27

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!