Costume Galore

In lieu of the halloween celebration, the company that I am working for had organized another trick or treat event which had been participated by the kids of both its regular and contractual staffs. The office building was filled with huggable kids in their little costumes yesterday carrying their little baskets and marching around their cute little faces and bodies with their yayas or mommy for the whole company to see. It was also the perfect time for the proud parents to show-off their little sweethearts to their colleagues.

Staffs had been tasked to decorate their floor areas as part of a decorating competition and as to serve as mini-haunted houses for the kids who will do trick or treating. Younger staffs, like us were the one who had been delegated with the task of decorating and it has really been an exhausting week last week because of the preparations. However, all those late nights and hard work that each and every one of us contributed to the beautification of the whole floor had paid off for it was announced yesterday that our floor had won the second place (the 1st place was given to the floor where the country chairman's office is located). I wonder why, since I think our decoration was scarier than theirs. Haha, issue.

I had been with the company for about a year now and this was the only time that I had fully experienced the said activity. I so regretted not bringing a camera last year that is why I vowed not to make the same mistake again. Good thing, my brother entrusted to her older sister his awesome camera yesterday. All for the camera's sake, I had also bribed him to drop me off in the morning and pick me up after office hours in the office since it is his term break. Well, I think he would still do the same thing for me even without the suhol. That is how great he is! Haha. Hatid mo ako uli next week ha.

Here are the girls preparing and doing their makeup.

This was the final outcome of their preparation. Bloody Hospital is the theme of our floor but I do not know why the guys opted to don colorful wigs. Anyway, they had not defied the purpose of the haunted floor since they were still able to scare those kids.

Cuteness! I was really trying so hard to stop myself from pinching their cheeks. Kakagigil!

But wait till you see this baby. I think he's the cutest one in the flock. People were literally gushing and herding around him. Quite a gem!

Haha! Pure hotness! Well, this is Edward (or is it?). I am not sure if people were calling him Edward just because of his vampire attire or because it was really his name.

And here are his fans. Haha.

Also, children from the Cancer Warriors Foundation were also invited by the company to do trick or treating. I know that inviting them is not that of a big thing but I think it had somewhat brightened up those kids' day. It was really a noble gesture from the company to invite these kids and I hope that they had enjoyed their visit here. For this batch, the scare treats were omitted.

I caught a picture that will integrate how frightening our floor was for those kids. I just hope he have not had a trauma after this event.

Pero naawa talaga ako sa batang ito. He was really scared!

And it's all because of...

Our mummy Chuck. Sige, thumbs up ka pa riyan Chuck, mamaya traumatized yung bata niyan. Lagot ka. Haha.

The day ended with a very good news for all of us. We got the second place, which is frankly a good accomplishment since there were so many competitors and the competition was really tight. NOT! Haha.

Good job guys! Till next year.

From a Fan of Ala-ism

A tweet from one of my favorite bloggers immediately caught my undivided attention as I was browsing my twitter account last night. She said that she will going to quit now her blogging career and will now make room for new growth. I was disheartened upon knowing the news but dismissed it since I know for a fact that I can still read her blog anyway.

Or that's what I thought.

It had been a constant thing for me to do to check her blog every now and then just to see if she has something new to share that can make me smile and could inspire me in some ways like what her other previous entries did to me. I can still remember that time when I first stumbled upon her blog. I can not literally take my eyes off it. I could not get enough of her stories. Each of her entries entices me to read more and to not stop reading until I had gone through all of it. That is how inviting and addicting her blog was.

I like her unpretentiousness, her being able to capture the essence and lesson of all her experiences and her capability to put into concrete and seemingly fitting words these experiences. Not a single event in her life has gone to waste. It felt like I was reading a non-fiction novel which I could not put down. As time passed by I could not help but to ultimately root for the protagonist. Of course, in this case, she is the protagonist.

All that she wrote came from the heart. It felt like nothing was filtered and left out. Thoughts, feeling and events as she experience it, however personal those may be, were indisputably shared to the rest of the world. All were written as it is. How I wish to be selfless like that.

She and her blog had become a great inspiration to me. Aside from my deep love for writing and that want to track my growth through the coming years, I mainly start off this blog of mine with her blog in mind. I was so envious but in a good way though. She had blogged for 6 years. Putting together 6 years worth of experiences is truly epic and being able to go back to each and every single one of those experiences through reading as those was written by someone who is familiar and yet so strange; someone who pretty much resembles oneself but not quite is much blissful. I want to also do that for myself. In the future, I want to travel back to time and see how much I have changed and matured through the past years and I think this dream of mine will come to life through blogging.

According to her tweets, she had already deleted her blog. I was trying to get through it yesterday but I obviously could not.

Upon recognizing this sad reality, it dawned on me that I could not read her blog anymore. I could never go back now to my favorite entries that she once posted; entries that were once just sitting in her web space, very much available for the whole humanity to see. I felt kind of lost. But despite my sadness about all of these, I am truly happy for her. The spark and inspiration that her blog left off are all that is left with me. I will rekindle once in a while that spark so that it will not be put off.

I really want to thank her for sharing. I am so blessed to stumble upon the blog of a truly talented individual. From the deepest part of an avid fan's heart, thank you and kudos to you Ms. Ala Paredes of Ala-ism! I'll just be here waiting and looking forward to your next venture.

Whiners

It is not usual for me to whine about things. I find complaining about little and unnecessary things a total waste of time and energy. Things like sitting in a traffic, waiting for a person and falling in a super long line are just outside of my control. Yes, I do know that I could have had prevented it from happening but I also know that there is nothing I could do about it anymore at that given moment. I can tell you that I could easily go through those without emitting any grumbles and mumbles of sort. Well, it does not mean that I am not secretly annoyed about the fact that I had to wait for hours but I could apparently put up with all those inconveniences. I am just like that. I do not want to tire people with my useless complaints.

I always ride a cab to go to work every single morning. I had a hard time getting a cab earlier because it was already kind of late and traffic by the time I got off our building. Anyway, after 30 minutes or so of trying to hail a cab, I fortunately got one. Being my usual controlling but empathizing self, I told the driver to make a U-turn and just take the "road less travelled" to avoid the traffic.

Driver: Hindi ba traffic diyan?!
Me: Hindi po.

He then took my advice and drove off to where I want him to go. Upon entering "the road less travelled", I asked him to take a left turn on the next street in which he retorted "Tapos saan tayo niyan?!". I just told him plainly that we will take a right turn upon reaching the end of that street and we will then take Kamagong. I was quite taken aback by the tone of his voice but I chose not to mind it thinking that maybe that was just his normal voice.

After quite some time of travelling in Kamagong, we then came to a temporary halt because of the traffic.

Driver: Traffic naman itong tinuro mo.
Me: *silence* (I had become so used on hearing the reply, that I just dismissed it. The traffic was caused by the traffic lights ahead and I knew that it will not last longer than about 5 minutes. The traffic there was just normal and there were just so many cars lined up that time and the road was kind of narrow that is why almost all the drivers who do not normally pass there are always quick on assuming that the traffic there was heavy.)

Well, I was right. The cab advanced again in no time.

Upon reaching the end of Kamagong, I asked the driver again to take the rest of my default route only to be flooded with freakingly annoying comments from him: "Paikut-ikot naman tong gusto mo", "Hinayaan mo na lang sana ako", "Wala kang diskarte", etc. blah blah blah. I had replied to some of his comments but stopped myself midway because I am not the kind of person who will retort to those kind of nonsense. He was actually grumbling and mumbling the whole time which kind of got in my nerves. But anyway, indifference during these times is the best reply (revenge).

For his information, I had already tried all the possible, convenient routes there are from our house to the building where I am working and vice versa. I had also done experimentation. I tried leaving the house on different times and tried different routes to just find the most efficient combination for me to reach my destination. I had timed all of my trips, logged all those data to my phone's notepad when I was just starting in my new job so I am quite confident that this route that I am taking now is the most practical route there is regardless of what time I am going to leave the house.

People like that cab driver are just so annoying. Nakakasira ng magandang araw. Kung tutuusin hindi nga siya naipit sa traffic e. As much as possible, I always try to be considerate and mindful but maybe he did not take it that way. I was trying to save him from the traffic and I was trying to reach my workplace in no time and I was trying to create a win/win situation for both of us but I guess I failed. Haha. He should have just shut his mouth.

Anyway, what was even worse is that he still has the nerve to not give me the rightful amount of change that I should receive back. What a jerk. I would have let him take it if he had been an accomodating driver but because of his attitude, he does not deserve it. Haha. Para sampung piso lang e.