Cubik Glasses

Ferretti silver rim with silver and brown sides was in the short list.

One of my choices.

Just like Italianni's coffee cups: Too big.

Not bad for rimless, something I've never had, too.

Masculine?

My first time to like square-rimmed glasses.

This I can live with.

Catwoman librarian swimmer.

Christian Slater in Murder in the First?

It's funny how things seem to fall from the sky when I'm in the market for something.

My AEI prescription last June 29.

I had been thinking of getting a headphone for my laptop when I got an Urbanears set from the Digital Hub blogger event.

I had been planning to go to Megamall to buy bra extenders y otros when I got the SM GC for a coffee survey, thanks to Rowena Wendy Lei and the Kuripots for picking up and hand-delivering my gift certificate to my choice of venue.  Life is good!

Now that I've been trying on frames, I see this one-in-25 chance of winning eyeglasses!

Tried on this pair that I could get from my sister. 8-27.

I choose the contests I join.  The blog post should fit my blog, sound like me, the prize should be worth at least
P 1,000, the chances of winning at least one in 25 haha, and the effort required to win and get the prize should be commensurate to the prize.  Plus nothing too technical, which is mostly everything in my case.  I don't tweet, I have a hard time registering in most sites, and so on.  Plus the requirement should fit my talents or situation.  For example, I have no chance in purgatory of winning a photography, beauty/ABS-CBN (not that I'm not beautiful haha) or art contest.

And no to Fb Likes.  Nica Mandigma told me of how she was invited to vote for an ugly photo.

My friend Raq voted for a friend's kid who joined a singing contest.  She said that she should not have supported the untalented kid.

My contest standards result in a friend like Carol Chan of Carol's Texan 5 asking me why I didn't go to her blogger event.  I told her and Jinkee Umali that I didn't want to be forced to post a tagline in my blog that sounded like I was an endorser.  Plus I didn't want to sound like everyone else.

This doesn't help the advertiser even, for bloggers to parrot their tagline.  The reader would be more interested in a more honest write-up, I think.

Jinkee said that she didn't post the Carol's Texan 5 tagline in her blog but she still got into the event.  Jinkee, my classmate, you are my inspiration.

Do these glasses make me look thinner?

Anyway, back to the glasses.

My brother-in-law, Ophthalmologist Rigo Reyes, suggested years ago that I try progressive glasses.  My other options were the doble-vista, which would make look like a senior citizen (que horror!) or two sets of glasses, one for far and another for near.

The feedback I got on progressives, and Rigo admitted this to me, was that you could get dizzy from moving your head quickly to the side.  He also said that it takes time for some patients to adjust as to where to look.    The patient I know was not happy with progressives.

I wonder if there's a duplicate of this photo somewhere in the post.

I could imagine myself  getting dizzy while driving, so I rejected progressives.

Anyway, Rigo said that I would finally get tired of switching from one pair to another.  He was wrong. :)

I'm happy with using two sets of glasses, and did not give in to the pressure from Dr. Nanagas, who asked me at an Asian Eye Institute Institutional Board meeting why I haven't had my eyes Lasiked.  He was amused as I changed my glasses from far to near and back as I read the documents in front of me and tried to follow the PowerPoint.

I told Dr. Nanagas that I'm too chicken for Lasik.  An optometrist I know, Dr. Jefferson Kho, said that he knows an ophtha who refuses to do Lasik.

Reminds me of Kevin Costner in JFK.

This is how grumpy I am when I've tried too many glasses. :)

Contact lens?  Still too chicken even for that.  My friend who has been wearing them since maybe college said that part of the eye gets 'scraped' by the lens.  Over time.

Then my co-IRB 'lay' member Atty. Bernard Kaw said that he was happy with his progressives.

Then my AEI ophthalmologist and kumpare Dr. Harvey Uy, who never had Lasik done on him, and who was removing his distance glasses to read documents, switched to progressives and was happy with them.

I guess the technology has developed over the years.


Harvey said that if I don't switch now, that I would have a hard time by the time I reach (bleep!).

Cra-C said that this was not so, since her husband N switched to progressives at Age Bleep and is quite comfortable with them.

Convinced, I asked my friend to check out the AEI glasses with me when she went to get her check-up.  The pair we liked best cost P 24,000-P 25,000.  Man!  I ended up buying an Asus Transformer for P 28,500 last August haha.  So I put my progressive plans on the back burner.

Too bad I can't find my AEI eyeglass photos.

Then my sister C was in the market for glasses and had AR send a box over to our house.  I tried them on at home, had our hepatitic maid take my photo.  I also tried them on at Summer Palace, where my dad celebrated his birthday, because C was also trying some on.

I asked the opinions of my sisters AL, AC, my mom and my Isang, who all had differing opinions.

In the end, without looking at which one she chose, I went with AC's choice, since she seemed to know my style more than anyone else in the family.  It helps that she agrees that MTV's Daria is me. :)  And being the youngest, AC would have the younger taste.

So I'm waiting for AR to get back to me on how much the pair costs.  I think that they would cost below P 10,000, frame and glasses included.  Of course, none of the styles are as nice as AEI's.  But kuripot wins for me every time.  Except for socks and dental floss.

Then one day, I accompanied a friend for her eye check-up with Dr. Chiliz Co of George Optical at V-Mall.  My friend was surprised with how thorough the check-up was, given that she had brought Dr. Harvey's prescription with her.

Dr. Chiliz, who prefers to be called Elizabeth (no way!  too common!), is Cra's ICA batch mate.   In fact, I even brought her one time to V-Mall to pick up N's eye wear. 

AR reminded me that progressives need to be a certain height.

Dr. Chiliz's family used to live on the same street as us.  I know this because her sister was my sister's batch mate.

So I felt that I could tell her about how Bimbim and her mom's secretary had had lenses that had fallen out of their glasses at the Shoppesville branch.

Dr. Chiliz asked me for Bimbim's name to check out who had done her glasses.  Dr. Chiliz handles the V-Mall branch, to which my friend transferred to, because her suki (optometrist?) also moved from Shoppesville to V-Mall.

When I told Cra about Bimbim's experience, she said that maybe it was a remote thing.  I think that it is a Shoppesville thing.

Looks like my far glasses.  No to this pair.

Anyway, Dr. Chiliz gave me an eye exam but I couldn't give consistent feedback because it was the end of the day and I was tired.  She suggested that I go back on a weekend morning when I'm more relaxed.  I set an appointment for that Saturday, but cancelled it to accompany my aunt to look for vases.  And I haven't been back since.

Incidentally, when I told Dr. Chiliz about how expensive glasses are at AEI, she said that I should get a discount, being an IRB member.  Oo nga no!

Help me pick, dear reader.

Talking with Dr. Chiliz also got me into thinking about where Atty. Kaw got his glasses, as he's even more kuripot than I am. :)

I will have a chance to test Cubik's claim that they have qualified opticians (is there such a thing as unqualified opticians?).  If I win a pair, it will be subjected to scrutiny by one of my two ophthalmologists, glaucoma (Rigo) and uveitis (Harvey) consultants, or at least one optometrist, either Dr. Chiliz or someone from AEI.

And, oh, I like T101 C1, C2, C3 and T104 C2 because they're supposed to be lightweight, although the latter looks kinda short-rimmed for progressives.  My alternatives are T101 C2, 960 C1 and C2 because I've never had spring hinges before--they sound more durable and can fit better.

This was one of the finalists.

From my eyeglass photo exercise, I noticed that thin, simple arms suit me.

Anyway, I guess you readers are tired of seeing my face by now, and the glasses are beginning to look the same.  If I had known that I was posting these photos, I would have smiled more!   And availed of the Motives free make-up demo!  In the words of Spartacus, 'Apologies' for the self-indulgence.  Trying to get at least 10% of the score!

If I win this contest, it would be my first blogging non-raffle win.

The Blue Tooth headset that I won from Tanggera was through raffling.

I joined two Anton contests, OAP's Legally Blonde and a Maven scholarship. And my Maven classmates' Writers Block scholarship.  Jayson said that my entries to TV show and Nokia contests were pretty good, that my Nokia story was better than the winner.  But I never won boo-hoo. :)

Shortlist?

So I take back my sky-falling comment. :)