And finally, I was able to catch up with this blogging challenge! This post will be short and sweet for we are only asked to list 5 things we want to know or learn.
Actually, there’s just one thing I want to know~ I want to know…
……WHAT LOVE IS.
Just kidding! Here’s the list of things I want to know or learn:
1. Learn New Language or Dialect. I’ve always wanted to learn french. I just thought that speaking that language sounds so elegant.
2. Learn Effective Financial Management System. Or invest in stock market.
3. Learn how not to be socially awkward.
4. Learn how to thank God in all circumstances.
5. Know Jesus more deeply and intimately. I want to grow all the more in my relationship with Christ so I’m praying for a more intimate relationship with Jesus. 😃
How are you, dear friends?! Welcome to the 3rd week of Cary and Lynai Blogging Change. Just to recap what we have accomplished so far, we’ve shared some qualities about ourselves during Week 1. We’ve also shared some of the things we love doing in Week 2.
Now for Week 3, it’s time to share our most prized moments! Truth be told, this is my favorite topic in the challenge so far. I am really excited to write this post because I see at as an opportunity for me to finally write the long-overdue stories of my favorite travels and adventures. So in chronological order, here we go!
1. Ilocos Trip (January 2010). One of the things I love about my first job was the opportunity to enjoy the perks of working while having fun. Our organization was generous enough to bring us all to Ilocos to conduct our regular Mid-year assessment and planing. I can’t remember anymore the things we’ve discussed during the planning and assessment but the memories of the places we’ve visited after the activity still linger on my mind (thanks to the pictures we’ve taken, of course!).
2. Christmas 2012. I’m trying to recall why I’ve included this in my list. Then I remembered that my favorite Christmas celebration in my present job was in 2012. I love Christmas 2012 because:
This was the first time I saw office crush, during the pinoy henyo contest. I was impressed by his performance during the game and I also find him cute so I decided to make him my office crush. Hihi!
We won the Staff presentation contest. I really enjoyed the preparation we made for that contest, especially the costume, so I’m glad that all our efforts paid off.
I received a surprise gift from my other secret crush. This is not actually related to our office celebration but another reason why Christmas 2012 was memorable for me is because of that gift. I’ll stop here because I want to keep that moment secret. 😛😙😅
3. F2F Discussion (February 2013). This is one of my favorite face-to-face book discussion in our book club, TFG! I just love the romantic feels during this event.This reminds me of how much I miss attending book discussions.
4. LDI 2013 (May 2013). Attending the leadership development institute is one of the most important milestone in my Christian life. It was a month-long of training for future disciplemakers in our church.
5. Relient K Concert (September 2013). It has always been my dream to see my favorite Christian band perform live here in the Philippines. But I never thought that I don’t need to wait that long to watch their concert. Thank God for the organizers because they brought Relient K here in the Philippines so I’ve got to see them live! By the way, it’s kind of free. 😀 Relient K at Trinoma
6. Japan Trip (February 2014). Of course, this was my first out-of-the-country travel ever! I praise God that I was able to get an all-expense-paid training in Japan. Not only that, I gained at least 15 new friends because of that training. I’ve also got a first-hand snow experience as a bonus.
7. Ilo-ilo Trip (September 2014). This was my first out-of-town travel with my bookish friends, the Laslas Girls. Travelling with these ladies taught me that travelling is more fun when you do it with your beloved friends. And how can I not include this in my most precious moments when this was also the first time I met my dear friend and partner in this blogging challenge, Lynai (and her cute baby, Ikay)?!
8. Day in Prayer and Fasting (DIPF) (January 2016).I always look forward to our monthly DIPF. Our church usually do it every first Saturday of the month and I love attending DIPF because it’s the time of the month when I get refreshed and have an entire day devoted to spending time with God in prayer. The first DIPF we had this year was extra special for me because God answered one of my prayers in an unexpected way during that day. What’s funny about it is that my prayer was so random and kind of silly (or so I thought) so I didn’t expect that God would take that prayer seriously. Maybe someday, when the time is right, I’ll share the details of that prayer. For now, let’s leave it at that. 9. Korea Trip (March 2016). This one of the greatest blessing I received this year. I praise God for He gave me another opportunity to go out of the country to learn. 10. All other small things that matter. I want to make a list of 10 but I thought I have a number ordinary moments that are worth mentioning so I’ll save it for my next post.
Looking at my list, I realized that most of my unforgettable moments happened just recently. I tried to recall my favorite experiences during my college days but I find recent experiences better than before. This reminds me that indeed, greater things are yet to come.
Hello, again! It’s been a tough and busy week for me so I wasn’t able to write my blog post as scheduled. (Just in case you want to read my previous post, you may refer to this link.)
This week’s topic is about things I love doing. As a self-confessed introvert who rarely gets bored being alone, naming the things I love doing is quite easy. I have so many interests that I want to do them all at once.
1. Reading. I think I don’t need to elaborate it further. 2. Listening to music while working. I find music therapeutic and it helps me think more clearly. 3. Spending time with God through praying and meditation. Doing my quiet time with God every morning is one of the habit that I was to develop through God’s grace. 4. Going to church every sunday. My Sunday will never be complete without this. 5. Spending quality time with friends. What is life without friends, right? 6. Doing artsy fartsy stuff. Artsy fartsy means calligraphy, making beaded jewelries, drawing. Just so you know, I’m not really an artist. I just love art. 7. Walking. This is the only form of exercise I’m good at. 8. Trolling. You’re not really my close friend if I’m not a troll to you, unless you’re someone I respect. 9. Dressing up and putting make up. This is one of the habit I’ve just learned recently. According to our former voice lesson instructor, ‘when you look good, you feel good’. I feel good when I think I look good with my make up. haha! 10. Shopping alone. I’m more comfortable doing shoppoing alone. 11. Fixing things. I love tinkering and trying to fix broken things even if I have no idea what to do with it. 12. Singing. I’m not good at it. I just love singing that I even tried to join a free voice workshop. Too bad I wasn’t able to do my recital because of my travel to Japan. 13. Cooking. This is the only household chore i love doing. 14. Writing. When I say writing, I mean writing using color pens and fancy papers. I even have a notebook full of written lyrics of my favorite songs. I also have a collection of handwritten quotes copied from text messages on my phone. 15. Stalking my crush online Eating. This explains my love for cooking.
I first heard about the word meet-cute from my book club friends, during one of our online book discussion a few years ago. According to Urban Dictionary, meet-cute is….
Scenario in which two individuals are brought together in some unlikely, zany, destined-to-fall-in-love-and-be-together-forever sort of way (the more unusual, the better).
The way the characters meet in “Serendipity” or “When Harry Met Sally” or at least half the romantic comedies out there.
I was reminded of this meet-cute scenario when I was meditating on Genesis 24 during my quiet time this morning. Genesis 24 details the story of how Abraham was able to find a wife for his son Isaac. To summarize the story, Abraham is now very old and wants to make sure that his beloved son Isaac will not get a Canaanite woman for his wife. So he sent his oldest servant to his hometown to get a wife from his relatives. Abraham asked his servant to make an oath to make sure that he will only do what he was instructed to do. So the servant left for his master’s hometown to find Abraham’s relative, Nahor. After his long journey, he arrived at a well located outside the town of Abraham and asked God to bless his mission and lead him to the right woman whom Isaac can marry. He also asked for signs that will tell him that he had found the right woman.
While he was praying, Rebekah came and the servant realized that she meets the signs he was asking from God. It turned out that Rebekah is the daughter of Nahor’s son so the servant thanked God that He led him on his journey to the house of his master’s relatives.The servant told Abraham’s relatives about his intention of finding a wife for his master’s son, Isaac and how God has led him to Rebekah. Rebekah agreed to go with the servant and become Isaac’s wife.
Probably you are now thinking that this is a typical arranged marriage story so you find nothing romantic in it. So now this is the exciting part and let me quote the passage directly.
62 Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev.63 He went out to the field one evening to meditate,[f] and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching.64 Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel65 and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”
“He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.
66 Then the servant told Isaac all he had done.67 Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. (Genesis 24:62-66)
When I saw this passage, I can’t help but notice the reactions of Rebekah and Isaac when they first saw each other. There was surely an attraction between the two of them I even thought that though God has pre-arranged their meeting, their story may still be love at first sight. And even if I’m wrong, I’m pretty sure that their marriage was a happy one since it was clearly stated that Abraham did really love Rebekah.
The love story of Rebekah and Isaac is not a new story to me, actually, because their marriage is always our reference whenever we talk about love, courtship and marriage at church. And because of their example, I am very much convinced that God can also arrange a perfect marriage for me.
That is why I’m not really into dating.
One funny thing about me though is that lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage. No, it’s not because of wanting to get married but more of fear that what if marriage will happen to me sooner than I expected? I know deep in my heart that I’m not yet ready and I really don’t know how to prepare for it. I also thought that just like Isaac, when the man that God has prepared for me started looking to for his wife, will he also find me as a woman of godly character like Rebekah?
The truth is, right now, I don’t think he will. And marriage is still one of the areas in my life that I really need to submit and lay down before God.
Today’s topic is about describing and introducing ourselves. It’s truly quite a challenge for me because I don’t usually share a lot about myself to other people unless we’re close. Good thing I’ve blogged something about some random facts about me almost a year ago so I’ll just take off from there. Plus, our book club had this activity last year called ”Navigate Me”, wherein we were asked to describe each other, so I’ll just share the result and the perception of some people I know about me.
Since I’ve already listed 5 qualities, I’ll just identify 20.
From My ‘Navigate Me’ Result:
1. Purposeful
2. Spiritual/Religious/God-fearing/godly/faithful/Prayerful/Devout (note: I’ve grouped these qualities into one because I believe they are all related)
3. Demure
4. Earnest
5. Uncomplicated
6. Warm
7. Conservative
8. Loner
9. Compassionate
10. Funny
11. Simple
12. Thoughful
13. Naive
14. Idealistic
15. Dependable
16. Caring
17. Wallflower
18. Unknowable
In addition to these above-mentioned qualities, I consider myself as opinionated and stubborn. Yep, that’s me, friends!
It took me some time to follow through this blogging challenge. I’ve actually drafted several versions of this post but wasn’t able to publish it succesfully because until now, I’m not sure of what my proudest accomplishment is. Sure I have several things in mind, but those things I’ve achieved happened ages ago so I thought I should write about something that’s recent. The sad thing about it though is that I can’t think of anything I’ve accomplished recently that I can be proud of. Sad right?!
So for the sake of finishing this challenge, I’ll just share my favorite acomplishment in college. If you’ve been following this blog for a while now, you’ll remember that I’ve said something about getting a grade of 1.00 back in college. Actually, that’s the only perfect grade I’ve got in my entire college life. The subject was FPPS 127 (Forest Product Utilization), one of my major subject in Forestry. I challenged myself to get a grade of 1.00 in that subject because my specialization was forest products. When I look back how I was able to get my target grade at the end of the sem, I remember doing these things:
■ I devoted my time and effort to it. I remember spending extra time reviewing my lessons and memorizing the concepts so especially during exams so I can get a perfect score.
■ I aimed for excellence. Even if I don’t admit it, I was so competitive back in college. I’ve always wanted to be on top of the class so I always make it my goal to get a high score, if not perfect score, during exams. With that motivation, I worked hard to achieve my goal and get the grade I wanted.
■ I’ve worked with the right kind of people. During the last part of the sem, our class was asked to form a group and work on a project we were asked to do. I’ve competely forgotten what the project was all about but I remember that I’ve partnered with a close friend of mine from that subject and we ended up making a miniature model of a paper mill. That friend of mine was more artistic and creative than me so the paper mill idea came from her. So we worked together and did our best to finish the project on time. The paper mill model turned out to be a good so we got a grade of 1.00 on that project. Because a large percentage of my final grade came from that project, I was able to get my target grade of 1.00 at the end of the sem, and I’m thankful that I worked with my friend for that particular project.
Looking back, getting what I’ve wanted was really easy for me once I’ve set my mind on it. Sometimes I wonder where that part of me have gone now? Maybe it’s really high time for me to set goals again and really go for it.
Hello, again! It’s been a tough and busy week for me so I wasn’t able to write my blog post as scheduled. (Just in case you want to read my previous post, you may refer to this 
No Ordinary Day 