burning same as with my chest that the pain is somehow radiating into my back. I took the meds but did nothing. I threw up but the pain was still there. I took another dose of the meds again but it only gave me temporary relief. I had a chat with my CJ on FB, and it somehow helped me divert the pain. When CJ logged out, I was still fully awake in the middle of the night. I threw up again, for the second time, and somehow the pain subsided but it was still there. I watched a couple of episodes of Naruto just to divert the pain but it never faded. My eyes were already feeling tired so I think I slept through everything. I was somehow thankful that I had managed to sleep despite all the pain that I've been feeling. (chos) but what somehow amazed me was that the pain was still there when I woke up. I was really amazed at how persistent my condition was. I was more curious then. I even asked myself what if what I've been feeling is already caused by a gastric cancer. I was a hypochondriac for a while because if cancer was that painful, I can surely carry on with it. I even managed to sleep through that pain so I guess I can tolerate a pain, if it was indeed cancer. But I somehow wished that it wasn't cancer. The annoying thing was, my mom kept on feeding me. She cooked me a carrot soup earlier that morning, then she woke me up again to give me toast with poked eggs. I didn't eat half of any of those meals since I know that eating too much would just trigger the pain. At lunch she fed with me a (foul smelling) fish w/ veg. I only ate half of it as I really didn't have to appetite to finish everything. Thankfully, the pain somehow subsided. and I really appreciated my mom's concern, somehow. :)
I've written so much that I don't even know where to end this. So, uhm, yeah. I've been eating moderately for three days and so far I haven't experienced any stomach upset yet. I haven't had a soda since then. I haven't eaten too much. and I temporarily stopped taking my self-prescribed medication because it made me constipated to death after that day. (adverse effect of the drug. thankfully it couldn't cause more than that, and bone pains).




:)

I was left alone at home earlier so I took the opportunity to take some self-portraits on my mom's "light" room. Yeah, that's what she calls it. It basically a conservatory only that they installed windows instead of having full glass walls.

Took these photos of the girls from a Birthday Barbecue Party that I attended last Sunday. The title pretty much reminds me of the The American Rejects song. "Swing, swing, by the tangles of, my heart is crushed by a former love. Can you help me find a way to carry on again..."



 Still have a lot of stocked photos on my memory card. Will try to pp them or perhaps just post them raw sometime this week. :) I used gradients for the colors, by the way. Have a nice day!