It’s Just Somewhere Around The Corner

March 18, 2013 mackyAteneo, graduation3 Comments

After conquering finals around 3 weeks ago where not only was I focusing on academics, but also in my last extra-curricular involvement, and finally celebrating the end of the week by attending the Year End Concert of the Company of Ateneo Dancers followed by 16 hours of glorious sleep… I find myself now ecstatic for the coming days.

Today we just had our only graduation rehearsal which didn’t go as exciting as expected. It was quite delightful to see everyone from JGSOM today even if I don’t know probably half or 1/3 of the batch. These are the people who also experienced Accounting, Finance, Leadership and Strategy, Marketing, Operations Management, Statistics, and Law (except for the ME majors). Some might have enjoyed the experience of being able to balance a workbook as much as I enjoyed making marketing presentations; some might have a pleasant LS experience specially in Senior year when most of the batch tried their hand in being entrepreneurs as much as I was reconnected to my love for MS Excel with OpMan and Statistics (I allow you to judge me because of this).

I may not be marching with honors but I am happy for my friends who will be graduating as the program awardee of their respective undergraduate degree programs, or magna cum laude, cum laude and the honorable mention ones as well. I am really happy and excited for everyone in the batch. After four years of taking up more than 100 units worth of major and core courses as well as electives, we will finally be marching and receiving our diplomas on Friday/Saturday (depends which school you belong to). Thrilling. Exciting.

After our graduation rehearsal, we received the invitations for the Baccalaureate Mass and the Graduation.

And we also received our togas and cords.

I tried on the toga when I arrived home and I’m quite bothered by the placement of the Ateneo seal. It seems that maybe my toga isn’t of the right size… hoping that it’s just styled that way or else I’ll look quite unique. I guess that’s not so bad…

Graduation is just around the corner and probably by that time I would be listening to Taylor Swift’s “Long Live” (or maybe I’ll be singing it in my head) and I would probably be crying, I’d be nostalgic and I’d be telling my friends “let’s still catch up even after graduation okay?” while shedding some tears and smiling. But before graduation takes place, two more big events to go; the Baccalaureate Mass that will take place on Friday, which will be presided by Cardinal Tagle, and one of the events that Ateneans look forward to…the Blue Roast, on Wednesday.

It is Sometimes More Fun Elsewhere

January 4, 2013January 4, 2013 mackyItaly, Philippines, singapore, travel, VeniceLeave a comment

Confession 1: I am only making this blog entry because I haven’t been feeling well since yesterday.

Since last night, at around 10:00PM, I haven’t been feeling well. No, not emotionally or psychologically, but physically. Headache, sore throat and the regular feeling of just being lethargic when one doesn’t feel well. It hasn’t really been helping me accomplish the remaining tasks I have to accomplish before we go back to school and it also doesn’t help that my phone of almost 4 years now, just died.

My phone’s death is really a sad thing for me because:

1. It’s our org’s project next weekend and crunch time means a lot of mega communication time 24/7 this whole week.

2. I don’t know how to coordinate with my mother with sudden schedule changes

I’m just praying I get the new phone soon early this coming week. More than wanting it, I really need it.

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Confession 2: I have not really explored the Philippines….yet. I have only been to a few places like Tuguegarao, Cagayan de Oro, Boracay, Tagaytay, Baguio and a few other places.

Going back to the original topic of this blog…I miss not being in the country, or just in Manila at least. There is always something about traveling that excites me. I always learn something about myself when I’m not in my hometown, when I’m not in my home country. There’s always the sense of freedom, of being a modern-day Peter Pan sans Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys and Wendy. I’ve also been really fueled with my peers wanting to travel like Krista Caballero and David Lozada. Right now, I don’t have much plans to travel around the country because even though I know we have a lot of beautiful sights to see along with things to do, there’s something within me that wants to explore other cultures, to be lost in trying to understand foreign language and, most importantly, a great part of me wants to experience thrill and excitement I can’t seem to get here.

I miss the tiny streets of Venice and this mask will forever remind me of my memories there.

These magnets as well will always remind me of some of the places I went to for JTA. The three mask magnets were given to me by my cousin when she went to Venice late last year. And of course Singapore will always be in my mind because my brother works there and because of these ribbons—I got them from the Esplanade October 2012—which are displayed in my room.

I don’t know about you guys but I like the thought of being in another country and adapting to their customs and not being a tourist. I think traveling is much better when one attempts to be like a local and to not just go to the “Top 10 Tourist Attractions” as Lonely Planet or other Travel books/guides/sites/apps recommend. But to get lost and find your way around through your gut feel, by conversing with locals, by understanding their maps. It’s better that way, in my opinion.

And… I like how kind people have been to me to places I have been to. It makes me reconsider if Filipinos are really the most hospitable people. I’m not saying we aren’t, but, I have received better treatment from people in France, for example, than people here. I guess my theory is true that sometimes, some people are just more accommodating to foreign people…like because I’m just another Filipino, there is no “branding” needed much for others to be friendly towards me? I do hope my theory is beyond flawed but, just basing it on experience.

To each her/his own, as people would often say. I have friends who will be going to the Sinulog Festival on the 19th and 20th of January—and are the reason why our project in the org is moved earlier. I have friends who are really advocating Filipino culture and Filipino lifestyle. As for me, I am excited to travel around the world when I am finally earning my own cash. I can’t wait to revisit France, to go to Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Malaysia, Spain, London and so much more countries. I want to experience everything the world has to offer, to initiate conversations in public spaces and to be approached by people I don’t know and ask me how I find their country. I can’t wait to once again have that feeling of being someone new and to have that “And so another journey begins” feeling once I step out of the airplane or train. And also that feeling of not knowing what to order in a restaurant because there is no English menu, and you just take a risk, and you step out of the restaurant with a happy tummy! Haha!

Until then, here I am in my bedroom, wondering when will be the next time that I will fly and have more fun elsewhere.

Simple Joys in Life

January 3, 2013January 3, 2013 mackyAteneo, French, Le Petit Prince, Moleskine, MUJI, The Little PrinceLeave a comment

This is the start of my weekly blog entry which I promise to faithfully follow even if nothing eventful happens in my life…which is quite impossible because if you know me I’m practically a party on my own. I promise to at least have 53 blog entries by the end of the year but I will try my best to have more. It kinda sucks that my memory here is limited and so once I have started working, I will be upgrading my account to be able store more images and finally do some video embedding and the like. Yay me!

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Christmas of 2012 my brother gave me a Moleskine planner which I really love. If you know me I am an avid planner user and I have actually started using planners back in 2005—the first one being a Starbucks planner where every month there’s some postcard and envelope themed to that month. Come 2008 I made the big shift of using a Moleskine planner and I’m amazed that I am on my 6th planner this 2013. I am proud of myself. Haha!

But I consider this as a “simple joy in life”. I am a semi-obsessive compulsive person sans the orderly chaos of my room. Add to that I always have something to do, always something to attend to and having a planner organizes my life and without a planner, I will not be able to keep track of everything going on. The only time when my planners aren’t needed would be when it’s near finals and because profs keep on saying the deadline(s), then I have already memorized what has to be done, when it should be done and other details.

Moving back to my planner. The color is different this year. I always opt to get a black one even though red is my favorite color because black just looks so classic and it doesn’t really catches people’s attention that much. This year it’s…I’m not exactly sure what it is..exactly. It’s like blue/blue-violet-ish/indigo…something. And I originally wanted the Star Wars “Do Or Do Not There Is No Try” but (1) I’m not a Star Wars fan and (2) ran out of stock. I opted to go for the Le Petit Prince one because (1) It’s French, (2) I like the story of The Little Prince and (3) The inside looks just adorable!

It was really difficult to capture the real color of the planner! But you can just check it out in the site of Moleskine!

What made me even happier about it is that it came along with a calendar which I can just put in my desk when my laptop nor my phone aren’t with me! Apologizing in advance if it looks “Instagram-like”.

What also made me happy is when my brother gave me two MUJI no-rules notebooks which I can’t find here in Manila!

You see, I love MUJI notebooks…only if they don’t have rules. I hate it when they have those dots or when they have those lines. I have often used MUJI notebooks for sketching my thoughts or just freely writing down things and having dots or lines prevent me from having a good look at what I have written or drawn. And one thing about me is that I couldn’t care less about the brand of notebooks I buy when it comes to my “creative thoughts”, but the pages are supposed to have a certain texture and color and smell that would make me feel comfortable using them….and MUJI is just a “go to” for that.

I guess beyond sharing what my brother got me for Christmas, this post is also about how I’m, in a way, preparing for a new book in my life. As some of you may know I will be graduating this March and I will be joining the workforce soon. More importantly, life happens after I receive my diploma. And the thought of it is quite scary. But how fitting that this should be at the inside of the back cover of my planner and perhaps it shall encapsulate what will happen to many of us graduating seniors and superseniors this 2013.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writes, “Pour les uns, qui voyagent, les étoiles sont des guides.” (“For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides”) and, “J’ai des amis à découvrir et beaucoup de choses à connaître.” (“I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand”).

Totally Unexpected

November 27, 2012 mackyAteneo, Those DaysLeave a comment

My day hasn’t been the best of days. This morning wasn’t so pleasant at all. At one point inside the car I had to start breathing heavily because I was having a hard time to breathe normally. My head started to ache badly and I just wanted to breakdown…

I felt that a lot of things were just overwhelming me all at the same time and everything’s just weighing me down. I know you might go on saying that some people have it worse, that I have to suck it up and just move on. Yeah, I know that…but am I not allowed to cry every so often? Am I not allowed to feel pain? There are the times when I ask myself why when bad things happen to me, they happen all at the same time. The moment I settled in Matteo I just wanted to toss everything and wail and just fall on the floor and just let myself feel what I was feeling: tons of misery with sprinkles of intentions of running away from everything… but I didn’t.

Went to my LS125 class and arrived a bit early. I was just looking out the windows and my German classmate pinched me and asked me how I was and it would’ve been easy to lie and say that I’m okay, that I’m just sleepy…but no, I couldn’t. I had watery eyes and I just had to tell her I wasn’t feeling at my best. During class I started to make myself feel better by just covering up what I was feeling by thinking of happy thoughts like Blue Christmas, France, the sensation of sipping a Peppermint Mocha while people watching. And at one point when Gianna was holding my Moleskine, my German classmate, Mirjam, got it and placed a sticker on my planner. She didn’t stick it, really, she just placed it on top. And I swear, it made me feel a lot better. A LOT better.

It was totally unexpected, really…and it made me realize how, lately, most of the people who have been so kind to me are those I’m not really even exactly close to.

Unexpected, totally unexpected that the one who made my day better is someone I just met a few weeks ago. So, thank you Mirjam! I really do hope you continue to enjoy your stay here in the Philippines. 🙂

All Heart. All Out.

November 14, 2012 mackyLeave a comment

I am not sure if I have told anyone this but until now I still do not know how I’m making my Senior year special. It has been a dilemma of mine since after my summer internship and until now I am not quite sure how I’m making the most out of my Senior Year.

Now that it’s the Second Semester and all of the lasts are being counted again, the planning for ACTM’s LTC has resumed. To be honest, I am really happy that our EB trusts Dainz and I with this project, because this project really means a lot to me. When I was in Second Year, Gayle, Tonio and I spearheaded in reformatting the project. In a way, we pioneered the sleepover LTC and not just a series of talks. So yeah, Dainz and I have been putting much thought on how to make the LTC more effective, more innovative…to make the LTC a much fruitful experience for everyone– the participants, facilitators, organizers. We’re definitely gonna keep some things to ourselves so we won’t spoil the surprises for the participants and facilitators. (take note: surpriseS)

What I am scared of is that some of the things might feel rushed and we obviously don’t want that. There is great pressure because we have to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time…but I really believe we can do this. We may have a slow start but believe me, we are gonna be able to accomplish so much between now until our very last deliverable.

I am really excited but scared at the same time because what if our profs suddenly just throw more acads or unforeseen external factors suddenly appear. But I guess starting today, it’s really just having the org and the participants in mind and in our hearts (and yes, that might have been cheesy).

And that is why, I guess, my mantra while working for the LTC is “All Heart. All Out.”

Till then, bises!

This is Macky

documenting the life and thoughts of Macky