2006 Reflections

Wrote this last New Year's Eve...
Last Year's reflections...
Happy New Year all

Fourteen minutes of the year 2007 silently (in a way) has passed. Sitting in a rented villa here in Fontana, (I know, I know, I’m not in Baguio – 1^st time in more than 10 years) I reflect over the past year like probably everyone else in the world. I plug in my earphones and listen to old music, my mom and sister’s phones ringing… ironically not mine. (Ha! Bitter till the end. =p)

2006 for me was a year of changes, turning points, opportunities, consequences and choices.

I started the year, a student; the mid-part of the year a professional bum and the latter part a “professional.” Wow naman shet, ang daming milestone kuno! Haha Right now, I actually can’t remember how old I am. Oh NO!

I remember relishing the last months of school. Sitting in our favorite corner in the library (and no, we don’t study, we just sit), or bugging Eug to go to National just to buy an Archie to make me feel a little better when I’m stressed. Cramming my minor in Chinese studies and having Law and Eug as audiences to the awarding ceremonies (parents daw sila at kawawa naman daw ako), getting Briggie for Hokkien 2 Class and ended up having Nats and Shoba as classmates, getting a teacher who sounded so much like me, it freaked me out…Lots of other things I can’t seem to put into words right now but the last sem of my college life was indeed something to hold on to.

March 2006 ended university officially. Welcome to the real world as they called it. We then began our journey to another world. Branded as an Atenean like cows coming from a barn.

Just like thousands of others coming from other barns (Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, whatever available combination…), we faced bum-world. Or maybe that’s just me. I got the chance to travel. Some of my friends called it hitching on a love boat when I decided to go for the 3-week Taiwan tour just for kicks and “detox”. Well, I came home proving them (or Cathy actually) wrong. Haha. I came home with a bunch of pictures, detoxed from my noisy, stressful world, and single – marking the end of the 2-year promise I have made to myself to clear my mind and my heart of something and someone. May 23, 2006.

I remember going straight to Mall of Asia after landing for around 2 hours. The biggest mall in Asia has opened and of course, I just had to see it… A couple of big typhoons came a few months later (Milenyo and Reming, I think and some others) and flooded the mall, busted the big signs… The wave-design of the mall, seemed to have served its purpose – as waves… And now, they started showing dolphin shows at the mall – I wonder where the water comes from. Manila Bay perhaps?

How’s the bay you ask? Still dirty.

Are you still reading? Lalalalala…

Bum world wasn’t as fun. People calling me while I was out of the country that they got jobs already weren’t helping. I remember there was even a time I cried because I seemed to have lost all my options. Yeah, I cried because I thought someone might not have deserved a certain job. But all’s fine now. Through the months, I learned that indeed, the Lord God has wonderful wonderful interesting plans for all of us, for me. I’m now working at IBM Business Services doing something similar to my org work of 4 years! Once an AIESECer, always an AIESECer. ;) Lang ya. Hahaha Exchange parin hanggang ngayon ang atupag. haha

Job hunting was coupled with a pending scholarship application to Beijing, China. It was a chance thing. One of my teachers gave me the form and I decided to try. I mean, what the heck, right? The want to stay and get a job and to further detoxify myself from my noisy world was a big tug-of-war. I eventually decided based on 2 words lent to me by another good friend. He said, “then what?” and not being able to answer that kind of question was a major reason enough to stay. Couple that with a few calls, attending interviews while fixing the visa and an upcoming controversial wedding (courtesy of my brother), then it’s a surefire formula for staying. Tsaka sabi ni Patrick, “alam mo Cha, kung magliliwaliw ka lang rin don, pwede ba, mag-stay ka nalang dito at kumita ng pera!” …

My brother got married last October 7, 2006. Oh, if you know the story, good for you. I will not elaborate here. If not, then, Happy New Year to you! But then, it was a mix of happy, sad, stressful, exciting…..oh scrap that, it was a stressful event for me. But God had His ways of supporting me and I appreciated His support style very much for this event. So for that, I have no more complaints and am thankful, and grateful. My brother and my sister-in-law are now happy and everything’s kinda falling into place, bit by bit, so far. ;)

Damn, dead end. No connecting thought! Haha….

Commercial muna: Do you know that Saddam Hussein died already? It’s so so sad… He was hanged .Yeah, I am actually mourning the death of Saddam. Like the way I “respect” Hitler and Marcos, I think Saddam deserves the same. He had that ability in him to persuade his people to do things for him. So anyway, he’s dead.

So are a lot of people. I think ’06 was also somehow a year of deaths, losses… A very good friend (a former teacher), lost her baby just recently to leukemia, it was a very very sad event. Another friend lost his brother due to heart attack.. at 29 years old…

What is the world coming to?

An hour of 2007 has passed. The neighbors are quiet. Fireworks all gone, stomachs all filled.

The silence must be enough to lull me to sleep. But I can’t seem to find the right words to close this entry…

2006...gone…turning points…milestones...consequences…choices…

It was a year of ”wins, loses and draws”…”crashing and burning”, for one particular choice I’ve made…

It was full of gains, loses, “*faints*”, “OMGs”, “eeks”, and a lot of other things.

But then, the other things can be reserved for 2007,

and “let’s see what happens…” (-- a line that came from a dream that will forever be remembered…)

Happy New Year to All of You.

To everyone: Thank you so so much for being a part of my year and for making it as eventful. You are not forgotten even if it’s not mentioned above.

And well, for special mentions…you know who all of you are.

So, thanks*tight hugs*mwah*mwah!*

Happy new year to you and your family.

Cheers!

Cha/0118H/010107