The radio dial was on 93.1, and it being a Wednesday, long-forgotten and much-missed tunes of the 90s blasted through the airwaves. And as I listened to an acoustic version of John Mayer's "No Such Thing", I was transported to another time and place-- college at the Ateneo.
Acoustic was a big hit in college, with John Mayer and Jason Mraz getting heavy rotation on our playlists. In the local front, we swooned when Paolo Santos crooned "Moonlight Over Paris" and people either loved or hated MYMP's covers. Those were the days when it was normal for my friends to be toting around their guitars, jamming a three-hour break away. It was a carefree time when I could just chime in and sing my heart out as they plucked and strummed on their guitars.
Those three minutes of my day were a throwback to simpler days. I miss. :(
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Update: 101 things in 1,001 days
Edited on April 21! :)
It's April 1, meaning the first quarter of the year is over. I thought I'd see how I've been doing so far on my list. :)
It's April 1, meaning the first quarter of the year is over. I thought I'd see how I've been doing so far on my list. :)
START DATE: 01 January 2010
END DATE: 28 September 2012
READING AND WRITING
1. Write one journal entry every day for two weeks. (0/14)
2. Write one blog entry per week for one month. (0/4)
3. Finish my reading list. (3/12) --It's now 7/12, yay! :)
4. Write a short story.
5. Write a poem.
6. Read "Pride and Prejudice" then watch the movie again.
7. Read five books I already own on TIME's All-Time Top 100 Books list
- Animal Farm- Catcher in the Rye- The French Lieutenant's Woman- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter- To Kill a Mockingbird
8. Read three books from my Gabriel Garcia Marquez collection. (0/3)
9. No buying books until I've completed my reading list. --Still successful with this one! :)
10. Come up with five books I would recommend to anyone. (0/5)
I haven't read anything in a long time, but I'm happy to say that I've been so far successful in not buying any new books. There's only been one addition to my list, as I was given The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows as a birthday gift. It has a very unusual title, and what's more intriguing is the rave reviews I've been hearing!
As for writing, it's not on my list, but I was able to attend a free Creative Writing seminar on Travel Writing. Even if the seminar turned out to be a refresher course on writing descriptively, it was still very helpful. I'm also looking forward to attending the two-day iBlog Summit on April 16-17. Yay for learning!
MOVIES
11. Finish watching my VCD and DVD movie collection.
12. Watch the whole series of "30 Rock".
13. Watch "Terms of Endearment", Academy Award winner for Best Picture on the year I was born.
14. Watch five Academy Award winners for Best Picture:
Haven't been able to accomplish anything on this part of the list yet, although my DVD collection has grown to include the Pixar collection. I've so far enjoyed watching Cars and Wall-E again. Just tonight, I watched a little-known movie by Renee Zellweger called My One and Only. It was a little disconcerting to see her playing a mother, and I didn't quite enjoy the film, but at least that's one film off my list. I'm looking forward to picking out a movie to watch after work, just so I have something to look forward to all day.- Casablanca- Gone With the Wind- Kramer vs. Kramer- Amadeus- Rain Man
PHOTOGRAPHY
15. Own and maximize the features of an SLR camera
16. Learn something new from the Digital Photography School once a week for six months. (0/24)
17. Have photos from travels printed and organized in an album per trip.
18. Join Project 365.
19. Take more pictures of family and friends.
You may have noticed I've been terribly remiss in Project 365. It's not as easy as I thought it would be, and I thought that taking photos would be second nature for me. Apparently you can lose yourself in going through the daily motions of living, and it becomes a struggle to remember to photograph something meaningful. I hope to be able to take more photos though, especially since I'm seriously lusting after an SLR camera now, and am annoyed to see many people just toting it around as if it was a point-and-shoot. I would hate to think that these people have an SLR and just shoot on Auto Mode. As the Facebook page says: just because you have an SLR, it doesn't instantly make you a photographer.
I've recently taken concrete steps towards getting an SLR-- done my research, found out how much it costs, and now I know what model I want and how much I'll need to get it. Thankfully, it's turning it out to be a joint purchase between M and I, so yay for having faith in the future! :D
ARTS
20. Re-learn how to play "Tarantella" on the piano.
21. Learn a popular song on the piano.
22. Be able to play three pieces from memory. (0/3)
23. Learn more Photoshop tricks.
Alas, nothing from here. Except maybe the Photoshop tricks, thanks to my patient artist friends, who are generous with their time and talent. :)
TRAVEL
24. Visit three new places in the Philippines. (0/3) --I visited Bantayan, Cebu last February, so that's 1/3!
25. Go on at least one trip abroad.
26. Go on a beach trip. --I'll be going to Boracay next week, and hopefully to Batangas over the summer.
27. Explore a city I've never been to.
FOOD AND HEALTH
28. Eat in a new restaurant once a month. --Alas, the budget does not allow for this. :(
29. Eat vegetables once a week for a month. (0/4)
30. Sleep before midnight every night for a week. (0/7)
31. Enroll in a gym and work out for a minimum of three months. --The motivation is at zero. :(
32. Try eating kare-kare.
33. Learn to make five different fruit shakes. (0/5) --I learned that one apple makes two shakes, and you should go easy on the water.
34. Finish my jug of water everyday.
35. Have some cotton candy on a random day.
36. Learn how to swim.
37. Cut down on sweets.
FASHION AND BEAUTY
38. Buy ten dresses. (3/10) I bought three dresses for my Boracay trip, and I have my eye on one more!
39. Update my wardrobe.
40. Grow my hair to ponytail length before getting a drastic cut.
41. Wear my hair differently once a month.
42. Learn how to put on eye makeup.
ORGANIZATION
43. Clean up my office email. --I did this! I was able to organize everything into different mailboxes, but I think I could still do a better cleanup job. :)
44. Clean up my personal email.
45. Do a general cleanup of my room quarterly. --The first quarter cleanup happens tomorrow! :)
46. Do a general cleanup of my office space monthly.
INTERNET
47. Get all dishes on Restaurant City up to Level 10. --This is becoming more difficult to do, as the game keeps adding new recipes to learn!
48. Use the computer for only two hours a day during the weekend, twice a month for a year. (0/24)
49. Go for an entire day without Facebook once a month for six months. (0/6)
50. Submit a secret to Post Secret.
51. Greet all my Facebook friends a happy birthday-- even the ones I don't know. --I've been doing this as best as I could, although there are some days when I neglected to check the birthdays section.
WORK-RELATED
52. Get to work by 9:00 A.M. everyday for one week. (0/5) --I've been coming to work everyday before 9AM, so I think I can strike this off my list. :)
53. Update my resume.
54. Get promoted.
55. Get a raise.
FINANCES
56. Get my bank account to 100K by the end of this list.
57. Save all spare change for 1,001 days.
58. Make a budget and stick to it.
59. After computing for my expenses budget, withdraw everything and deposit into my savings account.
I computed my entire expenses budget until the end of the year (that is, the things I have to pay for and save up for on a monthly basis), but I haven't been successful with #59. Also forgot about #57, I think now I have some use for that piggy bank that was given to me as a Kris Kringle gift.
DRIVING
60. Be able to drive the big cars.
61. Take a different route to work once a week.
62. Take a different route home once a week.
63. Conquer my fear of driving in Makati by driving around on a Sunday for no reason.
FAMILY TIME
64. Get home in time for dinner twice a week for one month. (0/8)
65. Treat siblings out to lunch/dinner, just the three of us.
66. Have a sleepover with my cousins.
67. File a leave on my parents' birthdays. (0/2) --I'm filing a leave on Mom's birthday! :)
68. Go on five random weekday mall trips with my mom. (0/5)
69. Bring home pasalubong for my family on a random day. (0/3)
70. Have a Scrabble night with the family.
MELBERT
71. Go on an arcade date.
72. Watch DVDs together for an entire afternoon.
73. File a leave that coincides with his day-off and go on an unplanned, spontaneous date.
74. Go on a videoke date.
75. Go on a fancy dinner date. We're going on a dinner date this Saturday! Not super fancy because I realized that we're not really fancy people-- no point in paying for a really expensive meal that has really small servings. :p
76. Go on a trip together. --We went to Bantayan together! It may have been with my officemates, but it's a start. I hope we get to go to Bohol also, this time with his officemates. The Bohol trip has been revised to maybe Boracay! :D
FRIENDS
77. Catch up with an old friend over dinner or coffee. --I had dinner with a good friend of mine from college and we ended up talking until midnight. We vowed to have dinner with each other once a month. I hope we get to stick to it!
78. Make a personalized gift for friends this Christmas.
79. Have a videoke night with the girls.
RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS
80. Give 12 "saw this and thought of you" gifts to people who are not Melbert. (0/12)
81. Treat an officemate to lunch for no reason.
82. Buy fries and a drink at a drive-thru and give to a street kid on the way home. If not, to the neighborhood guard.
83. Leave a very generous tip at a restaurant.
84. Send a "just thought of you and hope you're well" text to ten people. (0/10)
ME-TIME
85. Take a birthday leave. (0/3) --I decided not to take a leave on my birthday this year because it fell on a Thursday, and it seemed like such a bummer to have to still come to work the next day. So I decided to come to work, leave early, then file for my "birthday leave" on Holy Wednesday instead, heading straight into the Holy Week break. :)
86. Have a massage monthly for a year. (0/12)
87. Pray every morning and every night.
88. Write down something I'm thankful for everyday.
89. File a leave just to stay home three times. (0/3)
90. Go to Ateneo on a Sunday for some quiet time. (0/3)
91. Take an afternoon nap during weekends twice a month.
THE FUTURE
92. Decide if I want to take graduate studies or not.
93. Have a list of things I would like in my future wedding.
94. Have a list of random things about my future.
MISCELLANEOUS
95. Write an entry for each day in my Starbucks 2010 planner. Since I've decided to make my Starbucks 2010 planner the keeper of my daily to-do list, I've been successful with this so far!
96. Watch a concert. --I watched the Timbaland concert with Justin Timberlake and Jojo as special guests. So I hit two birds with one stone: I kept my promise to myself that I wouldn't pass up the chance to watch Justin in concert, and I crossed this off my list. :)
97. Finish a coloring book.
98. Vote wisely in the 2010 national elections.
99. Get braces removed.
100. Join the lotto.
101. Get a henna tattoo, just because I've never tried it. I got not one, but two! One that looks like a bracelet on my wrist, and another on my right shoulder. I found it funny that my relatives thought it was a real tattoo, and one aunt actually asked, "Did it hurt?" :))
There are still many things I have to do on this list! I hope I do better at crossing things off over the second quarter. :)
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