9 things for 2009

So much for the heartbreaking dramas, sudden deaths, scandals, storm aftermath, gruesome massacre, anticipated volcanic eruption, YEAR-ENDER SEVERE COUGH for me and all those crappy memories, we can now say: “I SURVIVED 2009” jumping, shouting, or even raising your middle finger whichever way you want it, because the calendar marks just reached the last day of 2009, we’re just counting hours and it’s 2010.

“A chance to change one’s self, a chance to be a hero, a chance to heal a nation” - Studio 23 ad (I cannot remember the exact words but at least that’s the thought)

9 things to be thankful for in 2009:

1. My eighteenth birthday- Yes, I’m a registered voter now! Still alive and 19th is fast-approaching!

2. HongKong Trip- Disneyland one more time. Nathan Road, Avenue of Stars, walking down memory lane, can i just go back?

2.1 count in my other domestic travels Subic etc, and the concerts I’ve watched, great shows, looking forward to more of it on 2010.

3. Acads- May not be the best but at least surviving NS101 is unexpected. Achievement? LMAO.

4. Surviving Ondoy- I know, we all hate Ondoy’s visit.. but hey, here we are celebrating New Year’s eve!

5. Laptop dear- I have no name for it, but it has been my companion for my late night paper works and insomnia-moments.

6. Health- no serious illness this year except for this severe cough, and the wisdom tooth which bugged me for days and oh, a lil fever I had. A healthier 2010 please!

7. 2JRN3- My college block. They really are awesome people. Me loves them all!

8. Friends- could not name you all but you know yourselves, Me thanks you for 2009! For the friendship and everything. me loves you too!<3

9. Family- Relatives and cousin dears included, awesome gatherings we had. More of it on 2010. Me loves you also!

To God be the glory.

Au revoir 2009, Bonjour 2010!:) The year of the TIGER. Go USTe!:)

May we have more Efren Penafloridas, peace, love and happiness! Happy New Year everyone! Have a prosperous and peaceful one! God Bless us all!

I’m hearing fireworks and Auld Lang Syne. Cheers to food and us! Bow, Tumblr.

*I posted this on New Year's Eve, the former were posted 2009.*

Cycle of Life

I was not a fan of those “I will take the moon and the stars just to be with you” pick-up lines of a guy. I see no truth behind that anyway. Maybe I’m just too cynical to believe. There’s more to love than that. It’s not about receiving 3 roses and note cards with chocolates, not that candle-lit dinner even. Although, those are sweet, mushy, cheesy, moments any girl would not refuse to take. But I see love in the simplest ways, words uttered could not even compare to the feeling.
The blushing cheeks, the “I-can’t-stop-smiling feeling”, the “I-can’t-get-you-out-of-my-head thought”, the “awww moments” and the “I-can’t-live-without-you mentality”. It’s heaven I tell you. But one should never be attached, realizing that the more you get used to something the more it’s harder for you to let it go when it’s time to take away whatever you have that you can’t let go.

That’s the sad reality of not having forever, having change as the only thing constant. Plus the fact that people always leave, true enough. And what’s new right? We always have that someone who wishes to leave with or without reason, a friend, special someone, relative, family member, whoever. We just can’t force them to stay. Never. If it’s God’s will, things will just happen. We lose but we also gain in the process, we just have to get used to it and we must never forget them.

The cycle of life. You live, you love, you let go and you move on. People should never depend on somebody so it wouldn’t hurt in the end after all losing means having something new, who knows maybe that that something could be the thing that you always wanted?

Text twist and something

Picture this, you and your close guy friend’s playing Text Twist way way back dinosaur ages, where lol (laugh out loud) doesn’t exist yet. (You probably live under a rock that time, but wait, there’s PC already!) But anyhows, The word is “Easily”, smart that he is he figured out the word in less than 30 seconds, he just needed to fill the three-letter word spaces left for him to complete the round. As we sometimes think, smart people knew complicated things, but the simple ones harder for them to solve and figure out. Lost as he was then, after multiple times of jumbling the scrambled letters, he goes: “Is this allowed?” and typed in: “ILY”. And you replied: “what does that mean?” then he said “nothing, forget it”.

It was then that later on you realized that it was the loveliest three-words ever made. Little did you know that that was it, busted. Awww. How you wish there were tutorials on online abbreviations, but there wasn’t any, so you didn’t get it, and you didn’t reply in a way that you were supposed to, in a way that you wished you have.

….It happens.

Back to my old place

While almost every blogger I know are making a comeback in blog-o-sphere and creating their new accounts, I, remains to stay here. In my old place. My first ever blog site.

Yes, I've had a long break when I used Tumblr, May, 2009 but I never meant to abandon this blog. I even intend to post the blog-worthy posts I blogged there to here so I can make up for the time I did not blog. As I have stressed before, I am not a regular blogger, I post blogs for at least once a year. As a matter of fact, my last post here was about a week and a year ago. I just can't commit to updating all my accounts as they are growing in numbers as years passed. And I am very certain that when school starts I will not have time to write. There had been a pattern already, I only get to post something during summer, sembreaks, and Christmas vacation. Doesn't mean I'm lazy, I take it back, sometimes I am, but really I just have a lot of accounts to juggle, and see, I'm not much of a good writer. I just hope I am, but I am not. I knew I can improve though. As of now, I only write what I think which may appear non-sense to you. Eating your time for unreasonable reasons, so sorry for that. Maybe that's why I post a lot on Tumblr and Twitter, since it does not require long posts and no one cares if what you're saying has sense or none. So yeah, what else? This blog has been alive for almost 5 years now. Cheers to that!

Joining Ako Mismo

“Symbol of Courage. Primarily used to identify soldiers during war or battle, the dog tag has become a symbol of courage and strength through the years.Now, Ako Mismo is using the dog tag in its advertising campaign to identify the brave Filipinos who are taking a stand against apathy; those who have decided to fight the indifference that is plaguing our country. No more complaints, no more excuses. Wearing the Ako Mismo dog tag is a sign of the commitment to do something, big or small, for the country.”- Ako Mismo.org (credits for the photo and text)

My pledge: Ako mismo ay makikisama sa pagbabago bilang isang peryodista.
Ako Mismo’s goal is to voice out the people’s stand on issues, cause they believe in and for Filipinos to post their pledges. When I joined the ‘org’ this afternoon I have read the ad on the newspaper and after I’ve watched it there were about 9,500 commitments posted on the wall. Now when I checked my profile this night, the figures amazingly increased into 18,117. Coincidence though, today Filipinos’ pride Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao won. The race is making a voice across the world, making a change, let’s all start with a simple pledge, might as well join the AKO MISMO movement and let your principles be heard. links: http://akomismo.org

Subic-ing on a Holy Week

Holy Week went peaceful and I guess I am back to tell you the story on how I spent mine.

First Story (Temptation Island):

I was supposed to go fasting, not on food but on internet usage. CBCP said on a news report before the Holy Week that withdrawing or not doing the usual things you've been doing is one way of fasting sort of what you do on a retreat or a recollection.Texting perse is one and of course the internet as well, because it is no necessity for us but then again if you're used to it it is not so as easy as we think. And so this Holy Week I tried not to go online as a form of sacrifice maybe, I even posted on my status on Facebook that I won't surf the net this Holy Week. I decided to do so since I would be out of town and maybe this is one of the littlest thing I could do in line with the Lenten Season. But then again, Holy Tuesday, I failed to. And its not that I do not have one word but I just have to download and check something before I leave the City. I then thought that the latter surfing on the net would be the last for the week only to find out that the place we stayed in on Subic is a wifi zone. Temptation island right? haha.=)) I left my laptop at home so I thought I was spared from going online, but then my brother and cousins had their gadgets with them and they're all wi-fi capable. Oh snap, the "must-have-been fasting" went opposite. Instead, we went online for like 3 whole days. But the mac isn't mine so I'm kind of regulated with the internet usage but then, I still check my accounts frequently and played some online games and so fasting wasn't successful afterall.It may have been a fault or a failure but I guess, I still spent my Holy Week in a holy manner. Moment of silence, prayers, visited a church and leaving the city behind. I stayed 4 days instead of 3 days since they don't want me to go home even when I really want to. We did have our vacation but we made sure that it would still be a peaceful one.

Second Story (Roadtrip hassles):

When you watch news on, before and after Holy Week, news reports are mostly about traffic advisories. Warning, guiding and telling the motorists on where to go, where traffic is, accidents, and the expressways. This year, there was a new road on where motorists were advised to pass to avoid the traffic on the North-Luzon Express Way, it is called SCTEX or Subic Clark Tarlac Express way. We left Manila at around 9 or 9:30 Maundy Thursday since we are not in a hurry to be in Subic early morning, Mom and the rest woul just follow us by afternoon.Traffic wasn't much a of a hassle by then until we got into toll gates of NLEX. But boy, it can't be compared to the traffic we encountered on SCTEX. Gah, The road was surrounded by mountains, it was a long winding road. Traffic is very vivid even 2 kilometers away from the toll gate, the volume of cars are getting larger. Around a thousand or less I think. We were there for almost six hours. It was quarter to 3 and We didn't take lunch thinking we'll get there by 12 noon but we did not and there were no stop-overs so we just ate sandwiches inside the car. It's funny that people entertain their selves on a traffic jam. There was a foreigner who walked along the long road and smoked maybe he was enjoying the scenery, there was one who jog, some reads inside their cars, some call from their cell phones (I doubt if the reception was good, I do not have a signal then since it was a mountain), some put up their feet so they could relax, others soundtripped,took pictures, some already had car troubles gettin overheat, some drink and eat while I am just trying to text whenever signal's back and observe all of them. The one who caught our attention was a van. The children at the back of the van posted a paper on a window a message: "We are bored!!!" haha. It was nice they even thought of that on a traffic, I should have took a picture of that but I wasn't able to.The road trip was a full of hassles, but it was fun.

Third story (Itchy beach-y):

It was 2004 since I last visited and spent my Holy Week in Subic. There were lots of beaches in Subic and we never missed swimming on it. We went swimming at All Hands Beach, as we also did in 2004. By then, the problem was the rocky sands, you could hurt your feet by walking but the water's fine. Clean. 2009, we had our swimming again, we swam for just like 10 minutes. Very short, because we were feeling something itchy. There was an unknown creature which bites our skin, we later on found that it was a little shrimp. haha. It is transparent so we can't see it. Yeah, it's a hassle as well, but we did not continue swimming since there was a girl from our neighbor cottage who drowned and was on hysteria after. I just took photos of the beautiful beach, it was blue and the water's clear and the sand's not so rocky anymore.

Fourth Story (Spotted):

What's a trip without seeing someone you know or is connected to you? Impossible I say. haha. As I said on my previous blog entries people are connected and it's no destiny that they see each other on a far place. I spotted a model when we were shopping at Nike Outlet and my cousins spotted Senator Pia Cayetano biking. I also spotted some Jamers whom I do not know the names but I recognize the faces. My brother told me that there were Jamers on the village we stayed in, I could not recognize who he was describing until we saw them. Meanwhile, entering the beach I saw someone wearing the AB shirt, by then I already knew he was a Thomasian and an Artlet. I just find it amazing that even in far places there's always someone I knew or I recognize.

I knew this blog entry was long, but I just would like to share that the trip went well, no more traffic when going back and the family or the clan did enjoy and bonded well happily in Subic.Holy Week isn't about vacationing, it's about peace, serenity and holiness.

Summer blabbing.

Summer blabbing that happened so fast.

It's summer and it spells V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N galore!

Wooh! After tedious months of doing Algebra Homeworks, researching for papers, writing news articles for Journ, memorizing names and places for History, doing Logic boardworks, creating powerpoints for Theo, practicing for Arnis and doing lots and lots of school works, SUMMER is officially here and finally It is our vacation. YAY!=)

Students look forward to this every year I suppose. Why of course, It is the only time we can have longer hours of sleep and do whatever we want having no absent record after. Not that we do not have holidays but summer is a little different. It's longer and the weather's good. I started mine earlier this March and I'm glad that I visited HongKong. An addition to my travelling experiences. Let's just see where my feet would take me this April, May and early June. I do not have plans and I am not that rich to go globetrotting in as much as I want to. Even here in my beloved country, I cannot go to places on an instant snap of my fingers. How I wish I can, cause I really love travelling.

Okay, enough of the rants, let me just share to you my HK experience. So we stayed in Dorsett Hotel and went to tourist spots (HK Disneyland, Victoria peak mountain, Avenue of Stars). We also went discovering HK by ourselves, it's not that hard as we thought it would be. Yes, we were on a foreign country, we're aliens but we survived. You just have to be a street smart and people wise as you can't trust anyone easily so you could be safe at all times. It is not so dangerous to step out of your box for a little while and walk alone the streets even if you do not understand the language and street signs, there are a lot of Filipinos anyway. They sure are willing to help their kababayans, and that's one good thing we should be proud of. We roam around the city and we actually find good stuffs, places that are not included on our tour itinerary--an experience of the culture with foods.

So there, this is my HK experience and I am looking forward to more summer escapades this summer break.