Timely and Helpful

Last weekend, I decided to serve Life Direction's retreat.I was supposed to be there to help the participants but surprisingly, I was also helped by our retreat moderator, Fr. Javi. I will just share a few of my takeaways from the retreat.

1. Trust God with your life

This very good analogy of Fr. Javi really hit me. When we ride planes to go to our destination, we trust the pilot (so much) with our lives. We don't go into the cockpit and interview pilots to ask about their achievements and how many planes they have flew. We just go inside the plane, take our seats then sleep and just wake up when we reach our destination. But when it's God leading our lives, we ask so much questions. We doubt, most of the time, if it's the right thing to do. We don't trust God so much with where he is leading us.

This made me think about my life and how I'm always scared to take a leap of faith. It's very hard knowing that I did took a leap of faith before and it ended bad. But Fr. Javi again reminded us that we really need to "Let go and let God". As cliche as that sounds, it really makes sense. If we let God as the pilot of our lives, we are on the right track. Let go of the past and let God guide you to your future. All the hurts and disappointments I had in the past are lessons to make me who I am. Throughout the retreat, different people shared the story of their inspiring lives. If there is one thing I can share with you guys, it is that through these heartbreaks, losses and mistakes are we molded and created as a strong and unique human being.

I will continue believing that my rainbow will come :)

2. Being Grateful

Fr. Javi also pointed out that we should not just feel grateful but BE GRATEFUL. Feeling is so much different than being because feeling can be temporary. We may feel grateful today but forget tomorrow. When we start being grateful, it becomes our disposition in life. We start to be grateful always, without thinking about it. We do not forget because gratefulness is already in our system.


3. Be compassionate

One of the sharers mentioned how she manages to take care of her employees. This struck me because I handle 60++ employees now in our company. Each one of them are different and can be very stubborn. I am having a hard time but this retreat reminded me that the way to success is to be compassionate. Learn to love them, acknowledge them, take notice. When you are the boss, you should make them feel that you are there in their battles and successes. This may be a very hard thing for me because I don't see all of them (because most of them are in our production area) but I will try my best. :)

Thankful to have served with these people :)

#20 Go to Palawan

I have been dreaming of going to Palawan ever since.. (I can't even remember when) That's why I've been itching for Feb 22 to come ever since we booked our El Nido trip last November. Another item off my 30before30 list! Yahooo!

El Nido is 6 hours away from Puerto Prinsesa and our van leaves at 12:30pm. Before heading to this long trip, we decided to eat at Kalui first. I fell in love with the interiors and the artworks in this restaurant. It is better that you have reservations in this restaurant because when lunch time comes, it gets packed. Good thing we arrived there super early. Before entering the restaurant, you have to remove your shoes. It was a good experience. The meal was delightful. For seafood lovers, you will definitely love this place because most of the food in their menu's seafood :)

Art exhibit inside the restaurant

We arrived El Nido at around 5:30 pm and this is my first sight of El Nido:

El Nido is ethereal! I can't describe how beautiful the place is and my pictures can't suffice. You really have to see it for yourself :) During our first night, we decided to go to Corong Corong since we have to pay our accommodations for the 25th. We had dinner there and at around 8pm, the lights went off. It is normal for the island to have random brownouts and they have a regular brownout at 6am-2pm. I got scared at first but when I saw how beautiful the night sky was, I wished that the lights will never come back. BEST NIGHT SKY I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. I STILL GET KILIG WHEN I REMEMBER HOW BEAUTIFUL IT WAS. I FEEL LIKE I WAS IN SPACE.

The best picture that we had of the sky

 I wish I could see that again. So we went back to the Town Proper after dinner and had a good night sleep

Being the better person

We are always advised to BE THE BETTER PERSON. When people put you down, be the better person. When your family or friends don't appreciate you, be the better person. When your loved one hurts you, be the better person. When someone leaves you, always be the better person. Well fcuk this, I'm tired of being the better person.

I always try to do what is right. I have been brought up that way and I am proud of my parents for teaching us to be good. But sometimes, I'm tired of being nice. I have proof of how life is so unfair and I know that it is but most of the time, I don't understand it. It's unfair. In my heart and soul, I know that I always try to be the better person. I put my pride down to be the better person. I set aside my feelings to make other people happy, especially those that I love. I don't ask for anything in return when I do good, because that is not the point of doing good. I just don't see why my life is falling apart while bad people stay happier than me. They are blessed with too much while most of my blessings were taken away from me. Is this really how the world works?

I guess so. I have been reflecting on my life these past few days and I am really on my way to the lowest point of my life. I'm getting scared but I'm trying to stay strong. I feel like I have been avoiding conflicts by being too good and not pointing out what I'm feeling. My thought of 'being a better person' is more like being a coward. So I am tired of being a coward but I won't get tired of taking the higher road.

With all these negative thoughts, I am still trying to be very hopeful for my future. There is a brighter side and I badly want to go there right now. But I have to be patient, that is all I must do right now.

Unexpectedly Awesome Trip

I worry too much about the future and I hate it when all my plans fail. I have been very anxious about this Cebu trip for 2014 since last year. Some plans got cancelled and all the excitement faded. I was having second thoughts on pushing through this 10-day trip to Cebu with my brother and sister-in-law but since this year, I am going for spontaneous, I hop on that plane and flew to Cebu.

It was one of the best decisions I had this year (HAHA!). I did not expect it to be that amazing :) It was all about new found friends, food, alcohol and adventures! Cebu truly has amazing and cheap food. Of course, I wouldn't leave Cebu without eating lechon and I swear, I had too much lechon (Approximately 8 lechon meals). Besides lechon, my new favorite food would be the ribs from Surfin' Ribs (better than Casa Verde's and cheaper!). I had more meals but I wasn't able to take pictures.

This trip, I guess, also made me more alcoholic. We partied, drank until the sun rises, move from one inuman place to the other etc. Everyday, I would cap the night off with a bottle or two. When I got home from Cebu, I extended my alcoholic days with a catch up gimik night with a friend :) 

My sister-in-law is Cebuana and we stayed in her relative's house. Her cousin took care of driving us around and bringing us to the best restaurants in Cebu. I also met Milo, Ate Trina's nephew and we became friends. He would always call me "Friends" and he is the most hyper kid I know as of today. He speaks Bisaya and I can't understand anything he's saying but he would still play with me, such a sweetheart :)

Since we don't really have an itinerary and our main purpose for this trip was Sinulog, we looked for other things to do in Cebu. So Kuya Justine and I went kart racing! It was a first for me and it was awesooome :) 

SINULOG 2014: THE BEST PARTY I HAVE BEEN TO.

Ate Trina's cousin told us stories about Sinulog and we got super excited. I was planning on just wearing my tank top, shorts and slippers but he warned us not to wear slippers so I bought cheap shoes. We went to Ayala Center's Metro Gaisano Dept. store to look for shoes and I was frustrated because I can't look for cheap shoes that has my size. I was about to give up when I had a light bulb moment and look for shoes at the kid's shoes and voila...

Super reliable boy's sneakers :)

Sinulog can be summed up into a few words:  UNLIMITED BEER/ALCOHOL, PRT PRRRTT PRRT!, BEER SHOWERS, DRUNK PEOPLE, CRAZY AND AMAZING STREET PARTY! I started drinking at around 11 in the morning and ended at 10 pm! Cebuanos really know how to partyyy! It was more awesome because of fun and wild friends around. This is my first Sinulog experience but this will not be the last!

The day after Sinulog, we visited Sto. Nino Basilica. You can still see the damaged left by the earthquake last year.

 We had more side trips that I could not elaborate anymore. We ended this trip with Ate Trina's cousin's wedding. It was lovely and extravagant (but would have been better, in my opinion).

It was truly an amazing trip that I wouldn't forget :) I will forever love Cebu and Cebuanos. It was a trip that I got to know the other side of Cebuanos and this is the better version. Awesome awesome people with a one of a kind custom. 

Thank you Cebu for making this trip unexpectedly awesome!

Year end post

I couldn't say much about 2013 without sounding hurt, sad and bitter but 2013 was really full of disappointments, heartaches and people leaving. It was such a hard year for me because of the breakup, the moving out thing, my mother leaving for Canada and work related issues. Despite all those, I remained strong. But of course, I could have not done it without family and friends who were there to back me up. I just have to thank them all personally and give them the tightest hug I can just to say thank you. 2013 has really taught me a lot.

I wouldn't remember 2013 as full of heartaches but I would remember that year as the year that I was strong enough to face everything.

So cheers to 2014, the year that I will continue to become the best version of myself :)