for a friend who was once my mentor in so many ways

I have five unfinished posts under this blog account, five drafts of half told stories about happiness, sadness, ordinary things, about leaving my old job, about my new job, all about me, me and more me.

Because I don’t write about more relavant things, this blog isn’t very famous.  Now I could only hope that the few readers that pass by would forward this post and support this cause.

http://rescuemywife.blogspot.com/

Teacher Dennis was my Advanced HTML instructor when I was a student in FACA year 2005. I can say that I owe him my web design career. He made me believe I can be a designer even when my final project was a crappy funeral website. He gave me design tips while I was taking my first design exam as a Web designer applicant also in FACA. He convinced me that I can teach - he just pushed me and pushed me until I found myself in the classroom teaching the craft I love. Simply put, he has a lot to do with where I am now, for which I’ll be ever more grateful. 

Karen and I thought that we could put our abilities to much better use by coming up with fund raising activities for teacher Dens. Calling out all our friends - - all who know sir Dens, or even if you don’t know him but are interested to help him, please PM me at leah.juaymah@gmailcom. Your help doesn’t have to be in cash - - - your support can come in terms of sharing your time, talents and resources, or even by just promoting his blog.

My prayers are with you and Ms Neddie, sir Dens. Keep still.

Geekery and me

Thanks to Kar for pointing me to this funny article. This is a repost from Tom of http://tl-tech.blogspot.com/.

You know you’re addicted to web design if…

1. You have the W3C validator URL memorized by heart.
2. You have ever actually had a dream involving a div class or img src.
3. You get genuinely pissed when your friends don’t know what CSS stands for.
4. You’ve ever copied and pasted a website’s CSS and lost sleep for fear of getting caught.
5. You can name 10 things wrong with IE6. (me!)
6. You have those 10 fixes taped to the side of your monitor…just in case.
7. You’ve ever turned down a social event to test out the latest update of CSS.
8. You’ve timed how long it takes you to type out an XHTML DOCTYPE…and celebrated when you broke your own record.
9. You’ve ever taken a CSS or XHTML quiz…just to be sure. (me! hehe)
10. You ever been truly mad at a family member for not upgrading to Firefox. (me again)
11. You check the source code of websites you like, and refuse to bookmark sites that still use tabled layouts. (so me)

If this is also funny to you, chances are you’re (at some level) addicted to web design too

Let me welcome you to the club.  

unsent note

i don’t know yet what you mean to me, but you’re my happy thought.

=) 

an end to a start to an end

The end makes you think about the beginning - - - graduations, breakups, expirations, the last day of the year, the last day of work - - - we all must have had those moments when just when something ended and something else begins, in that quick in-betweener, we take a look back and recount days when it was all just starting.

I recently left my happy life at dotPH to pursue and expand my design career in advertising.  Resigning from my post wasn’t easy especially since my officemates at Dot have become some of the closest friends I made in life. I can only hope that just like most of my FACA friends, everything else changed but the friendship.  

I think the sadness, anxiety and remorse that you feel whenever you leave and go someplace else is universal - - - I have a lot to adjust to, lots to worry about and lots to miss… I just wish that months after this, is a post saying it turned out okay that I get to go after my designer dreams and still get to keep my old friends, that it was not goodbye at all.

Turning the hourglass over when the last stubborn grain gives in signals an end and a start.

Wish me luck.

sagada

My closest friends at the office Claren, Br and Ben plus Karen and Kim went up to Sagada last holy week March 19-23.  The trip was incredibly fun! We went hiking, climbing, spelunking… (haha, this is the ‘copy’ of my sagada tshirt) and so much more. I’m really happy I’ve come across Ms Violeta’s online ad just in time! plus we got to join this very energetic group of touristas (JL, Monica, Clarisse, Cristina, JayPee, Andre, Dororthy, Sally to name a few).

St. Joseph’s Inn was nice. We got 3 rooms for our group, ours has a really nice view (named Simon Peter). Every night we had a room party which actually equates to 1 shot of tequila each, group games (which are a bit noisy) and photo "reviews", Karen had her laptop with her and so we transferred all the day’s photos at night to be criticized and laughed at. We had over 6 CDs of photos! It was a lotttt but still felt much was left unphotographed.

(more…)

happy

I’m a big fan of happy endings, no matter how unbelievable they are. 

Actually, I’m usually the cynic type but once in a while I become this doe-eyed hopeful child who believes  - - - miracles happen, true love lasts, frogs are princes and rainbows are real. 

It’s wonderful - this feeling. Hope it lasts.

 :)

Writing in Past Tense

To state the obvious, i haven’t blogged for a long time. ‘Long time’ doesn’t even cut it. I’ve no christmas post, no new year post, no college reunion post. no null none. Doesn’t mean they didn’t happen though.

Although right now, as an afterthought, i wish i made time to write about some of them. I wish I blogged about Pasko Sa Pinagbuhatan and Global Fun Carnival. Or about spending Christmas at home year after year after year and how it’s my favorite monotony. Or about Teng, Tina and Ai coming home for our longgg overdue reunion. Or about that block party I fondly replay in my head. Or about empyreanlives.com. About my eos. About finally driving solo.

The year ended and then soon began. Time flew without a word and my thoughts were nearly gone when I took notice.

So in a crzy workkk day such as today, I stopped for a while to make this Valentine’s post before it completely escapes me.

I expected Feb 14 to be a nonevent like it had always been, but this year it actually happened. It wasn’t a romantic day of grand gestures, it was a simple night of laughter and gooood food (yum!). It wasn’t red roses and chocolates, it were colorful wild flowers, hallmark cards and a funny (but touching *sniff*) accu-map. It wasn’t a boyfriend, it were my three friends who reminded me that I don’t need romance to feel exceptionally happy. There were no kisses nor hugs nor meaningful gazes but I’m sure I felt loved. Except for the part when we got lost and I nearly crashed the car (heheh), It made an otherwise perfect night.

Thanks Clar, Br and Ben for giving me a valentine’s day to write about =)

Everything

You're a falling star
You're the getaway car
You're the line in the sand
When I go to far

You're the swimming pool
On an august day
And you're the perfect thing to say

And you play it coy
but it's kinda cute
Oh when you smile at me
you know exactly what you do

Baby don't pretend
that you don't know it's true
Cause you can see it when I look at you

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you It's you

You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

You're a carousel
You're a wishing well
And you light me up
When you ring my bell

You're a mystery
You're from outer space
You're every minute of my every day

And I can't believe that I'm your man
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can
Whatever comes our way
We'll see it through
And you know that's what our love can do

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you It's you
You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

And so la la la la
So la la la la

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you It's you
You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

You're every song
And I sing along
Cause you're my everything
Yeah, yeah
So la la la la
So la la la la

song to an imagined you

When I see your smile
tears roll down my face
I can't replace.

And now that I'm strong I have figured out
how this world turns cold and it breaks through my soul,
and I know I'll find deep inside me, I can be the one.

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all,
even if saving you sends me to heaven.

It's okay

Seasons are changing and waves are crashing
and stars are falling all for us
days grow longer and nights grow shorter
I can show you I'll be the one.

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever.
I'll be there for you through it all,
even if saving you sends me to heaven.

Cause you're my
you're my, my
my true love
my whole heart
please don't throw that away.

Cause I'm here, for you
please don't walk away and
please tell me you'll stay, stay..

Use me as you will
pull my strings just for a thrill
and I know I'll be okay
though my skies are turning gray.

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
even if saving you sends me to heaven.

GA wisdom

People have scars in all sorts of unexpected places, like secret road maps of their personal histories; diagrams of all their old wounds.  Most of our wounds heal, leaving nothing behind but a scar.  But some of them don’t.  Some wounds we carry with us everywhere and though the cut is long gone, the pain still lingers… - Meredith

 ..I would have never made her happy. Not like she deserved to be happy. I was a better man for walking away. I loved her enough to walk away.  - Chief Webber

What’s worse? New wounds which are so horribly painful or old wounds that should have healed years ago and never did?  Maybe our old wounds teach us something.  They remind us where we’ve been and what we’ve overcome.  They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future.  That’s what we like to think.  But that’s not the way it is, is it?  Some things we just have to learn over and over and over again. - Meredith