Tag Archives: birthday

Dear Diary

Turn of the Year

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This is strange. During this time last year, I’ve been posting like a madman because the upcoming birthday. I even post a countdown for each post, just because it’s exciting (yes, I find birthdays exciting, really). Look now, I hardly posted for the past days, and I did not even put up a birthday wishlist, unlike last year. I don’t know if it’s because I’m busy, or is it just because I’m growing older, or because my birthday falls on a Holy Week day.

Nah, I’m just busy.

But like I mentioned earlier, I don’t dismiss birthdays as “just another day”. Well, yes, they can be, but how can one dismiss that day especially when it’s the day you entered the world? The day you REALLY started to be alive? How can one just think that day is ordinary?

Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway. My birthday falling on a Holy Monday is certainly new for me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had my birthday fall on a Holy Week, usually it’s just within the Lenten season (imagine how hard it was to treat people, especially when my birthday was on a Lenten Friday). I have this vague recollection of my birthday being on a Black Friday, but I’m sure that hasn’t happened yet. At least it’s on a Monday, so it’s not a holiday. But anyway, at first I felt kind of down, because I’m on fasting on Holy Week, which means I can’t eat and eat on my birthday…but then I realized having my birthday on the Holy Week is a perfect chance to reconnect. To reflect on my life (not like last year’s though, but almost the same ;) ) and to really realize the significance of me celebrating another year of my life on the week where we remember Jesus’ last.

Now, should I take a leave on Monday?

Oh, and I’m kidding about the old thing earlier. 22 is certainly NOT old, right? Market research says so. Er, okay. Maybe not, but again, 22 is not old. :P

One more thing, before I go back to work. In the spirit of tradition, here’s a wishlist for this year. :D

  • A 250GB portable Mac-ready HDD.
  • A pre-order of Dave Barnes‘ newest album.
  • A new wallet (Kuya’s taking care of this)
  • Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (paperback, preferably)
  • Wicked by Gregory Maguire (paperback, the smaller print)
  • First Among the Sequels by Jasper Fforde (paperback, preferably)
  • Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice
  • A bookshelf
  • A new bag
  • Yet another pair of shoes
  • Jacket that I can use for work
  • Gtec 0.4 refill, black
  • Apple Care for Triskal and/or Aslan.
  • A simple birthday surprise

I think that’s about it. I wouldn’t mind receiving any of those on Monday, but if I didn’t, it’s okay too.

Oookay, now back to work. My being almost-birthday girl doesn’t excuse me from that. :P

Dear Diary

Goodbye for now, "Sylvia"

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Today I bought my brother’s birthday gift, the first expensive birthday gift I got for him. Funny thing is, he knew what the gift is already since I wanted to make sure it’s something he liked so I called him before buying it. Meaning I destroyed the entire element of surprise. Of course, it’s still in the box, and I told him he could only open it on Saturday, which is his birthday. So now it’s sitting pretty in my room, waiting for his day. Oh, it’s a 12″ model of Leonidas from 300 with sound, if you want to know. :)

So I paid it with my trusty card and I started cringing. Ah, how hard it is to start spending so much on my card just because I’m getting paid more now than before. Before I got my new job, I hardly used my card because I know I’m going to have a hard time paying for it. Now that I have a considerably higher salary, I find myself spending a lot more than I wanted to. Ooooh, look at that book! It’s P500? It’s okay, I have card! Ooooh, this top looks so cute! I want it! Swipe!

So my credit card bill comes in today and I cringe. It’s not really that high as the last recorded (but if you add this month and next month’s it’s pretty high -_- ) but it’s certainly more than I want to pay for. Not to mention my October bill is almost as high as this month’s. Hay. No I’m not regretting anything (although there was this one purchase where I could’ve saved P300 from this thing I bought…but let it gooooo) I bought — most of them are important (groceries and stuff) and if not, something I really wanted to buy (like my new Bible, my Chucks, my new work shoes and my brother’s gift), it’s just…ergh. You know what I mean. And not that I can’t pay for it either; I can, now that I just got paid for this other raket I just had. But of course, it’s hard to part with that much money like that, you know?

Of course, I get what I pay for. Or swipe for. Whatever.

Now it’s time to tighten my belt a little and stop using my trusty silver [insert bank name here] credit card that I now call Sylvia. Starting tomorrow, I will not bring it anymore until I have paid off all my debts (hopefully by October). I will not use it unless it’s a real emergency (see the emphasis on real).

The new tops can wait. The new books can definitely wait (I still haven’t made a dent on my reading list!). The other luxuries can wait for now. Sylvia, be safe in your box in my desk. I shall see you in a month or so. :)

Oh, and no, I won’t apply for a credit card. Not a new one!

I need more rakets! Keep on writing, Tina!

Randomnities

10 Things

My ex-partner and YFC brother Niki tagged me to do this list in his Multiply so I thought I’d write it here instead of there. I used to have this kind of list I entitled All These Things, which I got from an old online friend but I stopped doing it because…well, because I was lazy. I guess making this list is also a part of The Great Adventure, so some of the items in this list would be the same in my first 5 Great Adventures list.

So let’s do this again, shall we? According to the tag, I’m supposed to write 10 things I want to do before I die, and then tag 5 people after. Here we go!

 

10 Things I Want to do Before I Die

  1. Publish a book. Or two. I consider myself a writer as well as a computer scientist/geek, and I still want to publish a book. Preferably fiction, but I like nonfiction too. I think I’ll go towards the young adult/chicklit genre for the fiction. :P
  2. Travel, travel, travel. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I want to see the world! I’ve got Sydney up for 2008, for the upcoming World Youth Day (I’ll be putting up a blog for this sometime soon, so watch out for it!) but I also want to go visit other places before I turn 30 or get married (whichever comes first). I want to go backpacking in Europe, go shopping in the streets of Bangkok (for the second time) with my friends, explore the beautiful beaches right here in this hometown, visit different Disney parks in the US and drop by the Big Apple to see if it’s really filled with people and if it’s really everything I’ve read about. Besides all that Heroes watching makes me want to see the city, and yes, including the plastic surgery in Manhattan. The world is waiting! I want to see!
  3. Receive sunflower(s) on my birthday. My favorite flower is a sunflower, and every year I wish for someone to give it to me on my birthday. Still no such luck, but I’m young, I can still wait. Even just one sunflower would be nice. :D
  4. Put up a bookstore/coffee shop. My mom and I have been playing with this idea and I threw this idea to my best friend as well. I love books, I like coffee — so why not start a business that has both? I have yet to think of a way to make that bookstore different — or maybe I should put it up in the province or something. Not a remote province, of course, but on a semi-remote place where there’s no close access to Powerbooks or any bookstore not counting National Bookstore.
  5. And since we’re on the topic of provinces, I want to have my dream house built. My dream house, as I envisioned it a year ago, would be in the semi-remote province (Tagaytay?). It’s a two-storey house with spacious rooms. No TVs in the bedrooms, only in the family room and there’s going to be a library/study and a prayer room. The house will be built on a huge yard where there’s room for a flower garden on the side (with a big sunflower patch!) as well as a swingset for the kids. And surrounding the house should be white picket fence. :P
  6. Fall in love, get married and have a beautiful family. Enough said. :P
  7. Raise enough money for a GK house and help build it.
  8. Be a missionary. In what way, only God knows. :)
  9. Send a kid to school.
  10. Be surprised on my birthday. As in the Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you went through all this kind of surprise. :P
    .

There’s more, but I’ll stop here or else I might blab the whole day. :) Anyway, I’m tagging…well, I’m really not in the mood to tag anyone. :P If you feel like getting this survey, then consider yourself tagged. Come on, it’s fun to write things like this. :P

Now I’m off to help my mom clear up on her just concluded dinner with her CFC friends. :) Good night!

Dear Diary

Your most attractive features are your heart and soul

Some plugs before anything else:

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  • Again, writers! National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner! Come and unleash your creative juices in November with a lot of crazy but fun writers. :D

Yesterday, I met up with Pau to go to Robinson’s Junction for Chris‘ early birthday surprise. He was surprised even if he knew he was going to be surprised (much thanks to Toni’s missent message). We met up at Mocha Blends right beside Teletech and then ate half of his small Black Forest cake. Haha. Of course, since he has work, we cut the celebration short until Saturday, when we’ll be having a brunch somewhere in Eastwood.

Wow, sosyal. :P

Anyway, on our way to Robinson’s, Pauleen and I were talking and I was sharing with her some of my job hunting woes. What she said kind of surprised me: “I don’t know why you’re so afraid of not having a job. I know for a fact that you’d get a job like that, so why were you so worried?”

I had to smile what she said. Is that what people see in me? Or at least, what my high school friends see in me? When I think about my college years, it feels so far away already; what more for high school? It feels like it’s eons ago, and sometimes I don’t think I even know who the person I was back then. Well, okay, so maybe I do, but I can’t get over the fact that I was so immature back then (aren’t we all?). It’s just funny and flattering how Pau put me in a much higher level than I did myself.

Anyway, I was reading an old online friend’s past blog to pass time here, and I find myself smiling at how youthful she was. Well, she is still quite energetic and youthful as she has been, but things are a lot different for her now. And I also saw how much she went through and I wasn’t really there for her. We used to be really good friends way back. That’s the thing about having online friends: when you lose contact, you end up drifting apart. Maybe that’s why I’m not so keen on making online friends as much as I used to…because I know eventually, I’ll lose touch with them (because I really suck at doing so) and we’d barely say hi to each other when we “see” each other online after.
That was so negative, I know.

It’s just an hour and a half here at work, and to be honest, I really want to go home already. This week has been blah so far.

I should make a new layout. Like soon.

Dear Diary

Books and Answered Prayers

First off…I don’t know if you’ll be able to read this, but Happy Birthday. :) I passed along a greeting to you earlier and the thank you I received from the person I passed it to meant a lot, really. :)

Thank You, Lord.

Nothing makes me happier than having new books to read. It doesn’t really matter if the books are borrowed or bought, because I’d be reading them just the same though if the book is borrowed and I absolutely loved it, I’d have to have my own copy of it even if I already read it.Anyway, when they say retail therapy is good, it is true. Mine, however, is book retail therapy. :) And because it’s Powerbooks‘ 10th year anniversary this month, it’s time for their yearly sale…and I would not pass that up! :)

So my mom and I went to Megamall earlier to hear mass and after that, we went our own ways to explore our own parts of the mall. I stayed at Powerbooks and at first I was so overwhelmed at all the books in front of me, I didn’t know where to start! i’m not really a fan of secular books ever since I took my faith seriously but then I realized that if I still want to write a book, I should go and read, read, READ! :p I need to watch out what I read though, but I should still READ! :)

So today’s book stash are:

  • High School Musical: The Junior Novel. I couldn’t resist! Haha, I’m such a fan of the movie, I wanted to own all available merchandise! I finished this in about an hour and if you’ve watched the movie and enjoyed it, you’d probably enjoy the book too. To be honest I enjoyed this a lot more because I got to see some other expressions and emotions that I didn’t catch in the movie (For example, the novel said Mrs. Darbus was feeling regretful when Troy and Gabriella didn’t get to show up when she called them for their callbacks. I thought she was just being uptight or something). It’s a pretty good book, for those short waits and days when I’d feel childish. :P
  • Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I loved the movie (I think I watched it five times when we first rented it on VHS), and I’ve always admired how Harriet wanted to be a writer and how she made ways for that to happen. I was in the mood for good and light fiction, and this should be a fast read.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’m not really a classics person. The only classic books I own and actually read are A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and the Anne of Green Gables series by LM Montgomery. If you give me titles of the great classics, I know their title but I have never read them (I may have watched them on cartoons on TV during my childhood ;)). Why the sudden classic turn now? Blame this website. I’ve read several entries on TKaM that I realized I must learn something from this!
  • Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. I first heard about him from Mela, and during one of my visits in National Bookstore, I’ve contemplated on buying his book. It looks cool, literally, because the covers look old (I can’t find the same cover in Amazon), and from Mela’s review, it’s good, so I’m looking forward to reading this. And yea, the text are small and it’s a pretty thick book so this might take a while. :P
  • Private by Kate Brian. Young adult book that attracted me while I was browsing around. Looks like The Clique series, but somewhat deeper. This should be interesting.

I’ll try to post reviews of these books once I finish reading them (except for HSM since it’s pretty useless for me to review it all over again :P)…then again, I have three books up for review here pa. Haha, let’s see what I can do. :)

Oh yeah, since the sale would be until the end of the month and the upcoming National Bookstore sale and there’s the Book Fair at the end of the month, so recommend me some books! :) Give me the title, author and genre (fiction, nonfiction, chicklit, young adult, etc) and if you know its price, I’d like to know that too. :) Keep ’em coming!

Which reminds me, I need to sell some of my old books at Booktopia. And I didn’t cut this entry…I should, but I don’t want to. :D Hmmm..enough book talk, I’m off to watch MMK. :)