Carol of the Bells version of Celtic Woman is the best. It even made me feel as if angels were singing to me. Great voice and nice fiddler. I wish I could play like her. Oh, I miss my violin. This reminded me that since its holidays, I should play my violin before work and school consumed my time again.

My 2011 Christmas is by far the most stressful Christmas I have had. I was busy organizing our company’s party not to mention I was also hurrying tasks for my project. Whew! That almost drained my sanity. And speaking of project-related tasks, I should ready myself now for my boss’s inquiries and probably anger for not finishing my assignments. These are those moments when I really wish I could divide myself to accomplish more.

Adding to my already overwhelming stress was the jam-packed malls. There’s the long queue in cashiers that always made me drop the items I supposed to buy. Good thing I was able to partially finish my shopping.

On a lighter note, and I don’t know why this came last, were the things I love about this year’s Christmas. First was of course the gifts! Thanks to all my friends generous and thoughtful enough to give me one. I won’t be mentioning names anymore. I might miss one or two names and I don’t want to rouse sulky feelings. Second was the reunion with friends. It was very nice to see them after quite some time, share stories and laughter over food, and renew your bonds. It’s also great to know that they’re doing great with their lives. Happy for you guys! And lastly was the happy air christmases always bring. I really can’t explain it and I don’t know if you feel the same way as me but there’s something about Christmas that made me smile despite all the worries I might have.

Wishing you all a happy Christmas!

Aurora Borealis timelapse HD from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

For me this is one of the most amazing phenomenon on earth. Aurora Borealis!

A friend posted on my wall a video of Aurora Borealis and after seeing it, I kind of instantly remembered how I adorned the northern lights. One day, I will go to places where I can view this beautiful night light display. And I will make it happen. I just hope it would be sooner!

Aurora Borealis is named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas. It is caused by the collision between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. Auroras can be seen as a curtain-like structure in the night sky above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. Interestingly they are called ‘Aurora Borealis‘ in the north and ‘Aurora Australis‘ in the south. And, auroral displays appear commonly in pale green and pink. Although, shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported. Hmmm, I want to see the purple one.

The most amazing phenomenon here on earth!

I really enjoyed it. Despite the pile of delayed tasks, I happen to squeeze in little time to shot videos and pictures. It is refreshing to just forget about your programming tasks for a while and engaged yourself into conceptualizing how images and videos should be shot to fit in the story board.

I would like to give credits to the people I worked with in the 24th floor: Joseph Bueno, Stephen Rimbon, and Sarah Biblanias, and of course to the wonderful actors and actresses in CID sections. You guys are awesome! Thank you for your cooperation and for actually rocking it. Can’t wait for all of these to be compiled into a single media file.

My brother and me when we were kids in the old house in Bicol where I was born.

When he’s about to get in the airport my mom started sobbing. She tried very hard to hide it but my cousin, who is by the way a five year-old boy, busted her to all of us saying “Oh! Auntie is crying.” Then my brother’s wife, Kat, started crying also. I’m so feeling the heaviness of the emotions around me and being an emotion bomb that’s easily triggered, the task of holding that single drop of tear is too much for me. But I gave myself a pat at the back for actually doing it, controlling my tears.. at least for a while.

Upon getting home, the insant my right foot touched our floor, the tears I earnestly held for a couple of minutes flowed like a raging water on my face. I’m not exaggerating. In fact when I’m done crying, I felt like I’m gonna be sick.

I know you can’t read this my dear brother but please always take care of yourself. We’ll see you after a while.

I’m not in good terms with one of my friends and it is just sad. I know I’m partly to blame since I made an issue such a big deal. But hey, I think it was indeed a big deal. My emotions got the better of me. I guess it’s the pill I’m currently taking talking. I wasn’t able to get hold of my emotions and then boom! I burst.

Another friend told me that I should have controlled my feelings but I hate that. I mean why do I have to pretend I’m ok when I’m actually not. That’s just not right. And besides if someone is mad at me, I want them to let me know or at least show me. That way, I wouldn’t have to guess and I would know what will make that person mad.

So anyway, I wanted to ease the cold air between me and my friend. I just realized that maybe he said those words to me that time because he has no idea what I’m feeling.. that he’s being logical and all. I wrote him a letter apologizing for being indifferent and further explaining myself in a hope to patch things up. I made someone gave it to him since I chickened out. I couldn’t just approached him and hand him my letter without feeling awkward.

This was two days ago and until now I have not received a word from him yet. I didn’t know if he had read my letter or if he just threw it away. I wanted to ask him but I stopped myself. Handing that letter to him already made me feel stupid and the idea of not getting a word back feels 100 times more stupid. I told myself that I have already done my part to save our friendship and now the ball is in his hands. I could have appreciated it if he told me something like ‘Hey, got your letter but I still don’t want to talk to you‘ rather than having no words at all. Oh well, if he doesn’t want to accept my apology and really wanted to stay like this then maybe he is meant to become just a memory of my past.

♫ ♪ I’d build myself up,
And fly around in circles,
Waiting as my heart drops,
And my back begins to tingle
Finally could this be it or

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere,
Or would it be a waste?
Even if I knew my place should I leave it there? ♪ ♫

This is the current soundtrack of my life. I don’t want to elaborate because it will just make this post unbelievably long and I’m not yet ready to write about this current dilemma. Maybe in time I will be able to do so but for now, enjoy Adele’s song.

I always prided myself as a logical girl, that is head-over-feelings type of girl. I believed that I’m like that for a long time until comes the moment when my being not-emotional was put to the test.

Like the picture above I was broken. My mind was polluted with unhealthy thoughts.

January was the month when it all started. I was paranoid. I can’t concentrate. My work and school were affected and I began hating myself. Come February, it even worsened. I hated myself even more. March was no different from the past months I mentioned. I suddenly have the need to know everything. I feel I’m such a loser. I feel I’m gonna explode. I have to let it all out. So I poured everything in my journal. And in a way it helped me contain the small amount of sanity left in me.

I google on how not to be jealous.. paranoid. I googled everything but I did not agree to most of the things that I researched. The best advice I got was “feel the pain“. It was the same advice given to me by a friend. At first I was like “do you want me to die?” but as I let myself feel the hurt, as I let the emotions surge like a raging water, little by little I’m releasing the pain. Slowly I’m regaining my old self. I still get jealous once in a while but the intensity is not that great anymore like the way I felt few months ago and I do believe that in no time I’m gonna be the master of my emotions.

Cheers! ^_^

♩♬♪ Together can never be close enough for me
Feel like I am close enough to you
You wear white and I’ll wear out the words I love
And you’re beautiful
Now that the wait is over
And love and has finally shown her my way
Marry me
Today and every day
Marry me ♩♪♫

Hoping that someday, the right guy would sing this beautiful lyrics to me.. but until that day, maybe all I can do is to learn to get hold of my emotions..

I used to pride myself as the rational girl but I was wrong. I guess I’m just like any other girl after all but that’s okay. I like myself better now..

Buildings burn in Yamada town, Iwate prefecture (state) after Japan's biggest recorded earthquake hit. Photo by Associated Press

I wish I could shut this thought for I still have to finish my reaction paper on both of my subjects for this term but no matter how hard I try to focus my attention on something else, my paranoia keeps on peeking in my reverie.

I love this planet, and I don’t wanna see it like this. I’m aware of the fact that earthquakes are natural occurrences but it’s really tragic to know thousands of people died and are slowly dying. It is also sad to acknowledge that we human contributed to the destruction of our own environment. Instead of devicing a way to slow down the destruction, I think we even intensify the effect of nature’s wrath. This, I believe, is because of our selfishness and most importantly, our lack of discipline. I wish we could care more about our environment and the future generation.

Last Saturday, I went to witness the Pyromusical Competition in Mall of Asia. I admit it was very nice to see fireworks display in the night sky but upon seeing the smoke the event has created, I kind of pondered on the possible effects of this on our atmosphere. And to make things worse, a lot of food wastes were scattered everywhere. I thought we have learned from Ondoy but I guess I was wrong. I was wrong to assume that the past calamity that ravaged our country has left a meaningful message for us all to remember. People seem to forget about that already.

innocence amidst the debris

So when are we gonna really learn to take good care of our environment??