One Minute Dreams

Updated reading list as of 29 September 2011

2011-09-29T08:47:00.001+08:00

15/33!

From the old list

~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~

2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

~~4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner~~

~~5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer~~

~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)

~~7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel~~

~~8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels~~

9. The Long Walk Home by Will North

~~10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes~~ --waste of time, decided not to continue reading.

11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding

~~12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume~~

~~13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf~~

~~14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank~~

15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan

16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale

17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

~~18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison~~

~~19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax~~

20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale

21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer

22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale

23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list

~~25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella~~

Yet another new list

26. Shi*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

27. Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

~~28. One Day by David Nichols~~

Books for Learning

~~29. The Difference Maker by John Maxwell~~

~~30. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John Maxwell~~

31. 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People by David Niven

32. A New Breed of Leader by Sheila Murray Bethel

33. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork by John Maxwell

101 Things in 1,001 Days (update)

2011-02-21T12:41:00.000+08:00

2011 has started, and I decided to revisit this list. Items marked in RED have been completed, while those in BLUE are still in progress. :)

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. (14/33)

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.

10. Come up with five books I would recommend to anyone. (2/5) --"The Time-Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger and "The Pact" by Jodi Picoult.

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:

- 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.

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.

TRAVEL

24. Visit three new places in the Philippines. (2/3) --Bantayan Island in Cebu, Bohol

25. Go on at least one trip abroad. --We have an Australia trip lined up for next year. :)

26. Go on a beach trip.

27. Explore a city I've never been to.

FOOD AND HEALTH

28. Eat in a new restaurant once a month.

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.

32. Try eating kare-kare.

33. Learn to make five different fruit shakes. (0/5)

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. (10/10) --I've kinda lost count already, but I can safely say that I bought a lot of dresses last year and it must already by ten by now.

39. Update my wardrobe. --I have a lot of new polos now.

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.

44. Clean up my personal email.

45. Do a general cleanup of my room quarterly.

46. Do a general cleanup of my office space monthly.

INTERNET

47. Get all dishes on Restaurant City up to Level 10.

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.

WORK-RELATED

52. Get to work by 9:00 A.M. everyday for one week.

53. Update my resume.

54. Get promoted. --Still gearing up for a second promotion and corresponding raise though.

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.

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. (1/2)

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.

76. Go on a trip together.

FRIENDS

77. Catch up with an old friend over dinner or coffee.

78. Make a personalized gift for friends this Christmas.

79. Have a videoke night with the girls. --not with the girls, but I've found a videoke group in my officemates.

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. (1/3)

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.

96. Watch a concert.

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.

Updated reading list as of 29 January 2011

2011-01-29T15:25:00.002+08:00

13/33! Twenty to go!

From the old list
~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~
2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
~~4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner~~
~~5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer~~
~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)
~~7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel~~
~~8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels~~
9. The Long Walk Home by Will North
10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes
11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding
~~12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume~~
~~13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf~~
14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan
16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale
17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
~~18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison~~
~~19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax~~
20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale
21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer
22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale
23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list
~~25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella~~

Yet another new list
26. Shi*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
27. Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Books for Learning
~~28. The Difference Maker by John Maxwell~~
~~29. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John Maxwell~~
30. 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People by David Niven
31. A New Breed of Leader by Sheila Murray Bethel
32. Nikon D5000 For Dummies by Julie Adair King
33. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork by John Maxwell

A few hours to go and it's Christmas

2010-12-24T20:59:00.000+08:00

I'm not used to thinking about things on Christmas Day (or in this case, a few hours before Christmas). Usually I get introspective as New Year draws near.

But for some reason, I got to thinking about how much has happened this year. How many new people have come into my life, only to leave again, this year. Time flies, indeed. And you never know what can happen in just a year.

Who would've thought that K would resign early this year, follow her Singaporean dream, and thrive there? While R had been preparing for D-Day, I never really thought that day would come this year and that I would find myself in a position to really build a team, have a vision for us, and think of all the things that a leader should do and should be. And G, well, let's just call it a year-end surprise.

In a seminar almost two weeks ago, the facilitator taught us about how to come up with a vision. One thing he pointed out was that a vision should not be rooted in current reality-- after all, when the US wanted to put a man on the moon, the technology to do so wasn't even available yet. All they knew was they wanted a man on the moon. So come up with a vision, and then think of what you can do or maybe create in order to achieve it.

And so my vision for myself is to be healthy next year. I'm tired of getting easily winded and getting sick so easily. At 28 (rounding up already since my birthday is just three months away), I'm not getting any younger and I feel that my body is telling me that. I'm really praying that I have enough motivation this time. I also had another vision, but that one isn't exactly in my hands. Haha!

Christmas and all the events leading to it is making me think of what I want next year to be like, both for myself and for my team. Perhaps it is the time to look ahead, and as New Year draws near, I will find myself looking back instead at the year that was, and all the things I was thankful for this year.

Until then, I leave you with this song. It turns out that the lyrics are concise but meaningful. This is my Christmas message to you all. :)

ave yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
Our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on,
Our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

Updated reading list as of December 23

2010-12-23T07:29:00.000+08:00

11/33! One-third down the list!

From the old list
~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~
2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
~~4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner~~
~~5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer~~
~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)
~~7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel~~
~~8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels~~
9. The Long Walk Home by Will North
10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes
11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding
~~12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume~~
13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf
14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan
16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale
17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
~~18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison~~
19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale
21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer
22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale
23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list
~~25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella~~

Yet another new list
26. Shi*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
27. Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Books for Learning
~~28. The Difference Maker by John Maxwell~~
~~29. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John Maxwell~~
30. 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People by David Niven
31. A New Breed of Leader by Sheila Murray Bethel
32. Nikon D5000 For Dummies by Julie Adair King
33. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork by John Maxwell

Updated reading list as of November 28

2010-11-28T19:38:00.000+08:00

From the old list

~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~

2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

~~4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner~~

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)

7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel

8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels

9. The Long Walk Home by Will North

10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes

11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding

~~12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume~~

13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf

14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan

16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale

17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

~~18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison~~

19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale

21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer

22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale

23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list

~~25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella~~

Yet another new list

26. Shi*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

27. Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Books for Learning

~~28. The Difference Maker by John Maxwell~~

~~29. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John Maxwell~~

30. 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People by David Niven

31. A New Breed of Leader by Sheila Murray Bethel

32. Nikon D5000 For Dummies by Julie Adair King

A quick update on my list of 101 things in 1,001 days

2010-11-21T17:56:00.000+08:00

1. I have crossed two books off my list but added one more-- in fairness, it's a book on leadership, which I will need.

2. I finally got my camera! A Nikon D5000. The goal is to familiarize myself with it by Christmas so that I can take kick-ass photos over the holidays.

3. I got promoted again-- well, sort-of. I'm heading my team now, but will be evaluated after six months before they truly give me the title.

That's it so far! Told you that was quick. I'm off!

The reading list just keeps on growing!

2010-11-01T09:14:00.000+08:00

Here's where my reading list stands. Yes, I've added titles. Que horror.

From the old list

~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~

2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)

7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel

8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels

9. The Long Walk Home by Will North

10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes

11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding

~~12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume~~

13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf

14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan

16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale

17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison

19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale

21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer

22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale

23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list

~~25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella~~

Yet another new list

26. Shi*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

~~27. The Difference Maker by John Maxwell~~

28. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John Maxwell (actually an old book I just started reading)

29. Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

30. 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People by David Niven

Yes, friends, I expanded my list by five books. But I'm currently reading two books at the same time: The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader and 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People. I need to attack a book that doesn't require a lot of brain cells. Hahaha.

The New Reading List

2010-08-30T18:46:00.000+08:00

Because the Book Hoarder struck again, I now have a new reading list to contend with:

From the old list
~~1. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger~~
2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
3. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
4. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
~~6. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin~~

From the Powerbooks Powerbarter (aka the Guilty Pleasures)
7. Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel
8. Up Close and Personal by Fern Michaels
9. The Long Walk Home by Will North
10. The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes
11. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding
12. Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself by Judy Blume
13. Diary of a Mad Mother-to-Be by Laura Wolf
14. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
15. Wives Behaving Badly by Elizabeth Buchan
16. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

From the Fully Booked sale
17. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
18. Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison
19. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
20. Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love by Allan and Barbara Pease

From the Powerbooks sale
21. The Position by Meg Wolitzer
22. Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

From the National Bookstore sale
23. My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

On the borrowed list
25. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Whew! Now that I've struck out two out of 25, I wonder what I should read next. I need some light reading-- Her Fearful Symmetry turned out to be a tad disturbing. :O

Update: 101 Things in 1,001 Days

2010-08-07T19:27:00.000+08:00

It's now August, and the last time I posted an update was in April. So it's high time that I reevaluate this 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. (7/12) --The list has grown to 24! Oh no, oh no!

4. Write a short story.

5. Write a poem.

6. Read "Pride and Prejudice" then watch the movie again. --I just bought myself a copy of the book, so that's a step!

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. --I broke this. :( See previous entry.

10. Come up with five books I would recommend to anyone. (2/5) --I would recommend "The Time-Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger and "The Pact" by Jodi Picoult.

MOVIES

11. Finish watching my VCD and DVD movie collection.

12. Watch the whole series of "30 Rock". --I ended up finishing the first season of "Modern Family" instead, and buying the first season of "The Mentalist" and a boxed set of CSI NY. Yikes!

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:

- Casablanca
- Gone With the Wind
- Kramer vs. Kramer
- Amadeus
- Rain Man

PHOTOGRAPHY

15. Own and maximize the features of an SLR camera --This is almost happening, hopefully this month! *crosses fingers*

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.

Still unsuccessful with Project 365, and I haven't been able to take photos lately. But I'm working towards getting that SLR, and it's not even going to be a joint purchase anymore! I'm looking forward to photography dates with M though, who is equally excited for me and is talking about going to parks and other places where I can practice shooting. :)

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.

Still nothing from this part of the list. :(

TRAVEL

24. Visit three new places in the Philippines. (1/3) --Bantayan, Cebu

25. Go on at least one trip abroad.

26. Go on a beach trip. --Check! I went to Boracay over the summer for work, and to Batangas with M and the girls!

27. Explore a city I've never been to.

FOOD AND HEALTH

28. Eat in a new restaurant once a month. --The tight budget still rules. :(

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. --Still zero motivation for gym, but I'm now trying to start a routine of walking in the village at night for 30 minutes.

32. Try eating kare-kare. --I tried it once when we stopped over for lunch on the way to the Batangas beach trip. It was okay.

33. Learn to make five different fruit shakes. (0/5)

34. Finish my jug of water everyday. --There are days when I get to finish my jug!

35. Have some cotton candy on a random day.

36. Learn how to swim.

37. Cut down on sweets. --This has been working, largely because my tummy doesn't tolerate chocolate anymore. :(

FASHION AND BEAUTY

38. Buy ten dresses. (5/10) --3 dresses for the Boracay trip, 1 for date night, and a black dress for an event.

39. Update my wardrobe. --This has been happening steadily.

40. Grow my hair to ponytail length before getting a drastic cut. --It's at ponytail length now!

41. Wear my hair differently once a month.

42. Learn how to put on eye makeup.

ORGANIZATION

43. Clean up my office email.

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. --I was able to a massive cleanup when my allergologist told me that the number one culprit for my allergic rhinitis is dust mites.

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. --CHECK! :D

55. Get a raise. --CHECK! :D

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.

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. (1/2) --Didn't file a leave on Dad's birthday because he wasn't home anyway. I would've ended up hanging out with my mom, haha!

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. --CHECK! We got a little more dressed up than usual and had dinner in "The Chocolate Kiss" in UP Diliman. :)

76. Go on a trip together. --CHECK! We went to Bantayan with my officemates and Batangas with my college girlfriends. We hope to hit Bohol someday.

FRIENDS

77. Catch up with an old friend over dinner or coffee. --CHECK! Still need to work on keeping it up though.

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. (1/3) --Granted, the birthday leave wasn't exactly on my birthday, but still.

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. --CHECK! My Starbucks planner has my daily to-do list, and I feel naked without it.

96. Watch a concert. --CHECK! Watched Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, and Jojo last March. If all goes well, I'll get to watch Boyz II Men with M this coming Friday!

97. Finish a coloring book.

98. Vote wisely in the 2010 national elections. --CHECK!

99. Get braces removed.

100. Join the lotto.

101. Get a henna tattoo, just because I've never tried it. --CHECK!

The return of the book hoarder

2010-08-02T09:20:00.003+08:00

It was bound to happen: I finally broke my promise to not buy any books until I was done with my reading list. In fairness, here's where my book list stands:

1. About a Boy by Nick Hornby
2. Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
3. The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes
4. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
5. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
6.The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman
7. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
8. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
9. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
10. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult
11. The Diary by Eileen Goudge
12. Old School Ties by Kate Harrison

So I had four more books to go before all hell struck loose. By "all hell", I mean "before all bookstores decided to go on sale and have 80% off bins". Gaaaaah...

I kinda already cheated with the Powerbooks Powerbarter, which had me trading in eleven of my old books for eleven new-old books, whose titles I don't even remember now. (Classic sign of a book hoarder.)

Then I hit Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street, which held an exclusive sale for discount card holders in honor of its anniversary. I was able to get The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld (hardbound edition) and Brown Owl's Guide to Life by Kate Harrison (trade paperback edition) from the 80% off bin and The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax and The Don't Sweat Guide for Couples at 20% off. Thank goodness their anniversary sale ended yesterday!

Powerbooks was up next, where I ended up getting two books again, The Position by Meg Wolitzer (hardbound edition) at 80% off and Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner (trade paperback edition) at 40% off. The Powerbooks sale ends on August 15, so it looks like I should steer clear until then.

Then I dropped by National Bookstore in Shangri-La yesterday and was surprised to see that all imported books have a 20% discount. Apparently, the annual Cut-Price Booksale kicked off last July 30 and runs until August 22. I already had My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares in my hands, and I was really thinking if I should get it already (trade paperback at P420?! A steal, my mind screamed). Good thing my parents called to say we were leaving, so I dropped the book like a hot potato and ran out of the bookstore before I could change my mind.

Thing is... I can't get that book off my mind! Waaaah! And it even has five star reviews on Amazon! That's totally not helping! Granted, the cover available in National is different from the one that's on Amazon (which is also the trade paperback edition available in Powerbooks), but it's also P224 cheaper. Oh no oh no oh no!!!

That means that with my new acquisitions... 11 books from Powerbarter, plus 4 books from Fully Booked, plus 2 books from Powerbooks, plus the 4 books carried over from my previous reading list... my book list is now up to 21!!! Thank goodness I'm starting to read Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger!

[Edited 07 August 2010] So I couldn't resist. I ended up getting a copy of "My Name is Memory" by Ann Brashares because I saw a copy in National Bookstore SM Megamall: it was the last piece, had the same cover as the one in Amazon, and was still cheaper than the one in Powerbooks. Original price was P675, so with the 20% discount, I was able to get it for P540. Then I also took the chance to get the P99.00 edition of "Pride and Prejudice", just so I could somehow move along on my list of 101 things in 1,001 days. So... that brings the book list to 24, including the book I received for my birthday! Yikes!

June already?!

2010-06-14T17:23:00.000+08:00

For that matter, it's June 14 already. Meaning half of the month has already gone by. How time flies!

I've been terribly remiss with blogging, I know, but there isn't really much going on in life right now. It has been a cycle of going to work early, coming home, and ending the day by talking to M on the phone. There have been a few highlights, and those are:

1. I voted for the very first time in my life, and I'm proud that I really voted for someone that I believed in. Even if many people are strategic about their voting choices (i.e. "I believe in Candidate A, but I think that Candidate B has a bigger chance of winning."), I didn't let this sway my choice. In the end, even if my bet had only 500,000 people voting for him, I'm still proud to be part of that number.

Now I hope that the 13 million people who voted for our new President will really stand by their choice and not scream "People Power" the minute he makes a misstep.

2. My phone got stolen. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the very first time I've had my phone stolen. Ever. The incident made me discover that when faced with a crisis, I don't cry and I don't make a fuss. I end up feeling all numb inside, and maybe that's what "shellshocked" really means. And in the end, I console myself by beginning each sentence with "At least": at least it wasn't my work phone, at least it's easier to rebuild my personal contact list, at least I wasn't harmed, et cetera.

Now, with a new line, a new phone, and a new number, a new era also begins. Now, I have in my phone book only the people that I really care about. Now, I take on the new responsibility of paying for my own bill monthly. And now, I don't have to worry about unwanted people suddenly calling me up! A big bonus is that I really love my new phone!

3. I got promoted! Of course, with that comes a raise! Yay! :) I've yet to feel the effects of my new salary, but at least this brings me a step closer to my new camera. It also pushes me to really take stock of my finances and be wiser about saving up. I will need to sit down and do some number-crunching once I get my latest payslip. I'm also looking forward to the new responsibilities that await, which definitely includes training the two new members of our team.

I guess that's the top three so far. Haven't read any new books nor seen any new films, and I really do need to work on getting through my list. I hope the second half of the year brings new things as well. Ciao! :)

The Exercise Dilemma

2010-05-02T22:10:00.000+08:00

I have never had a good relationship with exercise and any form of physical activity.

As a child, I was never allowed to really run around with other kids, and my games were more of the creative, indoors type. I always dreaded Physical Education classes-- I was no good at sports, and had two left feet that didn't do me any good at those different folk dances. Not only that, I hated having people watch you look awkward, get sweaty, and basically make a fool of yourself for an hour thrice a week.

Almost two decades later, I find that I haven't outgrown this. I don't want to go to the gym because it bores me. I don't want to workout in my room because I'm deathly afraid of doing things wrong and injuring myself. I don't want to join any classes because they remind me of PE classes all over again, yet when I attempt to do something solitary like walking, I still feel like people are watching and whispering about every move I make.

And while my head knows that exercise (or any form of physical activity, for that matter) is important, my body somehow doesn't want to follow. It has helped somewhat to be handling Women's Health Philippines for work, as the magazine really espouses that women should find a form of activity that they enjoy doing so that they will always be motivated to exercise. But I realize that there just isn't any physical activity I enjoy doing.

One of these days, I will have to wrap my head around the idea that there are just some things that you have to do, even if every fiber of your being is screaming "NO!!!" :(

Acoustic Memories

2010-04-21T06:58:00.001+08:00

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. :(

Update: 101 things in 1,001 days

2010-04-01T23:28:00.001+08:00

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. :)

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:

- Casablanca
- Gone With the Wind
- Kramer vs. Kramer
- Amadeus
- Rain Man

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.

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.

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. :)

27

2010-03-25T18:53:00.002+08:00

1
If you multiply 111,111,111 x 111,111,111, the product is 12,345,678,987,654,321. Notice the sequence of the numbers 1 to 9 and back to 1. :) ONE. DAY. TO. GO!!! :D

D-Day
And now, the finale: Once upon a time, New Year's Day was celebrated on March 25. Charlie Brown Encyclopedia from my childhood said it was because people considered the start of spring (mid-March) as the start of a new year. People only started celebrating New Year on January 1 when they adopted the Gregorian calendar-- for the British, they didn't do so until 1752. :) Happy New Year to me, then! :)

-=-=-=-=-=-

I thought I would've been married by now.

After all, 27 seemed like a ripe, old age back when I was 16. Back then, my view of my future fit a cookie-cutter mold: graduate high school at 18, graduate college at 22 (after all, my birthday always falls on Graduation Season, so I'm always older than the rest when I graduate), work for four years and save up enough money to get me my own place and maybe my own car, then get married by 26. So if my sixteen-year-old self had her way, I'd be celebrating my first wedding anniversary by now.

But nine years later, I am light years away from my sixteen-year-old self and realizing that life is not so simple, after all.

That four years into a job, you realize that "Fun that happens to be work! (and the prerequisite 'I can't believe I'm being paid to do this!')" does turn into "Work that happens to be fun." And it's up to you to keep the fun alive so that it doesn't turn into "Work is just something I have to do to survive."

That after years of chugging down mug after mug of coffee, staying awake for over 24 hours, surviving on an hour's worth of sleep a day, and filling your body with fast-food in every imaginable form, your health really does catch up with you and your body demands better treatment.

That after all the heartaches in your life, all of The Ones that turned out to be flukes and good-for-nothings that you wasted your tears over, you realize (however belatedly) that Regine Velasquez was right: "You made me stronger by breaking my heart. You ended my life and made a better one start. You taught me everything from falling in love to letting go of a lie. You made me stronger by saying goodbye." And that Peter Cetera was right, too, when he said, "The next time I fall in love, I'll know better what to do." Because, if we learn our lessons well, we really do.

That nothing in life is perfect. There is no perfect job, no perfect friendship, no perfect family, no perfect relationship. And no matter how hard you try, it will never be perfect. So it's always best to just love what it is instead of wishing for what it isn't.

That it's okay to admit that you don't like people. Because there are also probably tons of people in the world who aren't crazy about you too. You don't have to like everyone you know, and you don't have to be liked by everyone you know. Choose to surround yourself with the people who wish you the best, instead of those who are bent on pulling you down.

That mentors are important. Without mentors and the guidance of people who are older than yourself, you find yourself floating along, not really sure where all this will take you. Annoying as it may sound, they've been there and done that.

That you have to choose your battles and set your priorities. Not everything is worth getting stressed over, not everyone is worth convincing, not all opinions need to be addressed, not all activities are worth your time. And for the people and activities that are worth it, you don't find the time-- you make it.

That love isn't measured by the number of times you see each other in a week, the number of phone calls you make or texts you receive, or the number of things you do together. Love is about how you value, respect, and trust each other, how you commit to loving this person each and every day, how you find ways to make each other smile, how you always say "Thank you" for every little thing you do for each other, and how you know in your heart that the sun shines a little bit brighter and the world seems better whenever they're around.

That the best birthday comes in the form of welcoming it with CSI, pizza, and the one you love; followed by breakfast with a team you're blessed to be a part of; greetings from friends and acquaintances in your past and present; capped off by dinner with the family and a box of donuts that stand as the birthday cake.

That at 27, I look forward to eating in restaurants that always make me happy, never mind that they're nothing fancy. I look forward to sleeping in, watching TV, and curling up with a good book on weekends. I look forward to making new friends and going on new adventures. And I look forward to more laughter, more blessings, and more love, even if my life is already filled with so much more than I could wish for. :)

Happy New Year to me! :) And to you, who patiently waited for me to make my point as I rambled on, thank you for being a part of my life. :)

The Birthday Countdown

2010-03-23T13:43:00.000+08:00

If there is one thing I regret, it's that I didn't start my unique countdown from March 1.

I could've had 25 pieces of interesting trivia, but the idea came to me late in the game. In any case, I've been updating my Facebook profile with a daily bit of trivia about numbers as a way of counting down the days to my 27th birthday. Some are cool, some are witty, some I just really made fun of. And on the days when I couldn't find any interesting bits to share, I shared my disappointment and counted down nonetheless.

Here, a compilation of my status updates since March 5:

20
Sabi sa Wikipedia, "Twenty is the third composite number comprising the product of a squared prime and a prime." Wala akong naintindihan dun. Basta ang alam ko, 20 days na lang, tatanda na ako ulit!

19
Tried to look for interesting trivia about the number 19, but couldn't find any. Oh well! 19 days to go!

18
Wikipedia's trivia about the number 18: "The Hebrew word for "alive" is חי (chai), which has a numerical value of 18. Consequently, the custom has arisen in Jewish circles to give donations and monetary gifts in multiples of 18 as an expression of blessing for long life." 18 days to go! :)

17
Did you know that the number 17 is considered unlucky in Italy? When you rearrange the Roman numerals XVII into VIXI, it means "My life is over" in Italian. At least, sabi ng Wikipedia. :O 17 days to go!

16
did not find interesting trivia about the Number 16, but is counting down anyway. 16 days to go!

15
What do the words "uncopyrightable", "dermatoglyphics", "misconjugatedly", and "hydropneumatics" have in common? They are the longest words in the dictionary that don't repeat a single letter, and they have 15 letters each! 15 days to go! :)

14
There are 14 lines in a sonnet, and 14 days to go before my birthday! :)

13
The fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia. 13 days to go! :)

12
There are 12 signs in the zodiac, 12 people in a jury, 12 pairs of ribs in the human body, and 12 days to go before my birthday! :D

11
is disappointed that there aren't any interesting facts about the number 11 that don't involve math. Oh well, 11 days to go! :)

10
Trivia from Wikipedia: "There are ten cents in a U.S. or Canadian dime, itself one tenth of a dollar. The word was shortened from decime." 10 days to go! :)

9
Trivia: If you multiply 9 by any number and add the digits of the answer until it is just one digit, that final digit will always be 9. Try it! :) 9 days to go!

8
Wikipedia says that in Chinese, "The word for 'eight' sounds similar to the word which means 'prosper' or 'wealth'." I hope that's a good sign for Year 27! :) 8 days to go!

7
Found on blogniinday.com: "Why is the number 7 God’s perfect number? There are 7 days a week, 7 wonders of the world. In the Bible, you must forgive a person 70 X 7 times. Even the word FORGIVE has 7 letters, and so do the words PROMISE and MYSTERY. Maybe God designed it… And now, use Olay Total Effects to fight the 7 signs of skin aging!” -nag-apply si Inday bilang endorser ng Olay Total Effects :)) One week to go!

6
Found on a random blog: "In numerology, 6 is the number of cooperation and the number of love and romance." I'm lucky to be loved! ♥ 6 days to go!

5
did not know that the four basic elements (water, air, fire, and earth) need a fifth element to complete them all. Some say the fifth element is spirit, some say quintessence, but I say... it's CAPTAIN PLANET!!! :D 5 days to go! :)

4
In the game Tetris, each shape is made up of four blocks each. The game was named after "tetra", the Greek word for four. Also, in the English language, four is the only number with the same number of letters as its value. :) 4 days to go! :)

3
I never noticed that the letters A F H K N Y Z are all made up of three lines. Now I know! :) 3 days to go! :)

2
There are actually two places on Earth called "Hell": one is a village in Norway and the other is a group of black limestone formations in the Grand Cayman islands. How cool is that?! :) 2 days to go! :)

I'm down to my last two posts, and I must say that this has made counting down to my birthday so much more interesting than in previous years! Many have told me that 27 is a good age, and this countdown has made me look forward to turning older and entering a good year.

I'll put my last two posts when I blog on my birthday. :)

ningas cogon

2010-03-06T17:28:00.000+08:00

If my memory serves me well, it's a Filipino term used to describe excitedly starting an activity then slowly losing steam until you end up scrapping the whole project. For example, resolving to start working out, dedicatedly hitting the gym, then slowly but surely losing steam until you lose the will to go to the gym at all.

It's what's happening with me now. It's the third month of the year, and I realize that there are so many things I resolved to do, I wanted to do, but haven't gotten around to doing. Like:
- Making it home in time for dinner at certain times of the week.
- Soaking my feet regularly (yes, vanity alert)
- Hitting the gym (the 3K membership fee is still in my desk drawer)
- Inching through my DVD collection bit by bit
- Taking more pictures
- Blogging!

The only thing I've been able to do consistently --and it's borne out of sheer necessity-- is making it to work before 9:00AM everyday. That's it. Other than that, I haven't had much willpower to tackle anything else. And I don't know why.

It's getting frustrating, really, to realize that three months into the new year and already I'm back to just going through the motions of living out each day. And I don't quite know how to get out of this funk.

:(

random photo of the day

2010-02-19T13:10:00.000+08:00

I've been terribly remiss in posting for Project 365 (things have just been too busy for me to take a photo a day), but this is what I want to share with you today:

Mouse, meet Turtle.

The turtle is a gift from our intern J, whose last day is today. When she gave it to me, I really thought it was bread, and I was about to rip it open and take a bite (bad timing on her part to give it to me at lunchtime!) when she suddenly said, "Ma'am, that's not edible, okay?" And I said, "Then what the heck is this??"

It turns out it could be something like a stress ball or something to prop up your wrist while you're at the computer. But it looks like bread, feels like bread, and even smells like bread.

In my current hungry state, I kinda wish it was bread. Haha.

A minute a day

2010-02-19T13:05:00.000+08:00

I was filling out the registration form for the 6th Philippine Blogging Summit when it suddenly asked me for the title of my blog. I type fast, but the name of my blog --From dreams to reality and somewhere in between-- took forever to type. Whatever the digital equivalent of "it was a mouthful to say" is, that's what it felt like.

So I decided to change the name of my blog into what the URL really is: One Minute Dreams. Unfortunately, it's not because my posts take just one minute to read, nor do they take just one minute to write. It's more of, in the course of my busy day, somewhere in between getting things done at work and thinking of what I'll be doing when I get home, a minute arrives where I think of something that would be fun to share. Just one minute out of the... 1,440 minutes (yes, I had to stop and do the math right there) in a day.

That's it, nothing witty, nothing... profound (I can't believe that this word was on the tip of my tongue and I had to check my thesaurus for it, when I used to just throw this word around before. This makes me sad.)

Goodbye, "From dreams to reality and somewhere in between" (WHEW!). Hello, "One Minute Dreams"! :)

Beauty in Bantayan

2010-02-15T10:50:00.003+08:00

While it was fun to relax with M and friends, one thing struck me about my recent trip to Bantayan: God created such a beautiful world.

We endured a three-hour trip by land and a one-hour ferry ride to Bantayan. Though cranky and hungry, I had to marvel at the beauty of the sea.

If only I could photograph all of the beautiful flowers in Maia's Beach Resort, our Bantayan home for three days.

We hopped on a banca (which I prayed wouldn't tip over) and swam to our hearts' content here at Virgin Beach. There are many more places that we could've seen, more islands we would've visited, but it was a good decision to just chill on this island. We enjoyed the sun, sand, and surf here and hardly shared the beach with anyone.

The beach was beautiful to photograph, but I found myself looking inland and seeing that the trees were hauntingly beautiful too.

And the best gift of all: though our resort did not have a beach front, it had the most wonderful view of the sunrise and sunset. By God's grace, I awoke at 5:45AM and witnessed how the sky slowly turned to light as the sun rose above the horizon. I've always loved sunsets, but my gosh, the sunrise is a pretty magnificent sight too.

I can't wait to see where He takes me next. :)

Bad Blogger!

2010-02-10T12:34:00.002+08:00

I can't believe it's been a month since my last entry! Obviously, I've been remiss in blogging, and sadly, that means that I've also been remiss in completing Project 365.

This is when reality sinks in, when it becomes more difficult to keep resolutions and promises. I need to resume blogging, and I think my first entry for February will be about my recent trip to Bantayan Island, Cebu-- complete with pictures! Wait for it!

In the past month, I've also become more determined to save up for an SLR camera. I should also be enrolling in the gym already, but my finances begged to disagree. My goal now is to start working out on March 1, giving me a month and a week to shape up before going to Boracay for work.

That's enough of an update for just one minute! More next time, promise!

Sofia Daniella

2010-01-09T22:52:00.000+08:00

I spent the better part of my afternoon watching over my godchild Iya. She's turning five years old this March, and she's growing up to be a very precocious little girl. She's at that age where her favorite word is "Why?" and I see much of myself in her. She showed off her writing and spelling skills by writing down her full name, Sofia Daniella. She spit out spicy spaghetti, proving that children will only eat sweet spaghetti, and preferred to munch on chicharon instead. She danced around our living room, smelling the flowers, peering at our lamp, messing up all the pillows on the couch.

I finally got to wind her down by sitting down with her and watching "The Little Mermaid" on Disney channel, and it was fun. It was a little tiring to go up and down our stairs with her though (our house isn't very child-friendly, with so many breakables and a slightly steep flight of stairs).

I love hanging out with children because when my brother and sister were born, I was just a child myself. Now, we're all grown up and our ages have caught up with each other. Hanging out with my nieces and nephews always makes me feel like a kid again, and yesterday afternoon I enjoyed making noises and nonsense babble with Iya, and seeing her laugh as I did so. It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. ☺

sunrise, sunset

2010-01-08T10:00:00.000+08:00

This is the sight I've been waking up to for the past three days. Admittedly, it's a beautiful sight, but I'm not used to seeing it everyday. I've always been the type of person who grabs every chance to sleep until noon. On a normal day, I get up when the sun is already high up in the sky.

I suppose there are benefits to literally seeing the dawn of a new day, to greeting a day filled with possibilities. But I've always been drawn to sunsets, to the realization that as the sun disappears below the horizon, another day has come to an end and it is time to rest.

Sunrise, sunset. Both beautiful sights. I guess which one you prefer kinda says something about you. Me, I'm just glad that it's already a Friday and the weekend is in sight!

Starstruck!

2010-01-07T23:56:00.000+08:00

I actually passed by him in the hallway and didn't realize it was him. Throughout his press conference, I was hardly inside--instead, I manned the registration booth and took care of giving press kits to the media. And in the moments that I found myself inside the venue, I didn't whip out my camera and document this day that we were fortunate enough to have him in our presence. I'm not really a super-fan, like many other women are.

But when you get the chance to have your picture taken with Mr. Piolo Pascual, you don't say no. No girl in her right mind passes up that opportunity. Not when he puts his arm around your waist and you get to wrap your arm around his waist too, as if you're good friends. You just don't say no to that. ☺

Me. Need. Sleep.

2010-01-06T23:30:00.000+08:00

It is Day Two of being sleep-deprived, functioning on roughly three hours of sleep. Already, I feel like I'm floating the entire day, wishing to catch a few winks.

I don't how I ever managed to go an entire day without sleep. I remember back in high school and college, I used to be able to pull all-nighters, eating yakisoba and washing it down with coffee. I subsisted on M&Ms and coffee while working on my thesis. But I still found the energy to make it to class and function like a normal human being.

Now, if I don't get enough sleep, I get cranky and walk around like a zombie, daydreaming about my bed. Aahh my bed... zzz...

Good vibes on a Tuesday night

2010-01-05T22:30:00.000+08:00

The team attended a movie premiere for the first time in ages. Thanks to Wave 89.1, we watched Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and it was such a great way to end tonight.

Even if we were seated at the very front row, it was so much fun to laugh with the kids in the audience. Now I've got a new movie to watch for on DVD so that I can get a dose of good vibes anytime!

Money Matters

2010-01-04T23:30:00.001+08:00

It's the first day back at work, and already I'm plagued by money matters. Credit card payment, insurance payment, saving for trips, gym memberships-- it was disheartening to realize that I didn't have enough money to do it all.

When it came down to a choice between paying for a gym membership and setting aside money for a last beach trip with a friend before she goes off to live in another country, I chose the friend. Never mind if I may not have a beach-ready body in two weeks, what matters is I get to spend some time with good friends before life begins to change for all of us.

Still, I couldn't help but think today of all the things I could be doing if money was not an issue. Travelling wherever and whenever I wanted. Buying anything I wanted and needed at the snap of a finger. Joining that gym. Writing off someone's debts because I don't need the money anyway. Whoever invented money may have inadvertently invented discontent.

Anyway, I'm trying not to think about it too much, even as I begin to tighten my belt for these next few months. Hopefully that belt gets tight enough to give me those abs I need to wear a two-piece bikini with confidence. Haha, as if.

Back to reality

2010-01-03T21:51:00.001+08:00

By next Sunday, the Christmas decor will probably be taken down and the church's chandeliers will be bare once again. It's a sure sign that we've all gone back to reality. It's a sad thought, really, to realize that the festivities are over, that we are returning to the mundane routines of life.

It will be a struggle to return to work, definitely. But hopefully it will be enough to remember the lights, remember the holidays, and look forward to the next opportunity to catch up with old friends, spend time with family, and take a much-needed vacation. One can always hope.

About a Boy

2010-01-02T23:59:00.001+08:00

It was Melbert's birthday today, and I intended to post his picture as today's Project 365 entry. But it's funny how today ended up not quite being all about him. Instead, it became all about his youngest brother, nine-year-old Martin.

If Mel had his way, we would've eaten dinner in Dampa, the one in Ortigas. We would've had tempura and all sorts of freshly-cooked seafood. But as Mel's mom protested that Martin might not like the food there, we ended up eating in Savory Chicken in SM Hypermart-- incidentally Martin's favorite restaurant.

Then, after dinner, Martin wanted to play in the arcade with older brother Patrick, so Mel and I accompanied the two boys and shot some arcade hoops as well. Even when we got back to Mel's place, Martin still ruled-- we played cards, then he told jokes where explanations substituted for punchlines. He gave me a massage, which was pretty good, considering he has tiny hands. Then he made me watch a YouTube video, and it seemed like he was never gonna let me go home. I was telling Melbert that it's probably because, in a house with three older brothers, it was probably Martin's first time to have someone who laughed at all of his jokes and indulged him instead of picking on him. :p

It was 1:00AM by the time I made my way home, and even if Martin seemed to hijack Melbert's birthday, it was still a very fun night. It's been a long time since I hung out with someone more than three times younger than me (yes, I did the math and it depressed me a little), and it kinda made me miss hanging out with Trina, my ten-year-old niece who is just as precocious as Martin. Being with children reminds me not to take life too seriously, to just let my hair down a bit and laugh at the smallest things.

So Melbert may have turned one year older today, but thanks to Martin, we felt much younger, even for just a few hours. ☺

-=-=-=-

An update on 101 Things in 1,001 Days: Since we ate in Savory Chicken in SM Hypermart and I'd never eaten there, I think that counts as my new restaurant for January! The chicken was really good-- actually, everything we had was really good! Mel says their only branch used to be all the way in Manila, so I'm glad that they're now more accessible in SM Hypermart.

And I dated this post January 2 just so that I'd have one entry per day. Hahaha! ☺

The best way to start the new decade

2010-01-01T21:20:00.003+08:00

From left to right: Dan, Mama, Papa, myself, and Bloss

It's been a little tradition of ours to check into a hotel on New Year's Eve then go shopping the next day. I don't really know how it started, especially since it hasn't been five years since our first overnight stay. Maybe it's a way of escaping the asthma-inducing fireworks, reminiscent of New Years past when we'd scurry around with handkerchiefs pressed tightly against our noses. In any case, it's been a tradition that we look forward to, now that family time all together has become quite a rare occurrence.

This year, we checked into the Makati Shangri-La. Billeted in two rooms at the 21st floor, we greeted the new year together in my parents' room, with front row seats to the hotel's fireworks show. It was the first time I'd ever seen fireworks that close, and it was a beautiful sight. After a good night's sleep under the covers on a nice, cushy bed, we had a buffet breakfast in the hotel's grand ballroom, with a mini orchestra as our background music.

But more than the fireworks, the good breakfast, and the luxury of the hotel, I will remember the first day of 2010 as a day where everyone was in a good mood, having a good time. Even if we had some misadventures during the day --finding out that SM and Rustans were both closed, then resto-hopping before we could get a decent lunch-- we didn't let it get to us and we had a really good time. Good vibrations, indeed, were abound, and it was a great way to start the new year.

It is but fitting that my first entry for Project 365 is a photo of my family. Cheers to the new year! ☺♥

-=-=-=-

An update on 101 Things in 1,001 Days: I crossed one book off my reading list as I finished "Old School Ties" by Kate Harrison, and I ate the carrots and cucumbers that came with my parmesan crusted fish fillet in Italianni's. I think that counts for eating vegetables, even if it is just a tiny step. Hooray! ☺

The 2010 Reading List

2009-12-31T08:36:00.002+08:00

As I mentioned a few entries back, I'd already started building my reading list for the coming year. Thanks to more impulse buys and friends who know me well enough to give me books as Christmas gifts, the list has grown considerably. So here goes:

~~1. About a Boy by Nick Hornby~~

~~2. Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin~~

3. The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes

4. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

5. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

~~6.The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman~~

7. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

8. Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

9. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

10. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult

11. The Diary by Eileen Goudge

12. Old School Ties by Kate Harrison

Add to that Pride and Prejudice, five books from TIME's All-Time Top 100 Books list, and three books from my Gabriel Garcia Marquez collection, I have a total of 21 books to read as part of my 101 Things to Do in 1,001 Days project. That's completely achievable! And until I've gotten through these twelve books, a book-buying ban is in place. I hope I can stick to it. :)

101 Things to Do in 1,001 Days

2009-12-30T23:47:00.005+08:00

I've been wanting to come up with this list for so long, and with the new year just around the corner, I figured this is the perfect time to get to it. I am now officially joining the Day Zero Project of doing 101 Things in 1,001 Days. Here are the guidelines as posted in the website:

The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple challenges such as New Year's resolutions or a 'Bucket List'. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips, study semesters, or outdoor activities.

Without further ado, here's my list. Bold-italics means I've completed the entry.

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)

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.

10. Come up with five books I would recommend to anyone. (0/5)

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:

- 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.

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.

TRAVEL

24. Visit three new places in the Philippines. (0/3)

25. Go on at least one trip abroad.

26. Go on a beach trip.

27. Explore a city I've never been to.

FOOD AND HEALTH

28. Eat in a new restaurant once a month.

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.

32. Try eating kare-kare.

33. Learn to make five different fruit shakes. (0/5)

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. (0/10)

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.

44. Clean up my personal email.

45. Do a general cleanup of my room quarterly.

46. Do a general cleanup of my office space monthly.

INTERNET

47. Get all dishes on Restaurant City up to Level 10.

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.

WORK-RELATED

52. Get to work by 9:00 A.M. everyday for one week. (0/5)

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.

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)

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.

76. Go on a trip together.

FRIENDS

77. Catch up with an old friend over dinner or coffee.

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)

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.

96. Watch a concert.

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.

looking forward to 2010

2009-12-22T12:56:00.002+08:00

It's strange, but I can't quite feel the Christmas spirit. More than anything, I'm really looking forward to the new year.

It hasn't been a great year. So many tragedies, so many people died, and life has had so many unexpected twists and turns that I'd just gone along with. Everything just rushed by, and I feel like I've been on auto-pilot mode for so long, just trying to make it through it all.

Now that the new year and the new decade is looming, I've found myself pausing to think. When was the last time I consciously took the time out of my day to sit, write in my journal, and offer some sort of prayer? When was the last time I slowed down enough to soak my feet and relax a little? When was the last time I came home not feeling dead tired and had enough energy to really watch a good movie or a good show?

This is the year that all my aches and pains came out-- as I write this, I have a major backache that won't go away. It's the year I got diagnosed with GERD, aka the acid reflux thing that took away my coffee and booze. There are very few good things (like the Bangkok trip, my room renovation, and adventures with my love) that really stand out this year. Everything else is... eh. *shrug*

This year, I lost my routines. No regular sleeping and waking hours. No planners and time to even sit and plan the day. No order to the papers stuffed in my in tray. In 2010, I want to be able to wake up everyday at a certain hour, be at work by a certain time, and leave work at a certain time too. I want to simplify my life: get rid of the papers that I don't really need, bring less things in my bag, delete more emails.

So I think that more than anything, 2010 is the time to get out of my auto-pilot mode and start really living. And living at a pace that isn't frazzled or stressed or frenetic. I want to have enough time and energy to be with the people I love. I want to take better care of myself-- soak my feet when I come home, watch a good movie or read a good book, and okay, maybe even hit the gym so that my aches and pains will be of the good kind (still subject to negotiation, haha).

2010 is the year to live slowly and simply. It's the year to be present. It's the year I will start to actively live my life.

back to square one, or thereabouts

2009-11-15T20:03:00.005+08:00

Tonight I touched the black and white keys again, after what feels like forever. I started with Moon River, which has always been my warm-up piece of sorts. It's really simple, and my parents like the song. Technically, it was okay, but it lacked heart because I was anything but sure of myself.

I followed it up with Memory, and it was downhill from there. I no longer sight-read as quickly as I used to, fumbled over the bridge, and couldn't even muster a solid ending. I stood up then, killing any dream I had of tackling Gone tonight.

It's the main reason I haven't played in a very long time. I know that I'm nowhere as good as I used to be once upon a time, and the thought of sitting on the bench, struggling again does things to my ego. It dawned upon me that this may be what it feels like to lose a limb or something: the frustration over not being able to do something you used to do very well, the feeling of being back at square one. Well, not exactly, as square one would mean I had forgotten everything, but still. I miss doing runs. I miss memorizing pieces and playing them from memory. I miss how good I used to be.

It will take practice to get that back. More than that, it will take a lot to swallow the bitter pill and accept that it's no longer an easy ride, that I will need to work hard to get back in shape. The question is, do I want it badly enough?

verbal diarrhea

2009-11-04T10:45:00.003+08:00

The minute I posted the words "Writing has become equated to work," I realized that I didn't want it to be true. So here I am, forcing myself to come up with a blog entry that is all about randomness, nothing deep, nothing profound. Literally, verbal diarrhea (cue yucky mental image).

-=-=-=-

It's been almost two weeks since my love and I last saw each other. Things haven't been back to normal since Ondoy: 1) landline's busted, so we haven't had a decent phone conversation in ages; 2) I have no Internet at home, so we can't even chat; 3) his shift is still until 9:30PM, so we can only go out on Friday nights. It's hard. It almost feels like we're in a long distance relationship. But what's amazing is that even if it's hard, even if we're almost just textmates, we're hanging in there. We're finding ways to cope and be happy. Because we are happy.

But dammit we're going out on Friday, and I won't take no for an answer! So there.

-=-=-=-

I didn't get to register for the 2010 elections. I tried though, three times. But I also struck out three times. It's a long story, but it made me think that maybe my reasons for this last-minute decision to vote weren't the best of reasons. I just don't want a former president convicted of plunder to stand a chance. Whether he was pardoned or not, it doesn't seem to matter as the current justice system allows people who are in jail to run anyway. Here's what I don't get: these people are supposed to be lawmakers, and they're in jail precisely because they broke the law. It's tough to be a law-abiding citizen when you have these kinds of lawmakers as your role models-- they're either in jail or using Congress as a stage for grandstanding, a platform for promoting their own interests, anything but a chance to make laws for the better of our country.

And even if you say that that's precisely the reason why people should register and vote --to make sure that good, honorable people are elected into office-- I'm sad to say that I'm too cynical to believe that idealism and good intentions can still make a difference. Good people just get eaten alive by the system. I have no faith in government anymore. Oh, I believe that there are still a lot of good and honorable people in this country, and I think that they're all finding their own ways to help., ways that don't involve joining government ranks.

So who's left running the government if all the good people are in the private sector? Idiots. That's why I never wanted to vote and get involved in politics.

-=-=-=-

I have one book to go on my reading list (Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, which I really need to bring home from the office), but already I've started building a new reading list. I've even crossed off some titles already, heehee!

1. About a Boy by Nick Hornby

I bought this during Ondoy with the intention of reading it in a coffee shop. That didn't happen because hanging out with friends was more fun. I'm done with this one, whee!

2. Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

The only missing book in my Emily Giffin collection, which I decided to complete. This is what I was reading before I got sidetracked by Grey's Anatomy.

3. The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes

An impulse buy, it seems like a very interesting read. I saw it in Powerbooks Megamall, walked away from it, hoped to see it in Fully Booked Promenade, and felt incredibly sad when I didn't. My love took one look at my face and said, "Let's go to Megamall and get your book." This is why I love him. <3

4. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Proof that I cannot resist the words "sale" and "promo". I was in Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street when I saw that Fully Booked discount card holders were entitled to a 10% discount for credit card purchases of this book. I have a card! I get the discount! Sold.

5. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

The latest purchase. I was in Fully Booked Eastwood Mall (it looks like I've been doing the rounds of all Fully Booked branches!) when I saw this on the shelf. I've been seeing the mass market paperback version everywhere, but the trade paperback version has been elusive. Of course, because my copy of The Other Boleyn Girl is trade paperback, it wouldn't look good on the bookshelf if I got a mass market paperback version of the other Philippa Gregory books. So when I saw this last piece, trade paperback version sitting on the shelf, I held on to it and never let go.

I can't promise I won't buy any more books, but I can at least promise to find more time to read. :D

-=-=-=-

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Whew. Have a happy Wednesday!

Oh, Ondoy!

2009-10-18T09:49:00.003+08:00

I realized how fortunate I am that my last entry was about moving into my new room. Days after that entry was written, Typhoon Ondoy happened-- if I hadn't moved when I did, all of my things would've been flooded downstairs.

Yes, for the first time in our lives, our house was flooded. In fact, it was the first time for all the houses here in our village, I would think. More than the flood, however, I think it was extra nerve-wracking that we weren't all home when it happened. I ended up on an extended sleepover with my friends in Holiday Inn --what was supposed to be an overnight thing turned into a 4D-3N stay, as if we'd gone out of town-- while my dad was stranded with our driver at the mall after doing his groceries. He ended up staying there overnight, sleeping in the car, as the flood waters rose beyond neck-deep in Marcos Highway.

I was lucky, I guess, but I couldn't enjoy the luxury of being in a hotel as I thought of my dad, who wasn't feeling very well and had to endure an overnight stay in the car. I worried about my love and his family, after his last text was about going up on the roof of their bungalow. I had images of his entire family, including his nine-year-old brother, up on the roof in the rain. (Thankfully, they were fine, but I only found out two days later.) I worried about my mom, sister, and brother, who were at home with no electricity, flood waters rising in our first floor and trapping them on the second floor. Compound that with the images I was seeing on television and my own experience of driving through the flood and listening to the water under the car's engine, praying that the car wouldn't stall and I could get back to Holiday Inn in one piece, you could say that it was the most stressful few days ever.

Ondoy has come and gone, and new storms are on their way. We may have cleaned up our house, we may have been fortunate that the damage was not as great compared to others who really lost everything, but things have changed. The slightest hint of rain stirs up a panic in my heart as I do a mental inventory of where the rest of my family is. I haven't figured out a flood-free way to get home from my office, and that really bugs me. I worry about my ability to accurately gauge how deep flood waters really are, and what I would do if my car stalled in the middle and I was all alone.

This post is late, it's been almost a month since Ondoy happened, but sad to say the trauma remains. I don't think anyone will ever look at rain the same way again. At least, not for a very long time.

Living Space

2009-09-24T19:45:00.008+08:00

After a month of living in our den, I have finally moved back into my room. *applause*

I enjoyed my stay in the den. While there wasn't any wifi and I'd have to stay in our sala just to go online, I had the luxury of having a TV in the room, staying up to watch CSI and the other telenovelas before finally falling asleep.

But it was meant to be a temporary arrangement, as my excitement over planning my room renovation and seeing it to the finish was mounting. I designed my new storage spaces. I looked for color schemes on Real Home Ideas: The Color Book and headed to Handyman for paint swatches. I thought of which things would go into my new storage spaces and which ones I'd have to let go of. And everyday, I asked my mom what the workers had finished, and what was left to be done.

Over the long weekend, I finally got busy with moving in to my room. I arranged my books on the shelves, sifted through the knickknacks that would find their own shelf space, oversaw the delivery of my new chair, moved clothes into my closet. By Monday evening, the last few items my room needed were finally in place, and I could say I had fully moved in.

Here's how my room looked since 1997:

It's not a great photo of my room, as you can't see the seater and the full length of the L-shaped desk. But the seater and my desk both turned into a dumpsite for all my things. While the seater and desk were added when I hit college, this is basically how the room has been since I was first year high school and it has seen me through so many experiences and heartaches (how emo!).

And here it is today:

This is the area where the seater and the desk used to be. My only request for my room was to buy a comfy chair where I could do all my reading. I'm tired of reading in bed or sitting down on the bed and leaning against the wall, so that's the only thing I really wanted for my room. Thanks to Real Living's recommendation, I discovered Mandaue Foam (along Ortigas Extension) and bought my chocolate brown recliner from them. I designed my desk to fit the bay window, and it's a design my mom wants to copy for their own desk. I love how the white and chocolate brown look against the orange wall.

The accent wall for my room is a nice, bright shade of blue. The cabinets right above my bed house my books, and my picture frames and little figurines have their own shelves as well. I like how my bed sort of has its own niche against the cabinets-- when I lie down and the lamp by my chair is on, the light doesn't get into my eyes. And of course, I love the blue wall!

See how the white cabinets break up the orange and blue walls? This is the main reason why I decided on bold and bright colors for my room, because I knew that all the white storage units would somehow soften the look. The long cabinet is a closet for added storage, and the ladder propped up against it is not only functional (as I'll need it to reach into the higher shelves) but decorative as well.

See how the blue and orange look so good together? Hanging on the orange wall is a cross-stitch I made back in seventh grade. It's a Precious Moments pattern of a boy sitting on a stool, mending the broken heart that a girl holds up for him. By some happy coincidence, the matting is blue with a touch of pink, and its wooden frame matches the frame of the mirror.

This is the component I've had since 1998, I remember that we were new to our house when I received this as a Christmas gift. It's still alive, although the tape deck no longer works and the CD tray gets stuck sometimes. I use it today to listen to the radio and to amplify the sounds on my laptop, whether I'm watching CSI or listening to my favorite playlists. It's especially helpful when the rain is pounding against my window and my laptop's volume can only go so high. The component has its own place now, above the shoe cabinet and below the cabinet that houses all of my kikay stuff.

And finally, I have my photos hanging on my walls. It's funny because I never intended to have them in frames with matting; I was only looking for the normal kinds that I could hang on the wall. Unfortunately, most 8x10 photo frames were designed for desk display and not wall display. Thank goodness a kind saleslady suggested that I buy those frames that already come with a picture, and just replace the picture with my own. The result is photos that look like they were professionally done, and I couldn't be prouder to have my own work hanging in my room.

Now that my room is finished, I can't wait to come home everyday and make the most out of my personal space. I want to sit in my recliner and read more. I want to light scented candles and relax in my room. I want to do more than crash on my bed and sleep. Because this is a room that, with it's vibrant colors, is meant to be lived in, not merely slept in.

Spotlight: "The Pact: A Love Story"

2009-09-17T23:05:00.003+08:00

For once, I am speechless.

I started reading The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult last Saturday, and I had trouble putting it down since then. I literally had to force myself to stop reading. But this time, I can't summarize the novel or even give my own thoughts about it. All I can truly say is it was a page-turner that truly kept me hooked and wanting to know what would happen next. It kept me at the edge of my seat up to the very end, and there was no way to predict how things would end.

Jodi Picoult is truly a gifted writer, as this is the second time that she has kept me hooked on her novel. Granted, this is only the second book I've read --the first being My Sister's Keeper-- but I think that she has a way of really unravelling the story as you read, and this is something that may hold true in all her novels. At the turn of every page, you always feel like you're discovering something new, that this new bit of information is important, that all things will only find resolution in the end. She also has a gift of putting to words such complex emotions, making the reader feel how conflicted her characters truly are.

In short, The Pact: A Love Story was one of the few books that really kept me entranced all the way to the end. I'd recommend it, but only to people who don't believe that all things end with a Happily Ever After. That's not how real life is, and Jodi Picoult tries to keep it as real as it can get.

Three books to go: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Prizes, and Good In Bed. I wonder which one I should read over the long weekend. I can't wait!

Spotlight: "Getting Rid of Matthew"

2009-09-16T11:14:00.002+08:00

I should have blogged about this right after reading it. Now that I'm so into Jodi Picoult's The Pact, I'm having trouble remembering what this book was about. Hehe.

Getting Rid of Matthew was actually a risky buy, if you think about it. I got attracted to the title, intrigued by the story, and obsessed with finding a copy of it in every Fully Booked branch I visited. Seeing a lone copy on the shelf made me believe that it was mine for the taking. But really, it could've been a bad investment-- like any other thing in life, it could've gone either way.

But as I read on about Helen The Mistress, Sophie the Wife, and Matthew the Cheater, I found myself drawn in by the story. Helen has been with Matthew for four years and --although she has been begging him for years to leave his wife-- is slowly realizing that there is life outside of Matthew, that she does have a chance to really make something of her life this late in the game. But just when she decides that she doesn't want Matthew anymore, he finally tells his wife Sophie everything, breaks up his family, and decides to move in with Helen. The rest of the novel focuses on how Helen intends to get rid of Matthew.

What I found most interesting about this novel wasn't how she planned to get rid of Matthew, but the friendship she forged with Sophie under false pretenses. I loved the twist that Helen actually seeks out Sophie and they truly hit it off, even if Sophie has no idea who Helen really is. It makes me wonder how much messier life would be if mistresses actually went out to befriend the clueless wives. The complications of this friendship provided the novel with a lot of heart.

Of course, I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say that I enjoyed this book and wanted to go back to a couple of passages before moving on to my next book. The fact that I still remember the names of the protagonists also says something about how much I liked this book.

I'm down to four books, and I'm already two-thirds into The Pact. More on that when I'm done with it. Ciao for now!

Spotlight: "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves"

2009-09-06T20:12:00.003+08:00

First, I have to take something off my book list. You may call it cheating, but there is some logic to this: I am removing Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life. It's ironic that I can't finish reading a book that is all about getting things done. So... let's just strike it off the list so that I can pick it up whenever I feel like it, shall we?

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to pay homage to the nerd in me by celebrating the fact that I have finished reading Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

As the title suggests, the book is all about punctuation marks. The very title is derived from a joke about punctuation:

A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

I found myself giggling at the joke, and knew that I was the right market for this book. Add to that the first paragraph that read:

Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't. A printed banner has appeared on the concourse of a petrol station near to where I live. "Come inside," it says, "for CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and BOOK's."

If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once.

Of course, I didn't put it down; I went and bought it. Truss is able to talk about the proper use of punctuation marks while educating the reader on the origins of such marks, all in a very light and humorous tone. It's not an instruction book, that's for sure, but it does make you think twice about how you punctuate your sentences.

It's also interesting to note the nuances between British English and American English. One point of contention is the placement of the comma (or period, whichever is applicable) when it comes to quotes, such as the example Truss presents:

BRITISH: Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses".

AMERICAN: Sophia asked Lord Fellamar if he was "out of his senses."

It was here that I discovered that, as I subscribe to the first option, I punctuate in a British manner (at least, in this instance). But I spell using American English, preferring "color" to "colour" and "glamor" to "glamour" (although the latter does look pretty glamorous). She also points out that what Americans call "parentheses", the Brits call "brackets", and what the Americans call "brackets", they call "square brackets". Confusing much? The book can probably get confusing if you're an American or you prefer using American English, as Truss is herself a Brit.

All in all, it was a very enlightening read that every writer --or grammar stickler-- should indulge in. I will probably find myself rereading some chapters at leisure, especially the one on the semicolon and the colon.

My book list now stands at:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen --stricken off the list
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
18. Something Blue by Emily Giffin
19. The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult
20. Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
21. Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner --New entry!

Yes, yes, I know that that's a new entry right there, but I've always been curious about this author. Upon seeing that Powerbooks was on sale, I succumbed and finally bought one of her books. But since I removed a book off the list, we're still at 20! And now, I have five books to go before I can say I'm done. As long as I don't add to it anymore (let's cross our hearts and hope to die), looks like I can finish this list before Christmas!

The best part is, it's a non-working holiday tomorrow and I get to recuperate in bed! With a good book, perhaps? We'll see! :)

Back from Bangkok

2009-08-23T21:37:00.005+08:00

I tried to write an entry to talk about my recently-concluded trip to Bangkok, but I wasn't happy with what I was writing. I hit the delete button, but here I am again, attempting to talk about it.

Even now, I keep typing one word and hitting backspace, unsure of where to even begin. Do I start by talking about how we started planning this trip in January, and all of a sudden, I've gone on the trip and come home? Do I tell you all about the plans we made and which ones didn't materialize (like the trip to the library and dinner at Baiyoke Sky Deck)? Do I share the realization that Ayutthaya is not a park but an entire province, and how we kissed our dreams of biking around the area goodbye (and besides, by "rent a bike" they meant a motorbike, not a bicycle)? Do I talk about realizing that I'm not a hardcore shopper after all?

Maybe, where words will not suffice, pictures will.

Wat Pho: Reclining Buddha

Four Pagodas

Dinner at Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant owned by a government official popularly known as "Mr. Condom" because of his campaigns on safe sex and HIV-AIDS awareness.

One of the many, beautiful ruins in Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand

More pictures on my Facebook account (for friends only, sorry). This may be my only trip for 2009, but it was definitely a blast!

Where will the Universe take me next? I can't wait to find out.

August is love!

2009-08-11T10:58:00.002+08:00

For the past three years (i.e. ever since I started working here), I've come to think of August as a slow month. After all, we hardly have any events this month, and I think of it as the time to recover from the crazy FHM party in July and the time to build up for the hell month that is September.

But this year, there are so many things to be excited about this August!

First, I finished reading Something Blue by Emily Giffin. A lot of time has passed since I read Something Borrowed, but I remember being incredibly annoyed with Darcy, the self-centered "beauty is everything" PR maven who is now the protagonist of this sequel. At the start of the novel, she was still as annoying as I remembered, but I decided to give her a chance to redeem herself.

What's amazing about this book is Darcy's transformation is very subtle yet real, and you find yourself having a change of heart about her as well. Emily Giffin is brilliant, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying Something Blue. Now I want to read the first book again just so that I can form my opinion on which one I like better!

Second, I'm very excited because I'll be going to Bangkok with a very good friend of mine! I first visited Bangkok with my family in 2001, but I hardly remember anything about that visit. I've always maintained that it's very different to travel with your family because you end up just going wherever you're told. So this Bangkok trip with my friend will be like seeing Bangkok for the very first time.

It's been so much fun planning our itinerary and researching on all the sights we want to see in Bangkok. While we briefly considered taking a two-hour trip out of Bangkok going to Pattaya, we instead decided to take the one-hour trip to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Thailand (in photo). The Ayutthaya Historical Park is now just a bunch of ruins, but history buffs that we are, we're excited about biking around the area for the greater part of our day. Of course, we're also excited about shopping in Bangkok, but more than that, we're looking forward to the Temple Tour, going to the night markets, trying the restos that friends and colleagues have recommended, and even hitting the library! Yes, because we love books so much, we can't resist a side trip to the Neilson Hays Library for the sake of checking it out and relaxing in the library's cafe. We'll be gone for four days, and it's gonna be so much fun! I can feel it!

Third, because I'll be gone for four days, my parents decided that it's the best time to have my room renovated. My room has stayed the same since we first moved to our house in 1997-- the only thing that changed was adding a custom-made seater and desk set when I was in college, but my wallpapers still reflected the choices of a fourteen year old. I've always looked wistfully at the "grown-up rooms" featured in Real Living, and daydreamed about renovating my own room, but never really thought that it would happen.

But now that it's finally happening, my mom and I spent Sunday measuring my room and drawing the new storage spaces. I downloaded a program that generates color combinations for websites, but of course I'm using it to come up with the best color combination for my room. Everything has been finalized (yes, even my choice of color) and I hope that I'll be around when they paint my room so that I can see if it's exactly what I had in mind.

Once they finish everything in my room, I'm excited to look for some new furnishing. My one insistence was there be space for a nice, comfy armchair where I can do all my reading (because I'm finally heeding the warning that reading in bed is bad for your eyesight), so we worked around that. I want to have a nice floor lamp by the chair so that I have ample lighting for my reading, and I want to have a new wall clock. I'm also considering selecting some of my best photographs and either coming up with a collage or having them printed so I can frame them individually in small frames. It's so much fun to plan a room makeover, and I'm so excited to have a room that finally reflects that a 26-year-old woman lives in it.

Last, even if we don't celebrate anniversaries, August was a significant month three years ago, when my love finally worked up the nerve to tell me how he felt about me. Fast forward to the present, and we're still silly as if we'd just gotten together yesterday. For the first time, I have faith that we truly will make it all the way, and we'll continue growing together in love. ♥ ♥ ♥

August 09 is one for the books, and I love it! ♥ ♥ ♥

Spotlight: "Raising the Peaceable Kingdom" and "Baby Proof"

2009-07-20T21:40:00.003+08:00

In my quest to become a reader and not a mere book hoarder, I decided to try harder to cross some books off my list. As of last weekend, I have successfully crossed off two: one has been my constant companion to the dentist, and I was determined to finish the last few chapters to get it done and over with. The other was one that I decided to read on a whim. So the list is moving along, and I am proud to say that I have succeeded in not adding to it any further (new discovery: leaving the credit card at home really works!), and that I have avoided any serious browsing in the bookstores.

So, what two books did I cross off my list?

It took me a while to finish reading this book. As I mentioned before, the premise really intrigued me: can a puppy, kitten, two chickens, two rats, and a rabbit peacefully coexist in one home? From the very beginning, I knew it was an experiment. What I didn't count on was the book sounding like a report of the experiment.

In fairness, the author was very personal about it. He shared anecdotes on how he would discover more about the behavior of the animals-- an afternoon on the beach reveals that chickens like to stretch out in the sand, the rats like nesting in his wife's bosom and become most hyper at night, the kitten and the rabbit can become best friends over time. But these anecdotes were also interspersed with his findings and hypotheses, which didn't make for very interesting reading.

I found myself reading until the end just to see what would happen to the animals, if and when his experiment reaches its end. When I was done, I found myself just shrugging and saying, "So he did it. Good for him. On to the next book!"

Which, after much thought, I decided would be Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. I had only read Something Borrowed and am delaying reading its sequel Something Blue, mainly because I'm trying to be fair to my books by reading the ones I had acquired first. I also tried to pose a challenge to myself this weekend: to try reading this book in just one sitting.

It had been a while since I read a book from cover to cover in one sitting, and I just wanted to see how long it would take me. After all, I used to do it all the time (which, of course, led to growing up with glasses, getting laser eye surgery, and wearing glasses again with a more tolerable grade-- but that's another story entirely). So last Saturday afternoon, I decided to forego all plans of watching CSI and instead settled in to read Giffin's third novel.

I realized from the very beginning of the book that I would have trouble liking it. After all, I disagree with the protagonist's stand of not wanting to have children-- even if I do understand that there are women who are not inclined to become mothers, I would like to have children one day. And since reading requires a certain amount of putting yourself in the protagonist's shoes, I had a bit of difficulty doing just that-- most especially when she lets go of the man she loves because he wants to have a baby and she doesn't.

In the end, it was a so-so read for me, which surprisingly makes me even more excited to read the rest of her novels, as I believe that this is just a glitch in Giffin's otherwise brilliant writing. And, despite my misgivings, the book was able to captivate me enough to read it for 4 1/2 hours straight, without breaks. So I may have disagreed with the plot, but it kept me hooked enough to still want to know how it all ends. That, to me, is a sign of good writing and makes me crave for even more.

I've heard that her latest novel Love the One You're With is also really good. I took a look at the summary when I came across it once in the neighborhood bookstore, and in direct contrast to Baby Proof, I think I could relate to this plot too much! Well, just because running into my exes is always a What-If scenario that runs through my head, and my telenovela imagination tends to blow everything out of proportion. I'm scared that Love the One You're With will hit too close to home, but then again, when have I ever been afraid of a book??

Now that my reading list has hit 20 books, I think it's time for a recap:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin --I boycotted this one.
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
~~6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel~~
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
~~14. Live a Little by Kim Green~~
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
18. Something Blue by Emily Giffin
19. The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult
20. Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

13 out of 20 is not bad at all! Whee! :D

Here lies the irony

2009-06-24T11:50:00.003+08:00

Upon reviewing my old blog (the one filled with all the post-college emo-laden entries), I realized that a spark had died. That spark that could make me get up in the middle of the night to sleepily pen a poem, or lose myself in thought as while writing another short story. It has been ages since I felt that spark, the one that made me sure that, indeed, I was meant to wield a pen and be a writer.

I don't know if that spark really just dies out once you begin to write for a living. As you find yourself creating charts to keep track of what needs to be written and by when, you wonder how you factor in being hit by inspiration. Is it something you can even schedule? Being a writer by profession has forced me to be able to just write, whether I feel like it or not.

Many say that real writers don't wait for inspiration; they just write, period. While I agree, I worry that writing for a living has caused me to come up with coping mechanisms that my idealistic fresh-out-of-college self would disagree with. Reading an article, copying the quotes I'd like to use, then stringing them together into a coherent piece was not the way I envisioned my writing to be. I always took pride in coming up with something out of nothing, in having a blank sheet as my canvas, pinning thoughts unto paper as fast as my hands would permit. I never wanted to have a template for my writing, but upon discovering that --without conscious effort-- I could write press releases that fit exactly one page, I realized that a template is exactly what I have hardwired into my system.

Maybe the existence of such a template has made it difficult for me to spontaneously come up with a blog entry that's coherent and substantial. After churning out press release after press release, there's hardly any time to stop and think about something that really matters to me enough to write about it. Trying to sit in front of my blog to write about my thoughts is an exercise in futility-- anything that comes out of me feels forced, and I am forced to just delete everything and forego writing an entry. How ironic, to be a writer who cannot even write about things that truly mean something to me, things that I actually care about.

Yet, such is life. This is the profession I chose, and this is the talent I was gifted with. Template or no template, I was meant to write. So all I can do today is hope that the spark returns someday, to remind me what it feels like to fall in love with writing all over again.

Oops, I did it again

2009-06-23T08:40:00.002+08:00

I should really be banned from entering bookstores, especially Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street.

A recent side trip there had me walking out of the store with not one, but two new books. That brings my current reading list up to twenty. A fellow book ~~hoarder~~ lover likes to justify, "Twenty is a very nice, rounded number. Just like thirty and forty!" I'll stop at twenty, thankyouverymuch.

So what were the books I just had to buy?

After reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, I got curious about her other books and decided to do my research. Of all the stories, I found this one the most intriguing. The Pact is the love story between two teenagers whose families have been friends since they were born. What happens when the parents find the girl dead and the boy holding the gun that killed her?

A colleague pointed out that Jodi Picoult loves to talk about moral dilemmas. It makes me think that all her stories are built on "the boat-is-sinking/house-is-burning, you can only save either your parent-or-spouse/spouse-or-child. Who would you save?" Or something like that. Anyway, add the intriguing premise to the fact that this book was so hard to find. And when I finally saw it in Fully Booked, it was in a trade paperback version with nice paper, the ones with jagged edges that look like they've been cut by hand. I wasn't about to let it go.

I came across this book on one of my previous trips to Fully Booked, when I go through the aisles from A to Z. I thought it would be an entertaining read as the premise is that Matthew has been her lover for years, but now that he's leaving his wife for her, she realizes that she doesn't want him anymore. So as the title suggests, how does she get rid of him?

Also read up on Amazon reviews and it's supposed to be a fun read. Why did I buy it? Well, first, because it was the last copy on the shelf, and I've been keeping an eye out for it for months. Second, because I realized that majority of what's left in my book list is pretty heavy stuff, so I may need something to balance that out. I know, I know, excuses excuses.

So now my reading list is up to twenty. I'm currently reading Raising the Peaceable Kingdom, but I haven't gotten far because I've been watching CSI more often, playing Restaurant City on Facebook every night, and trying to catch up on precious sleep. Here's hoping I finish all twenty books before the year ends! (Hey, I'm just being realistic here!)

Spotlight: "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "Live A Little"

2009-05-29T19:30:00.002+08:00

I should never have put off reading this book. That it's so thick has always discouraged me from getting started, but once I jumped over that hurdle, I found myself completely engrossed in it. It is so much better, so much richer than the movie (though Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johanssen were both really hot).

This novel was so good, it made me research on Henry VIII and his wives, and just how much of the novel was factual. As it turns out, everything is based on facts-- the only points that are fiction are the thoughts, intentions, motivations of the characters. But Anne Boleyn really did have a sister named Mary who was a mistress of the King and bore him two childern. The affair with Anne really did prompt Henry to seek an annulment from his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. And so on, and so forth.

The best thing is, I researched on the rest of Philippa Gregory's novels, and it turns out that a couple more revolve around the same time period: The Constant Princess is about Katherine of Aragon and how she ended up marrying Henry VIII (so it's actually the prequel to The Other Boleyn Girl in a chronological sense); The Boleyn Inheritance takes place immediately after The Other Boleyn Girl and talks about the rest of Henry VIII's wives; The Queen's Fool seems to be the transition novel before the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and The Virgin's Lover is during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. So even if these novels all stand alone and have separate plots, reading it in order would probably feel like reading an entire saga on English history. Now if only they weren't so long.

I was excited to start reading this novel, and in the beginning, I was amused by her humor. Then it started getting tiresome. Then I couldn't wait for it to end.

It's actually a little difficult to explain what I didn't like about it. While I liked the premise, I felt that everything was becoming too unbelievable. Becoming a breast cancer advocate overnight, thanks to guesting on her sister's talk show (apparently, the sister is like Tyra). The sudden reawakening of her artistic side because she is commissioned to make a series of sculptures using casts of actual breast cancer survivors. By this time, it kinda became more about a mid-life crisis than about her not really having cancer and not knowing how to come clean about it. Add to that too many pop culture references --the daughter wanting to be emancipated because she thinks she's Lindsay Lohan, the image of a pregnant Britney Spears as a deterent for unwanted pregnancy, a breast cancer survivor named "Imelda, like the dictator... and I could imagine her with a closet filled with Manolos"-- and the one phrase that popped into my head was, "This novel is trying too hard."

Too bad, the premise was intriguing, but the execution was nothing great. What a waste of promise.

The good thing is, I'm officially 11 out of 18 on my reading list now! Woohoo!

on books and DVDs

2009-05-03T13:23:00.003+08:00

As I mentioned before, I love anything that tells a story. That means that as much as I ~~hoard~~ love books, I also love DVDs. Last year, I was hooked on F.R.I.E.N.D.S., which I appreciated so much more now that I'm in my twenties. Then I watched Sex and the City, The Apprentice season 3, Pushing Daisies season 1, Top Design season 1, and How I Met Your Mother seasons 1-4 (and this is the only series that I'm downloading!). Now, I'm hooked on this:

After much consultation with other fanatics, I finally decided on getting the boxed set of CSI Las Vegas seasons 1 to 7. I just finished watching the first season and I'm currently three episodes into the second, already I'm showing signs of being addicted. For one, I go to bed at night with the feeling that maybe someone is just outside my door, or that I will suddenly see the curtains blowing to reveal an open window big enough to fit a human-- until I remember that my windows are not that big and I don't even have curtains in my room. So I sleep a little easier after that realization. I also caught myself looking at my cellphone and, upon seeing my fingerprints, thinking, "Wow, this cellphone is loaded with prints. Let's hope one of them is our killer's." Then I realize that it's my phone and there is no killer. I just love how they solve crimes, how they connect the dots to lead them to unlikely suspects, how sometimes they discover that the killer is someone who was right under their nose. I have yet to really compare to CSI Miami and CSI New York (my brother thinks Miami is too action-loaded, while a friend thinks the crimes in New York are too similar), but I think that after this, I will buy CSI New York just for Gary Sinise, who I think rocks.

As I go on CSI marathons, I have somehow found the time to finally get started on the one book that I've really put off reading-- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (how strange that Amazon doesn't have a synopsis of this book). I bought the book primarily to compare it to the movie, but I've been putting off reading it because it's too thick. I got intimidated. But after finishing my last book, I realized that to finish my reading list, I would have to get to this book sooner or later. So I decided to make it sooner. I've been reading this book steadily, which means I've been bringing it with me to the dentist and leaving it in the car so I can read while waiting for parking. But hey, at least I'm making some progress with it!

I cheated. Just when I said I wouldn't buy any books, I went out and bought this one. In my defense, I had seen copies of Something Blue by Emily Giffin, but it wasn't in this particular edition, so I didn't buy it. My thinking is that sequels should be bought in the same editions. Apparently, this particular edition was hard to find. So when I saw three copies in Fully Booked High Street, I didn't think twice about buying it. Of course, this goes on the bottom of my list, and I will have to resist the temptation of finding out what happens to Darcy now that she's pregnant and all alone. My reading list is now 9 out of 18, which means I'm exactly halfway down the list. Once I finish reading The Other Boleyn Girl, that will make it 10 out of 18, and I can't wait!

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Spotlight: "Doctors" and "If You Could See Me Now"

2009-04-19T10:12:00.003+08:00

Midway through April and already I've crossed off two books on my reading list. Here's where it stands now:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin --I boycotted this one.
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
~~6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel~~
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

In between my Holy Week Cleanup Project, I read this novel by Erich Segal. As I mentioned before, I had read this when I was very young, maybe more than ten years ago. Reading it again, I now have newfound respect for anyone who is entering medical school. I knew it was difficult, but reading about the journey of two childhood friends from the first day of medical school all the way to becoming doctors of their own chosen fields was really enlightening.

What I liked about this is that the novel begins by introducing us to Barney and Laura, the protagonists. It establishes the bond that they have in childhood, a bond that remains all through medical school and beyond. But midway through the novel, when they actually begin going to med school, we are introduced to their classmates and their respective back stories. This makes the story even richer as these people weave in and out of Barney and Laura's lives, making all the stories intertwine. More than just the story of Barney and Laura, then, Doctors is really about their batch in Harvard Medical School, at a time when women and black doctors were not generally accepted in their field, when a cure of polio had yet to be discovered, and new medical advancements slowly unravel as time passes and the novel goes along. It was a very informative and engaging read.

As a Christmas gift, my boss gave me a copy of If You Could See Me Now, her all-time favorite Cecelia Ahern novel. Having read the summary at the back cover, I wasn't very intrigued by the premise. But after taking this book with me to the dentist yesterday, I just couldn't put it down.

Without getting into details (it's a bit difficult to summarize this book), it really taught me about friendship. How sometimes, people just really come into your life to fulfill a purpose --like to make you learn something about yourself-- and once they have achieved that, they have to move on and make a mark in other people's lives. I used to think of this as abandonment, as people never staying too long in life, but now I realize that it just means it's time to meet new friends who will teach you something new about yourself.

If you would be so lucky to find people who will stay forever, that means you should be open to growing together, always learning new things about each other, and learning new things about yourself whenever you are with that person. If not, well, the world is so full of people you can learn a thing or two from, as long as you keep yourself open to the opportunities that life has to offer.

While I read A Place Called Here first and it had an intriguing premise, I thought If You Could See Me Now really captivated me. It was so engaging and reachable-- the fantasy element was so woven in to real life, unlike in A Place Called Here where it was a tad too out there. It looks like If You Could See Me Now is my favorite Ahern book too.

So now I've hit 9 out of 17! Halfway down the list now! I would really, really want to start reading The Other Boleyn Girl, but it's so thick I think it'll take me forever to finish. Who knows though, maybe all I need is to just get started. Do I reserve the right to put it down if it proves to be a boring read? Let's see!

Have a great Sunday!

taking a minute on a Holy Thursday

2009-04-09T14:08:00.002+08:00

Strangely, the shower is where I get all my best ideas and epiphanies.

Today, I realized that I love anything that tells a story. I love to read (hence the 17-book reading list), I love to watch movies (there is a DVDs-to-watch list that must be written down in the next few days), and I love hearing stories about other people's lives (yes, I'm a sucker for gossip).

But more than that, I realized that I also love to tell stories (about other people, myself, or random things I hear about) and I love to invent stories (anyone who knows me well knows that I like starting sentences with "What if". Oh, and have I ever told you where the pizza place called "Shakeys" got its name? *wink*).

Maybe that's the same reason why I enjoy working in this industry. Being a publicist is sort of like trying to come up with a story: what story can this magazine tell through a press release, a television segment, or a radio talk show? I cannot imagine applying the same metaphor to a corporate environment, so maybe that's why I can't imagine being anywhere else but here.

And life, to me, is one big story. People come and go, chapters begin and end. Friendships sometimes end with one chapter, only to be rekindled again many chapters later. There can only be more unforeseen twists in the plot, more characters introduced, but ultimately, I have faith that this story called Life will have a happy ending.

Okay, talk about random! My minute is up, so ciao!

hitting 7 out of 17

2009-04-08T12:01:00.005+08:00

Here's my reading list as it currently stands:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin --I boycotted this one.
~~4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern~~
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
~~6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel~~
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
~~8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry~~
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

The latest book I've crossed off the list is The Amber Room by Steve Berry. When Dan Brown came out with The Da Vinci Code (which I also enjoyed), so many other authors began to write with a similar theme. But Steve Berry was different. He may have come around the same time everyone was going crazy over the Jesus-and-Mary Magdalene love angle, but he chose to focus his attention on other historical mysteries: the third secret of Fatima, the story behind the Romanovs and Princess Anastacia, and here, the amber room.

It took me a while to finish this book, which is probably a sign that it didn't have me hooked from the beginning. For one, it doesn't explain the conflict straight away. I had the sense that the novel assumed I had some knowledge of Germans and Soviets, why they fought in World War 2, and what happened between them post-war. I have no idea why Czechoslovakia split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but that's what I learned from the book-- apparently they had some rift. I think that to have a real appreciation of the book, you have to first understand why this Amber Room is so important to them. Yes, I can imagine that an entire room filled with panels of amber, making it seem like it's glittering in gold, could be very precious, but there was a more cultural and historical reason why they were all after it, and I couldn't quite grasp what it was. The explanations came somewhere in the middle, but by then I'd already been so lost. You know when you're walking through the forest, you know you're lost but you think, "Well, I'll just keep walking then, even if I don't know where I'm going," and then someone throws you a map, but you can't even begin to make sense of it because you don't know where you are in the first place? That's how I felt.

There also wasn't enough character development for the protagonists. The summary in the back cover says "a divorced couple race through Europe with trained killers swiftly behind". Well, I know more about the trained killers than I do about the couple. It wasn't a really bad book, but maybe I'm just cutting Steve Berry some slack because this was his debut novel, after all. So, I finally crossed this off my list with the conclusion that it was just a so-so read.

Next on my list is Doctors by Erich Segal. I had read this book years ago, maybe when I was still in grade school, because my older cousins had a copy lying around. All I remember is that it was one of those books I couldn't put down (along with Danielle Steel's Wings, but I don't remember what that was about either), and any book that kept me up till the wee hours of the morning must be something worth re-reading. I may also gain a new appreciation for it now that I'm much older.

I started reading the preface, and I can't wait to dive into it this Holy Week.

So far, I've been successful in my pact not to add to my Reading List. The only addition was a birthday gift from my boss, and at least it was just one book. I'm making good progress with this list, so yay! :)

belated musings on turning 26

2009-03-30T23:31:00.005+08:00

I realized this morning that I hadn't blogged about turning 26 yet, and the month of March is coming to an end. It made me think of how I spent my 25th year, and sadly I was drawing up blanks. I couldn't think of any personal milestones that set this year apart, and all I could think about was a rundown of work-related events that happened in the year.

Add to that today's quote in my Don't Sweat the Small Stuff calendar:

"When someone asks you how you are, don't emphasize how busy you are. You're an interesting person with many other qualities besides busyness."

For the most part of 2008, I think I have been guilty of responding to the question "How are you?" with either, "Stressed out..." or "Tired...", both statements punctuated with a heavy sigh. Somehow, work became a massive force that sucked out all my energy, leaving life to just happen within the smallest cracks and crevices. The rest of my life became little moments that got me through each day with my sanity intact.

I was prepared to accept that Year 25 just came and went, almost as though it never existed, when I realized that there was an underlying theme to the year after all: CHANGE.

Year 25 was a year of transitions, of saying goodbye to people I'd known for a while, and hello to people who would make a mark in my life. In 2008 alone, I've had to say...

... goodbye to the two girls in my team whose unique brands of craziness I will always remember and look back to with a big smile.

... hello to the boss we had waited a year for, and found that she was not only a great mentor, but also a great friend and fellow book ~~hoarder~~ lover.

... hello to one girl who I found soooo incredibly loud and maybe even boisterous, but whose stories and antics I missed once she was gone.

... hello and goodbye to someone whom I first considered a mentor, and ended up considering a good friend.

... hello to one girl who was mysterious and quiet, yet opened up so much towards the end that I've found myself wondering how she's doing now that she's no longer with our team.

... hello to one girl who is just so bright and bubbly, her optimism and enthusiasm is infectious. She brings such a positive energy to the team, and I feel good to have her around.

... goodbye to one girl who has so much potential, I'm glad that she's finally where she's meant to be.

In terms of work, this was when my area of responsibilities changed and mutated until an entirely new system was implemented. I finally began to explore taking on writing racket, and realized after three years that it could be done after all.

It was the year I "formalized" (in quotes because we didn't exactly formalize it in the "Will you be my girlfriend?" way and we don't celebrate any particular date) my relationship with the most caring, loving, patient, understanding, funny, strong, and trustworthy man I know-- aside from my dad, of course. And I've never been happier to be called a "girlfriend" again.

And finally, it was the year I noticed little changes within me, maybe brought upon by age. It may not be obvious as I continue to attack everything at break-neck speed, but I've slowed down: I think before I speak, I've learned when to hold my tongue, I take deep breaths and let petty concerns go, I let people finish telling a joke even if I've heard it before (and I still laugh as if hearing it for the first time), I resist the temptation to slam things around when I'm angry, I try to listen harder, I ask more questions, I try to smile more often. Yes, I may still have road rage and my occasional outbursts, but for the most part, I think I've mellowed.

Now, I'm on Year 26. Who knows what this year will bring? The only thing I hope for is that I continue to grow in love-- love my family, friends, and boyfriend, love my job, love myself, love life.

Here's to a great year ahead!

right on the money

2009-03-28T19:31:00.000+08:00

Your view on yourself:

You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You prefer to get to know a person very well before deciding whether you will commit to the relationship.

The seriousness of your love:

Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.

Your views on education

Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.

The right job for you:

You have many goals and want to achieve as much as you can. The jobs you enjoy are those that let you burn off your considerable excess energy.

How do you view success:

You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:

You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don't ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.

Who is your true self:

You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.

http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx

for once, i rooted for the cheaters

2009-03-08T11:02:00.011+08:00

And this is the book that made me do it.

Anticipating a long wait at my dentist's office, I brought along Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. I figured getting absorbed in chick lit would be better than falling asleep in public, as I had done the last time. It was just supposed to be a way for me to pass the time, and I didn't really intend on spending the rest of my Saturday night reading.

But that's exactly what I did. After waiting for an hour and a half, I was so drawn in by this book that I couldn't put it down. I stayed up until 12:30pm, reading it until the very end. Even after reading, I found myself still thinking about it.

What does this have to do with cheaters, you ask? Well, the protagonist is goody-two-shoes Rachel, who has always played second fiddle to her best friend Darcy. Okay, fine, maybe I identify with Rachel because we're both rule players and seek approval from almost everybody, but I really hated Darcy-- selfish, "It's always about me" Darcy, who always screwed over Rachel and always made her feel bad. She stole Rachel's first love. She lied about her SAT scores just so she could be ten points higher than Rachel. She made Rachel believe that she had gotten into Notre Dame --Rachel's dream college-- when Rachel didn't. She led a glamorous life while Rachel was stuck hating her job. And most importantly, she got the guy that Rachel always thought was out of her league: Dex, who Rachel met in law school. After convincing herself that he wouldn't go for a girl like her, she promptly introduced him to Darcy. The pair is engaged, and Rachel is set to be the maid of honor in their wedding.

I hate Darcy so much that when a drunken Rachel and Dex sleep together on the night of her thirtieth birthday, I find myself hoping that Rachel gets her chance to screw over Darcy. That this time, she comes out on top, even if she is the maid of honor screwing her best friend's fiance. I hate cheaters because I always wonder about the girlfriend who is clueless about all these things happening behind her back. But here, I cannot bring myself to sympathize with Darcy as the clueless girlfriend. For me, it serves her right for being a terrible friend to Rachel.

Of course, this isn't an open and shut case. Dex loves Darcy. Rachel loves Darcy and values their 20-year friendship. Will they realize that Darcy is too important for them both to lose, or is what they have much more precious than they think? For chick lit critics, this isn't as brainless as one would think. I truly enjoyed this book from cover to cover, and find myself wanting to reread it on a lazy afternoon.

And a quick mention on the latest additions to my reading list:

I mentioned this book a long time ago on my Plurk, and I can't even remember how I found out about it. All I know is I was intrigued by the anecdote that gives birth to the title. The subtitle "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" has caused friends to say, "This book is so you!" I kept it at the back of my mind, yet found myself always returning to the English Reference section of the bookstore in our neighborhood mall, checking to see if the lone copy had disappeared.

Finding an open copy in another bookstore sealed its fate for me. The introduction spoke to me by giving an example of a badly-punctuated poster, followed by the statement, "If this didn't bother you, put down this book right now." I wanted to raise my hand and say, "Me, me, it bothered ME!!!" I put it back down, couldn't stop thinking about it for days, and finally put the lone copy out of its misery by buying it from said bookstore.

To be fair to the other books that made it to my Reading List first, I have not gone past the first chapter, which I read while having dinner alone immediately after buying it. Hey, I needed to pass the time!

I admit: this was an impulse buy. But in my defense, when you pick up a book with a boring title like Raising the Peaceable Kingdom, you don't expect it to be about an interesting experiment: what happens when you put a baby chick, a puppy, a kitten, a baby rabbit, and a baby rat all together? Do they end up hating each other, or do they live together peacefully even if they're completely different species?

I found myself reading the first chapter while standing next to the Sale Books bin, and I realized that I really wanted to find out the results of this experiment. Wouldn't the puppy and kitten be at each other's throats immediately? After all, the idiom "fighting like cats and dogs" had to come from somewhere. Wouldn't the kitten eat the rat, just like Tom always chases after Jerry (then again, I think Jerry is a mouse, not a rat, but still)? And the kitten might eat the baby chick, just as Sylvester always lusts after Tweety Bird. I couldn't resist not knowing, so it's a good thing that it would only cost me P65 to find out.

And so my current reading list reads:

The 2009 Reading List

1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
~~2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik~~
~~3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin~~ --I boycotted this one.
~~4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern~~
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
~~10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin~~
~~11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner~~
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal

14. Live a Little by Kim Green

15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason

Hey, 5 out of 16 books, that's not so bad! It means I'm one-third down my reading list, as long as I don't add to it! Maybe I'll read Like Water for Chocolate next.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

The Health Reasons Diet

2009-02-24T17:45:00.006+08:00

Health is something you take for granted in your youth.

In short, I feel old. I've been feeling this way for quite some time now, like every time I start yawning when the clock strikes 10:30pm, or when I think to myself that my siblings will turn deaf by the time they reach my age if they keep listening to their sounds at that volume. But I finally have proof that, indeed, my age has caught up to me.

I had dinner with my cousin last week at Jack's Loft and ordered my usual pasta meal: penne in tomato cream sauce. It was a Monday night and it had been a stressful day, so when she said, "I think I'll get a drink," I decided what the heck, I'd get a cocktail too. So I ordered my usual cocktail, a tequila sunrise. We had a pleasant chat over dinner, I felt slightly buzzed from the drink, but nothing I couldn't handle.

Until 3 A.M. rolled in and I found myself heaving into the toilet bowl, leaning against it as if it was my best friend. Actually, we did become best friends because I found myself hanging out with it four more times that day, even if I could heave no more. All the while I thought to myself, "I am never drinking again!" I went so far as to take a two-hour nap in the office's clinic, hoping I could sleep off the hangover.

I knew it wasn't a hangover when I ran a fever, had to go home, and couldn't eat a thing. I knew for sure it wasn't a hangover when, the next day, I still couldn't eat and was feeling nauseated even after naps. So the next day, I went to see the doctor, and after a long line of questioning, he finally told me, "It seems like you have a gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD."

Say what?? The only way I could explain it was in comparison to hyperacidity: if hyperacidity is when your stomach produces too much acid, this GERD means my body expels the acid, usually by belching and you can generally taste something acidic near the throat. Once he said that, I realized he was right. And I thought my constant burping after meals was normal-- apparently, that was the acid reflux in action.

As a consequence, I now have to make changes in my lifestyle and diet. No skipping meals-- even if I don't skip meals, I do have a tendency of eating very late. Lunch at almost 2PM, dinner at 10PM. None of that now. I also have to eat something every two to three hours, even if it's just crackers.

Best of all, I have to avoid the following, as they stimulate acid production in the body: caffeine, milk, softdrinks, alcoholic beverages, acidic and spicy foods. The doctor says I can still take them, as long as I've eaten a real meal before doing so, but I can't have them frequently. In any case, I'm still choosing to avoid them because I noticed that since I obeyed my doctor's orders, the condition seems to be more under control. I keep drinking water now, and I have crackers with me at all times, and I'm realizing that I don't need caffeine and sweets to function. Now if I lose some weight in the process, that would be great!

Oh, and with that list, I figured out what happened to me on Monday night: it turns out that tomato is considered acidic food, and partnered with the alcohol, it was a double whammy and my acid-producers probably went wild. It made me realize that when I was younger, I never thought of these things, how the things I ate could be the cause of a real illness and not just an upset stomach. Controlling my diet seemed like something I would do in mid-life, not quarter-life. But I guess there's no age limit to being healthy and taking care of your body.

Lesson learned? There's no day like today to start eating on time, getting enough sleep, and turning down the volume of the stereo!

Why I made a new Multiply site

2009-02-21T16:09:00.002+08:00

It all started with a story that I told my mom about a woman who found out through Facebook that her husband wanted a divorce. Since she doesn't have Facebook, I had to preface the story with an explanation of how Facebook alerts you over the slightest changes in someone's account. She tsked-tsked over the story and said, "That's why I don't like all those sites, like Livejournal and Facebook and Multiply. People end up knowing about things they're not supposed to know about."

I thought that was the end of it, but she continued to tell me about something I had written in my Multiply site two years ago. It was one of my random musings about money, and I guess I must have said something about the way some parents obligate their children to contribute to the household so much, they're unable to start saving up for their own future. I've been lucky enough that my parents don't ask me to contribute to household expenses, and that they would probably rather I save up for myself and my own expenses. I know that others my age are not as lucky. But that's not the point. The point is, apparently, an uncle of mine read it, and all this time assumed that I was talking about my own household, griping about my own parents. It really ticked me off how he could assume things about my life because, frankly, it's none of his business. I also discovered that he really does check my site whenever I upload something new, and it bugs me that he seems so interested in my life. (It doesn't help that I've had my gripes about this uncle on separate occassions.)

Realizing that I didn't want this uncle, his wife and their kids (even if they keep separate Multiply accounts, they do still live in the same house) to have access to my personal life, I decided to log on to my Multiply account and try to find a way to filter my contacts. There must be a way to edit him out without deleting him/them because that would be too obvious-- what happens in the next family reunion and he says, "Oh, why am I not seeing you on Multiply anymore?" What am I supposed to say then?

I discovered that Multiply is not filter-friendly. While it recognizes that relationships vary in degree (it does allow you to classify your relationship with someone as a neighbor, classmate, or sorority sister), when it comes to allowing access to your friends, it only lumps those subtle distinctions into the general Friends category. Which means that if I decide to filter an album and make it unavailable to Family (including that uncle), it means that my cousins and sister cannot see it either. Yes, I could select particular individuals that will have access to that album, but I find it too tedious to run through my entire Multiply list. Aside from that uncle, I realized that there are so many people on my list who were just my classmates in one subject, high school classmates I wasn't really close to, and old friends I haven't heard from in a very, very long time. And when these people post things, I don't open their albums anyway because, quite honestly, I'm really not that interested in what they're up to.

That's when I realized that I really should've taken Multiply seriously when they said "This is a site for meaningful relationships." So I decided to open a new site and invite only the people that I really want to let into my life. Letting the whole world know about what's going on in your life really does not appeal to me, and that's the downside to these online networking sites. I like Facebook, I like Multiply, I like Plurk, and I like Blogger (if I didn't, this blog wouldn't be alive), but there is always a risk of oversharing in these sites. What I've learned as I've gotten older is that you must straddle a line between putting your thoughts out there and putting every single thought (including how you can still taste your lunch every time you burp and now you need to go pee-pee) out there. Share, but don't overshare, and learn to share with the right people.

I'm still keeping the old one though, but now it has a new purpose. After all, I'm still uploading links to my press releases as they appear on the Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP.ph) and I sometimes still make blog entries that are work-related. Besides, that site has all my contacts for online shopping as well, so I can somehow look at it as a "professional" site, as opposed to my new "personal" site.

Now I must begin the slow and steady effort of building my new site.

Spotlight: "Freakonomics" and "Live a Little"

2009-02-13T09:13:00.009+08:00

Currently reading.
I don't know why I delayed reading this book for so long. A fellow book ~~hoarder~~ lover gave this to me for Christmas 2007, and it somehow got lost in the pile of all my books. I rediscovered it, added it to my reading list, and finally decided to start on it since it had already waited so long to be read.

I now regret delaying it. Freakonomics is one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. It's non-fiction, which is a good break from all the fiction I've been reading. But it's a little hard to explain what it's about. Steven Levitt is an economist but a very creative thinker at the same time. I used to hate economics classes because they all seemed so technical-- though in high school, I remember thinking that economics was an easy subject that teachers just like to complicate. There's a lot of logic involved in understanding economics and its basic principles like supply and demand (which is probably the only thing I ever learned of the subject). Levitt applies the same logic needed to understand economics into unearthing the truth behind many other things. How is legalized abortion connected to the crime rate decline in the US? What makes teachers cheat? (Yes, teachers. Not students.) How did one man bring down the Klu Klux Klan? Levitt is able to present data in a way that is not boring at all-- they just seem like important elements to understanding a story. I'm only in the second (or is it third?) chapter, so I'm sure that there's still so much more to learn from this book. It just really appeals to my Connect-the-Dots sensibilities.

The latest addition to my reading list. Yes, I'm fully aware that I currently have 13 books on my reading list, but I couldn't resist this one.

I have a confession. On days when I have nothing better to do, I browse the websites of Fully Booked and Powerbooks and look for interesting reads. If I find a title I like, I log on to Amazon and read reviews. I found this book on one of those days.

The premise intrigued me. A housewife neglected by her husband and taken for granted by her bratty teenagers is diagnosed with breast cancer. All of a sudden, her family is being very appreciative of her, they treat her really well-- basically behavior you would expect from people who know that you're on the brink of death. So she's loving all the attention, when her doctor suddenly tells her, "Oh, sorry, we made a mistake. You don't have cancer after all." What does she do? She doesn't tell her family that she doesn't have cancer. Why should she, when they're finally treating her well? This makes me wonder where the book will go. Will someone discover that she's not sick after all? Will she eventually have to break the news to them? Will there be a twist that has her dying by accident in the end? What, pray tell, happens when you let your family think that you're dying? Do you actually get the chance to, ironically, live a little? (Yes, I figured out the story behind the title!)

So on my next trip to Fully Booked, I tracked it down and just made a mental note to consider it for my list. This went on for months-- I'd be in Fully Booked High Street, I'd see one copy lying there, I'd walk away, strangely comforted by the fact that it was still there. Finally, when I went to Fully Booked High Street this week, I checked it out and read the first chapter. Lo and behold, it was actually funny! Realizing that this wasn't a somber book and I was probably going to be in for a few laughs, plus that lone copy had been sitting there for months (okay, maybe it's not the same copy, but I've always just seen one copy in all these months), I finally decided to buy it.

I can't wait to keep reading Freakonomics this weekend! And I'm glad I have Live a Little waiting in the wings. :)

pushing daisies in a place called Here

2009-02-07T18:56:00.002+08:00

An update on my reading list:

The 2009 Reading List

1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

2. ~~The Smart One and the Pretty One~~ ~~by Claire LaZebnik~~

3. ~~Skinny B~~itch~~ ~~by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin~~~~

4. ~~A Place Called Hereby Cecelia Ahern~~

5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern

6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen

8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry

9. Doctors by Erich Segal

10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

13. Prizes by Erich Segal

I stopped reading Skinny Bitch because I disagreed that you need to be a vegetarian to become healthy. I started reading A Place Called Here in the car while waiting for parking, but the book was pretty good so I ended up taking it out of the car and reading it a few chapters a night for the whole week.

The premise is actually pretty good. When Sandy Shortt was ten years old, a classmate went missing and was never found. This made her obsessed with lost things, literally turning the house upside down in search of a sock or a toothbrush or anything that went missing. She dedicated her adult life to searching for missing persons, until one day, she goes missing herself. She finds herself in a place where all the lost things go-- including some of the

lost people she'd spent years trying to find. There is a whole other life in this place, as people try to go on with their lives, building families and taking on jobs, working together as a community. But Sandy only wants to go home. The question is, how?

I'm thinking I should probably read something lighter now, like maybe Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. If I do that though, I'll be left with much heavier stuff to tackle. So I dunno, I'll think about it. Maybe I'll pause on the reading for a while and resume watching Pushing Daisies. It's a pretty interesting series about a guy who has the power to bring people back to live for just one minute. After that, he has to touch them again so that they become dead again-- otherwise, something else must die in its place. It sounds morbid, but it's actually got some dry humor. Plus, I love that the colors are very vivid. It actually reminds me of a movie, but I can't quite figure out what. Maybe Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp version)? Everything is so vibrant, and the voiceover adds a fairytale-like quality to it. I only have Season 1, and I heard that the series will end with Season 2, but maybe that's just right. The story might get ruined if they let it drag on too long.

Wow! This marks the first time my blog actually has pictures! Hooray! :) Signing off for now. :)

Writer's Block

2009-02-05T09:48:00.002+08:00

It was bound to happen.

On Monday, I was able to write one cheat sheet and two press releases.

Tuesday, it was one cheat sheet and two press releases.

Wednesday, it was two press releases-- one, I had to rewrite completely, the other I had to revise. So that's kinda like 3 1/2, if you think about it.

Today, Thursday, I'm supposed to write three press releases, and so far...

...

*crickets chirping*

My mind is a complete blank. I can't think. I can't function. I just want to sit, stare at nothing, not think of anything. I don't want to do anything.

I don't know if I was thrown off by the missing bodega key (which is still currently missing), or just started the morning with bad vibes from the rant of a usually-cheerful officemate (it was actually a shocker to hear her in a bad mood), or I didn't have a restful sleep.

I don't know what it is. All I know is I just want to sleep. Or lie down. Or sit down. Anything, as long as the common denominator is not doing and thinking of anything.

Our intern is here today, and I can't even bring myself to think of what she should be doing. It's that bad. I mean, I know what she should be doing, I have her tasks in my head, but I can't bring myself to tell her to get started because it would mean that I'd have to start working too. And I can't function yet.

Ugh, I hate this. :(

The Personality Test Junkie

2009-01-31T12:09:00.005+08:00

My sister is at that point of her academic life where she must decide on her majors. Unlike other universities where you are identified by your major from freshman year, my sister's school has a different system: all students take up core subjects in their first two years, after which they apply for their major. For the longest time, my sister has wanted to take up Integrated Marketing Communications, seeing herself in the field of advertising after graduation. However, she didn't get accepted into the IMC program and must now apply for her second choice, which is Management.

All this has thrown her into a loop, realizing that maybe IMC and the thought of getting into the advertising industry has been her comfort zone for so long. This is the chance to get out of that comfort zone and discover if she's more fit to do other things. It was perfect timing that their guidance office administered those career and personality tests that are supposed to help you find your strengths and discover the industries you would thrive in, given your unique set of skills and talents.

Years after graduation, I find that I'm still a sucker for these kinds of tests. My mom made me read my sister's test results, and they were so accurate that I wanted to take the same test. Apparently, the MBTI Test is something that you have to pay for to take. This is the test that analyzes whether you are Extroverted or Introverted, Sensing or Intuitive, Thinking or Feeling, Judging or Perceiving-- your unique result is the combination of these four categories. The beauty of the Internet is that I found some site that gave the test for free. After answering a certain set of questions, my test results came up and I am an ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). I had to go to another site for my profile though, and I know the results are quite long, but I find it so accurate that I'm posting them here:

The Duty Fulfiller

As an ISTJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in via your five senses in a literal, concrete fashion. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things rationally and logically.

ISTJs are quiet and reserved individuals who are interested in security and peaceful living. They have a strongly-felt internal sense of duty, which lends them a serious air and the motivation to follow through on tasks. Organized and methodical in their approach, they can generally succeed at any task which they undertake.

ISTJs are very loyal, faithful, and dependable. They place great importance on honesty and integrity. They are "good citizens" who can be depended on to do the right thing for their families and communities. While they generally take things very seriously, they also usually have an offbeat sense of humor and can be a lot of fun - especially at family or work-related gatherings.

ISTJs tend to believe in laws and traditions, and expect the same from others. They're not comfortable with breaking laws or going against the rules. If they are able to see a good reason for stepping outside of the established mode of doing things, the ISTJ will support that effort. However, ISTJs more often tend to believe that things should be done according to procedures and plans. If an ISTJ has not developed their Intuitive side sufficiently, they may become overly obsessed with structure, and insist on doing everything "by the book".

The ISTJ is extremely dependable on following through with things which he or she has promised. For this reason, they sometimes get more and more work piled on them. Because the ISTJ has such a strong sense of duty, they may have a difficult time saying "no" when they are given more work than they can reasonably handle. For this reason, the ISTJ often works long hours, and may be unwittingly taken advantage of.

The ISTJ will work for long periods of time and put tremendous amounts of energy into doing any task which they see as important to fulfilling a goal. However, they will resist putting energy into things which don't make sense to them, or for which they can't see a practical application. They prefer to work alone, but work well in teams when the situation demands it. They like to be accountable for their actions, and enjoy being in positions of authority. The ISTJ has little use for theory or abstract thinking, unless the practical application is clear.

ISTJs have tremendous respect for facts. They hold a tremendous store of facts within themselves, which they have gathered through their Sensing preference. They may have difficulty understanding a theory or idea which is different from their own perspective. However, if they are shown the importance or relevance of the idea to someone who they respect or care about, the idea becomes a fact, which the ISTJ will internalize and support. Once the ISTJ supports a cause or idea, he or she will stop at no lengths to ensure that they are doing their duty of giving support where support is needed.

The ISTJ is not naturally in tune with their own feelings and the feelings of others. They may have difficulty picking up on emotional needs immediately, as they are presented. Being perfectionists themselves, they have a tendency to take other people's efforts for granted, like they take their own efforts for granted. They need to remember to pat people on the back once in a while.

ISTJs are likely to be uncomfortable expressing affection and emotion to others. However, their strong sense of duty and the ability to see what needs to be done in any situation usually allows them to overcome their natural reservations, and they are usually quite supporting and caring individuals with the people that they love. Once the ISTJ realizes the emotional needs of those who are close to them, they put forth effort to meet those needs.

The ISTJ is extremely faithful and loyal. Traditional and family-minded, they will put forth great amounts of effort at making their homes and families running smoothly. They are responsible parents, taking their parenting roles seriously. They are usually good and generous providers to their families. They care deeply about those close to them, although they usually are not comfortable with expressing their love. The ISTJ is likely to express their affection through actions, rather than through words.

ISTJs have an excellent ability to take any task and define it, organize it, plan it, and implement it through to completion. They are very hard workers, who do not allow obstacles to get in the way of performing their duties. They do not usually give themselves enough credit for their achievements, seeing their accomplishments simply as the natural fulfillment of their obligations.

ISTJs usually have a great sense of space and function, and artistic appreciation. Their homes are likely to be tastefully furnished and immaculately maintained. They are acutely aware of their senses, and want to be in surroundings which fit their need for structure, order, and beauty.

Under stress, ISTJs may fall into "catastrophe mode", where they see nothing but all of the possibilities of what could go wrong. They will berate themselves for things which they should have done differently, or duties which they failed to perform. They will lose their ability to see things calmly and reasonably, and will depress themselves with their visions of doom.

In general, the ISTJ has a tremendous amount of potential. Capable, logical, reasonable, and effective individuals with a deeply driven desire to promote security and peaceful living, the ISTJ has what it takes to be highly effective at achieving their chosen goals - whatever they may be.

This is the third test I've taken since the Strengths Finder test and the ENNEAGRAM test. Try taking this test and see how accurate it is for you!

I hate this feeling.

2009-01-29T12:08:00.002+08:00

I hate this.

The feeling that it's too good to be true when all seems right in the world. No major problems of the heart, family's healthy, friends are okay as okay can be, no world disasters, no storming to the streets to depose a president, everything's pretty steady. It gives me the sense that a storm must be brewing somewhere, just waiting to take you by surprise so that you don't see it coming.

It's such a pessimistic mentality, but can you blame me if the biggest trials I've faced were things that I really didn't see coming? Like a monthsary celebration that suddenly turned into the night of the "I'm in love with someone else and I think we should break up" speech. Like landing a job unexpectedly, only to be laid off just as unexpectedly because the company closed down on the owner's whim. In both occasions, the first instinct was to cry. Cry until it hurts inside. Then wander through the days in a daze, unsure of how you're managing to go through the motions. It's a dark place that makes you question everything-- somehow, all the positive things like pride in your accomplishments, belief in your abilities, comfort in knowing you are loved... they all seem like lies at this point. Like someone has been leading you on to believe all these things, only to pull the rug from beneath your feet. You wonder, why me? Why now? And of course, why didn't I see this coming?

I don't know if I prefer this over dying a slow death, just like my first relationship did. With that one, I just woke up one day and thought to myself, "I'm tired of all this. I don't want this anymore. I know I've tried my best to make this work and there really is no turning back." That moment came months and months after friends tried to open my eyes to the reality that, really, there was nothing left worth saving. I just had to arrive at that point myself. And when I did, there really was nothing left to say, nothing to look back on, making it much easier to focus on moving forward and building something new. The thought, though, that something you cherish is slowly dying... Should you spend all your energy trying to prevent something from breaking down, or should you save all that energy for dealing with the aftermath of a breakdown and for building something new from the ashes?

The storm is brewing. Maybe it's even arrived already, and will only increase in magnitude. I have this picture in my head of being atop a mountain, looking down at the valley, seeing people flee their homes and trying to rebuild from the wreckage, feeling powerless to help them and fearful that the storm could come and get me anytime. Because storms are that way: they tend to change course when you least expect them. So really, no one is safe. Do you leave before the storm hits, or do you stay and try to tough it out?

They say that how one deals with a crisis something about your character. If you flee before the storm hits, you seem like a coward (especially if the storm ends up dwindling into a light shower. What of you then?). If you tough it out, you run the risk of losing yourself in it, but also have the chance of emerging tougher and stronger than before. The latter sounds more appealing, even if it is much harder to do and often requires you to summon a strength you didn't know you had.

Sometimes the best thing to do in a storm is to stay put. Not run out to buy more batteries, not purge your home of anything breakable and potentially deadly in the event of a storm, none of that. Just sit. Keep everything as it is, watch the storm howling outside, maybe read a good book while you're at it. Stay put and things will return to normal, a better day will emerge whether or not you panic over the storm.

Maybe that's why people always discourage you from moping around after breaking up with someone or losing your job. Sulk for a few days, then keep going. Wake up every day, eat breakfast and brush your teeth after, and do what you've always done: hang out with friends, read a good book, smell the flowers. Because one day, that new love will come knocking, or you'll stumble on that opportunity that will lead you to a new career.

... okay, I'm now officially not making any sense. Talk about writing in... how does that go again? Write in white heat, edit in cold blood? That seems like a mixed idiom, like "barking around the wrong bush". Hmm... if you remember how that goes, drop me a line! Ciao!

(And no, none of this is about me. I'm all good... so far. Storm's brewing, as I said.)

the anti-vegetarian

2009-01-25T01:18:00.002+08:00

Skinny Bitch just made a fatal mistake. It has just suggested that in order to be healthy, I have to become a vegetarian.

First, it bashed eating meat by arguing that animals are injected with all sorts of hormones, chemicals which, when ingested by humans, cause all sorts of diseases. Then, it turned its eye on dairy products, arguing that in the same way that a pregnant woman should watch what she eats and does (i.e. don't smoke, drink, or do drugs because it can harm the fetus), all the aforementioned hormones and chemicals that a chicken is exposed to definitely affects its eggs. Okay, fine, both are valid arguments. But it's not like plants are all that safe from our polluted environment either. It's not like plants don't have their fair share of harmful chemicals that come from pesticides and all that. So with that argument, I was okay with moving forward into the book.

The next chapter opened with this line: "If the first two chapters didn't convince you to stop eating animals and their products, maybe this one will." And then it proceeded to talk about what happens in a slaughterhouse. In. Full. Detail. With testimonies from people who have actually worked there.

Dude. Just because I love the burger doesn't mean I want to meet the cow and shake its hand to say, "Thank you for giving up your life just so I could enjoy your juicy meat in this burger." So I skipped the entire chapter.

Because the reality is, I'm not giving up my meat. I mean, as it is, I don't eat a lot of pork and beef. I'm not a person that loves sinigang, bulalo, kare-kare, caldereta, and all that. With certain cuts of meat, I just really need one piece because I shred it into little pieces. I'm really more of a chicken and seafood person. But this book is trying to take even that away from me. Even after I've made more of an effort to eat veggies (hello, Spiral Salad of KFC! a shoutout to Goolai's TexMex Salad, I miss yooooou!), and the fact that I like fruits and should really find a way to eat that more often.

Besides, I don't think becoming a vegetarian is just about a choice of diet or a stand against animal cruelty. It's a lifestyle, and not an easy one to maintain. It's not like today's malls are all that friendly to vegetarianism. Take a look at our wonderful, only-earns-money-at-lunchtime mall. I can't think of a place that has a meal with vegetables and nothing but. The meat is just everywhere. But okay, if you really wanted to turn vegetarian, there are probably other ways like bringing your own food or heading to the grocery to make your own meal. I just don't think it's fair to generalize that the way to become healthy is to turn completely vegetarian.

So now I'm torn between sitting through the rest of the book (which has just finished bashing some U.S. government agency that supposedly protects the interest of the pro-meat delegation because almost everyone employed in that agency comes from that very industry), or just chucking it aside and moving on to the next one.

I wish it would tell me about carbohydrates and fats and what they do for your body instead. I wish it could've been more motivational. But what do you expect from a book that's entitled Skinny Bitch? It's being very bitchy indeed, imposing this meat-is-evil-and-plants-are-good philosophy as if it's all written down in black and white. Boo.

on finally letting go

2009-01-18T19:20:00.003+08:00

I have been through two break-ups. Which pretty much means I've had my heart broken twice, and for the same reason at that. But for some reason, I was a believer of "maybe someday we can be friends." And even worse, I was a believer of "someday I'll tell my grandkids about you and the happy memories we had".

So I had the remnants of failed relationships sitting inside my cabinet, kept in their respective boxes-- an old Nokia box that held Ex #1's first gift to me, and a normal box covered in nice wrapping paper that help Ex #2's first gift to me. I had never really understood what all the fuss was about burning everything that reminds you of him and all that. I thought that it was enough for them to be out of sight, out of mind. Hence the boxes and the unopened cabinet that held them.

Here I am in Relationship Number 3. And out of nowhere, I thought of those two boxes and realized, "What the hell am I doing still hanging on to those?" Will I really pull my children unto my lap, dig up these boxes, and read to them old love letters that professed a love that ultimately died? Would I really pick up a candy wrapper and recount some story about how this was the first candy bar an Ex --a man not their father-- gave me eons ago?

It was stupid. And I finally saw the light.

And for the first time, my wonderful boyfriend supported my desire to own a piece of office equipment that other people don't normally want to have: a paper shredder. In his words, "Now, that's the best use for a paper shredder."

I found a dirt-cheap paper shredder at CD-R King: while shredders normally cost at least P2,000, I was able to get this one for P999. Looooove. It sat in my room and waited until I had enough time to open that closet and deal with the ghosts of the past once and for all.

"Once and for all" came this afternoon. I plugged in the shredder, opened the Box from Ex #1, took all the letters, and fed them into the shredder one by one. As I fed them into the shredder, I didn't even pause to read them. A few words caught my eye, terms of endearment I don't ever want to hear again, and everything just made me shudder. Particularly for Ex #1, I realized that all that was so ten years ago! And I was hanging on to these things from ten years ago! At first I thought of saving the pictures, but when I realized that I was cringing at the sight of them, into the shredder they went. Now the Box from Ex #1 is practically empty, save for my prom invite, his prom invite (which were pretty nice), earrings and a necklace. At least those are things I can decide on later.

Box from Ex #2 was almost the same story but not quite. I realized that most of the things in there were receipts, with notes on what we did on those dates. Gawd. How pathetic. Did I really think I was going to pick up a receipt and tell my kids, "Oh kids, I went out with this guy --not your dad-- to eat at this place for the first time. And look, we spent only P199.75 for two complete meals!" It wasn't going to happen, so I chucked all those receipts into the big black garbage bag. Then I fed all the letters into the shredder one by one, without reading them. I knew it was going to hurt if I read them because I had hoped Ex #2 would be The One. Coming from your first heartbreak, you always hope that the next one will be The One. And the way things ended, with the protracted emotional rollercoaster ride, only made things worse. Bad as it sounds, but it seems it will take a very long time before the happy memories with Ex #2 resurface, as only the pain remains for now.

Which brings me to this: why did I want to hang on to all these hurtful memories all these years? Why did I hang on to letters from a better time, when I knew that those professions of love were just words that didn't go anywhere? When I knew how the story had already ended? As I fed all the letters and pictures into the shredder, I realized that you don't need tangible things to remind you of the good times. If they were good times, they'll just stay with you, untarnished. They will always have the power to make you smile and say, "Yeah, the story didn't end well, but that was still a sweet thing to do/a really good day/a happy memory." And that's that. Happy memories have a way of being immortalized in your mind.

Maybe that's why in my current relationship, I haven't been stocking up any memorabilia. I don't have receipts from dates, I don't have handwritten notes on an exchange of text messages, I don't have love letters and pressed roses. But I do have a lot of memories, like a Valentines dinner spent in the office and still managed to be romantic, the look on his face when he first saw me in a dress, the time we went swimming together for his birthday, and a lot of smaller things that just pop up randomly in my head, making me smile out of the blue. And the tangible stuff that I do have always have a story: the grumpy Care Bear that will remind me on bad days that there's always someone else in a worse mood, the little red devil that was born out of an inside joke, the earrings he bought me after I lost the exact same pair, and the ring I wear every day that reminds me how I am loved.

And when you realize just how much love you really have in your life, it becomes so much easier to let go of all the things that were so ten years ago.

The 2009 reading list

2009-01-18T15:11:00.003+08:00

Now that I'm done watching Seasons 1-3 of How I Met Your Mother, it's now time to resume my reading list. Here's how I'm doing so far:

The 2009 Reading List

1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

2. ~~The Smart One and the Pretty One~~ ~~by Claire LaZebnik~~

3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern --> I need to read this already because this isn't my copy.

5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern

6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen

8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry

9. Doctors by Erich Segal

10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

I'm currently reading Skinny Bitch, which is interesting and educational at the same time. Hopefully it will help me to start eating right and maybe convince me to join my officemates' Thursday Group, which aims to go jogging every Thursday at Ultra.

Because really, I'm probably the laziest person I know when it comes to exercise. I think I get bored with anything that needs a routine. I always think of ways to get some exercise, but never get around to doing them. So maybe, hopefully, reading this book will convince me to get off my lazy butt and get healthy.

Next on my list should be my boss' copy of A Place Called Here, just so I can return it already. I'm on the lookout for books that will form my next reading list after this one, like Live a Little by Kim Green, The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry, Be Careful What You Wish For by Alexandria Potter, and a whole lot of books I'm bound to discover on my next trip to the bookstore.

What's on your reading list this year?

Written in the Stars

2009-01-04T09:03:00.003+08:00

Working in the magazine industry usually means getting first dibs at my year as it is written in the stars. I usually get a pretty well-rounded picture by checking out at least three versions of my yearly horoscope: Cosmopolitan's Bedside Astrologer (which has all the "hot days" and all that), Marie Claire (which usually balances my year in life, love, and career), and Town & Country (which devotes an entire page to each zodiac sign).

This year though, before I could get to any of the above, I stumbled upon this article in today's Inquirer, and my horoscope is SPOT. ON. See below:

Aries (March 21-April 19)

**** Just when you thought you were on cruise control, you hit a wall. Ouch. A wall is only an obstacle if you make it one. In learning that lesson, you will be able to tap into your creativity and find paths through the boulders of your year.

You have been absorbing a lot of extra work, or perhaps cannot find the job that knocks your socks off. Or you might toy with the idea of a new field. You have been challenged in the realm of your daily life and work. You can meet that challenge, too.

These issues have been lurking for a while. This year, you will wrestle with these problems and most likely will win.

Fall 2009 tosses a new perspective on relationships. If you are single, you could feel a tremendous emptiness you would want to fill. Out of this will come the readiness for that commitment.

Married Rams could be redefining their relationships, as their significant other might become cold or remote. Remember, this is only a passage, not an invitation to divorce.

Motto of the year: Expect many new insights to head your way. Use them to better your hand.

See what I mean? I tried looking at my friends' horoscopes, and they're eerily true too. Or at least, the horoscopes apply to whatever they're going through right now. It's not like I take these things to heart, but I like to read my horoscope at the beginning of the year, then somehow find my way back to it at the end of the year and see how things turned out in hindsight. After reading this, I can't wait to read my horoscopes according to Cosmo, Marie Claire, and Town & Country!

Do you believe in horoscopes?

New Year's Resolutions, part two

2008-12-28T21:22:00.002+08:00

Some more thoughts on my New Year's Resolutions:

- I will try to maintain a realistic reading list this year. I've recently added two more to my reading list: Doctors by Erich Segal (a novel I read and loved back in high school but never bought my own copy, and I only remembered it when I bought my boss a copy for Christmas) and Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life by David Allen (another book by the author of Getting Things Done. This time it's little, bite-sized principles that you can easily digest). By realistic, I mean I can easily see myself finishing the books on the list, and only when I've sort-of finished it (i.e. more than halfway down the list) will I begin to replenish my list. Really, I'll try (where "try" is the operative word). Reading is such an expensive addiction, especially when you're picky about versions (trade paperback or mass market paperback? Movie cover or non-movie cover? British or American cover? There's a difference, there really is!)

- Since I'm keeping a reading list, I will make it a point to set aside time to read a little everyday. Then, in between reading lists, I will...

- Watch more DVDs. I'm currently addicted to How I Met Your Mother, and there are so many shows that I know nothing about. Among them: Gossip Girl, Pushing Daisies, Heroes, Entourage... I never watched an episode. Not even one. So, I will expand my pop culture knowledge by joining the bandwagon and watch more DVDs...

- And more TV, and more movies. Here's to more movie dates! :)

- Try to travel more this year. If only cash came in unlimited supply.

Okay that's it for now. Until the new year! :)

An attempt to make New Year's Resolutions

2008-12-27T19:43:00.003+08:00

While New Year's Eve is days away, reading Getting Things Done is encouraging me to just jot everything down as they come. If I don't do it now, I will probably forget about it. So here I am, typing away on my cousin's laptop as I wait for the party upstairs to fill up with people I actually know (and this laptop is pretty fun to type in!).

So, when the New Year comes in, I will...

- Try not to use "chorva", "chenes", "eklavu", and other baklese (isn't that what they call gay lingo now?) to substitute for other words. I realized that these words have become my lazy, easy way out of really thinking about things. It's easier to say "Pass me the chorva" than to think of that chorva as salt or pepper. My vocabulary is in danger of shrinking. And so, I will refuse the temptation to call things and people "chorva" and "chenes".

- Try something new at least once a month. This includes buying a piece of clothing I don't have in my wardrobe, eating at a new place, trying a new dish, and other things I don't normally do. It has become so easy to get stuck in a rut, and the most glaring evidence that it's detrimental to one's health is the state of my feet and lower back. Because I've been walking around in flats for years, refusing to wear heels, my back pain has increased and the arches of my feet hurt all the time. It's my body begging me to please add some height to my walk. And so I've succumbed, forcing myself to tolerate being in heels all day but not every day in an attempt to improve my posture. And it hasn't been so bad, which then proves that trying new things won't kill you after all.

- Come to work early every day. As I have discovered this December, coming in adik-early (as I like to call it) has its benefits: I get to work on things that require absolute silence and I get to take my time getting into the groove of things. Rather than trying to hit the ground running everyday, I have time to settle in, clear my head, and relax before the day really gets started. Coming in early also leads me to my next resolution, which is...

- Set aside at least an hour every day to clean up, process, and organize my things/files. Because I really want to lead an organized and stress-free life, Getting Things Done stresses the importance of lists, keeping your calendar and filing system up-to-date, current, and dynamic, and basically taking the time out to collect, process, organize, and review everything before you decide on what to do. (I swear I love this book.)

- Make it a point to keep the schedule I thought up: go home early twice a week, go on a date twice a week, and have a Me-Day once a week. 'Nuff said.

To be continued, it's time to join the rest of civilization upstairs. Have you thought of your own New Year's Resolutions? :)

Hello, Cebu!

2008-12-25T18:29:00.002+08:00

I made it to Cebu safe and sound. *applause*

For the first time in a very, very long time, my family is not staying over at my tita's house in Happy Valley. This year, we're booked at a pension house called NS Royale. There's wifi here, but I assumed it was for free. It's not. It costs P450 for 6 hours, valid for 48 hours. To save a bit, my siblings and I get two hours each in this card, but can't go online all at the same time. Boo.

Which is actually okay because our schedule looks jampacked:

Dec 25 - arrival in Cebu

Dec 26 - wedding number one

Dec 27 - free day

Dec 28 - free day

Dec 29 - wedding number two

Dec 30 - trip to Argao (might be overnight)

Dec 31 - New Year's Eve reunion

Jan 1 - departure from Cebu

On one of those free days, we'll be hitting SM Cebu to check out the new wing and do some shopping-- thanks to my dad's credit card rewards points, we get P2,000 each! Whee! Then, my cousin wants to have some sort of night out, like have a cocktail or something. I'm actually not very in the mood to hit the hotspots, but I suppose we'll find a way to hang out together.

Looks like I'll have enough of a voice to perform my commentator duties in Wedding Number One. Thank God.

It's been six years since I've been here. I wonder what's changed.

The limited Internet time is pressuring me, I can't seem to write anything coherent. Oh well. Signing off!

the book hoarder

2008-12-24T23:47:00.003+08:00

I cheated.

I have a reading list with ten books on it, and I read nine out of ten. One more to go, it just had to be The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, the thickest and possibly most challenging read in the bunch.

What did I do?

I went and skipped on over to my boss' copy of Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella. It was a much simpler read-- almost too simple. The pacing was slow, the middle was too dragged out, and the end was the only thing that redeemed it, as I could picture the couple's scenes as parts of a movie. The imagery was that vivid, and it's probably the only thing I took away from the entire novel.

The Other Boleyn Girl remains untouched, and a new reading list is beginning to pile up. My boss is trying to get me on the Cecelia Ahern bandwagon by lending me her copy of A Place Called Here, whose premise interests me more than If You Could See Me Now, which she gave me as a Christmas gift because it's her all-time Ahern favorite (and I think it's a subtle way of trying to get me to agree). Ahern seems to have elements of magic realism woven into her stories, so it should be an interesting read (and maybe less complicated than getting a magic realism fix from Garcia Marquez!).

Also waiting in the wings are The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik, an impulse buy thanks to my indulgent boyfriend; Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, which Amazon reviews swear is more than your average chick lit; and The Amber Room by Steve Berry, which was given to me by my "mommy" in the recent Kris Kringle at our office and is a thriller that I've always wanted to read. I'm a fan of Steve Berry because he chooses to investigate other historical mysteries rather than do a Dan Brown and theorize on the templar legacy, the Magdalene gospels, and other religious themes.

Rounding up the list is the book I'm currently reading, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. The book talks about setting up a personal filing system that will help you become more organized and efficient, minus the stress. Sounds too good to be true? It's actually simple yet daunting at the same time. Before you can get to being organized and efficient, you have to sort through all your sh*t first and build your system from bottom up. So for every item on your desk (or email inbox, whichever applies), you have to decide: toss or keep? If keep, is it for future reference or is it actionable? If it's actionable, what are the next steps to take? Is it something that can be accomplished in under two minutes? If it is, get to it NOW. That's how the book talks, and it's not even done yet! It walks you through the nitty-gritty of collecting your stuff, processing them, and organizing them. The book is making me want to set up a filing system of my own and fulfill my dreams of owning a labeller. I now have a "legitimate" excuse to buy a labeller, though I'm sure my boyfriend will beg to disagree. I'm not even done reading yet, and already I want to get cleaning!

My cleaning will have to wait till the New Year. Until then, I'm off to a much-awaited vacation in Cebu! Merry Christmas! :)

taking another stab at it

2008-12-24T14:08:00.001+08:00

"Why don't you have a blog?" my boss asked one day.

I opened my mouth to reply, but the words didn't come automatically. Quite honestly, the question had me stumped: why didn't I have a blog? I used to have one on Livejournal, and it was filled with every single detail of my life. Aside from the URL bearing the anniversary of a failed relationship and bad memories of The Ex (I wouldn't advise posting lyrics over Livejournal as a way of breaking up with someone and declaring that you're through with his sh*t), Livejournal found its demise with the arrival of Multiply.

I tried migrating my entries from Livejournal to Multiply, then tried blogging on Multiply. But as the relationships on my Multiply ranged from family, friends, officemates, former classmates, and acquaintances, I realized that my blog entries were not for everyone after all. The thrill that once came with broadcasting thoughts and opinions into the vastness of cyberspace was dying. In its place came a wariness about who was reading what about my life. And so I stopped blogging, no longer compelled to let everyone in on what I was thinking, feeling, and currently doing.

That was the most I could tell my boss: "I decided I was tired of broadcasting every detail of my life." But the truth? Ah, maybe the truth is that I lost that blogging feeling-- that is, to find it in me to write coherently, to express opinions and talk about something more substantial than memes and the boredom that rules my day.

Inspired by a fellow writer-friend who is taking another stab at blogging, here I am, opening a new blog in a new site, strangely named after the old one. Maybe because that's really what blogging is to me: the thoughts that move somewhere between dreams and reality. Hopefully this blog will awaken the deeper side of me and my writing, the side that longs to say more than the latest fashion trends and great gift ideas, the side that wants to do more than encourage people to grab a copy of their favorite magazine, now available in newsstands and bookstores nationwide. The phrase comes automatically, as my fingers fly across the keyboard. This blog hopes to break that monotony, that droning that comes with being a slave of the workforce.

While I don't promise to write anything profound, I do promise to go beyond how bored I am about my day or how work is being a bitch, and instead try to pin down my thoughts, my opinions, my desires, and yes, my dreams.

Welcome to my world. Again.