Happy Birthday Marzz

Happy, happy birthday to a dear friend from GenSan who's here in Manila :)

Typhoon Gener

I did a little research about the number of typhoons that hit the Philippines in a year. Some sources say that we average about 19, some say 26. The typhoons doesn't hit Metro Manila all the time, but more often than not we'd feel it especially if it hits Northern Luzon. I can no longer count the number of typhoons I've experienced, but I can fairly say that I've been through at least a hundred in my lifetime.

Last weekend Typhoon Gener hit the country. It brought both winds and rain. Some of the typhoons I've experienced would just either bring wind (Basyang) and some just rain (Ondoy). Typhoon Gener was different because for the first time I heard the wind howl. It was strange and scary and I knew that we'd eventually lose power.

I was trying to blog when I heard a loud explosion and a few seconds after electricity was gone. We tried to monitor the weather situation through an Android radio app, but soon realized it was draining Sweetie's phone battery too fast. I remembered we had a tiny radio and Sweetie dug it up so we can check what's happening (standard technology is still in for brownouts!). (I never thought I'd be just like my parents haha).

I woke up the next morning freezing because the fan was already on. Power was back so I immediately turned on my desktop to check if Miguel's school called off classes. After that I checked my social networking sites and was surprised with a post made by Kuya Edwin.

One of our old trees in our church vicinity toppled over during the evening, narrowly missing Mama Mary and the Unborn Child Monument. Check out how the tree avoided hitting Mama Mary.

My Mom dropped by to visit me yesterday morning and I asked her if she heard about it. She didn't, so I showed her the photos. She was really surprised and immediately left to check what happened.

No one was hurt, especially not Mama Mary. This makes me believe furthermore that Mama Mary is looking over our parish. :)

*Thank you to Kuya Edwin who lent me his photos for this post. He is btw our #1 barangay kagawad.

A Dose of Sunshine

My Dad used to serve as a judge in a Regional Trial Court and some of the cases that were raffled off to him included murder, terrorism, rape etc. Pretty depressing but he manage to handle it well through prayer. Despite all those horrid things he had to handle he kept a positive outlook on life. There is not problem that cannot be solved. No prayer that will be left unanswered.

And this is one thing that held me together even during difficult times. At the back of my mind I always thought that there was sunshine out there even though there were times I stubbornly stayed in the shade. I hope I got some of my Dad's tenacity. When he wanted to do something, he did it. He'd find a way to do it. My Mom is the same. She's a great project manager and can get things done in a practical manner.

A few years back I wrote a blog post about the lack of good news about our country. I was happy to see that eventually some local media started putting "good news" sections in their coverage. But, I think it's not enough. Last November some of my colleagues asked me if it was common to see 5 murder stories on the front page of our newspaper. I was horrified because I knew it was an exception and I wanted to highlight the good things happening in our country.

After that I started to look closely into the news from other countries and realized that yeah we're pretty much a negative bunch. It's not only on the news, but also on social networking sites. I think what we need both as a people and as individuals is a heavy does of sunshine. Something that would make us have a positive outlook and determination to make things work. It's not bad to cover negative stuff in the news, but there should be a good healthy balance to show that some things do work and highlight what needs to be worked out. That's what I noticed in foreign newspapers. They would cover bad stuff, but give constructive criticism.

But that's just me and my bottomless optimism :)

"I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe." 
Dalai Lama

20 Years After High School

I never really thought about my future when I was in high school. It seemed pretty weird to me back then and my immediate plans revolved around graduating from college and finding a nice job. Things jumbled up a bit when I had Miguel in college, but things pretty much fell into place eventually.

My life was pretty routine when I was in high school. I'd get up at around 4:30 in the morning and the school bus would swing by for me at around 5:15am and I'd be in school at around 7. I ate with the same set of friends from my freshman year until senior year. And they're still my buddies until today. Come to think of it my science laboratory partner, Rica, was my partner for all four years too. She took care of all the gory stuff (think: frog dissection) and I did all the reports. We had a good team despite being complete opposites (she's now an awarded independent film director!).

I had to attend our high school reunion even though I was a bit freaked out about celebrating "20 years after high school". My seatmate/laboratory partner, Rica, was in the committee and she managed to bamboozle me to go home for it (I certainly had to  give up helping in a huge project for this!). So I arrived almost on time last Saturday to attend the reunion (but everyone else was almost 2 hours late!).

I should've watched "Romy and Michelle" again before attending the reunion. I had planned to wear a shirt and shorts +sneakers ensemble, but since I was scheduled to accompany Sweetie to another appointment I decided to wear blouse and jeans (minus the sneakers). Good thing I had bothered to get a hair spa on the same day because I was pretty surprised that everyone seemed to have worn make-up for the party (I guess it's just probably me who thought otherwise, the perils of working for a company which doesn't require you to dress up).

Our section wanted to win the "Hakot Award", but we had a low turnout and so there was only 9 of us. I realized then that a lot of my batchmates are already based in other countries and I was mightily surprised that I had batchmates who live in Singapore too! It was a fun evening reminiscing about high school. The short skit done by some batchmates highlighted our heavy use of the following back then -- Trapper Keeper, Denman brush, Aquanet and our bulging pockets which housed all of those things plus our wallet/album. Of course there had to be a dance number. I took a short video but I'm not going to upload it (I'm not sure it will be welcomed.).

I wouldn't be where I am today if not for the discipline instilled on to me by my teachers (especially the terror ones). I was really happy to see some of them in the flesh - Ms. Galan (P.E.), Ms. Mina (Filipino), Mrs. Se and Ms. Dehesa (now Mrs. Isidro). My Filipino teacher I mentioned in a previous blog post gave us a message through a video. We all shrieked when she appeared on screen. She still has the power to make us sweat even after all these years (haha). One of the things I remember she kept harping on back then was, "Always be prepared even with the small things." If you didn't bring your own paper you weren't allowed to take a quiz.

That's Rica, my high school seatmate/laboratory partner. Still makulit as ever. 

It was great to see my classmates again and I think in the coming years the the "section border" is going to blur and we'd eventually just remember we're from one batch. It was also interesting to see how people have changed physically and mentally in the past 2 decades. I gained 30 pounds since high school! It doesn't look like it, but I used to be reed thin back then (I'm just hiding everything now in my pata). And I can say a lot of us from the "quiet group" have come out of our shell (probably wreaking more havoc than the notorious ones back then).

Well girls, see you in "the nearest Sunday to February 10" in 2017 for our silver jubilee! Block your calendars now!

Slippers

This is how bad my blog back-log is. I actually took this photo in October 2009 at an event in Limketkai Mall, Cagayan de Oro.

Happy Sunday everyone!

What to Do When the Internet is Down at Home

I was going bonkers the other day when my internet connection at home kept going down. 3G connection was of no help either since signal was very low. I had to go out to the street to ping my colleague to call me up because I couldn't join the Hangout. Anyway, it was hard, but I survived the one hour call.

I just could not, not do anything so I tried to do some work that did not require me to be online. There was only one task I could do offline -- edit a video (the result). It took a lot of time (and help) and by the time we finished with the video (around 3 hours later), internet was back.

I thought I'd list down some stuff I could do whenever the internet goes down. I remember when we moved to our new home it took the telco 3 weeks to move our line and so I had to survive on 3G for a few weeks.

(1) Cook - during that time because I had to be disciplined about my time online I had the chance to try out new dishes.

(2) Chores - with more time in my hands I had the chance to do more chores and organize my stuff.

(3) Gardening - spent time weeding and planting new stuff in my garden. I had my Mom adopt most of my plants since most of them started to die when I moved to Singapore.

(4) Read books - this is one thing I do whenever I travel. I get dizzy when I try to use my laptop in-flight, so I just read. (A bit curious though about the Kindle since that would be lighter to bring).

(5) Sleep! Or go to the spa - this I have not tried to do.

Well... have a relaxing weekend everyone! 

Josh Art: Bead Bracelet

I had the opportunity to have dinner with my playmate Josh last night and he gave me this lovely bracelet. I truly appreciate home-made gifts and I remember Sweetie used to make me home made cards when we started dating (teehee). There's much more effort in that than buying expensive gifts.
Thank you Josh, this will be part of my gPhilippines outfit :)