merry christmas

Grown-up Christmas List

Do you remember me
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies

Well I'm all grown-up now
And still need help somehow
I'm not a child
But my heart still can dream

So here's my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself
But for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list

As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely
Wrapped beneath our tree

Well heaven surely knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal
A hurting human soul

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth

4 weddings

unlike all the other years that passed, 2006 perhaps has the most number of times i've rekindled friendship and reconnected with dear friends who've been part of my pre-sfc years...my high school and college friends! it just happened that most of them got married this year---2 from highschool and 2 from college. i've always kept a small number of group of friends (quality over quantity i must say) and so,from my highschool friends there's just myself and marilen who are not married yet but marilen is technically married so i'm the only single person left, from college however, mabel is still there...buti na lang., hahaha!i'm quite worried because i'm starting to lose my possible bridesmaids if ever i finally tied the knots with whoever :( well, hearing them talk about how they're starting their families is something i should start getting used to. my only consolation is that family matters also matter to me big time so i can truly relate now unlike when they were still talkin' about their boyfriends then.sigh, sigh, sigh i'm looking forward to being godmother of their future children & attending more children parties...for the meantime, here's a pix taken during rex & melissa's wedding.

it's the busiest time of the year

december has always been a busy month since i started working in '99 and entered SFC in 2000. the two areas of my life somehow need to fit somewhere...oh not to mention family...yeah of course, it needs to fit not just somewhere there but it should be where it has always been, 2nd priority.

this year everything fell into place. all the christmas parties seem to be choreographed by God in a way that i can attend to all.

before all the christmass stuff, i just wanna tell one unforgettable experience.last november 21, i was able to watch the popular australian christian band, hillsong united. it was my first time and truly enjoyed...geez, i can't wait to watch them again (hope there will be next time!). read the whole story here at jm's blog .

december 2- SFC Sector Christmas Party

our chapter was quite blessed with new vibrant members this year. for us oldtimers, somehow it means that we'll no longer be performing on stage for big activities like sector christmas party...hooray! this year's theme is "the musicale" and we were assigned to perform "Miss Saigon". I was part of the committe who did the pre-works...research, costume, songs, etc... I was only able to attend some practices though, good thing we are blessed with the very reliable ate dothy. on the night itself, i helped with the lights and make-up and ego-boosting words of wisdom..hehehe...our members were shy compared to us oldtimers and if you know Miss Saigon, cast needs thick-faced whores. actually we had a difficult time minimizing vulgarity specially the costumes & dance steps...who ever thought of performing Miss Saigon in SFC activities didn't know how it drove us nuts, they just don't seem to gel, that's all. i hate to brag but we did well. those shy girls did not look so-shy on stage, they can even pass up for real whores...hahaha. although we didn't grab any award, the applause and commendations we received after the performance were already good enough to tell us we had a good performance. here are pre & post perfromance pix, i'll post on-stage pix when i get to find some.

THE CAST

THE REST OF US

december 8- RS Components Limited's Christmas Party

for this year's christmas party, our department was tasked to organize it.oh, we were only given barely three weeks to prepare...from scratch! it was so easy for country management team to just hand over the job to us with very meager budget and very little time to work with. aside from preparing the whole party, we also had to prepare for the group presentation wherein we merged with Strategic & Channels Accounts Groups. Our theme revolved around the 80's decade. The group presentations were divided among new wave, sariling atin, 80's movies and 80's icons.The latter was assigned to us.Most members of our group do not usually stay in the office, they're outdoor sellers and one member is even cebu-based and only got to practice on our last practice night. we were only able to practice 4 times, good thing was members of the team were very eager to learn and full of ideas. btw, i need to thank sfc-valley golf chapter for some ideas...i need to shamelessly copy your "breakdancer" 2 years ago so that our cebu-based member would have a part.

no need to worry, we also grabbed the 1st place! since icons was our theme, we did "walk like an egyptian by the bangles",

"like a cannonball by menudo",

"she bop by cyndi lauper",

"material girl by madonna"

and "thriller by michael jackson"

and the winner is .......

it was a very victorious evening for me...the party went well despite last minute preparations of all sorts, we grabbed 1st place for the group presentation, i was able to receive what i truly wanted for the exchange gift (thanks marivic) and i grabbed home a brand new electric fan as my raffle prize.

december 9-SFC unit Christmas Party with SAGIP

although i had only few hours of sleep from the company's Christmas Party, i was still able to make it before 9 AM at GK site. it was nice to have other members of the unit joining us for this particular SAGIP session. we made sure everyone brought home a gift and full from the food we've prepared for them :) in fact, there were even some food left for the kapitbahayan and gifts for the sibol kids... the almost 500 per chapter head did go that far...amazing, it's like Jesus' miracle, "multiplication of the bread & fish".

the party's ain't over yet... i still have 1 lined up

december 10-on with the tradition

my long wait is now over ....i finally got my starbucks planner! whew! thanks jm for the 21st sticker you've donated :)

always making up

due to time unavailabilty, busy sched, all the adventures & misadventures or simply laziness, i am now again updating in a summarize format. i'm quite unhappy doing this all the time because i feel that everytime that i do so, i end up not really showing how i've felt during that certain event. somehow that certain state of happinesss, sadness or anger have already subsided and my blog entry is not anymore narrative but rather enumerative. i always try to recall previous events but my present adventures are always kept in my to-tell list.i'm quite dissatisfied but i feel that making up is way better than depriving myself of telling stories.i've sworn so many times but unable to keep promises but i'll swear again...i'll try to update as much as i can :)

okay, now that i've said my litany of excuses (hehehe), here are recent happenings in my life:

october 07 - GK Expo at Mall of Asia

it was my first time at the mall of asia, its name speaks for itself, the area was quite big but it looks like it's not during the GK Expo because CFC community is quite a big number that occupied the whole place. we were there together with our SAGIP kids and we took care of all 40 of them (haaaaaaaaay). regular facilitators (ate evs, tetchie, charisse & myself) attended a forum in the morning so we just got to see the kids right after the very inspiring forum. it talked about the involvement of some corporations in the Child Development Programs of Gawad Kalinga. One thought which one speaker shared that i couldn't forget was about this great chinese proverb "Tell me that i may know, show me that i may see, involve me that i may understand".Truly it's being involved that one can fully understand the works of Gawad Kalinga. Words aren't enough & pictures can't tell all the miracles and transformations that happened to every person involved in this work of nation building...sali na!

the four of us roamed the GK Expo site first before finally showing up where the kids were.we savored the taste of our 1/2 DAY OFF together...

after we've sent the kids where they took their lunch, we've taken ours as well at one chinese restaurant in MOA.



right after lunch came the very tiring duty of really taking care of the kids, we toured them around the mall and at the GK Expo site together with the rest of SFCs from our chapter who volunteered to help us.


it was quite a day ... i was too worried when i learned we lost one kid, good thing, one sister from our chapter found him surprisingly not too worried that no one from his friends was with him...well he was having a splendid time ...sigh...alone. right after SFC has marched, we decided to leave Mall of Asia and left the kids with San Andres Kapitbahayan. we took dinner at Mc Donald's El Pueblo and we had the grandest time of being kids again (this time not worrying that we have a bunch of kids to take care of) by taking pictures with Mc Donald's mascots. It's my firs time to see a Ronald Mc Donald's Mascot who is not the trained person mascot but someone wearing a mascot's costume.

november 01- all saints' day; spent the whole day at the cemetery watching papa's tomb, sunkissing (my annual sunbathing activity), offered prayers & lighted candles.

november 05-jm's and papa's birthdays.we just had a simple lunch w/ family at Tianenmen.


november 16-second wind as a household head.i was given a new set of household this year and we had our very 1st household that also served as michelle's farewell household meeting.she flew to the US last November 20 to practice her profession as physical therapist. only len & michelle were able to make it, atchie & rachel were not with us due to work-related reasons..nevertheless, my first household with them was a blast :)

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY BLOG!

and yes, i haven't changed my template eversince :)

for my readers since 2004, fyi, ANOPENSPACE isn't my 1st blog but this is the only blog i was able to keep for 2 years...my own way of settling down i guess...hahaha!

i have 3 other blogs here in blogger one of which is my literary blog which i don't have time updating, i've kept MY LIFE'S PUZZLES series( http://www.anotherpieceofthepuzzle.blogspot.com/ ; http://www.puzzlesoflife.blogspot.com/ ) unviewable just because my entries there were way too honest and of course, how can i forget my very 1st blog entry ever at diaryland ?

2002-03-19 - 8:03 a.m.
okay, so i'm finally online!

diaryland opened the gates of blogging for me, i can't believe it's been 4 years and 7 months since my first online entry and i can continue counting more years.CHEERS!

P.S

i'll soon update (promise!), i just felt an urgent need to greet my blog before October ends.

smells like christmas

christmas countdown starts during my birthday, 100 days before christmas. . . it has been stormin' like hell, flash floodin' everywhere and yes heavy traffic seems to take forever. . .except for the heavy traffic, i haven't smelled the spirit of christmas yet. . . it's real meaning that is.

last saturday,i received a lot of "magpapasko na kasi" comments from friends and family and when monday came, i got tons of those even from officemates. it wasn't because we all can feel christmas breeze now nor we can see people selling puto bungbong & bibingka nor the whole neighborhood was lighted by christmas lights. . .nah, not any those can give you the christmas fever yet. . .but you can now hear a lot of stories from co-workers and friends about how they were held-up or how their valuables have been stolen. the latter just happened to me last saturday and i feel really stupid until now.

i lost my wallet last saturday in a grocery store near our place. it happened in the afternoon when i was buying juice and some other consolation prizes for our sagip birthmonth celebration. just when i was about to pay, viola my wallet could no longer be found inside my bag! i lost about Php 2K worth of cash, all my atms, credit cards & health card were also inside.just reactivating all my cards will cost me about the same amount of cash that i lost or more. . . geez, merry christmas.(*sigh*) (**double sigh**) (***triple sigh***)

obladi, oblada life goes on

as september nearly ends in a few days, i'd like to share some serious thoughts. it's my birthmonth and i always feel sentimental whenever another year adds to my age. oh, i don't really mind getting older, i look young anyway (hahaha!)...this year i've celebrated my birthday in probably the most simple way ever. my birthday week was spent alone in our new apartment. i was so sick for a week due to fever & colds, maybe God just wanted me to rest because i was too busy with work & sfc community lately. the night before my birthday since i was feeling better, i still attended our weekly household meeting. we had it at sister jo-anne's place in greenland. our topic was about simple guidelines, we had to choose one out of the 10 listed and reflect on it. when it was my turn to share, i said, since it's gonna be my birthday the next day, instead of making 3 wishes, just let me choose 3 guidelines to share my insights on. these were the 3 guidelines i chose:

a) BE PATIENT...I managed to fix it so in just one lifetime you could have so many diverse experiences.you grow from a child to an adult, have children, change jobs many times, learn many trades, travel so many places, meet thousands of people and experience so much. how can you be so impatient then when it takes Me a little longer than you expect to handle something on My to-do-list? trust in My timing, for My timing is perfect. Just because I created the entire universe in only six days, everyone thinks I should always rush,rush,rush.

b) LOVE YOURSELF...As much as I love you, how can you not love yourself? You were created by me for one reason only - - - to be loved, and to love in return.I am a God of Love. Love Me. love your neighbors but also love yourself. it makes my heart ache when i see you angry with yourself when things go wrong. you are very precious to me. don't ever forget.

c) TALK TO ME...I want you to forget a lot of things. forget what was making you crazy. forget the worry and the fretting because you know I'm in control. but there's one thing I pray you never forget. please, don't forget to talk to Me- OFTEN! I love YOU! i want to hear your voice. i want you to include Me in on the things going on in your life. i want to hear you talk about your friends and family. prayer is simply you having a conversation with Me. i want to be your dearest friend.

right after the sharing, they gave me a birthday cake (the one that i was really wishing to have, Red Ribbon's latest addition to their cakes!), as i blew the candles,of course i wished for B....BETTER HEALTH (hehe, akala nyo boyfriend noh?). when my real birthday came the next day, my siblings and i just had a simple lunch at home right after my SAGIP session in the morning.well, this year as i said was the simplest but i was very happy that i was able to spend the day serving the community and hangin' around with family.

btw, jm and i moved to a new apartment...i love it better here, it's more spacious and got a separate laundry area. during the time when we were preparing to move, i was able to flip through pages of an old notebook...i totally forgot about it until when i was packing my old stuff and saw it. i stopped writing journal entries in college and threw my old high school diary ages ago...i didn't know that i was still keepin' compilation of hate letters in this old notebook.they were my hate letters to life ..yes, i was hating life then and writing about how i felt about my life was the meanest thing i could do then...i once again read about my aches, my hurts, my rants,grudges and everything that seems to be so uncontrollable back then. i even saw a letter to papa telling him how i hate living life without him.it was late 2000 until 2002 and learning that i stopped writing hate letters in 2003, i reflected...2003 was the year i started to get deeply involved in my service in Gawad Kalinga and started having a more personal relationship with God. since i found new hope from the people surrounding me, i started to see life anew...no space for hate...and definitely, no time to write hate letters! i didn't throw the notebook...it will be my constant reminder of how i've journeyed this colorful life...i dare to stay and continue to travel.with a different attitude towards life this time, when the road seems dark and rough, i now know where to look...NOT BACK BUT UP!

updates...hopefully not so late

i haven't posted for over two months already. the fact that i was stuck on a week of sick leave doesn't give me any excuse not to update. i honestly don't know where to start, i've been so busy just being everywhere.here's an attempt to remember them all.let's try monthly...

JUNE

nepcon exhibit- penang, malaysia

south asia marketing team helped Malaysia team during their exhibition at Penang. It was an industrial part of Malaysia and yeah, this wasn't exactly a shopping haven so there was really no time for that. one afternoon though, my boss and i sneaked some time out for one, surprisingly a nearby mall from the hotel had some good clothes for only RM 10.after every exhibition day, the host country would always give us a sumptuous dinner. i couldn't forget being in Genting, it looks like Tagaytay without Taal Volcano...that's it, our version is still more beautiful :) here are some pix during the trip:

>>> during the set-up

>>> at a competitor's booth

>>> at genting with esther, boonhock & genna

global leader's forum

it was indeed a very empowering forum. we were once again reminded that we ought to be servant leaders. the world doesn't spare us from temptations around and as God's army we have to be armed and always be ready with the battle ahead of us. this truly scared me knowing that real world equals sinful world...and it's the world where i live. i have my weaknesses and i don't know how far can the evil go, all i know is that i can always hold on to my faith.

>>> gala night

>>> sfc east a 1-c

JULY

just to list events in this month

08 - mom's bday. we just had a simple dinner

12 - tri-ann's bday. ate jhett and i went to pangasinan to celebrate it with her. i love the cake we bought for her, it's themed after walt disney's princesses.worked both ways eh...she was able to celebrate and we were able to choose the cake...hehehe

29 - papa's death anniversary. this time, we had the novena at ate jhett's place for a change. it was very private, just immediate family members.hmmm, i terribly miss the man :(

AUGUST

marketing forum

we held our marketing forum at bangkok, thailand.initial reaction was... finally, a shopping haven for a change! BUT naaaaaaaaaahhhhh i only got to visit the night market during our last night. it was, as usual, a meeting-filled forum.but hey this forum wasn't so bad after all because:

a) i love asoke residences-- the hotel where we stayed at

b) boonhock thought of unique teambuilding by teamin up the non-cooks to one cook and let the cooks coached and the non-cooks cooked. i coached and i teamed up with singaporeans who could not event slice veggies...hahaha!see below pictures:

>>>dinner during our teambuilding planning

>>>the finished products

>>> myself, tiong & julia

c) we went to a massage parlor after the teambuilding...hmm, authentic thai massage..truly relaxing!

d) shopping (kahit bitin!)

mmlc,arts center,laguna

who would have thought that God will be on my side? i almost wasn't able to make it in this year's mmlc. hmmmm, it was all worth the risks that i took...the talks were great, the sharings were great...the hell with all the defaults.i don't know if it's just me or maybe some other sfcs could also share with some sentiments that i have with regards to how mmlcs were being done lately. i remember not so long ago, mmlcs had more fruitful talks, more great sharings, more learnings gained and there were less competitions, less production numbers, just plain, simple conferences that we all enjoyed, well there were just the same old classic complains about the food then but it's comparatively nothing to the impacts in our lives that those plain conferences had given.what i'm tryin to say is, sourgraping aside (really!)... can we just go back to our plain conferences? simple, we sfcs tend to be too competitive at times and it's not giving us any good.just an opinion, you may or may not agree...maybe i'm just one of those sfcs who just tend to appreciate talks more rather than physical activities in conferences.