HELLO 2013!

On 2 January 2013, I drafted:

"Okay, so it's past midnight on the second day of 2013. Which means, tonight I'll be flying back to Manila. It's kinda bittersweet because I am both excited to start my third trimester and sad to leave my hometown. The latter is a particularly stronger emotion since I have been having a blast for the past few days. Perhaps this is one of those vacations that I didn't spend much. And yet, I was extremely joyful sharing quality time with my family and friends. :-)

Whether I was having a chat with my cousins, or cooking a special dish for my folks, or playing at the mall arcade with my friends, I was utterly happy. And this happiness made me realize that truly, the best things in life are priceless.

Okay, enough of that.

What I really want to do right now (after verbalizing above how I feel at the moment) is (1) to jumpstart blogging /*since I have been missing in the blogosphere for many weeks*/; and (2) try out this new scheme of uploading photos in this blog. For the first one, I'll try to start writing some pending blog entries that I have been meaning to publish but didn't find time to do so. And for the latter, as advised by a couple of Facebook friends, I'll try to use Flickr as a means to upload photos in blogspot despite my storage capacity issues with Blogger.

And to start with the latter, let me attach a trial pic in this entry. Hope this works."



<<<<<< Fast forward to 12 January 2013:  Okay it didn't work. If I want to continue blogging here, I would need to upgrade this account and avail extra storage for a fee. Since I seem to have no choice, why not push all the way through, get extra storage + have my own domain name + host my own site? Good plan, eh? Except for the 'annual fees' part. Not cool. However, I really have few alternatives, so I just have to deal with the fees.

So anyway, I revived my original blog in Wordpress (which has nil entries). If ever I'll host my own site, I'll be using Wordpress due to its flexibility /*think of the iOS vs Android analogy*/. Perhaps I should have entitled this blog "GOODBYE" instead of "HELLO" because this is going to be my last entry in Blogger. Awww... I hate goodbyes. It gets me teary-eyed every time. T.T

But seriously, I'm thankful that people read this blog, and some few even clicked that "Follow" button.

Anyway, you can still catch me in my Wordpress site. Hope you still follow me there. Here's the URL:

http://lonewulfsdirge.wordpress.com/




Thanks guys! This is LONEWULF signing off...


...in Blogger.

CONFESSIONS OF A DRAW SOMETHING-A-HOLIC II

Back when I still had so much extra time, I download all sorts of game apps on my phone (that I find interesting). This I find useful in dodging boredom during jeepney rides, bus rides, mrt rides, elevator rides, #2 moments in the toilet, et cetera. And one of those games that I made an impact on me is Draw Something by OMGPOP. It is an app where you choose a word from a group of three that you will have to describe to another player (someone you know, or someone random from the web who also has the same application in his/her gadget). The catch is, you have to draw your descriptions or clues, a la Pictionary.

I liked playing this game so much because it stirs the creative side of me. And because of that, I created a blog entry before to serve as my “art gallery”. :-)

Anyways, before I became busy with my studies, I was able to craft another collection of artworks via Draw Something. Here they are:

WANTED: KRISPY KREME AMBASSADOR

The yummiest doughnut in town, is coming to my hometown!
/* Ugh, don't you just love rhymes?! */

KRISPY KREME, SOON TO OPEN IN DAVAO! Weeeeee... *happy dance*

By the way, they are looking for a Krispy Kreme Ambassador who will be based in Davao City. So shoutout to all my friends who are interested or who knows someone who's interested.

If you are all of these:

- Male (5'6) or Female (5'2)
- 18-27 years old
- graduate of Marketing, Mass Comm, or any related course
- has a pleasing personality
- and is very excited to be a Krispy Kreme Ambassador :)

please drop me a line. Or email an updated CV to me (thegreatnoel@hotmail.com) or to jmbathan@jambajuice.ph.

---
Actually, you just need to email the latter addy. I only included my personal mail because I'm a nosy creature.

BLV T R NT

Before I start this entry, let me just make a (belated) congratulatory shoutout to my two brods in UPLB Street Jazz, Louie Canaria and Erik Javier. Yeah, I know I have already done this in Facebook but I just want to make this moment a part of my blog. :-)

Both Louie & Erik were part of the Megacrew entry of the UP Streetdance Club which won 3^rd place in World Hiphop International (Megacrew Division). Erik is also part of The Crew, a subset of UP Streetdance Club which competed in the Adult Division of the same event. They bested all the other entries... GOLD baby!

with Louie and his Bronze

Erik's Bronze and Gold

Great job, you guys!

===

Okay, since I am now in a roll, and since I’m still on vacation, let me squeeze in this entry posts that I missed writing about due to my uber impossible work-school routine.

---

---

First up, I want to congratulate my friend Jaja (Pooja Sujanani). She recently got married.

If you’re wondering if that’s her in the image, yes, you’re right. She is a pure blooded Indian who grew up in Bohol.

VLAST FROM THE FAST - THE LETTER THAT MADE ME CRY

I'm quite sure this was how I looked back in 2007

Just a few days back, I was able to read an ancient letter I wrote back in 2007. It was a very personal email I sent to a good friend of mine, Ate Charm. And yes, as the title of the entry says, I cried after I read this letter. Well, it was actually pretty odd that I cried, but yeah, I did. Maybe it was the nostalgia. Maybe it was my innocence back then, or perhaps reading the letter made me vividly recall the melancholy I was feeling while typing that email.

Anyway, whatever it was, it's not important. I just want to share the letter here just to give you readers a glimpse of who I was or how things were when I was younger. :)

Just to set your expectations, there's nothing really extraordinary about the letter. No juicy stuff. It's just a correspondence I had with a friend. But it was extra special to me because reading it took me back to the time when I was very melancholic: I was stuck in college, missing my friends and colleagues who have left campus ahead of me, I was about to graduate and thus I was starting to miss the people I'm about to leave behind and Elbi-life in general.

WAIT. I take back what I said about "no juicy stuff". There are juicy stuff but I censored them as that I thought they are too private. lol

So anyway, here's the letter.

---------------


--- On Wed, 4/4/07, noel co<thegreatnoel@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: noel co <thegreatnoel@hotmail.com>
Subject: te charm!!!!!
To: kewl16_sj@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 3:00 PM

ate charm, musta ka na??

sorry ngayon lang nakapag-email.. busy talaga eh

LOMA 356

OW. EM. GEE!

Anxious weekend is over. And the best part is... I PASSED!

I really thought I'd fail this one because one, I did not finish the two handbooks; and two, I was distracted with my then upcoming entrance exam for MS Finance.

YAY! No salary deduction for me. :)

Thank you, Lord! Pramis, mag-aaral na ako para sa next exam. :)

LONG TIME NO SEE... FORM 5

Lookie, lookie... At number 18. I MADE IT!!! :)*happydance* Uh yeah... uh yeah... uh yeah... Hello again, studenthood. I'm all fired up. Now you may let the hell life of working and studying, plus the uberly exhausting travels in between, BEGIN. :)

Bring it, baybehh!

---
Okay, so that was last week and I forgot to publish it.

Update: Just this evening, I officially became a student of MS Finance. :) Bye bye many thousand pesos. Hello to lifeless life. :) lols

I missed doing this. :)

THE GUY WHO WROTE MY HIGH SCHOOL HYMN

"...and fit all thy sons with wings, to lend us flight in the sowing of our gifts..."

A couple of months ago, Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus alumni batch 2001 (batchname: Prodigy) who are based here in the Metro organized a gathering of PSHS SMC alumni from Pioneers down to batch 2002, which is my batch (batchname: Gods). The event was called HOHOL: Hang-Out Hang-Out Lang (yes that's how corny nerds can get), and it was a simple gathering and reminiscing of HS memories held in a bar in Madison Square, which is by the way co-owned by one of our seniors.

The night was really fun and very nostalgic. Most people have matured and become even more gorgeous. But anyway, the reason why I am writing this post and bringing up HOHOL is that there was a question in a trivia game we played that night which struck me now as I heard a very recent news. The question went like this: Who wrote the Philippine Science High School Hymn? We were all dumbfounded. For years we've been singing the hymn and even until now my housemates and I sing both the English and Filipino version when we're bored, but never has it crossed our minds to ask who wrote the song. Anyway, cheater me used my 3G to google the answer. *grin* It was Mario Taguiwalo.

Now, I really knew nothing else about this person until this morning, when I read about his passing away last Sunday. Jessica Zafra (a famous writer and columnist, see jessicarulestheuniverse.com, who is also an alumna of Pisay) wrote a pleasant tribute to Mario Taguiwalo. Apparently, the guy was part of the pioneer batch of Pisay Diliman. He was an excellent educator, a prominent think-tank of the government. He was also an ex-undersecretary of health, and many other different things, including being an actor. Yes, he appeared in films like Gangland, Unfaithful Wife, and even Shake, Rattle, and Roll. What an amazing person! If you want to read Jessica's tribute, click this link, or visit her blog.


To the guy who wrote my high school hymn, may you rest peacefully in Heaven. :)

THREE ITEMS

Can I just express my disappointment? I just learned that I failed only one exam in the proficiency tests in MS Finance. /*Trivia: To get in the program, one would need to submit complete documents, pass the Graduate Program Admission Test or GPAT, get through the interview (for some), and pass the proficiency tests in Accounting, Algebra, Calculus, Statistics, and Mathematics of Finance*/ I failed the Accounting part. :(

It's quite acceptable though as I never took Accounting lessons in college. Not even as an elective. :( However, I have a few knowledge on the subject due to my role in my previous job, which involves analysis of financial statements. But that was not enough to let me pass the exam. And what's more depressing is the fact that I was 3 correct items short from passing the test. Three friggin' items! How unlucky.

On the brighter side though, there is a re-take next month. And I would only need to take Accounting this time. Plus, UP College of Business Administration offers review sessions before the re-take. I would just need to pay for the "workshop" for P4000, which by the way is the reason why I'm here in Diliman instead of being in the office. And then, I'll just show up in the review classes, which have 10 3-hour sessions, and most of which fell on weeknights. Oh yeah! Imagine the adventure I'll be having in my MRT trips, and bus and jeepney queues. And those are after I become drained from daily office work. Yay!

Three friggin' items!



But seriously, I'm glad I passed the other four. I just saved meself P4000, and the additional effort in preparing for the re-exam. Thank you, God! :)

===

By the way, from now on I'd be seeing more of this...

And this...

FOR A WHILE I WAS BLUE(D)

Epistaxis. That was the only proper response to my two-day workshop that ate half of my two weekends in March. The topic was Financial Risk Management in Practice.

It was a ruthless14-hour discourse, which despite the difficulty of the topics, was very informative. Hence, it was worthwhile.

 

EL CABEZA

March 2, 2012

entertainment.inquirer.net

Last Friday, the publisher of my favorite newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer died of heart attack at 77. 

Having been in the news realm since he was 19, he had contributed a lot to our country, bringing us information, even amidst political boycotts organized against his newspaper. He had been known to have created impacts and has served as inspiration, not only to his colleagues, but also to other journalists, successful and aspiring alike. And as such, they call him one of the Pillars of Philippine Journalism.

Being a reader of PDI, I would like to devote an entry to Mr. Gani. As a child I have always loved reading. I read mythology books, atlases, encyclopedia, fiction, etc. But I never read the paper. I just didn’t like reading current events. I don’t know why – perhaps it was the ubiquity of depressing news. However, sometime in college, I discovered the glory of “knowing”. Or more specifically, knowing what’s going on in the country and in the world. Thanks to PDI who made me allot P20 weekly from my living allowance, to buy my Sunday paper.

Even now as I work, I have developed this habit of reading the paper every weekend, and even subscribing to daily newsletters through my office email. Thanks to the reader-friendly layout, and the wonderful writers and researchers of Inquirer. Thanks to Mr. Isagani Yambot.

May you rest in peace.

HOT OFF THE PRESS : ADMISSION TEST RESULTS

(via mobile)

The UP College of Business Administration GPAT (Graduate Program Admission Test) results just came in, and I made the first cut!

Yippie!!!

And I was part of those who skipped the interview process. More yay to that! Anyway, that leaves me halfway through to getting in the program (MS Finance in CBA). Now, I'll just have to wait for the schedule of the proficiency exams. Whew! I hope I'll make that cut as well.

For now, Imma celebrate! Yabah!

THE DEVIL FEEDS MY IMPULSIVENESS

I swore I just went there to check if they have the reviewer I was looking for. You see, I have this upcoming exam two weeks from now. I'm pretty confident I'll pass, however, my blocmate who's also taking the exam, said he'll get himself a reviewer just to make sure he won't fail. That got me nervous.

So this evening, after I left the office, I went straight to Fully-Booked in Boni High Street to get meself a good reviewer. After rummaging the shelves of the first, second, and third floors (ooh, there's a Starbucks AND White Hat stores inside the bookstore... Noice!), I was not able to find the reviewer. Then I asked this kind staff if such reviewer exists in the shop, and he led me obligingly to the correct shelf, leaving me shocked to discover that the reviewer costs way more than a thousand bucks!

"Oh no, this is not the right book. Too bad you don't have the reviewer here. *sigh* Maybe they have it in National Bookstore. Ktnxbye!"

I dashed downstairs until I reached the basement (oh, they have a basement!). And it is where I found this.

My secong Gaiman... bwahaha

CROSSED-OVER: NEW IN 2011 & 2012

For two reasons, I would like to post here my recent purchases & acquisitions:

     (1)  I reeeeeeeeeeeally love these items. And if I could, I would incessantly rave about 'em all day. But of course, I hafta work. And eat.

     (2) I’m not really the materialistic type. I mean I am not so much into buying clothes, or accessories, or appliances. Ever since I started working, the only use I have for my dispensable income was to buy me food. FOOD! Different kinds – cheap, expensive, healthy, junk, sweet, spicy, Asian, Western, and so on. It was my only guilty pleasure then. Thus, month after month, the fate of my hard-earned salary would be just a big joyful burp!

           Recently though, and with this I mean ‘in the past few months’, I started to buy tangible things. Ergo, those that I would not masticate or that would not perish after 24 hours. 

To be honest, I am missing my eat-outs. But, having physical evidences of my hard-earned money which everyday reminds me of my hardwork, is not too bad, I realize. 

So, ladies & gentlemen, without further ado, please allow me to present to you the fruits of my labor:

I ENVY YOU, PHOEBE CAULFIELD

Today I did nothing but bum out. I woke up early, had my coffee, and read my Sunday paper. And then I changed my profile picture in Facebook and then I listed down the things I'll do:

- write 1 blog entry (something about recent purchases)
- wash office uniforms
- iron office uniform for tomorrow
- read 1 chapter of LOMA 305 reviewer
- finish The Catcher in the Rye
- upload Christmas pics (net shop)
- upload Christmas vids (net shop)

And then I put priority numbers...

LOMA 305

Remember that entry about my free Starbucks coffee? If yes, do you also remember the reason why I had been hanging out in coffee shops at that time?

me and Pisay/Elbi tropa after Red Box session at GB

THANK YOU STARBUCKS! AND FATE

Normally, my office breakfast would consist of 4 pan de sals, 2 packs of retail mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee purchased from a coffee dispenser in our pantry. A couple of days back though, I had a change in routine.

I had these for breakfast!

Starbucks' Christmas Blend - Peppermint Mocha

FOR FREE!
How?

bagel with cream cheese

THE WITTY BOOK <-- Buy one. Now!

Finally I got my own copy of the "Akala Mo Lang Wala Nang Slumbook Pero Meron Meron Meron!" Notebook/Slumbook.

I know, I know. Sounds high school right? Totally childish. However, it was so funny and charming, and very smart. So who was I to resist?

DISCLAIMER!

I am not losing my interest in writing!

It's just that I've been very busy lately. I've been juggling work, family, personal life, and 3 different money-making endeavors (in short, raket). Note that one of these is dancing, i.e. time-consuming.

Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to two people. (1) YOU, my beloved reader. I know you've been so lost these days since you're not hearing a lot from me. Lol. /*This item could be imaginary for all I know.*/ And.. (2) ME. I feel really sorry for not having enough time to write. I know hundreds of ideas had already piled up in a corner of my cerebrum. But I promise, I'll do my best to put them all into writing.

I will slowly regain my pace in blogging.

Thus, let me jumpstart this whole drama with the re-launching of my 2011 Laundry List. :) I know I already posted an entry about this. However, I realized just recently that my velocity in completing the tasks is really poor. Mid-year has already passed and I have only achieved 5 out of 24. Pity, right? So now, I am putting it as one of my "pages" as a constant reminder that time is running and I would need to complete as many as I can to be able to feel fulfilled. :)

For those who have not yet read my 2011 laundry list, here's the re-launch.

------

Also, let me post my photos of me, mama, and nanay. They are here for a week and I went out with them last Sunday.

mama & nanay @ market! market!

mama & nanay @ serendra

THE DEVIL IS HERE

Last week, my hands had been itching to get a hold on this certain parcel that I practically did not want to receive. I was reluctant to get it because I shudder at the thought of possessing it.