Thursday, December 31, 2009

And the best? (2009 in retrospect, part 2)

2009 was a relatively good year in so many ways.  I’m really thankful for all the blessings that I received this year.  While in my earlier blog post I cited my mom’s January 2009 scare as the worst episode of the year, we also feel very blessed that she made it and that we can still look forward to more years with her.

I’m grateful that none of the people I know were adversely affected by the calamities. Some of them may have lost or damaged homes but material things can be recovered. Nothing is as tragic as losing a loved one.

At work, I’ve been rewarded in a way that I didn’t expect: a promotion earlier in the year and a trip to the US in addition to official business trips.  Perhaps I can say that I’m in a better place compared to some… or it could be that I appreciate where I am more now that I’m probably over the quarter-life crisis period (because I’m over 25!!!) and have stopped looking for the specific purpose of my existence (haha).  I’m fortunate to be working with a really cool bunch of people that I’ve come to love.

As with the years before this, I continue to be thankful for being blessed with wonderful friends who share all my joys, pains, and everything in between. I love hanging out with people who give me sound or unsound advice, who listen to my issues and make me look at different perspectives, laugh at my jokes, tolerate my bullying, call out my mispronounciations... over breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, beer or nothing at all.  You are my family, classmates, colleagues... like I said, friends.

In comparison to the previous years, 2009 wasn’t bad at all.

2007 was rewarding in terms of achievement in a sense that we got a lot of recognition for the work that we’ve done. It’s also memorable because that’s the year when our grandmother passed on and Kimi Raikkonen won the driver’s championship (hurrah). 2008 is especially memorable for the summer: I got to see Maroon 5 and Incubus Live, went on a trip either with friends, family or officemates from March – June with just a week or two in between (Subic, Batangas, Baguio, Singapore, Nueva Ecija, Macau, Hong Kong, etc.).

THAT harrowing experience aside, I’ll probably  remember 2009 for the trips I made and the experiences that accompanied those. I’ve been alone in some of the trips but never lonely.  I’ll also remember 2009 as the year when Kimi Raikkonen retired from F1, Ateneo became back-to-back champions, and for the breakout of social networking sites.  Like the how the saying goes: Dance like the photo's not tagged, love like you've never been unfriended, tweet like nobody's followin'.


The Worst of 2009

I’ve been seeing a lot Facebook statuses with the sentiment that 2009 wasn’t one of the best years.  It’s pretty obvious why.  On top the personal challenges that people had to go through, there were the typhoons that destroyed communities, the passing on of some famous icons, and the economic downturn.

It depends on how you look at it.  I’d say 2009 wasn’t the best – but it also wasn’t bad.  It didn’t start quite right for our family – in January, we went through the most harrowing 24 hours of our lives when mom was rushed to the hospital and was declared dead on arrival.  Thankfully, she was revived after 3 long minutes but then she stayed in critical condition for the rest of the day.  We waited and prayed and consoled ourselves without guarantee that she’ll be okay.  With her condition, I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that it’s without cure and I thought I was prepared for anything.  That experience taught me that no amount of acceptance can ever prepare you for the moment when you’re about to lose a parent.  There was fear, anxiety, depression, frustration, stress, pain plus that I willed myself to stay strong for my father and sister who were both very panic-stricken.  I knew that if there was any amount of hope and positivism, it could only come from me and I wasn’t going to break down.  By then, Mom couldn’t talk. She only made gestures with her hands. 

I can still remember that moment when mom was in the emergency room with all sorts of tubes connected to her body and one tube bigger than a Zagu straw inserted in her mouth which went down through her throat to directly supply air to the lungs - it was a scene that reminded me of an episode in Grey’s Anatomy where any minute the doctor is expected to call a code (red/blue/black) and all the nurses would rush to the bed and use the defibrillator on the patient.  My dad was holding her feet, crying, and my sister was holding her left hand while tearfully staring at the machine which monitors the heart rate.  I wasn’t at her bedside. I was standing afar, looking at her chest and counting the times it would rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, trying to distract myself from thinking about the worse that could happen.  My eyes wandered and met mom’s. She was staring at me, too, and her eyes were filled with tears.  So I went up to her right and then she slowly raised her hand and waved as if saying goodbye.  She then pointed to my sister, then dad, then me and then patted her chest where her heart is.  I can’t describe how I felt at that point but I managed to put on a brave face and hold my tears because my resolve was strong: it’s not yet goodbye.

That was the worst of 2009.  The best part of the whole experience was that my mother survived.  That incident brought our family even closer together.  It made me realize that it doesn’t really matter that my mom and I often disagree about random things or that sometimes she can make life difficult for me and I for her because that’s just how it is for most mothers and daughters.  If there’s anything that I could do, anything at all, so that my family would never have to suffer, I’ll do it.

EDIT: One more regrettable thing: I didn't get to see Nine Inch Nails... but I'm over it. Haha

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

It's old... but I still find it funny. hehe


Five seems to be the magic number, yes?

I just realized that I always belong in groups of five....

  • There's five of us in my elementary/highschool barkada (same group)
  • There's also five of us in my closest college circle of friends (comm)
  • ...and five of us who lived together for 2-3 years in the Katipunan Condo
  • At work, there's also five of us whom they call the golden girls (ex-officemates)
  • ...and currently five of us whom they accuse of being in a clique because we're always together.
  • In the family, there's also five of us then including Kuya, and five of us now including my nephew whom we'd like to think is Kuya's replacement in the family
  • And among my cousins, there's 5 of us who are really close to each other because of age.

And then there are one-on-ones on the side - like my bestfriend doesn't belong to any of these five groups.

Wala lang. I can't sleep. Hehe

Saturday, December 26, 2009

YUCK.


                  
                

That's all.















Monday, December 21, 2009

iPod blues

As the whole world probably knows, I almost lost all my iPod content last Friday. Oh, wait... I did lose it, but I also recovered ALL of it.  That's perhaps one of the shittiest things that could happen to a person who listens to music a lot.I mean, sure, you can get it back but the thought of losing that library you built over a period just really sucks.  Then I also wasn't sure I could recover all of it. I have to take note that it ruined my night which eventually was turned around not by anything but strong will and a little bit of alcohol (talking to self: you're in a party. It's a party! Think about iPod later. People are beginning to get worried, so don't be a diva.).  I didn't have anyone to blame -- it was all there when it was connected to the computer.  I even got to create a playlist using the computer.  I just noticed eventually that nothing was playing and when I asked, our prod manager said "ayaw na eh. Ewan ko bakit." Shempre ewan niya! So I checked and realized that everything was gone.  I guess, without human intervention, the computer with the outdated software did things on its own.

It took the entire recovery process something like 8 hours. 4 hours for actual recovery (not via iTunes) and then another 4 hours to transfer the recovered files to the iPod via iTunes.  While I was at it, I also got the chance to weed it out of stuff that I thought shouldn't be there. So now I have 7.89 GB worth of songs (2,131 tracks, 5 days) and 24.34 GB worth of videos. I'm still in the process of organizing everything, though (filenames and such). It's cumbersome but I'm not complaining. It's good enough that I got to recover everything.

I also appreciate that so many people wanted to help (and also appease me! haha):

  • My coffee-loving colleagues who texted me from upstairs (when I was downstairs) asking me to come up already so we can 'raid the bar at pumarty nalang'.  That was very uncharacteristic of them and I knew they were only saying that to cheer me up because when I got there, they made sure I got a drink but they didn't really 'raid the bar' hehe; 
  • My boss who came to the parking lot after the program ended because he said he knew I was there and offered to help recover most of the songs (there, props to you! thanks);
  • My other boss who came to my office to say he was sorry about what happened and that he hopes I find a way to get the files back because they seem to be really important to me (aaaaaaw); 
  • My sister who had a wonderful suggestion to buy all the MP3 collection CDs from Ruins so that I can have the most comprehensive pirated library ever (nyahaha) on top of all the original CDs that I would have had to rip again;
  • My mom who reminded me that it wasn't the end of the world and at least 'di naman nawala pati iPod' (I know that, mother. I just took advantage of the chance to overreact!);
  • Friends who teased me na i-donate ko nalang yung iPod na walang laman at ipamigay ang mga earphones (bwiset)
  • My cousins who offered to bring their computers on Christmas Eve so that we can synch from their iTunes libraries (yehey, no need! you guys can sync again from mine!); 
  • Another cousin who texted, "Saw your Facebook status. Ang hilig mong maging emotionally attached sa mga bagay na walang buhay. Steak dinner at my house tonight. Punta ko states bukas, you won't see me on Christmas." (thank you narin.)
  • And finally, my other cousin who researched about this and found the solution! I remember when I was in your house and you saw my flickering screen the night I arrived - You took one look and then when I woke up, you showed me a document which detailed what was wrong with it.  The technicians at the mall said it had something to do with screen calibration but they can't figure out what and you said it's a hardware defect... we had it checked again, this time with the manufacturer and you were right! Bravo!
That's it for this weekend's episode.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Random Convos

Me: Bestfriend, samahan mo ko sa baba.
BF: Okay! I-uupdate narin kita about our recos for QC.

----------- Sa baba -------------

Me: O, what are the updates?
BF: Eto nga yon, kasi humihingi sila ng reco for next year.
Me: Yeah, I read the e-mail.
BF: So, uupdate na kita sa recos.
Me: What are the updates?
BF: Yun nga eh, wala akong maisip! Deadline na ngayon.

ahhlaveeeeeeeet!!!

Real SLOW day.

I've gone over my to do list and it looks like I've done everything so far. I've visited all the websites I regularly go to.  Done with my Facebook duties, I'm done tweeting what I can tweet... For the first time this year, tutunganga ata ako the whole day in the office.

And that's why I'm falling asleep already!

2009 According to Facebook



Keywords that resonated: Leadership, Caleb (Kings of Leon), Obama, Below Zero, Oasis, Eraserheads, Gweilos...

One thing's missing -- there was a lot of Ateneo in my status updates this year.  Because we are the champions, my friend!  I haven't been updating Facebook, though, because I found a new outlet in Twitter.  If we could do this in Twitter, perhaps the keywords will be composed of: Ferrari, Kimi, Raikkonen, F1, buzz (drinks), Windows, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cebu, Batangas, Boracay, Baguio, Tagaytay Mafia Wars, Farm Town, Fro-yo...

First tweet on March 26 and I've got 1,413 tweets to date.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Not yet.


Sunday, December 13, 2009

Monday, December 07, 2009

· · · — — — · · ·

Aside from the cool weather, shopping, party planning and parties, I still don't feel the Christmas spirit.  This year, it seems to me as if it's just another event that we need to get over and done with so we can go back to the daily routine.

Oh, right. I'm not a kid anymore. And I seriously, seriously need to do something about this waning zest for life. The bottle is almost empty.



· · · — — — · · · --> International Morse code distress signal.

Friday, December 04, 2009

I don't know what else to say...



except that I hate this day.
Good or bad, I just don't give a damn anymore.