As the year winds down to a close, I decided to jot down all the highlights that I had been too lazy to blog about this year. This was the year that I discovered multiply, so instead of taking time to articulate the events, I just clicked my camera and let the pictures tell the story in my other site. But there are so many pictures there, and I realized that people sometimes miss the important stuff due to the bulk of the unimportant ones covering it. So for the sake of those who don’t want the clutter, here was my life in 2008, in bullet points (well, sort of).
Villa Escudero getaway. Went on an out of town trip with my friends the TGs.
My third trip to Korea. My first two trips were in 2006. After two years I went back, this time to Spring season.
My first non-business trip out of the country. In May, Cate, Rona, Roselyn and I headed to Thailand to visit the elephants… err… I mean Chu.
Build a House. To help build houses for Gawad Kalinga was in my original list of hundred things to do before I die. Thankfully, I had the chance to slash that off my list!
My last month in P&G and in the Philippines. After months of discerning and planning and crying, I finally had the guts to tender my resignation in July. I still managed to pack in a lot of events during my last month of stay, though.
**my last AP teambuilding held in Tagaytay, where my first AP teambuilding was also held.
**my last FSS teambuilding in Subic, where my first FSS teambuilding was also held.
**my Pinoy Big Brother themed “voluntary exit” (despedida) party from AP.
**joint despedida party for Gelle, Jerome, Yen and me held at Liza’s house.
My first birthday outside the Philippines. We started the celebration at 11am and ended at 8pm. A very happy birthday indeed.
Housemate from Hell. I spent four years co-habiting with eight different people back in Makati, and though we had some issues over chores and space and such, I never had any major problems with anyone and still love them all to this day.
Imagine my horror, then, when I moved to Singapore and discovered that I was sharing my house with pure evil personified.
It was not obvious at first. We did have our happy days with him. But our relationship ended when he broke our plates (an entire rackfull of them) as well as our trust. When he ran off that night, we thought he was never coming back. When he did, though, we asked him to sign a contract before we could allow him to live with us again. He left instead. From then on, we co-habited peacefully ever after.
A romantic comedy proposal. Joey proposes to Gelle, with my help.
Guests! Guests! Guests! Probably the greatest thing about living Singapore is its close proximity to the Philippines, so you have the option of living a life in a first world country (and on a first world salary) without having to be completely deprived of the things and the people that you loved from your home country. And so, visitors were aplenty, and I can’t even recall how many times I’ve been to the merlion and the other tourist spots. I don’t mind, though. So long as I’m with people I have fun with!
**In September, it was Chu’s turn to visit Cate and me in Singapore, and he invited Zenie to go with him as well. It became the first college reunion in Singapore.
**Adette and Cezanne, both from my department in P&G, came to Singapore for their annual AP market visit.
**My high school classmate Chi visited her sister AA, who is also working here. We rode the Singapore Flyer.
**In November, our friend Rona visited us with her brother Rhino. Though they stayed at our place, it was Rodel who went on a leave just to tour them around, though we went with them during our free time.
**My high school classmate Janine & her bestfriend Marjorie went to Singapore for a vacation, so we met them for dinner one night.
**P&G friends Rhea and April ensured to book Sing Air for their trip home from Turkey so that they would have a stopover in Singapore and have the chance to meet Gelle and me.
**My high school and college classmate Austine (who was also known as my son) came to Singapore to visit his girlfriend Tyne on her birthday and stayed a few days for a vacation.
So looking forward to the next year and its highlights! ^^