Farewell to my old self...

For the first time since 2001... I wasn't able to watch UP's Lantern Parade. :(

Every year, I have religiously watched this special event. I've seen different lanterns, the happiness on people's faces, amazing choreography and much much more... but this time, this time it was different. And I know it would not be the last time that I will miss UP's Lantern Parade. *sadness*

How did I miss such a show? I was still working up to 7pm and I had a Simbang Gabi commitment with my Mom and Ninang. That and I haven't slept for two days just trying to finish different jobs in limited time. I was extremely exhausted... I even forgot it's Engg Week because of my commitments piling up before Christmas.

I feel sad because I'm no longer living a carefree life, I now have responsibilities to handle. My schedule is to work from 7am to 7am and sleep a little bit in between. I have little time to talk to friends and play with my dogs. I don't get to eat nutritious food because I'm always on the go and I just need to fill up my stomach with anything just to keep going.

I suddenly realized that I've grown up...

Time flies when you're having fun.

- Calvin


I don't know if I'm having so much fun but time went by REALLY REALLY FAST. I feel like it was just my birthday yesterday but nooooooooo~ ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS! (And yes, its almost Chrissa's birthday. Hehe...)

So now coming up with the "Things to do before the year ends" list.

1. Update blog. (Yay, doing it now.)

2. Go shopping for stuff. (Stuff is a relative term.)

3. Think of gifts for family, relatives and friends. (Try to come up with something that won't bust my budget.)

4. Get my TIN Number. (I don't want to get lost... again. T_T)

5. Bake a super duper amazing cake. (Because the cake I made last June needs A LOT of improvement in the "Looks" Category... good thing it tasted great. XD)

6. Learn to _____. Hahahahahahahahahahaaa.... ^^;

Will come up with more later, or at least in the next few weeks. :P

Fallen...

Seems like I have fallen off the face of the blogging world. I still have to finish the draft that I made about our Cebu trip but I have lost the will to do so... anyway, how is life?

I guess it depends on how you look at it. In my POV, its great. I live my life one day at a time. I play with kids. I learn things and... so on.

One of my students told me last Monday that I was really good in teaching. I was taken aback because it is the first time that a student recognized how much effort I put in teaching them. I felt really happy. :)

And then a few weeks ago, I saw Phoebe again. This time I brought my laptop to Trinoma and she helped herself to it. She even pushed the button for the wi-fi (turning off the wi-fi) while I was in the middle of downloading something. *smacks face* I just asked her to stop fiddling with my laptop and I'll just let her play when I finish. We ended up watching a few MJ videos, playing some flash games and talking about her. She's just adorable. :D

On other news, my brother is home! He arrived last month and he brought me a box of Kitkat Crunchy (and a watch). And with that, he also asked to install the DSL ASAP. So yeah, go me! We got the DSL installed after 1.5 weeks. Hee... ;)

I watched UP last Saturday in digital 3D at Trinoma. It was wonderful. I was crying from the very start of the movie. I just can't help it... ;_; I don't want to spoil anything so you just have to watch it yourself. I played Mario Kart after the movie, I ended up getting a data card. Whee~ ^_^

Ahaha... I just noticed how random this post is. Oh well... XD

Time warp.

Life has been pretty interesting these past few weeks. My cousin came with her kids last Mother's Day, even if the kids' summer classes would end by Friday. I was surprised but it was all good, I served up the dish I made for Mom and she loved it. We baked cookies on Monday night. The kids assisted me while mixing everything and they patiently waited for the cookies. It was a baking success! They went home by Wednesday though because the kids have exams. :)

I went on a major shopping trip last week. It was absolutely therapeutic. I still can't believe I bought 6 necklaces though, haha... that was a splurge. Loot consisted of clothes, accessories and slippers! Now my shopping money is all gone~ Oh well, at least I was able to stick to the budget. :D

Last April 29, I met the kid in the Mister Donut commercial. Her name is Phoebe and she so hyper. She kept asking me about flash games. Hehehe... What an adorable kid. :P

Phoebe

I plan to bake a cake for LA's birthday this June 3rd. I already have the ingredients but I'm wondering if I should make a strawberry - chocolate cake. Kids always love chocolate. Hehe... Or maybe I'll just make strawberry icing on top of a chocolate cake? Hmmm... Guess I just have to leave the decision to the birthday celebrant. Hehe~ :p

Mavik and LA

I got this from an email. It's something that single people, and even those in relationships should think about. ;)

***

PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible.

How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long- time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.

One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make.

Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.

It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.

There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.

If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom... endlessly.

***

Anyway I've got a busy, busy week ahead. Gah! Exams everywhere... it's like I'm the one having all these exams. Stressful. @_@

I love bluetooth... :D

I've been having troubles using the USB Data Cable for my phone. Nokia PC Suite can't detect it, and the softwares that are included with the Data Cable are not working. T_T Thank goodness for bluetooth. I only needed the driver and viola! Hello cellphone files~! :P

Anyway, I feel pretty swamped for this week up to next week. Time management galore... Ahaha! XD

I still need to fix the laptop's previous HD. I just have to buy a casing so it would act as an external HD and then I'll try to fix the partition. :)

And I have installed NWN1, but most of the portraits are missing. Wah! T_T I've been looking all over for a solution but boo... no one has experienced the same thing. Suxorz. :(

No more nightmares for me.. yaaaay~! ;)

So.. someone asked me, "Have you ever been in love?"

Wow. What a question.

Of course. I'm always in love! :D

You see, every time I wake up in the morning. Every time I rise and greet my Mom. Every time I play with my dogs. Every time I can hear Birdie sing. Every time I meet friends. Every time. Those are the moments that I say, "Thank you for your great love Lord!". :)

Thank God for all the blessings he has showered on my family. I have everything I could ever hope for. Loving parents, supportive brother, caring cousins, adorable nephews/nieces, understanding friends, and smart pets!

I love life! :)

Yum!

I had a hearty dinner at Cabalen with my groupmates and our teacher. We were supposed to eat at Banana Leaf but it was already closed so Roc said he wanted a buffet. :p

We ended up talking about restaurants and statistics. Haha. How toxic can we get? XD We also talked about our business plan - what needs to be done and the feeling that there's still something missing.

And our teacher escorted me (and only me!!!) up to Tandang Sora, because he was driving up to there. We talked a bit about music, family life, my big EEE to MMM switch, and other things. *kilig* What a way to end this day, considering I also had my first sleepover in UP. (Haha.. I've never done it for my thesis, but I did it for the yearbook.)

I hope to see him on Saturday. I'm definitely getting a picture with him. :D

Zoom!

Life is just zooming before me. I slept after my thesis and when I woke up, it's already the middle of April! @_@ I have a lot of things to finish and I'm not even halfway there. T_T

Anyway, look at my newest toy! :D


When I'm not using it the lights are just blue.


When I move it, the lights become brighter!


It's really cute, I love it! (Look at those books and that hard-bound thesis. I'm a graduate but my table is still swamped with school related things!)XD

So where did I find it? Somewhere in Dad's trunk. Mom remembered that he has an extra mouse with him and so I looked for it, ta da! :D


These are some of my favorite chocolates. My niece gave them when she got home from Japan. I've just opened Macadamia. I love it when the chocolate melts in your mouth and the texture of the nuts just blends in with the creamy chocolate. Absolutely delicious! :9

I also tried my hand in making chocolate ice cream with marshmallows. It was very creamy and I was able to moderate the sweetness. I love the ice cream maker! XD

UNO!!!

Anyway, before I go to the post on why 'the sad face'. I want to say... I GOT 1.0 on my THESIS!!!

I was jumping up and down for about 2 hours this morning and then crying the next hour. It has been an emotional year, with all the hardships on the thesis, yearbook, erg and acads. And I felt so overwhelmed that I got a high grade with all the blood, sweat and tears I've done for my thesis. All worth it! :D

So okay, now we go on to why 'the sad face'.

Everyone knows that I'm graduating this April. (And if you don't know it.. well.. now you do. XD) I'm pretty excited about it. All those years of hard work, it finally paid off!

Unfortunately, my brother was sent to Qatar last April 1 and he'll stay there for a year. Then my Dad will be leaving tomorrow for Europe and stay there for 9 months. They won't even see me graduate.

Hence the sad face. :(

Only my mom will be able to be there on my special day. If I could have my way, I wish they would leave after my graduation but I can't be selfish. My heart feels heavy. ._.