Skip to main content

My 2008

This maybe kind of late but I am posting it anyway. While many magazines and websites have been flooded with countdowns of what and who were the hottest of 2008, I am going to reminisce the highlights of one of my most memorable years yet… walking down on memory lane…

January

I was a little more than a month old in my job then but I was so unhappy. I went to work everyday but I hardly even did anything and it made me extremely uncomfortable. My not so friendly officemates were not helpful and what I wanted to do was just to get out of that place as soon as possible. I found an opportunity to find another job one day. Under the heat of the sunlight, I walked through the roads of Lapulapu City and re-entered the world which I had so dreaded to come back to. I applied as a Call Center Agent. I was hired on that same day and found myself resigning from the job that I was then holding.

February

Getting hired was just the first step of my new life. I was trained for about two weeks as a market researcher and I was surprised that I actually liked the job. It was kind of fascinating to be able to speak with hundreds of Americans half-way around the globe about the most pressing issues that beset their country. Yet, even with my newly-found fascination and the enjoyment that the job has brought me, I also found my way to loneliness. I had graveyard shifts and it prevented me from spending quality time with my friends. I was alone again, something that I was no longer used to doing.

March

I was a bit successful with my job – just a bit. My quality assurance supervisor commended me for having good quality interviews and with a relatively good production rate as well. Despite the pressures at work, I managed to sneak a four-day leave to attend New Covenant Church’s Annual Convention held at Tabuelan, Cebu. Just like all the other conventions that I have attended at NCC, it was again a memorable one. I had lots of realizations and learning experiences. Not only that, I had the chance to be a listener and a friend to someone I hardly knew. That was probably the most wonderful thing about that year’s convention.

April

Fresh from the good things that happened to me during the Convention in March, my then long-time boyfriend and I realized that we could not just reconcile our differences. It was something that we knew a long time before but never had the courage to accept things. At last, on one fateful day in April, we separated ways. I was affected but I was not devastated by that though. On that same month, I tried to be as normal as I was and looked at all the other things that I wasn’t able to pay attention to in the last five and a half years. And during this month, I found someone who got my attention.

May

The competition was tough but somehow my supervisors and team manager were able to recognize the job that I had done. As much as I wanted to stay with my team at that time, my superiors decided to transfer me to a special team where my “best potentials” could be better put into use. (char!) I had no choice but to obey the orders of my superiors. But the best part about that transfer was that the special team that I was transferred to gave me a lot of monetary bonuses. Hehehe…

June

Finally, in this month I was able to process and receive my identification card from my company. I was always procrastinating and I gave myself the excuse that I had no time to process it. But thank God I was transferred to the first floor (the same floor where the HR office was residing) or else I wouldn’t have thought of processing my ID.

July

Who would ever forget the wedding of the century? This month was not only special to me but also to all the members of my family. My elder sister finally wed… after thirty years. It was indeed special! The wedding took us almost a year to prepare only to give us the scare of getting it postponed. Not only was that wedding so special, it was hard-earned. A lot of things went wrong weeks before the wedding and we never knew that the whole thing would push through until a few days before. All of us really thought that our efforts would all be put into the waste basket. Everything went well at the end though and we all had a happy ending. It was the most fabulous wedding ever!

August

My birthday month was plagued with a lot of catastrophes not worth mentioning. Week after week, something happened. However, I discovered a lot of things about myself that I never knew I was capable of doing before. I learned that I was capable of loving and accepting a person despite difficult circumstances. So on that month, I showed my love to all the special people in my life.

September

In this month, I was once again rewarded. I became an editor. I was so happy since it meant that I would no longer be speaking to Americans who don’t even know how to rate things in a scale of 1 to 7. It was a new challenge and I enjoyed it. Editing was truly one of the remarkable experiences that I would always treasure in my previous company.

October

It was during this month that my decision to go to the land of the Muslims was considered final and irrevocable. My visa was released and I submitted my resignation letter. The decision was not really something that I prayed about but I hoped that God would still protect me even with my disobedience – such a silly thing to think actually. But everything has been paid for and there was no turning back.

November

Upon the recommendation of Naomi, I read the Twilight series and got addicted to it like she did. This was the first book series ever that I got addicted to. I usually get addicted to television series or movie actors but never to a book. This was the first one and maybe the only one. Worse, I fell in love with a fictional character – Edward Cullen. Anyway, I finished all the books in just one week and watched the movie over and over and over again. In fact, I no longer remember how many times I have watched the movie. I used to watch it everyday. Huh! Also in this month, I made my first ever trip outside my home country.

December

Just like a real addict, my head was still full of Twilight. I was watching the movie everyday and even had an obsession to go to the bookstores of Dubai to search for the remaining Twilight books which I hadn’t purchased yet. Crazy, wasn’t I? But since my intention of coming here in the unfree world was to work and earn, I set aside Twilight for a while in favor of looking for a job. And yes, I found a job and got my employment visa in two weeks. And once I secured that, I went back to twilight once again.


A colorful 2008 indeed! I wonder what I would be up to this year...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Prayer in the Desert

We had just finished our pictionary sessions for that day when Manang startled us with a shocking news. Immanuel, or Iman as what we usually call him, the only nephew we have, was rushed to the hospital earlier that day. We were kind of late for the news as my eldest sister, Grace, only left an offline message to my other sister's (Nanette) yahoo account.  It was not really a cause of alarm for me at first as I knew that Ate is some kind of paranoid sometimes. She worries a lot and I thought that she overestimated the gravity of the situation.  Manang decided to call Ate though it was already around 4am Philippine time. I was only listening, something that I usually do as I'm not good in communicating affection to family members, or to anyone if I may say (but it doesn't mean that I don't care. I do, I really do care.) She first told us about the situation, that Iman was suffering from a disease worse than pneumonia, that his lungs were dirty, and that air could...

Discoveries

Imagine this kind of a scenario. There is a group of people that you completely trust with your life. You grew up with them, fellowship with them all of your life, and treated them as the best of your best friends. One of them, is extra special. You have a romantic connection with him and you trusted him completely without hesitation. And then you'll find out that this special person that you loved so dearly betrayed you. Not just once but many times. And his friends, the same group of people that you trusted, tolerated the actions of that special person and even joined him with his activities. All of them appeared to be harmless in front of you but they are totally different people when you turn your back. Huh, it's such a heavy feeling. Everything sank into me last Friday and I couldn't understand why I was able to fit the puzzle pieces together just last Friday. The news was actually not new to me but still I was surprised with everything that I found out. I fel...

Pray for a Partner!

I was surprised by the question that my sister threw at me one time, “Do you now have a boyfriend?” Caught off guard, I honestly said, “None.” It was true anyway. I don’t have a boyfriend now. But by the look of her face I could sense that she didn’t believe me maybe because I am so wasteful when it comes to cellphone credits and because I go out almost every night. It was obvious to her that I am seeing a guy. But I told her that the guy I’m seeing is not my boyfriend. He’s just a summer fling. Hehehe… and I don’t have plans of taking it to the next level with him (or who knows?! Ngek!). My sister continued to talk about my love life and as usual, I just kept quiet. It was always like that, I just listen to everything she says simply because I just don’t want to say anything. She was persuading me to spit out my affairs with the guy that I’m seeing but I told her that there is just nothing to spit out because nothing is going on between us in the first place. We’re just going out...