Holiday Break

Finally the long wait is over. I am on my way home now and my 12 days break has officially started. Yep, I took a leave for the remaining working days next week and the first two days of next year. I broke my personal rule of not being absent on the first working day of the New Year. I guess this is the first time but I’m not guilty coz I know I deserve this break. Anyway, enough of that.Below is list of what's in store for this break. I hope I can accomplish most, if not all.

• Shop for Christmas gifts for nieces and nephew.
• Have medical and dental check up. My back is bothering me for a week now. I thought it was because of my hectic schedule during the past two weeks but the two days SL did not quite help. I still feel it until now. Also, my wisdom tooth is not growing smoothly. I think some gums have to be removed.
• Read books. I have so many backlogs already.
• Scout for banks to transfer Baguio ATM. BDO has increased its maintaining balance to 5k. I think that's too much.
• Prepare 2007 budget and master plan
• Bond with family
• Meet with friends
• Take pictures
• Write some more
• Apply for SSS ID
• Go to NBI for clearance
• Watch TV
• Sleep
• Visit bell church
• Document text messages
• Look for school works for e-compilation

It's a long list but I’ll try to accomplish most of it.

By the way, I guess it's already official. I am promoted to SSE. I am only waiting for the promotion papers. I’ll write more of this soon.

We are now in EDSA and it's pretty much the opposite of what I have expected. No traffic yippee! Maybe because it’s already almost 3 AM. But I think there are also lesser people now going home to their provinces as compared to previous years. Anyway, I am just glad to be going home. My beloved Baguio here I come. :)

Elizabethtown

I was able to watch this movie last weekend. It's about Drew (Orlando Bloom), a shoe designer, whose design was a total failure and it meant loss in almost a billion dollars for the company. On his suicide attempt, he receives a call from his sister that their father passed away and he needs to go back home to Elizabethtown. On the plane to Elizabethtown, he meets Claire(Kirsten Dunst ), a flight steward. This is where their story begins.

My favorite part is when Drew takes the long drive back to Oregon. It is a leisurely drive with pit stops here and there. Claire prepared the map, stop over and even the appropriate music for each place. The movie made me wish that I have a car to make those leisure drives too. =)

Sykesers invade 8 Waves

June 23 and July 1 are Sykes picnic days. Our schedule is June23 and the next batch will be on July 1. It was supposed to be in Fontana but there were some problems so they had to look for other alternatives and so 8 Waves was chosen. Our hosts were Giselle Sanchez and Hanz Montenegro. They make a great tandem as hosts. Our guest band is Kamikaze plus another that I'm not familiar with.

It was bonding time with me that night. I can't swim coz I have so I had to go solo while the rest of the team went in groups. I availed of the body massage, foot scrub, foot spa, and hand spa. There were hair sp, body scrub and facial massage too but I was too tired to fall in line. While waiting for my turn at the spa, I was also reviewing. After the spa, I went back to our cottage to check what’s going on. The rest of the team was not there yet so I decided to have my snack while watching Kamikaze on the screen. They are a good band. They have lots of green jokes but it's their way of entertaining people. At around 4AM I took a bath and get ready for our departure. Anne and I boarded the bus right after breakfast to catch some sleep. When I woke u, we were already at Araneta Avenue. As soon as we were at KPointe, I hailed a taxi and headed home to sleep some more. :)

Love one another...The measure of Love is not to measure Love

This is the theme of today's gospel. We are reminded about God's unconditional love for us. The priest's sermon was this. When we get frustrated with the way things are going on with our lives, when our dreams are not achieved, when relationships end, we tend to stop loving. But when we stop loving, it's already as good as dying. Thus, despite all the frustrations and disappointments we have, we must keep in mind that God is always there loving us and God's love alone can keep us going.

My grown up cousins

We visited Uncle Arthur's family this morning and the kids are all grown up. I only saw Steiner and Griener. Marjorie is with her Aunt Kate at Cervantes. They were my babies when I stayed with them during my third year in college, which was 7 years ago. I am happy with the way they are slowly learning things like doing some household chores and taking care of themselves. I remember before that everything was done for them. I prepare their food. I even feed the youngest one. I am happy to see that now, they are the ones doing those things already. Steiner is already mature for his age. He listens to advises, he realizes his mistakes and knows how to say sorry. I am happy that he's growing to become a fine adult. He's planning to enter PMA coz he wants to be a pilot. Greiner on the other hand is still a kid but growing up fast. I got a hug from him when he saw me. I pray that he will also grow up to be a responsible young man.

Fr. Benny Castañeda

We went home to my mother's hometown in Colong, Kabayan Benguet. It was an abrupt decision last Sat. I was surprised to learn that Fr. Benny is the current parish priest of Sayangan. What a small world we really have. He was our regular priest before at St. Martin. He was the officiating priest on our First Holy Communion and our graduation. He has been with us in almost all of the occasions in our school. He was one of our favorite priests and we love him. He was also our parish priest before in St. Paul Tuba. The folks in Colong also love him because of his maka-masa ways. He goes to the most remote areas to evangelize. For this, he will surely be missed when he will be transferred to Cathedral at the end of this month.

The Good Manong Taxi Driver

I had a good chat with Manong Taxi Driver on the way home. He talked about his passengers for the day. He has a list of his passengers and their destinations. In his list, I am the 19th passenger. He shared about those passengers who are generous enough to give him a tip. Others even give him food for pasalubong. I asked him how his income is with the current gasoline rate. He said it’s not a huge amount but enough for his family to eat at least 3 times a day. I was particularly touched when he shared that he can’t resist passengers who have babies and kids with them. Every time he sees such passengers, he remembers the safety of his own grandchildren, that’s why he lets them ride even though it’s already the end of his shift. It’s his own way of doing something good for other people. It’s comforting to know that there are still trustworthy people around despite all the crises around.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday and fortunately for us, we were able to attend mass at Divine Mercy, the church near the office. The priest’s sermon was about the things that we usually do during fasting and abstinence. Since its Lenten season, I was thinking of one or more things to abstain from. On the way home, I decided to refrain from saying bad words. Francis and I actually made this as our resolution around July last year but with the nature of our job, we really can’t avoid it sometimes (Am I making excuses here? J). Anyway, this time, I’d like to bring back that resolution.

Waking up to a cool Antipolo morning

We spent the night at Loreland Resort to celebrate Raquel's birthday. We ate, swam, had some wine, and sang to our heart's content. At around 4 AM, we decided to sleep for a few hours. We woke up at around 6:30 am and were greeted by the cool breeze of Antipolo. It was just great. It felt like I woke up in Baguio but then of course, upon seeing my surroundings, I knew I was not at home. We had breakfast, toured the surroundings, stayed at the swing for a few minutes exchanging stories about people we know. It was indeed bonding time with my friend and cousin plus a break from the hectic days in the office. At around 8:30 am, we had to leave coz the night package that we availed has officially ended at 8:00 am.

Herbert Aldrich's christening

Yesterday, we also went to San Pablo Laguna for Herbert Aldrich's (Bhert's son) christening. I was with my officemates and ex officemates. The food was great and yummy. We left at around 4pm. From there, I went home, prepared my things for the overnight and headed straight to Antipolo.

Being grateful

I read somewhere that it is a good practice to write down the things that we are grateful for so that we could appreciate life more. So today, I start with my own list.

Today, I am grateful for:

• The opportunity to go to a new place and have a break from my hectic work
• Being able to buy a stored value MRT card thus, there’s no need to fall in line for single journey tickets
• The 100 peso gift certificate courtesy of Sykes
• Jen’s invitation to an overnight swimming at Antipolo ü

Daddy's Letter

(This was my Dad’s letter in response to the letter I gave them. It’s one of our requirements in our English subject. I guess it has something to do with the different sentence constructions. The letter is dated November 15, 1992.)

My Dear Mylene,

A pleasant day to you too.

I am so grateful that you appreciate very much our way of disciplining all of you our dear children. It is because your mom and I would not want our children to be misled in life. Much more that you are still too young to understand the different factors affecting is in this world we live in. you see, there are two directions of our life as we grow. These are the negative and positive directions. Should you be thinking that you know better than what other people do, you are absolutely wrong. You might be following the negative direction of life.

On the other hand, if you would be thinking that you will be careful to follow the right path of life, you cannot be so sure about it. Why? Because you are young and as you grow older, you will be more exposed to society and encounter a lot of temptations that might lead you to the wrong direction. It is in this kind of life situation that we, as parents, come in to give you the proper guidance as much as we can, although there are instances that we do not give you the precise advice because of some problems that we also encounter. We hope that you will understand and forgive us too whenever we are in such kind of attitude. Anyway, our main intention is to help you develop yourselves to become a worthy member of a good society.

And now, asking the favor of our Almighty Lord, to grant us his blessings and that I may bestow also such blessings on all of you my dear, dear children.

With love from your dad,
Pido

Farewell 2005, Hola 2006!

I have ended 2005 and welcomed 2006 in the office. I had to go to work for the year end conversion. This is my first time to be spending New Year here in Manila and I don’t like it that much. I don’t feel safe because of the firecrackers you hear all around and there’s thick smoke! I miss Baguio. It’s much peaceful there. I hope this year I won’t have to do year end conversion again.

I am happy with how my 2005 went. There were no serious problems that I wasn’t able to handle. I got to learn new things, I got promoted, I got my MCP certification, was able to save a little, I bought my PC and there’s SM too :=). I made friends with new officemates, still friends with my ICOF, was able to visit a new place (Romblon, courtesy of Fides and Weng :=) ). For all of these and for all the other blessings, I am forever grateful to our Almighty Father and to all the people, who in one way or the other have touched my life.
I wish that 2006 would be a better year still. I hope that whatever challenges that come along, I can handle it with grace and confidence.