Four birthday parties in one..

Ask any person living abroad and (almost) everyone will agree with this.

One of the best things about living in foreign land is having the opportunity to be friends with people of different backgrounds and nationalities.

Though I've been living in Singapore for just a little over year, I'm really glad to have met, aside from fellow Filipinos, quite a number of people from other races and nationalities who have sort of become friends.

One of the highlights of a recent weekend was attending the joint birthday celeb of four non-Pinoy (what's a better way of describing them? fellow Asians?) friends - E, Jase, Ken and Ho.

Ho and Jase are both Singaporean. Ken and E, on the other hand, are Indonesians.

I met Ken and E thanks to Ian who brought me with him to rowing on my first month here. Ho, I remember, I met when Ian and I attended the opening of E's exhibit with his classmates at La Salle. As for Jase, I met him last December when I joined the guys help E and Pg Boy move to a new place in the East. Hehe!

As I said earlier, the four guys decided to hold one celeb since they are June/July babies. Hehe! The guys booked a room at the Swissotel Merchant Hotel in Clarke Quay. The location was just perfect since everyone was coming from another event the night of the party.

Pg Boy and I had dindin with my friends Rich and Coly before heading to the venue for after-dinner drinks and hohol with the birthday boys and their guests.

What's the good thing about attending a party of multi-racial friends? You meet more people from other backgrounds. Hehe. As expected, the guests were mostly Indonesians and Singaporeans. There were a few Malaysians. I was the only Filipino. Pinas represent. Haha.

It was all good.

When you become friends with someone, the person just becomes a friend. You forget about their nationality, their race, their background. That's the nice thing about friendship, I guess.

It was quite a fun night. Close to 20 people were present, which I thought was just right since it gave everyone a chance to talk to everyone. I didn't get a buzz at all because I refrained from having too many glasses of wine. Plus, there was Pg Boy who was my alcohol police that night. Hehe!

Around midnight, the party feel was already in full swing so it was decided that the party should continue at one of the local dance clubs. Pg Boy and I chose to skip since we were both tired, and I've had my dose of tugs already thanks to Charles' DJ-ing. Haha!

Nice, nice hohol night.

Happy birthday, E, Jase, Ken and Ho!

Pink Dot 2012...

I've yet to write about my Pink Dot 2012 experience.

For the mean time, check out this video to get an idea on what happened yesterday at Hong Lim Park.

Awesome, just awesome! WTG, Singapore! :D

The Pink Dot 2012 vid was entitled "Someday." Quite appropriate I think. I hope that "someday," I can also join the Pink Dot formation.

Got my first two Postcrossing cards...

Recently, I wrote about Postcrossing.

It's this online project I stumbled upon whereby people from around the world tell other people from other parts of the globe about their own local culture via a postcard exchange.

Somewhat similar to a social networking site, except that this one involves the real world. Hehe. In a way, it also is keeping snail mail alive.

Guess what?

I just got my first two postcards. Wheeee!

My first ever Postcrossing card (and my first ever postcard from this particular country) is from Tanja who lives in Klagenfurt, Austria. She sent me a postcard showing the Klagenfurt Dragon. A quick Google of Klagenfurt Lindwurm led to an interesting historical background. :)

A day or two after, I got another postcard. This time, it's from Kathleen who is in the US. She sent me a postcard with the very familiar Grand Canyon. Just as interesting. :)

Since the postcards I've sent have already been received, I am now entitled to send three more postcards. Cool! I just requested for new addresses and all three random addresses I got are from Postcrossers living in Russia.

Can't wait to get more postcards!

Fathers Day may be over, but...

I came across the article below while checking out some random stuff online.

I read it, and I couldn't help but share it with my friends because it is a good read.

 Just how good of a read is it?

Let's put it this way. Two guy friends told me that they cried while reading the article.

That's how good it is.

 I like the part where Paul was silently finishing Jeff's dinner. I thought that was really nice.

Fathers Day may be over, but this is still very much worth a read.

Click on the link for the full article - A Father, a Son and a Fighting Chance.

Monday was quite shitty...

It's one of those days...

I dun usually have any problems with Mondays, but this week's Monday was turning out to be quite a challenge.

Work will be extra toxic this week, and I guess in the coming weeks. Because of some recent changes within the department, I have to transfer my current workload to another person. Afterwards, I have to take on a new workload. It's going to be somewhat different, and it's going to be like starting from scratch again because the processes are quite different with this particular workload.

Plus, it would mean a whole new round of introductions and figuring out working styles of colleagues who are scattered around the world.

But it's all good, I guess. New work means new learning experiences. It's just a bit saddening that this is happening as a result of what happened to a colleague.

Then, just as the day was going to end, I receive an SMS which caused further worry and stress.
Nope, no one's sick nor dying. In fact, if I'm going to be very logical about it, it should not be something to be worried about. But I do worry about it, because it is causing unexpected anxiety and worry.

It makes me question certain things that happen in my life. I am very grateful for the life that I have right now. I really feel blessed for being where I am. I am glad to have what I have at the moment. But I know it can be better.

And when I see certain things around me, I couldn't help but ask how come some things seem to be more difficult to me than it is for others? It makes me ask which step did I miss which led to things becoming more challenging? It makes me question if there's something in the rulebook that I failed to follow.

It's just one of those days...

I do know that they key is to remain and stay positive. Life is what you make of it, after all. So it's a matter of taking charge of the things you can take charge of, and doing what you can to change things you dun have full control of, I suppose.

As MkSurf8 always tells me, the important thing is to be happy. If at the end of the day, one is happy, then it should be okay I suppose...

Tomorrow will be better...

Yours truly...

Check out this nice video. :)

I just saw it on the FB page of one of my friends. I'm sure it's going to have thousand more hits very soon.

Nice, nice.

Even the briefest touch of kindness...

 Wonderful acceptance speech of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Norway.

I really liked the parts where she talked about kindness and compassion fatigue.

This is going to sound corny, but so what. Hehe! Seriously, I really believe that everyone would add a little more ounce of kindness and compassion for others, things could just be a little bit better.

I mentioned this belief to Pg Boy during one of our more serious talks in a very informal location. (We were standing in bus 518 on the way to Orchard I think and we were talking about some recently much-discussed topics locally.)

Anyway...

Watch the video. Or you may also read the speech here.

Smart bags three awards at the ACA 2012...

In a recent blog post, I wrote about how I was missing what I used to do back in the Philippines to pay my bills - Corporate Communications/Public Relations.

Thanks to a message from my former Smart colleague Monet, I found myself at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel last night covering the Asia Communication Awards 2012 for Smart.

Whooppee!

Smart was nominated in 6 categories, including CEO of the Year and Operator of the Year and my former colleagues at the Public Affairs Group needed someone to do event coverage.

How can I not say no? (Well, I would have if I was not able to find a DSLR to borrow.) Plus, it's sort of a raket as well. Yey! Hehe!

At the end of the night, the Philippines' leading telecommunications (writing that sounds very PR... LOL!) brought home three awards, including Operator of the Year!

That's a back-to-back win for Smart. I checked the ACA website and the company won the same award last year.

I'm glad that I can still remember most of the things needed for these events. Aside from taking photos, I was scribbling down notes on how the event was going.

It was also nice to hear a compliment Smart boss who attended the awards night for the company. He said something like, "Good thing you thought of asking the guy to stay behind for the photo. You really know these things."

Nice words to hear. :) Definitely "inspiring." *wink wink*

Congrats again to Smart! Double congrats for being the telecoms company who won the most number of awards! :)

Just like the good old Smart days...

Covering the Asia Communication Awards at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront for Smart.

Excited. Feels like the Smart PA days.

Wheee! I miss PR/CorpComm work.

Hope Smart wins tons of awards tonight.

We'll find out in a few.

Blogging from my iPhone...

Downloaded the Blogger app for iPhone.

First post via the app.

Cooool!!! :-)