Examining one's self

I was listening to the homily during this week's Sunday mass and the topic was about examining one's self. It was really interesting because the priest told a story about (ok, I missed the first part - not listening attentively).. something about... this guy, had to do something... then due to events that happened, he ended up in this house where he had to spend the night. He was pissed off because he was supposed to be somewhere else. But in that house, there he saw a library, picked up some books and read, and read, and this eventually became the reason why he was converted into a devout Catholic and became a priest (basta something to this extent) or maybe a saint perhaps? Can't remember.

For me though, the point is, there are events in our life, might even be bad events, that will change the course of our lives forever. These are turning point in our lives that force us to re-examine ourselves.

I think this is one of those years for me. I know it's a repeating topic for me how things have changed for me this year. But I just can't get over the fact that everything's so different now. Everything's different in my personal life, and everything's different in my career as well! My work now is doing pretty great. Because of a stupid thing I did (which is partly an aftermath of the "event"), our work schedule have actually improved! And look, our project's on the go and I'm back here in Vancouver. Time here in Vancouver is a blessing in disguise. I have more time just for myself, to again - re examine things.

All these things that have been happening, reminds me of a quote from Eat, Pray, Love:

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

I think I have an idea. haha

Anyways...

And here I am right, examining myself. I've been thinking about the things I need to do before I jump into another relationship. I've also been thinking about what were the bad things I did before, and how should I change those. So much lessons learned and I feel like I've grown older bigla. But I still need to make a lot of changes in me. Long way to go. But still very thankful of all blessings received.

For example, I now have to really think about what I really want to do with my life. I don't think I can sustain a relationship any longer if I keep on going back and forth to Canada and Manila. What do I really want? What's my priority now?

I can list a lot more here. And the list will go on and on and on... the important this is that we stop every now and then to re-examine ourselves. We need these as sanity checks. Are we still on the right track? How are we doing now? Have we prayed and said thank you for all the blessings? Have we changed our bad habits? Have we changed for the better?

But at least this is a start already right? The fact that I'm acknowledging my mistakes in the past, and trying to figure out what to do or change.

As a good friend once told me...

"We're both still works-in-progress. And I'm happy that you've gone so far. Everyone needs a little help once in a while. I'm just an email/text away. "

We're all works-in-progress. We become works-in-progress because we want to improve ourselves. And in order to improve ourself, we need to examine our self. :)

Grouse Mountain

Been here for a couple of days. Missing Manila, friends, my family. Ganoon talaga. Sometimes I feel like this is a blessing and a curse at the same time, especially when you get lonely. But I should always look at the bright side of things - I do get to experience something totally new, I earn more, and I get to meet a lot of different people of different cultures. I get to forge new bonds of friendships too!

Saturday - Grouse Mountain Day

I joined some friends to Grouse Mountain last Saturday. During winter, Grouse Mountain is jam packed with winter activities. The ski slopes were open so people of all ages are brining their skis, snow shoes, ice skates, snowboards, etc up to the mountains. You only get to play with snow for a couple months in a year anyway! Kind of nice how families enjoy doing this activity so much. You see parents and their 5 year olds already skiing! So cute.

As for us, we didn't do the usual winter sports (you'd have to have the attire and equipment - though you can rent), but we did however get to meet Santa Clause and his reindeer at Santa's workshop!

Here we are with Mr. Santa.

And here's Santa's reindeer. I think he's in a bad mood though.

What snow activity won't be complete without snowman building? We did create our own snow woman instead though. With boobs. Pinaghirapan namin iyan! Took us a long time to build it up!

I got home around 6:30 pm yesterday, and boy was I so tired. Alam mo yun, hindi ka naman pinagpawisan sa taas ng mountain habang lakad ka nang lakad, pero afterwards pala, sobrang pagod ka. But it was fun. And... important pala to bring shades when going to a snowy mountain - sobrang nakakasilaw yung snow. It's too white, and then you have the sun too. That's a lesson learned for me!

Oh, and so far nasulit ko na yung snow shoes ko! Yehey!

Winter @ Vancouver Part II

Here's what I woke up to today:

And it's still snowing!! I knew it, I should've brought my laptop home yesterday so I can work from home. Now I need to go to the office.

Good thing I bought those nasty expensive winter boots last night. I'm going to use them for the next n years (If I get to experience another winter) or maybe just forever.

I have my bonnet, scarf, jackets, gloves, warmers, boots ready. I'm off to go to work.

Update

My new boots worked perfectly fine! My feet was warm, and dry. And it wasn't slippery so it's worth the $124 so far. You get to eat chunks of ice every now and then when you're walking, so I opted to use my umbrella to shield me from the droplets. Right now, from my office view (where I'm sitting at - I'll post pictures later), seems like the snow is getting more intense. It's like raining hard, except snow. So vision's pretty.

New experience for me again! I love it when we travel. We always experience something new.

Winter @ Vancouver

I'm back in Vancouver. This is a very welcome blessing for me. Gives me a chance to get a "relaxation" out of it. I'll just be here for a month, for work. When they asked me if I wanted to go back, I didn't hesitate. It would be nice to go away and experience something new again.

My flight was delayed for an hour, and then when I arrived in Vancouver airport, I couldn't find my other luggage! No luggages were coming out of the carousel so I was in panic mode. That missing bag contained all my clothes! Good thing I heard someone say that there were still some luggages on a different area. Whew, lo and behold, my luggage was there!

When I got here, snow everywhere! Very cold temperatures. And so I ended up having to buy leg warmers and body warmer. Had to borrow my friend's bonnet and wear gloves too. Next is to buy my boots! Yehey, nagkarason ulit bumili. hahaha By 5 pm, it's already like 10 pm. Too dark outside.

So here's the one picture I have of the snow... this is the view from my room:

Snow's melting, but they say it's going to snow some more in a couple of days. Not really looking forward to it.

Dual Voltage Hair Dryer

I finally found a hairdryer that's 110/220 volts! The problem with travelling in North America is that they have a totally different voltage compared to us. You cannot just buy any appliance there, or here, and then bring it back to Philippines/North America. Totally different.

And you'll need a hairdryer when you're going to live in a cold place. Your hair will freeze once you get out of the house!

Cecille's Wedding / Subic Trip

I like attending weddings. The only time I don't like attending weddings is when I am not particularly close to the couple getting married. And so when a close friend of ours invited us for her wedding to be held at Subic, I didn't make any excuses of not attending. Even if we were busy prior to the event and practically no one planned this out beforehand, the girls and I still pushed through. And the whole weekend actually went well.

Saturday morning, November 06, 2010, started with us meeting up at, as usual, Balintawak LRT station. It's no surprise that both girls Mae and Sally are on time, but the other girl, Marcy, is late, as usual. Apparently, she decided to go to LRT2 instead of LRT1. Haha I think we left around 7:30 am, and then had a nice breakfast at Tropical Hut in one of the gas stations along NLEX.

Going to Subic is fun fun fun! I loooved driving in SCTEX. Road is beautiful, scenery is awesome, and there's pretty much no traffic. Hindi nakakapagod mag drive! It just took us around 2-2.5 hours to reach Subic itself. The only irk I had was that you had to go through 3 toll stations altogether! And that's just one way!

Now at Subic Freeport, surprisingly, the hotel Sally picked was very nice. It's huge, it's clean, it's cheap, and the location was nice. Getting there was half the battle, the next one was preparing for the wedding and it was fun fun fun! Si Sally ang official taga plantsa. Mae helped me with the eye makeup!

The wedding itself took place in a small chapel also around the area. Ang ganda ganda ng mood, tapos itong pari, nagmamadali, kept on saying "buksan na mga pinto para makapasok". Siyempre close yung pinto para may drama effect!

Mae was standing in the aisle area so she was holding my camera, unfortunately, puros malabo! This is one of those that was clear. Nakatalikod nga lang! Peace Mae!

So reception followed afterwards... best part was the Photo booth! after taking this picture, hindi na kami matigil sa kakatawa... literally! Halos maiyak na kami ni Sally.

All in all, that weekend was memorable. And I won't forget Sally breaking the strap of her 3 inch heel shoes. Who's next?

SNES and Secret of Mana

The past few days, I've come back to the kid in me and decided to play one of the best Role Playing Games ever made in the history of the Nintendo game console - Secret of Mana. We don't have our Super Nintendo (SNES) anymore so my brother taught me how to setup an emulator, including using an actual playstation controller to simulate the original SNES controller.

I love this game, even before Final Fantasy VII (This is the only version of Final Fantasy that I enjoyed playing). I always enjoyed naming the three main characters of this game! I also liked the level up, skill up concept.

For some reason, this game comes to my mind when we talk about SNES. SNES was a popular game console that came out right after Nintendo, and right before the Sony Play Station (PS1). I still remember the days when my brother and I will fight for who plays the game console. The last game console we had was PS1. I guess we all got over game consoles after that. It's either we're getting older, or that personal computers just took over our lives.

+ 1

I am now officially +1 year old.

My birthday was spent with family and friends. Celebration started way back a week ago when our friend Del invited us to spend Halloween at Haven for Children and participate in an out reach program. It was a very nice way to celebrate my pre birth day!

And then as tradition calls for it - my officemate and good friend Melvin and I celebrated our birthday together by treating our colleagues to a nice sumptuous dinner at Gloria Maris last November 04. After all, we have the same birthday! Why not celebrate it together?

Of course during the day itself, I spent it with my family. They gave me a new badminton racket as I've been complaining for quite some time that I don't have one (Mind you, my younger sister borrowed it and she broke it - that's how hard she hits!). Finally they got me one! I hope I can use it at least once, before I go leave for Canada.

Speaking of Canada, that's another blessing from the Lord I wanted to share. I shared this with a couple of friend already. Way back during the crazy and disastrous months, I wished and hoped that I get sent back to Canada, just to get away from everything that's been happening. I considered it as an escape from all the emotional troubles I've been experiencing. As we know, it never materialized then, after all, I just came back from a 4 month stint there. But the Lord is good.

Just recently, my team lead asked if I wanted to go back to Canada for even just a month to work on this new project we're working on. It'll be easier if my teammate and I work side by side (since it has a pretty tight deadline too). So I said yes. And what I realized then was that, this was what I was asking for before. Except the Lord waited for the right time, when I'm in the best state in my life, to go there. Now, I am not escaping reality. But instead, I'm actually going on a nice relaxing, vacation. There are no excess baggage left behind. And I have only good things to look forward to.

Now, before I end this entry - I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who celebrated this birthday with me, and to everyone who made sure I am genuinely happy when this day comes. The Lord is indeed good.

new camera

I've been a materialistic person for the past few weeks and one of the things I had on my list was to buy a new camera. Our old digital camera, which is around 5 years old already, has been losing its touch. Focus isn't any good anymore so I've decided to buy the family a new one! It's my gift to myself, and to the family! It's not the top of the line, but it's pretty slick.

I have no idea how to take a picture of the camera given that I need a camera to take a picture of it.

At least starting today, I can take my own pictures and not rely on my friends' cameras all the time!

What to buy next?

Another update

I have been absent from the blogging world for quite a while. Work's been keeping me busy. Stock market's been generous for the past two weeks, so that's also taking up my much of my time in the mornings. And then I have some other extra activities to do, plus, I still need my bum time!

I can't even recall everything that's happened!

Happy Birthday City! (October 20, 2010)

My very own Honda City has finally turned 1! One year old, 8000+ km in mileage, two more years of payments left! This year alone, my City has brought me to places I never thought I would've driven to. He has provided me comfort each day I go out of the house. As my gift to him, I will give him a much needed cleaning day. He needs to be vacuumed!

I remember, just a year ago, I was supposed to get just a second hand car, just to help me out when going to the office (since I work at nights), and then Ondoy came and we all know there were a lot of cars eaten up by Ondoy. And so we decided to just buy a new one. And City came about. It's truly a blessing to get City. I remember writing the down payment check! Biggest purchase ever, but after a year, definitely worth it.

Unfortunately, my City has been the cause of some nasty events in my life, but you know what, I wouldn't change anything. People come and go, but my City, he'll be accompanying me through my trips for a long long time.

Adidas King of the Road (October 24, 2010)

I try to join an event at least once a month just for fun. Adidas had their annual run last October 24. The fee was a whopping 850 pesos as they included free breakfast and the timing chip. Unfortunately, for me, there was just too many people who joined. The first part of the run was terrible, you had to dodge the slow people and that's a bit tiring. And the food afterwards? I thought it would have been at least rice + egg + tocino or some protein. But it was just two pandesals, banana, hotdog, and butter/jam. Medyo not worth the 850 I had to pay.

But nonetheless, running is still fun. I was not able to crack into my goal though, to run the 5km in less than 30 minutes. But definitely it's a work in progress. Here are my results:

2 minutes. I think I can improve on that, provided I try to go to the gym again more often (I am only going once or twice a week now! huhu). I have another up coming run this Nov 21 - the UNILAB run. I've already registered but unfortunately, I'm not yet sure if I can run it since some things came up in work and I might need to fly to Canada for a month. But we'll see, there's no final word yet.

More balanced life

I have promised myself that I will maintain a work-life balance, even if it takes much more effort to do so. As Leda teaches me, be a Yes girl! I've been missing in action before, but now I'm not. When my friends invite me to go out, if I have time, I go. Laziness is not a valid reason anymore. :)

For instance, last Friday night, I decided to go to my friend's birthday celebration at Bardeli's in San Juan. And to think I was going to go to work afterwards! Good thing my redness has subsided after I got to the office. Or else it would've looked like I've been drinking (which I was... but just a little!)

And then the next day, we went to the Haven for Children outreach program that our friend Del has organized for us. It's an interesting and very different way to celebrate Halloween's. Instead of just going to parties, why not celebrate it with the less fortunate? Even though I hardly had any sleep, and I had to travel from North to South just to attend this event, all I could say is that it's definitely worth the time and trip. Just seeing those kids very happy, you'd already know it's worth it. Next year ulit!

I can't even recall the last time I joined an outreach! It's always nice to give something back! After all, grabe grabe na ang blessings na binibigay sa atin ni Lord.