Best of 2012

Three hundred and sixty-five days later, here we are again, at the cliff of the year's end. Writing the last sentences of this chapter in life and getting ready to open a new one. After 365 days I've been through my ups and downs and in wins and losses in life, lessons and new realizations, 365 days of learning and I thank God for giving me the last 365 days to see the world!

Without further delay, let's start the countdown to "Bumpy's Top Ten Moments of 2012"

2012 in a blink of an eye.

10. Las Pinas Trip

This late birthday celebration by my friend became an instant mini travel to the Las Pinas Bamboo Organ when he said it was only about 5-10 minutes away from their house. Not only that, I got to do my mini travel with my friends too, which I rarely get a chance to do. AND, of course, we all loved the Beef Stew and Lumpia that Ryan made, we were all stuffed, it was a light day for all of us and thus, it makes it to the top ten!

9. Free Hugs on Valentines Day!

Juan Mann, the original "Free Hugs Campaign" man said something like "You'll never know that there is someone out there who might need a hug on that day." I was so inspired to do it that I did it first in 2011 on a totally random day, but on Valentines Day, A LOT did need those hugs, may it be professors, the security personnel, stranger schoolmates and friends! I'm planning to continue the campaign in 2013! 

8. Graduation

The graduation of course is an automatic, but what's nice here are the surprises, after graduation relatives surprised me with them being there, I said to them I didn't want a big celebration, just a lunch out then that's that. So some of my relatives took breaks from their office to be there and also, my tutor in high school (titch Cherry - the way we call her) and the ever crazy Thea was there! So I got surprised, it was my turn to surprise my batch mate Edward, arranged by her mom, he had little tears after that (Sorry I just had to share it.)

7. Batch outing!

A vacation with batchmates in Quezon province, pure laughter with nature, the travel is different with friends, it makes it light, although sometimes decisions collide but what the hell, we'd all be drunk when the moon goes up and we'd be singing songs together, reminiscing moments, it was just pure laughter.

6. La Naval Procession

The La Naval procession is a Dominican Order celebration in the Philippines, and every La Naval Procession, which happens annually, I look forward to the reunion with my Dominican Network Youth Group (DomNet) friends. And it's always a blessing for me to see them because I really missed them. 

5. Michael Jackson tribute

It's something I am proud of, I said to God once that if I could do MJ's "Dangerous" dance routine, I can die any moment. But still He gave me more life! And it is so fulfilling to dance with reason, with passion, I didn't even know how to dance, but thanks to Mix Gat, also an MJ fanatic, he taught me how to move, I wasn't only dancing but I also sang "Smooth Criminal" and "Dangerous", my first ever dance and sing routine turned out really well! I am so blessed to do this, after this performance, I just sat and said "wow, I did it. This is for you Michael."

If you want to watch it, here it is. IF you only want to watch it. :))

4. Domnet Christmas Party

It was my first time to join Domnet's Christmas party this year and it was again, so fun meeting more people and seeing old friends once again, this is why Domnet has two spots this year because there's so much fun this year with Domnet.

3. Burgundy the adopted dog

Why the dog? Yes, Burgundy is an adopted female dog, six years of age, she came from my high school buddy Tobs. Burgundy is number 3 here in the countdown because she's my stress reliever, from my downs, and major losses. I just hug her for an hour, carry her like a baby until I smell like her. This old dog is a truly a blessing in my life. 

2. The Turtle and Dolphin encounter

I haven't blogged about this but this is an experience that really lighted up my 2012, this was during the semester break, truly elated by this experience, I couldn't even put it to words, I was just so amazed I couldn't believe a dolphin was playing with me. It's like I really am a dolphin myself. 

1. The Return to the North

Last year my number 1 was "Return to Palawan" which took me 5 years to come back, this time, just after Christmas, I returned to the North, Ilocos Norte in particular. I haven't been there for 10 years! So much has changed and the bustling tourism is so much different than before. Sorry about the photo of my Number 1 moment, I have yet to fix the photos, and so that you'll have something to wait for next year. 

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

10 Moments, 10 dates, 10 experiences. What a year it has been, I close this chapter of my life, will you join the bumpy journey of life with me in 2013? Cheers!

Christmas song for everyone!

Finally, I've finished my Christmas gift for everyone, a song! A love song for everyone! It's titled "My Christmas in you" well I really have not much to say, it's all in the song, so, enjoy! :)

If you can't view the video, click the link to go direct to my youtube upload of the song :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-m17Rzhgp0

Cheers!

Rejuvenated. Reinvented. Reconnected. Re-engaged.

Isn’t it so? To start writing again in a brand newfound voice? Like being out of that dark deep well I fell into when I lost my lust to flirt with words with the world.

Been out of the blog scene for 6 months, traveling stopped, so does my writing, got nothing else to write, too much censorship on my mind, I can’t tell much, people involvement was too much.

Things have been a little, ok, it's been a lot of really crazy and random things that I did since I got out of work, I didn't even went to work during my last day, I was in a terminal at midnight, going to Malolos, Bulacan, and then I went to Manila to watch a pageant, and then drink with a couple of random people at Taft Ave.

It's been slow this past few months, I deactivated my Facebook account for 2 months so that I could start writing music and lyrics again. And it did work, I have 12 new demo songs but haven't recorded it. I was planning to release a Christmas love song (awwww) as a gift to whoever is listening to my songs. Listen to a few here: 

                                     http://www.youtube.com/user/bumpymusicphilippine

As for my personal hiatus in blogging, I have no excuse for it. I ran out of words, lost the tongue of my hands, but everyone needs a break right? For me, forcing to continue something you used to love is like still believing to win a match where the announcer just said you lost. I wasn't happy writing blogs that time, what the hell would I say? What more to say? Nothing, I was burned.

It’s been 4 years (I think) since I’ve started to speak these jailed thoughts of mine. Four years and so much has changed but one in this life.

Mine’s still a bumpy journey. 

A room, a bummer, and a whole lot of junk

Last two days I woke up, did the same things a bummer in me would do every morning. Go out of the room, look for something to drink, may it be water, juice, or alkaline water (something mom was introducing to me, she says it removes the acid in the body, but people, alkaline water is like tasteless water) or even soft drinks.

After that I'd always come back to my room and lie again, but I guess that day, on that day, a spark of energy in me, perseverance to clean my room, I guess so. After I saw this:

A messed up room.

It was a mess, I couldn't move much in my room, old files, papers, junk food, all kind of stuffs are all over, I didn't know where to put all the stuff I bought and have been keeping. So I said to myself "Eff this, I'm cleaning this shit." And so I did, I didn't plan on anything, I just made decisions on the trash and other things, where to put it, what to do with it, as I clean along.

I was taking my time cleaning my room, especially when I see things I thought were lost, and some memorable pieces, like old test papers, old photos, gifts, more old photos and some works of my friends I asked for like old print ad campaigns.

Then I saw old 8x10 prints of my project in my class in Photojournalism. It was eating a lot of space and I thought, why not display it on the walls of my room, together with my no-good-but-nonetheless-I'm-proud-of-it-paintings. So I stopped, looked at my wall, visualized, held the masking tape in my hand, and started putting it all up.

Room's still a mess, you can see that the Print Campaigns I asked from my friends are making their way on my wall.

One big problem in my room is the small space it has to offer, three persons would suffocate in my room! It wasn't using its "full space potential," A look from above the bed gave me the answer - I had two study tables! But I couldn't move out one because no one would take it and I needed the two to keep stuff.

Wanting my room to be a space-efficient-with-a-gallery-look universe, I separated the tables and designated the one on the left as my work-related table and the the one on the right as my hobby-related table (where I will do my photography, painting and music writing stuff)

Throwing old stuff has been always hard for me because I'm such a sucker for old things and the memories with it that I treasure. But some things really have to go away, and as I put papers, cards, junk into the garbage bag, I took a one last look at everything I was throwing away, smiled at it, laughed at it, and sometimes regretted the memories it came with the stuff.

Separated table gave me more space.

What was really hard was choosing the photos to put up on my wall. I wanted to show my best works, but, the sad truth is, all my works were a nod, an "ok" and some "hmm..yeah that's good" ones. But nevertheless, I chose, took me 2 hours to choose and probably 4 hours to finish putting it all up.

The cheapest collection I bought. The 7-11's "7-Elections" for PHP20! (less than $1)

The next hard thing was mopping the floor, because I've never done that, and that's probably why I'm blogging about this is that I did so many new things while cleaning, like cleaning the wall, the window, removing dirty spots and mopping the floor!

The 12 photos of the main wall of my room.

After cleaning my room, I took a bath for an hour, literally an hour! I loved every drop of cold water, it was like love all over me, haha! Well, then I rested for a while and I didn't know we were going to have a send-off party for my Auntie that night, so what a coincidence, I got to show off the new look of my room!

For the first time, in my life, and I'm not exaggerating, I wanted people to be in my room, to look at it, my room was the extension of me, I think people will get me if they took time to look at my room.

The paintings I did, except the last one, it was made by a friend for me. See, I'm no Picasso.

My cousins actually said it had a different look, a different feel, "more breathing space" said one of them. Yes! Now they can hang-out! I actually felt improvement of the air-flow in my room.

My two cousins, this is the view from the door looking into the room. They painted for me, now I'm looking for space to put it up.

Cleaning my room took two days to finish and now, I'm actually kind of satisfied with what I did. And to top it off, my return to blogging is today. 12-12-12.

Cheers! I'll be blogging more soon about my past travels that no one knew and the best moments of my 2012!