2006 in a Nutshell

The year is about to end. This meme is a simple way to look back and ponder a little.

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?
I went to graduate school.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I think I was able to spend more time with my family this year. That's one of my New Year's resolutions for 2006. Yes, I will still have my list for 2007.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my cousin gave birth to a baby girl. :)

4. What song reminds you of 2006?
I don't have anything particular in mind.

5. What countries did you visit?
Nada.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
The will power to exercise and follow a healthy diet. A truly fulfilling career but still be able to achieve work-life balance. Write again.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being able to attend to my family and work duties and my studies.

8. What was your biggest failure?
Procrastinating on starting a healthy lifestyle.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not really, thank God.

10. What was the best thing you bought?
My own laptop. I'm not anymore at the mercy of company issued laptop since we cannot download some personal preferences (well, but of course). :) But then again, I haven't paid my sponsor yet which is my father. :)

11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
My behaviour.

12. Where did most of your money go?
AUV. Insurances.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Studying again. Graduate school is like an end in itself for me. It recharged me. Even if there are continuous trainings at work, grad school environment is still different - the fact that all of you came from different industries make the sharings in the class exciting and substantive.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Read. Write. Watch movies.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Eat unhealthy foods.

16. How did you spend Christmas?
I am not a Catholic. But then again, we just did what we usually do when there's no work - stayed in the house, watched a movie. We did give away small tokens for every kid who knocked on our house. The spirit of giving should always be alive.

17. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Yes, day to day...with my husband and daughter. :)

18. How many one night stands in this last year?
Nada of course.

19. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I decided not to nurture the hatred building up. That will be too bad for the health. I just ranted away.

20. What was the best book(s) you read?
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?
It's great watching Jason Mraz live!

22. What did you want and get?
Laptop.

23. What did you want and not get?
Something intangible.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If I were able to attend to ALL my responsibilities, not just work and home related but also in my church.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
Just the basics though I spent a lot on my hair. :)

26. What kept you sane?
My family. The internet. Watching Disney and Nickelodeon shows with my daughter.

27. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Cheez Escudero.

28. What political issue stirred you the most?
De Venecia's "will power". Smith and Nicole.

29. Who did you miss?
My family in the US.

30. Who was the best new person you met?
Two of my professors.

31. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
Carpe diem! And from Albus Dumbledore, it is not our abilities that define us, it's the choices that we make.

32. What was the nicest thing someone told you about yourself?
That they look up to me as a good leader and mentor.

33. What did you like most about yourself this year?
My resolve to take on all of my roles and responsibilities.

34. Was 2006 a good year for you?
I want to believe it is. Valuable lessons were realized and they made me stronger and A LOT WISER.

35. What was your favorite moment of the year?
I can't think of a single moment. I guess it would be every bonding time with my daughter.

36. Where were you when 2006 began?
We were booked in a hotel and welcomed 2006 at the 22nd floor.

37. Who were you with?
My family.

38. Where will you be when 2006 ends?
In our house celebrating the coming of 2007.

39. Who will you be with when 2006 ends?
Still my family and some relatives who are also our neighbor.

40. Do you have any new year's resolution for 2007?
Quite a few realistic ones.

41. What was your favorite month of 2006?
January, stocks. :)

42. What was your favorite record in 2006?
No particular favorite.

43. How many concerts did you see in 2006?
Just one.

44. Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2006?
Nope.

45. You did anything you are ashamed of this year?
Gluttony perhaps. Hehehe.

46. How much money did you spend in 2006?
Hay....let's not talk about that.

47. What was your most embarrasing moment in 2006?
Can't remember. Parang wala naman yata.

48. What are your plans for 2007?
In a nutshell, observe work-life balance and be more spiritual.

49. How are you different now that the year is about to end?
Stronger, more family oriented, more enthusiastic to take on all of my planned endeavors and continue all the good things I have already started.

50. What are your wishes for the New Year?
As always, for me and my whole family and for everyone - good health and peace, love and harmony in all our relationships, that all of us will have enough for all our needs and some wants.

*The idea of this meme came from this blog and this blog. I just chose some questions I want to answer.

Super Noypi

This year's Metro Manila Film Festival seem to have a good line up. Interesting enough to make me want to spend a few hundred pesos to watch some of them. Well, I actually want to watch all of them (like I could given the very busy week before the new year) except for that Lito Lapid starrer, Tatlong Baraha.

One of my indulgences is watching films. One subject I had in college was Film which obviously required us to watch a number of films for review, and that included local films. But that was about a decade ago where good quality Filipino films are still being produced. They come in trickles nowadays. Even the proliferation of indie films which are touted to be good cannot fill in the void yet.

My husband has a lot of reservations watching Filipino films. I know he is dragging his feet whenever I ask him to watch some local film with me. It always disappoints him. It seems there's always something lacking. There are times, magand na sana pero may kulang sa story telling. I cannot agree more but I'm still hopeful for the fate of Filipino movies so I still continue to support it.

Yesterday, we drove to a movie theatre near our place and watched Super Noypi with our daughter and her bestfriend in the neighborhood. We opted for Super Noypi since it's one of the two entries mainly intended for kids. The Vic Sotto starrer were overflowing with people and we don't want to get smashed. We want to enjoy. Afterall, the trailer of Super Noypi seems promising. And it was directed by Quark Henares. Notable films of Quark which I have watched - Gamitan, Keka and A Date with Jao Mapa. Not exactly for general patronage films but they are different - macabre with tinge of humor.

Even if it's Quark's movie, I still kept my expectations to the minimum. Maybe it will be just fine. To my surprise, it went far, far below my minimum expectations. Super Noypi is quite out of Quark's league. Not just quite, it is definitely not a Quark Henares film. It.is.very.disappointing.

It started off quite well even if the opening looked like a scene from some RPG war game and it's your typical futuristic world - cars flying, tall buildings what nots. I don't know what to make of the film. The Incredibles with all the families involved as super heroes? Space Kids out to save the world? X-men with all the different powers the protagonists possess? V for Vendetta for the futuristic element? Trying to capture the Wachowski Brothers' style - think Matrix, droplets of rain zoomed in and they all stopped at the will of Neo. Only, there's Mark
Herras here and the droplets of rain are too obvious cut and paste effect of some computer "genius". With these questions, you get the gist of the movie. I don't even have to make a synopsis anymore.

The movie obviously worked on a very low budget. It's like everything is made inside a drab studio. My daughter noticed a logo flashed in the supposed high-tech hideout of the bad guy played by Monsour del Rosario. She said "mommy, parang PLDT". It does resemble like the PLDT logo. And at the closing credits, one of their sponsors is indeed PLDT. My gosh, my gosh.

There are some Quark elements in the movie - Jao Mapa as the father of Mark Herras. A comment though, all the parents in the movie are quite young to be parents of college kids. A mention on Chicosci's new album, the overuse of one of these generation's gadget - the ipod, young people's angst and insecurities. And the sarcastic remark of John Pratts' character on Cueshe being his super favorite band. Now, that's funny.

I expected decent special effects and fast paced action at the very least. The stunts are so lame, specially Jennilyn Mercado's. She is so slow and so soft. There aren't enough action scenes that will liven up the pacing of the movie. Mark Herras too has not given any projection that will make it believable he is the group's leader. Only Polo Ravales and John Pratts and the child actor in the picture gave some acceptable acting. Sandara was funny at the start but she gets dragging as the movie went on.

The movie is ugly, even the color gradient of the film is yellowish. Why is it like that? And why did Quark Henares even made this movie? His creativity was compromised. Disappointing really.

And this movie earned another point for my husband's attitude whenever I discuss local films with him.

Connection

Finally we were able to secure a Sky DSL connection last December 17. It was doing good until the third day. We were having problems with the intermittent connection plus there are occurences the dialogue box says our password does not match with their record. How can that be? Anyway, I've been a regular caller of their technical support (read: Bayantel's call center) since two days ago. In fairness, the call center agents are courteous and very patient though there are no concrete answers. They should be but I still like to commend them for being that way. In fact two techinicians came in yesterday to check our connection. Unfortunately, there was a 10 hour brownout in our place so they were not able to check.

We were in prepaid card for so many years thinking that we can get by with it. But with our massive use of the computer these days for personal and professional reasons, prepaid really takes a lot of our time just waiting for some sites to upload. That's why we decided to cut one of our telephone lines and have a DSL connection instead. I just hope the problem we are experiencing now regarding our connection will be resolved as soon as possible. It's starting to frustrate me now because for four days, Bayantel only has "we are monitoring the problem" to say. For four days already.

Fully Booked

I was looking around Fully Booked when I saw Perfume, The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. Suprised to know it's now a major motion picture. Or am I the only who doesn't know it's already a movie? But can't wait.

I read this book years ago and it's still one of my favorites. I bought it at Booksale. I learned about the book from one of Jessica Zafra's write ups in Woman Today. That was maybe late, late 80s (I have to emphasize on the "late, late) or early 90s.

I often refer to Zafra's book recommendations before I buy. True enough, Perfume is different, with a surprised ending. It makes me puke till now but its unconventional ending is one of the highlights of the book. Anyway, I bought it around P35.00 if I remember it right, it's nothing
beyond P50.00, that I am very sure of. Hah, that's a great buy then. It
costs P599.00 today. But well yes, considering how long ago it was...

This was how it looked then, embossed and all, so 80s ba? I've kept it as I've kept all my books, the pages are already yellowish.

And this is how the book covers look now. What can I say, they are great!!!

First Semester

Yes, it's pretty hard to balance family, work and studies but with all the learnings I get, both personally and professionally...I'm still all for it! I love this class! :)

Burnin' Brows

I've been reviewing for the past several hours. My only break was when we fetched my daughter from school. My form of stretching is talking to my classmates over YM. And we are all kind of buried on our work and on going over our book for the exam tomorrow. Well, good luck to us!

I have till Saturday to think over if I will enroll this semester or not. I want to but I have to manage my time.

On to other things.....

A day before Milenyo hit Metro Manila, my cousin Peachie gave birth to a cute baby girl she nicknamed Wazi. Wazi is the youngest in the clan so far. By next year, it will be my brother's baby who will get the title of being the youngest in the clan, both mother and father side.

A baby is always a welcome addition in a family. My daughter loves babies. :) She's so fond of her cousin.

Been Here & There, Doing This & That

Work, school, managing the household, (well, partly managing it since the husband has his lion's share of running the home), budgeting, meeting with friends, weighing my options on important matters.....these are the things that I was preoccupied with the past weeks. But aren't these also what most people are busy pondering about almost everyday of their lives?

I keep on postponing updating this little space of mine. Didn't I tell myself this is one of my stress relievers? Why on earth am I setting this aside? So for a quick shot at this, let me post some pictures to sort of chronicle what transpired the past weeks.

Ours is the last group to report for our MANACC class. I was thankful the business review at the office was rescheduled for this week. I cannot miss this very important activity. We prepared for it like we are gearing up for some battle that we have to win at all cost. We have to meet several times after work so we can polish our report. I am so grateful to have my groupmates since all of them are very cooperative, very enthusiastic and everybody contributes his fair share. And our Mommy Anj is ever so caring and ever so motherly. Needless to say, school and the learnings I get from the different sharings in our class recharge me. MM MBA program is like an end in itself for me. Anyway, the report was good though we ended the class at half past nine pm already. The picture on the left was supposed to be part of our closing credits in the video presentation.

**********

Had lunch with my good friends at the office a few weeks back at one of our favorite restos in the area where I used to work. Thanks to our "Mother" for the treat! You're the best! Anyway, it's at Santis Deli, located at the ground floor of Astoria Plaza, Ortigas. I love not only their cold cuts but their healthy snacks. There's one there which I always buy but have not memorized the name. It's like KitKat chocolate, only creamier. But what we go back for at Santis is their Angus beef. 100 grams is enough for one person. Though for guys, they usually order 120 or 150 grams. Ubos pa rin nila. :)

At Santis

Yummy Angus beef!

This will be a very busy week starting tomorrow. What week is not, tell me? :) I do want to post and update here the rest of the "happenings" the past weeks. I hope I can do that within the week. I'm quite ganado to blog and blog and blog hop.

Time to hit the bed! :)

@Work and @ Play

***Second avatar edited coz my daughter tinkered with it. Result, my avatar was gone and was replaced by her own.*** See her blog here. :)

I have been tinkering with these avatars with my daughter a few minutes ago. Multi-tasking actually. Cooking, checking the washing machine and doing these avatars in between.

It was fun doing them. My daughter had a grand time creating avatars of everyone in the family including her friends.

Anyway, these are what I've come up with. My avatars at work and when I'm just going around malls. Although a few extra pounds will make this more realistic. Not my fault, the sample body form is generic. :)

Avatars courtesy of meez.com

My Library

I've signed up in Library Thing. It sure helped me catalogued my books. I don't know if this happens to you but there are times when I am in a bookstore, I get lost with what to buy with all the great titles and stories on the shelves. There are times I have something on my mind but I get distracted. So far, there are five books I haven't read yet and all of them are gifts from officemates.

Library Thing has a pretty good list of books which I don't have yet. I am raring to finish all my "pending" books and buy some more. Books give me a real high.

Some of my books are displayed in the side bar.

Of all the books I bought, I was greatly disappointed with Tuesdays with Morrie. Same old, same old. I promised not to buy any book by Mitch Albom. Everything is so cliche in Tuesday's...

I am hooked with Haruki Murakami books. I like his style. He captures emotions so eloquently. No matter how weird his plot goes, he still connects with his readers. One can still adapt and participate in his storytelling.

Tween

It was my daughter's 8th birthday yesterday. I went on leave from work to help my Tita prepare some food. It's a Tuesday so she has classes and to top it all, their week-long mastery test started yesterday. A celebration in the afternoon is not
possible since she has to review for the following day's exam. We called off inviting her friends in the neighborhood. A simple celebration will be next week.

How time flies. She's eight! And as my husband always say, eight years ago, we were at a lost on what to do, how to handle our daughter since she looked so fragile as all the babies look when they're bundled in a baby blanket.

Well, now, our baby is officially a tween.

She loves The Suite Life of Zach and Codie and pretends it's Tipton Hotel at whatever hotel we go to. She even made this the wallpaper in our PC. She also wants a guitar. I recently found out why. Because Emma Roberts' character in Unfabulous sings her 'sentiments' out while playing a guitar. And lately, she is so into High School Musical, even singing the theme song she memorized by heart. Like me, she's into books too, browsing on The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, Book 6) these days.

All these Disney and Nickelodeon shows are eating up a good part of her television viewing. She'll outgrow these things of course but at times it enters my mind how the values (or the lack of) these tv shows affect her. Popularity, tween angst (oh yes, tween angst), peer pressure, whining on too much school work, crushes and all that.

Discussing...or talking about the good and the bad on all these is my way of telling my daughter not everything that appears cute on television is alright. A cute outfit does not make a person, having a small set of real friends is better than being popular. And so on and so forth.

Oh well, it's all part of dealing while one is growing up and we're both in it together plus her Daddy of course.