It's our holy supper at church today. It usually is a tiring day after a week of devotional prayer and weeks of choir practices. But as always, everything is all worth the preparations. God is full of love as He always gives us an opportunity to start anew and get things straight again.
Had the chance to invite my dad to visit our home and see his grandchildren again. he stayed overnight until lunch time the following day.
Tomorrow, April 15, 2023, will be the last day ONLINE of the best forum website in the early 2000s--- PinoyExchange.com. It will go offline after more than two decades. Here's their announcement via their official Facebook page:
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| PExers turned real-life friends: mauve_2002, mckoolit, HeartBreaker200, BabyFATS, and BadAssGoddess |
I'm not talking about my kids but this blog just turned 20 years old today. Looking back, there are a lot of memories to look back at for the past two decades. The beauty of this platform is you get to remember things that you may have forgotten had they not been written or documented through a diary, in this case, an online diary. Blogs have evolved from initially being a personal hobby or outlet where you can write what transpired in your life for the day, to being commercialized (monetized) to make it as a way to earn. Then when handy phones became more advanced and video cameras and editing apps became more accessible, most blogs were converted to vlogs (video blogs). This reminds me of Coy who could have been one of the pioneer vloggers who may have been instrumental in its existence if only he's still with us today. He's the one who introduced to me what a vlog is, as early as year 2007. That same year, he's already been encouraging fellow bloggers to try out vlogging. I've stated my thoughts about it more than 15 years back: Pinoy Vlogging In A Personal Blogger's Perspective.
Today I am pondering if I want to revive updating more often. Being aware that this is a public space and unlike 20 years ago, network of people can easily "stalk" you thru many means today, I am having double thoughts of preserving my private life. Since this used to be known only to my closest friends (online and real world), it is a different story today. Like those FB friends you just add as friends but are not actually close to you, most people now can easily access your writings online. Because it is what people has become--- well-versed online. So let's see what is in store next for this blog of mine.
Among the many posts I make here, the year-enders have always been my favorite as it summarizes a year of my life in one long post. And come to think of it, this blog reached two decades already but I only managed to write one "decade-ender" post. It was actually a feat doing it and now I want to give myself a pat on the back for doing it.
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| My first-ever year-ender blog post, written and posted from Canada. |
Just learned this morning that some people in the compound caught COVID and were brought to NEUGH. Unfortunately, they were asked to return home since tents in the hospitals are full. No available rooms for COVID admissions. Sadder part is, kids have also been infected. But speaking of positivity, we are positive that hey will get well quickly.
Recently, the Philippines have been adding more than 10,000 new cases of COVID daily. The WHO also declared the other day that there is already community transmission of the Delta variant. Let us all take precaution, always maintain and observe the minimum health protocols whenever we are out of our homes. Get vaccinated. Most of all, pray that this pandemic ends sooner.
Here are five things we need to know about the Delta variant: source: gavi.org.
Stay safe, everyone!
For me, the end of every year is marked by our church Year-End Thanksgiving (YETG) worship services. It is the last occasion I ever look forward to annually. Some other occasions that usually follow this is mom's birthday and of course, New Year's eve. But yeah, the YETG is the exclamation point to my whole year.
Today is one of the most blessed days of my year 2020. I officiated the household thanksgiving worship of my relatives at the old folks' house. This scene I have not imagined happening but it did! I was moved by simply the sight of my in-laws gathered together to worship and thank the Almighty God for His great love. And there I instantly thanked the LORD for giving me the chance to lead this special occasion. Also amazingly, the four kids behaved all throughout the service. Special mention to my youngest. 💕
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| #ThankfulNoMatterWhat |
Over-all, FAMILY IS LOVE. It is the reason for waking up each day. Above all, it is GOD who keeps us going.
"Sadness will end, for this, too, shall not last--- hardship and pain will forever be past; thus, He has given this vital command: PUT ALL YOUR HOPE IN THE GRACE THAT WILL BE YOURS!" #ThankfulNoMatterWhat
It is one of those very rare moments that I get to schedule a meeting at the first hour of a working day. Thanks to work-from-home (WFH) set-up, I still have a lot of time to prepare after performing my duty in church early morning today. Meeting was scheduled at 8:00 A.M., and I logged in 20 minutes before the schedule. While waiting for the participants, I still got to talk to my St. Edward School Marketing colleague, Ina, to discuss Dr. John's preferences with the layouts that are to be posted in our official social media page. We finished our discussion in more or less ten minutes and just in time, our chairman was requesting to be let in the meeting room already. It was ten minutes before 8 in the morning. Being the meeting host, I let him in the meeting room and a usual smiling face greeted me. "Hi, Jon! How are you? Are you in the office?" sir Gerry asked. You just can't get a bad vibe with that executive smile! "Hi sir, I'm good. How are you? I am at home po," I answered back. "Oh, ang ganda ng wallpaper mo ha! Para kang nasa cafeteria," he said. Yes, I set my background to that google meet coffee shop design and my sleeveless batman shirt didn't look so casual. "Ok na rin pala ang work from home, ano?" sir Gerry added. I wasn't expecting that statement from our chairman, so I just smiled widely. Before pandemic, I was pitching it to my boss when she was asking our team how we can help the company find ways to cost-cut expenses for the entire organization. "Work from home!" I suggested, reasoning out that employees (and their bosses) will be more output-based conscious since they will have the free time to finish the tasks they are assigned to do. And the office need not worry in spending too much for electricity (and water) use, six times a week. Well, I just didn't imagine that it will be realized due to a pandemic.
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| Early morning interview of PRO-FRIENDS Chairman, Sir Gerry Choa with Philippine Daily Inquirer Property Editor, Tek Samaniego |
So Tek joined us a few minutes after and we started the interview session ahead of schedule. It was a great start of day--- to hear wisdom from your big boss. Wisdom about life, how he runs his business, how he planned ahead of the pandemic, and how we transform lives of the stakeholders. It was beyond that marketing-sounding answers, it was more of life's wisdom and realizations. I'm sure Tek gained a lot from the interview as well, aside from the usual questions she was programmed to write about for their section's anniversary feature.
I am simply thankful for meeting a Gerry Choa in my life. How he envisions things, how he takes care of his assets, how he runs his business, and how he looks after his people. Truly, a man with a big heart, and full of humility.
Working from home gives me a lot of time to sort out old files in my computer, and revisit my active email accounts. I used to have 2 excite mail addresses. I remember my very first though, it was an Edsamail account. One of my oldest email addresses is that Yahoo account which I recently reactivated (read: declutter spam folder). Upon browsing it, I chanced upon the email of dad to me and my sister. He was explaining how hard he was feeling to continue holding on to his relationship with mom. While email does not give emotions when read, I felt the sadness that goes with the whole message. It was a preparation for having a broken family after my anticipated wedding 6 months after the email was sent. I was always the innocent one in the family when it comes to marital issues between mom and dad. And that very day when the email was sent, everything was confirmed. No more hope for a happy, complete family. But at least they tried. It just didn't work out anymore. I'm thankful for my email. It is preserving memories, the good ones, and the not-so-good ones.
