January is Almost Over

Ang bilis - isang buwan na ang lumipas sa 2011!

And February is just around the corner.

Really excited about February, though. Ang daming naka-plano:

- a well-deserved back-packing 4-day vacation alone way up north
- another musical to look forward to watching
- re-visiting an annual festival somewhere in Central Luzon with friends
- possibly a trip abroad for training



It's going to be a crazy month, definitely, with Valentine's day fast approaching (segue lang).


A friend of mine in FB said sana yung February 14 na lang ang wala sa kalendaro kapag hindi leap year, para every four years na lang sine-celebrate ang Valentine's day.


With a full admission of my bitterness, nag-like ako sa post nya!

Back Up

Last week, I was asked to present an update of our Manila operations somewhere in Southeast Asia.

 

Whenever it's my first time to be in a particular hotel, I always check the toilet first - the toilet says a lot about an establishment.

The one I stayed in had a nice toilet.

However, if you look closely at the toiletries provided, there is one essential item missing...

Good thing I always have back-up.

Shucks, crush!

At my age, medyo nakakahiya pero aaminin ko - may bago akong crush :)

Hindi ko alam kung ilang taon na sya pero one thing is for sure, di ako pwedeng akusahan ng pagiging pedophile!

Once a week ko syang nakikita, for four weeks na. Each time, pasimple lang ako. Nakakahiya kaya!

Pero last week, breakthrough! Nakaupo sya sa may dadaanan ko palabas ng venue, at pagdaan ko sa may harapan nya, nakita kong nakangiti sya sa akin. Gusto kong tumigil, parang naririnig ko si Jose Marie Chan na kumakanta ng "can we stop and talk a while". Pero ngumiti lang din ako sa kanya (shucks, di ko man lang na-practice kung pano sya ngingitian) at dali-daling lumabas papuntang elevator.

Sana next week, magkausap na rin kami.

Note about the photo. I took this photo during the Rennaissance Festival in Houston almost three years ago. I had this super crush on the bag-piper - so much so that I bought their bag-pipe series CD so I could be reminded of him whenever I listen to the music. Crazy? Yes. Worth it? Not really sure. Would I do the same crazy stuff with regards to my new crush? Hmmm...

The Little Angel Who Hang on to Life

I spent the whole day yesterday at the wake of my friend's 4 month old daughter.

She was born pre-maturely. So premature that at the time of her birth, the doctors could not even determine the gender of the baby.

She also had a small mass on her lower back which grew with her as she progressed.

Worst of all, she did not have a hole on her anus, so her body had no way to discharge the waste.

She was a fighter. From the moment she was born, the doctors gave up on her. A pediatric surgeon, however, had the wits to check on her condition. The doctor pulled on her little arms, testing her will to survive. The little baby held her fingers securely as if telling the doctor: "I want to live".

Right there and then, the surgeon decided to operate on her to help her with the most pressing concern, that of providing her little body with a means to discharge body waste.

That was when we first heard about her situation. The management of our company sent out an email blast informing us of our friend's and her baby's conditions (both her parents work in the same company as I do).

That was more than four months ago.

Last week she had another operation. It wasn't a planned operation but her doctors said it was necessary.

She got out of the operation fine. She was stable. She was still fighting on.

A few days after the operation, sepsis began to take over her frail body.

The details of the treatment and her death are not clear to me. I wasn't listening anymore as her mother retold the story of how they fought to keep her alive when her doctors were already quitting on her one by one.

I was already immersed in my own thoughts. In my own fragile mortality. In my own possible end.

But the little girl lying in that little box showed me how it was to fight. To hold on to life to the very end.

Even as my physical body decays and the virus traps me into a life resembling the living dead, I will look up to that little angel who, despite her physical deformities and the hardships she had to endure at a very young age, fought with all her might to live.