The January BFS Year Update: Exciting Times

I was planning to write this update at the end of the month but I realized that I may not be able to write one at that time because of my suddenly too busy schedule. Eep. So after 25 days of 2008, here’s the mandatory Big, Fun and Scary Year update for January.

For reference, here’s the Goals for 2008 list. :)

• Mission: Sydney. Well, for starters, I should write something on the blog. :P But anyway, I’ve saved up some more cash for the Sydney fund, and I’ve got another source of income to add some more. I’m due for some research for my friends who want to go with me. Oh, and I found some other people who are planning to go, and I’ve coordinated with them, so I’m just waiting for news. Ticket prices are outrageous, but my parents told me to check with travel agencies and as I’ve heard, ticket prices for July will be out by March…so we have time to save up. I still don’t know if this would really push through, but I’m still hoping it would. Next month, I promise to compile all information I can get to be ready.
• Drive on my own. Not much driving done, but I did drive when we were at Tagaytay. I managed to drive and manuever the (automatic) car successfully. Of course, there were no other cars in the road, so that made everything easier. But I think I can do this, and I’m hoping for another practice session on a Sunday. :)
• Lose weight. I had a hip-hop abs session once, and I’m hoping to get to do this more often. I have yet to visit the boxing gym. On the up side, I’m walking around a lot (especially since we always get up late so I end up commuting to work instead of being dropped off), so that makes up for the non-exercise times. I’m drinking lots of water and eating healthier now, though. I can now resist the call of chocolates. Hee. I remember having a discussion about liposuction back at work, and there really is NO way I will be doing that in my lifetime. Exercise times again!
• Book reading and reviewing challenge. I finished reading my first book in 2008, and currently reading two more books which I am almost done with. My first book review is also up. :D I should spend more time reading during my free time if I want to read this all. :) I’ve installed the Now Reading plugin to keep track of these books, and they’re in the Library.
• Shopping. I think I kind of spent a bit more than I wanted to this month, but then I realized: one can never have too many tops. Or…something like that. Heh. For this month, I got 4 tops, 2 pairs of shoes and my hair done. :) Yay. Next month I’m planning to get some pants…and probably some more accessories (like medical id tags? Nah).
• Hosting business. Much thanks to Happy and their web class, I just sold some of my space to her friends. This is where the additional Sydney funds are coming from. :D
• Prayer Time. I can say I’m starting to have a more or less constant prayer time this year (right when I get to work). I’m looking for new devotionals to read, though, and I think it’s really about time to read not only the readings for the day, but other Bible readings for study. I missed my first Wednesday mass for January, but I made it up for first Friday. :) Oh, and I just realized, Holy Monday falls on my birthday — that’s something new. :)
• Try something new. I’ve saved this one for last because there seems to be too many new things in my life right now that it’s got me overwhelmed…in a good way, of course. I got this leadership position for a project team in our account (where I would have to give a short presentation for later during our team’s GA), and as for our meeting tonight there’s a lot of things I have to do. Plus seeing I’m the first leader to go through the rotation, I have this feeling I have to set a standard for the other leaders to follow in the next quarter. Pressure much? And, I just became an elected officer for IBS Club. Good luck. This should be a pretty interesting year, yes?

Whew. I haven’t started on any of the other goals, but I think this is pretty good progress for January. :) All these things remind me of one song I used to listen to before I started a new job, Exciting Times by Across the Sky:

Things can happen so rapidly
Then again, they can take a lot of time
But I know these things are not up to me
But I’ll be ready in the mean time
Opportunity is calling out to me
I lay it all on the line…
This thing is bigger than me
And I’m just wanting to be a part of
Anything and everything You ask of me.

Listen to the song here:

Truly, these are exciting times. And I know I’m up for a lot of challenges ahead, which I don’t really mind though I can’t help but be nervous about it. Sometimes it feels easier to just go back and be a part of the crowd, and not do anything out of what I ordinarily do. But that’s hardly living…at least to me. So, as I always say, bring it on! God is faithful, and I know He won’t leave my side as I face all these challenges and try to reach for my goals. :)

How about you? How are you doing on your 2008 goals so far?

Lifehouse’s “Everything” Skit

Tuesday shared this video to me before and I watched it, but I only got to watch it again now because a friend gave me the link. It’s made me pretty speechless and it definitely brought tears to my eyes. Enjoy. :)

On Artists and Outrageous Concert Prices

Ack, my lips are so itchy. I’m praying these are just windburned lips and not some kind of lip allergy from using a more than six months old lip shine. Eep. I’ve been dousing it with petroleum jelly for the entire day and it gets itchier after I eat since it becomes dry, and it’s so annoying. :/

I accomplished some things for one of my goals for 2008 for this month, which I will post about in an update soon. It’s got me a couple of thousand bucks poorer though, but I’d like to believe that’s an investment. Besides, I badly need them. :D Heh. In the next week I’d be accomplishing some other goals too, which means more late time going home from work because of lots of meetings. I’m kind of nervous about tomorrow’s meeting, though, since it’s my first time to hea one, and I’m not yet entirely sure if I understood everything. I’m not regretting being placed in this position though; I’m just nervous. Pray for me, please? :) After that, I shall prepare for my first ever presentation during our general assembly on Friday. Eep. :o Which reminds me, I planned to work on one document I should be emailing by tomorrow today, but then…there’s such a thing as work-life balance, so let’s make use of that. I’d have time tomorrow. :)

Speaking of work-life balance, I just heard from some friends that Maroon 5 concert tickets for their March 5 show in Araneta Coliseum are already available via TicketNet…and check out these prices:

Patron VIP (101, 103, 1st 20 rows) (Reserved Seating) - PhP 10500
Patron (Reserved Seating) - PhP 7875
Lower Box (Reserved Seating) - PhP 5250
Upper Box A (Reserved Seating) - PhP 3938
Upper Box B (Free Seating) - PhP 2625
Gen. Admission (Free Seating) - PhP 1575

Look. At. Those. Prices. More than a thousand bucks for General Admission?! My gosh. What can you see from GenAd anyway? And ten thousand for one ticket? What if you’re on the 20th row already, is that still worth P10,500? OUTRAGEOUS. That’s even more expensive than assisted living software (I think)!

Then again…I remember Josh Groban front seat tickets are P25,000 each…so this looks small compared to that. BUT STILL! The most expensive ticket I ever bought was for the Jars of Clay concert three years ago…and that’s really close. Switchfoot’s highest priced ticket is even cheaper than Maroon 5’s General Admission. :-o

Yes, they are big artists…but the tickets are just…whoa. I was planning to watch, but my wallet is seriously disagreeing with me; and if I do decide to watch, I could say goodbye to Sydney.

And now this makes me wonder who else will be going here this year. I haven’t heard any news from our bosing during the Switchfoot concert, since I guess she’s busy…so no news yet of who will be coming here that we’ll be able to help organize. Switchfoot is coming to the Pacific, but not passing by Philippines so I am totally envious of Gharri who will be in Malaysia at the same time they are. :P Here’s my current artist “wishlist” though:

• Brooke Fraser (I heard she visited the Philippines early last year, but not to perform but as a part of some movement…I’m not sure if it’s World Vision).
• Dave Barnes (Dream on, Tina :D).
• Matt Wertz (Bring him with Dave!)
• Jars of Clay (I still dream of being able to hug and have a picture with Dan Haseltine).
• Switchfoot (Once is definitely not enough).
• Anberlin
• Mae
• Bethany Dillon (Her show does not have to be in a big venue…a small venue would definitely be better :D)
• Lifehouse
• Relient K (Appetite for Construction tour here too? Please? :D)
• Nichole Nordeman (She could do a show with Bethany? Hee.)
• TobyMac

Ah. I could list so much more…but I’ll stop here. :D Now I have to finish watchig this Ugly Betty episode and finish the book I’ve been meaning to finish since last yesterday. Have a great week everyone. :)

I’m losing you and it’s effortless

Despite the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie thing with Grace and Jeb, I’m feeling quite down today. I blame it all on the introspection I did on the dorky email invite I sent last night, to what kind of leadership style I have to me not having someone to vent this all out on. Not that I mind being able to write in my journal; it’s just that I miss having someone to vent all the things out on. Not only any person, but a specific person.

So now I ask the question: Is a friend still a friend even if you hardly talk to each other? Let’s say you had a pretty good friendship, but then a lot of things happened to your individual lives — one of you got a relationship, both of you started working, or someone in the family goes away, or something like that — and because of all of this, you slowly lose contact. You still consider the other person as a friend, but you hardly see each other, let alone talk. You can’t wait to tell the other person about everything, but when you do, you get nothing back. You text, but you don’t get a reply because you’re from a different network. You plan something so you would see each other, but then the other person doesn’t show up. Or the other person shows up, but terribly late and everything’s over. You continue talking about time together, but nothing ever happens. You find out major things about the other person from someone else, and when you ask that person, that’s when you get to know what really happened. You feel like you’re giving everything to preserve the friendship you have and there’s nothing from the other end.

Who feels like that sometimes? How about right now? *raises hand*

(More…)

Seven Weird/Random Things

I was tagged by Kuya Kevin to do this, so to wake me up from my sleepy after-chocolate eating feeling, let’s do this. :) I’ve posted something similar to this before, so now I will try to post new ones, because really, one cannot contain weirdness in 6 things, right? :P

1. I remember song lyrics better than the melody/music/whatever. I used to write music reviews for FiSH, but I always end up focusing on the lyrics rather than the music, which Jomar always has to write for me. I realized why this is so, based on this multiple intelligence test we took at work. I’m more of a linguistic person than a musical person. Therefore, I remember and take note of lyrics of songs more than remember their music. I can’t, for the life of me, say which songs sounds like another song because I can’t hear the similarity until someone points it out to me. :P
2. I absorb everything first, then digest them all later. Now that made me sound like a sponge. I have this thing where I “absorb” everything first before I try to “feel” it after some time. Call it a defense mechanism of some sort. It’s like when I receive some bad news, I immediately build a barrier around me, and I store the information somewhere and then allow myself to “feel” the necessary emotions after I deemed it safe. It works both ways, actually, for good and bad news. I’m supposed to try to move on from this kind of thing, but I don’t know if I have. ^^;
3. I like multitasking. Yes I do! Haha, maybe my way of multitasking is not like others…mine’s more of the “while the channel I’m watching is playing commercials, I’ll surf around for a while” type of multitasking. If say, I’m surfing around the Internet, while this page loads, I look at another site first. That kind of thing. It’s not that I don’t like waiting; I just don’t like being idle while I wait. This also comes in with my habit of listening to music while reading a book…it’s so when I get tired of reading I have music to fall back on. :P
4. I will never get tired of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. I may start liking other shows or channels, but Nick and Disney definitely have a place in my heart. :P
5. After doing some major spending, I make quick mental calculations in my head about the remaining money I have. Chris caught me doing this on my first Doulos trip, where I was silently computing how much money I have left before the next payday. Ever since I started earning, I’ve formed a habit of having a personal minimum threshold in my bank account which I consider safe. If my cash goes lower than that, it’s immediately back to thrift mode. This is for me to avoid being bankrupt before the next payday, and really, I’d rather not get a payday loan because it just adds to my “to pay” list. It wasn’t until I moved into a new job where I started having balance sheets every month to compute my finances. It works. :D
6. All my characters in the things I write are always based on real people. With the exception of the last NaNoWriMo novel, which I think made it harder to write. But if I know you in real life, don’t bother asking who you are in those characters, I won’t tell. :P I only spill them voluntarily, never with someone asking. :P
7. I find singing boyband songs by myself or in videoke strangely calming. Ah yes. If I want to relax, let me listen to Backstreet Boys and N Sync. If I really need to destress, let me sing them in videoke, complete with dance steps. :P

Ah, mehn, that was actually quite hard to write. Heh. Anyway, I’m tagging three people at work because I know they read this: Grace, Mike and Roy. Come on now, share your weirdness. :P

On another note. It feels weird sending a meeting invite to people I don’t really know. What’s even weirder is that I used to do that all the time at my old job and I was used to it…after being so shy for the first few times that is. Now I’m fumbling again, and I feel really weird in sending a meeting invite. I should be used to this!

Okay, I shall click on Send and then leave my table just so I don’t feel iffy about it. I’ll get used to this. :D