swing life away

another year is about to unfold, and i've pretty much done all the usual things i do during this time of the year. watch while you were sleeping, check. watch martha stewart shows, check. meet up and dine out with friends, check. read people magazines, check. exciting isn't it? :D but what really kept me busy these past days was trying to have my ebay account verified so i can finally bid and buy stuff online (now my parents would love that! :P). sadly, all this time i've spent online didn't leave me much room to contemplate on what a year 2007 has been (or study hydropower stuff that i need to review for when i get back to work, yikes! =S).

i guess the one great thing about the new year is that it gives people a chance to start afresh and to have a list of resolutions, plans and what-have-you's. however, despite my fondness of listing and planning things, i only have one grand plan for the coming year (or years even... depending on how this plan goes). and that is to swing life away.

i don't really think of myself as the reckless kind, but i guess being a 20-something, who finally earned a college degree, and being at that point where i can (and have to!) finally decide what to do with my life, give me the feeling that i can actually do whatever i want, and that there's really nothing holding me back. except maybe the nagging voice in my head telling me that i better make the right move because whatever i decide to do will determine the rest of my life. :D

now how to arrive at the correct decision, that is the question. i dunno if there's really a fail-safe way on how to make the right choices, but i guess to answer that, one must first ask himself what he wants to achieve most in life - is it wealth, success, prestige, happiness, etc... well if you ask me, i'd answer happiness pointblank. as one friend pointed out, happiness is priceless. and the simple recipe to happiness is to follow your heart (nevermind how cliche-ish that sounds :P), which is actually the whole point of my grand plan. :)

we live on front porches and swing life away
we get by just fine here on minimum wage
if love is a labor, i'll slave til the end
i won't cross these streets until you hold my hand

thanks crazy for telling me how this should be my song. now let's just hope we don't crash and burn. i'm pretty confident we won't though. ;) happy 2008!

the best Christmas present

it's almost Christmas! as some of you already know, i don't open my gifts til it's actually the 25th of december (i guess that's another proof of my knack for waiting :P). yep, even if it's a birthday/Christmas present and it's already past my birthday. i like the thrill of opening gifts and finding out what they are on Christmas itself (but unwrapped gifts are fine too :D).

anyway, as you might have read from my previous posts, i've come up with a wish list this year, and i know i said that i hope to get them all before the year ends. but the thing is, i don't really expect to. again, hoping is another thing. some of the items in my wish list are quite hard to find, which is precisely why i put them there. but there are things that i didn't include in it, that are actually some of my greatest wishes. one reason is that i have forgotten how much i wished for a certain thing because i've somehow felt that it's become a hopeless cause.

ironically, the best Christmas present i got had not been wrapped (hence, i didn't get the chance to wait til midnight to see it) and wasn't written in my wish list either. it's actually among those forgotten wishes i have.

about a year ago or so, i lost a certain rosary that i really treasured. that's because that rosary had been blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2002, which daniel gave me when he came back from rome for St. Josemaria Escriva's canonization. i wore it as a pendant (it's a ring rosary by the way), and i barely took it off. i wore it even when i know i'd be drenched in sweat (like in the rare occasions i joined laya people for a game of football at sunken :P). i just felt safe when i have it with me (there's a deeper reason on where that's coming from). so you could just imagine my horror when i found my necklace hanging on my neck, broken. i know i lost it at home, because i found out it's missing before i left for school or something. the thought that it had been flushed down the drain was a haunting theory on why i never found it again.

so this morning, when i saw it sprawled on the floor beneath the dining table, i was ecstatic! i couldn't believe that it's actually there, that at some point i even had doubts on whether it really is the rosary i've lost. but i also couldn't see a reason why it isn't. it's the only rosary we have at home that's as large as the one daniel gave.

so there, i'm happy, happy, happy! :) thanks Lord for giving it back, and for the greeting on my birthday :) thanks for all these strange, beautiful things, and for everything. and happy birthday too! :)

as a last note, i'd like to share with you some lines from a Christmas song to reflect on:
"long lay the world, in sin and error pining
til He appeared and the soul felt its worth"
let's not forget the real reason for all our merrymaking :) have a blessed and truly merry Christmas everyone! :)

birthday songs

i'll be 23 soon. so soon in fact that it's only less than an hour left til my birthday. gad. i hate not being able to wait excitedly for it like i used to, because apparently i'm one of those few people who make a big fuss over their birthdays. =P

anyway, i just want to post an entry today, to mark the last day of my being 22. it kicked off with me taking an oath as a true blue civil engineer, and ends with me singing a few songs in my head:

"only two more days until your birthday..." - the saddest song // the ataris (well, it isn't exactly applicable today, but it was yesterday. =D)

"amazing still it seems, i'll be 23..." - 23 // jimmy eat world (the song that makes me think of bryan greenberg! *happy sigh* 8D)

"and that's about the time she walked away from me, nobody like's you when you're 23..." - what's my age again? // blink 182 (maybe this just applies to guys? :P)

and tomorrow, i shall sing this one:

"staying up til dawn won't take it its toll, til we get old..." - birthday song // ben lee (can't afford to do that actually, but at least i'll be awake at the crack of dawn. gotta catch the sunrise! *happiness* :D)

well, that's all i want to say, really. off to bed now!

my december wish list

gad, i haven't braced myself for december - that is to say, i haven't switched to my excited mode yet. as i've said in one of my previous posts, i like waiting. but since november has quickly gone past, there's little room for that, and now it's december and i felt like i've been robbed of my precious waiting time :P oh well.

december is my favorite month of the year for a couple of good reasons: my birthday and Christmas =) and it's not just because i would be getting gifts or money, i love them simply for the special happy atmosphere they bring. but of course, it wouldn't hurt to receive some :P so this year i've come up with a birthday-slash-Christmas wish list (i'm usually given ONE gift for BOTH occasions anyway!) and i do hope to have them all by the end of the year. hahaha. :D

1. puma italia football jacket
2. mad magazine board game (i wish we hadn't lost our old one!=s)
3. calvin & hobbes and far side books
4. yellow espadrilles with the perfect heel height (around 2 to 2.5 inches)
5. a cute flowery black and white cocktail dress
6. U2's U218 singles album cd - got it! thanks jade!!!! :D
7. a cake cookbook
8. Christ is passing by by St. Josemaria Escriva
9. dinner at friday's at boni high (but i guess this would have to wait til sheila's back from australia)
10. road trip to tagaytay + coffee trip at bag of beans
11. have all my college friends present on my birthday dinner treat
12. have bibingka for breakfast while waiting for sunrise :)