Whew, finally.

It’s just like 2009 that I would have a minor argument with my mom last night. And I’m all, Please, give me a break. And then I heard of my teammate’s mom passing away and it’s just…sad. Quit it, 2009.

Maybe it’s silly of me to be blaming it all in the year. A couple of days ago, when I was feeling feverish at work, I kept on muttering, “I hate 2009. I hate 2009.” My teammate asked me why, and I told him a lot of bad things happened in the year, primarily Ondoy. He asked me to name more reasons why 2009 sucked and as I tried to remember my other reasons, I realized that they’re all small things that just happened to converge at the latter part of the year, which made 2009 seem unbearable. I was trying to recall the good things in the year, and even if I still have a hard time remembering anything else that happened before the flood, I know there are a lot of good things in this year despite all the bad things. So now let’s try to remember that.

JANUARY

• Lots of stepping up for training at work
• Beach at Balai Laiya. One of the most relaxing and fun trips I’ve ever been in. :)

  

• This is something I rarely share in this blog because it’s really a private matter, but since we’re doing a recall of the year, I’d admit it: this month, I sortakinda got heart broken. Sorta kinda because it’s not really that big (at least in other people’s eyes), but it still hurt. So it’s kind of a big thing. This is why I spent a bit of January kind of bitter, because of what happened…or did not happen. Whatever.
• I started Wordplay and wrote a story everyday for January. :)

FEBRUARY

• Dave Barnes’ new EP, my first iTunes store purchase.
• Valentine’s Day, and I got flowers for the third consecutive year. :)
• Accepted a new role for work
• MDC Talent Night, the last IBM Club activity. Aww. Talent Night was fun, and bittersweet because of all the challenges we had to face in 2008 together as a club. :)

MARCH

• That heart break in January? I’m over it by this time.
• Went back to day shift from my mid shift in February and then went back to mid shift again after two days because of my training for the new role.
• Watched I Love You Because with some friends. I didn’t exactly like the play, but I liked the message :)
• Ate oyster for the first time and got a bad bout of indigestion, for the first time ever! I pride my stomach for always being a strong one (while everyone else is getting sick because of what they ate, I don’t), but I met my match with oysters. One week of eating nothing but porridge and stuff — ack.
• Stopped Wordplay because I got burnt out. :( Two months is still good, right?
• Got my bookshelf and my iPod Touch, Macy.
• Turned 23, and got surprised by my favorite people. :)
• Someone who really mattered to me forgot my birthday, and that hurt. :(
• Participated in Earth Hour on the weekend that I completed my Dessen collection. :P

APRIL

• Officially promoted to my new role. :)
• I decided to give the person who didn’t greet me on my birthday another chance to make it up to me. To quote myself then:
  

  What right do I have to turn away, to give up, especially when Someone who I’ve been hurting and forgetting a lot has never turned His back on me? What right do I have to demand so much attention when I couldn’t even give the same kind of attention to The One who really deserves it all? What right do I have to get angry when Jesus never gets angry at me for forgetting Him?

• Had a very different/difficult Holy Week. I had to learn a lot about my own traditions vs. Catholic traditions. Suffice to say, I was already set on following my own traditions for the Holy Week, but God had other plans. I had a very uncomfortable Holy Week, but one thing I learned that week was being uncomfortable was good.

MAY

• Ilocos trip with friends was canceled, so instead, I went to Fitness First as a guest with my high school best friend Toni, and woke up the next day with my entire body aching.
• Got a new portable external hard drive I named Wes.
• Went to Hong Kong for the first time. And of course, I didn’t blog about it. This has got to change next year. Anyway, I enjoyed Hong Kong, especially Muji! :)
• I got a new laptop at work, too, which I named Teo after a couple of months. No excuse to not work from home now. :P

JUNE

• Attended my first leadership training at work, 101. It was very inspiring, but also intimidating with all the responsibilities.
• First time to mix up my friends — meaning, I went out with friends from work, college and high school. It was kind of scary at first because I didn’t know if they’d get along, but they did, which meant a bigger circle of friends. :)
• I was put on hot seat by my high school friends just because and it gave me lots of thoughts about how I was living my life and all that. It was mostly dissecting the reason why I was still single, and I realized that I’ve given up fighting for me. After spending a long sleepless night at home, I realized that I need to fight for myself — for my heart, for my life, and for my love. It’s kind of a long story, but it really got me thinking.
• My high school friends and I planned a fitness day, which ended up in my signing up for Fitness First. Took me long enough, huh?
• My dad’s house in Saipan got broken into. :(
• After two days of going to the gym, I succumbed to a fever. Bad time to have a fever, of course, because of the A(H1N1) scare, so my mom rushed me to the hospital, only to endure the 2 hour wait at the ER and be sent home after because it’s too early to say if it’s the flu. Heh. I learned a new word, though, triage!
• Michael Jackson passed away. :( I wasn’t really a big fan, but I grew up listening to his songs.

JULY

• I hardly blogged in July! :o
• This was the time I took going to the gym seriously — got myself a trainer and a nutritionist. No wonder I was so poor then. :P
• My hard drive crashed. :(
• S20 reunion!

AUGUST

• Former President Cory passed away and it awakened my sense of nationalism, or at least, some kind of responsibility over my country. That was the main reason why I finally decided to get off my lazy butt and be a registered voter.
• Started losing a bit more weight, yay.
• Watched my first Cinemalaya film, Dinig Sana Kita, and really liked it. :)
• I started feeling bad about not blogging as much, and it drove me to change layouts just so I feel like blogging. It kind of worked.
• Bought new rubber shoes after, what, 4 years?
• Went to the beach in the middle of August! It was fun organizing trips like this, and bringing even more friends together. :) Went kayaking and snorkeling for the first time and swam to deeper waters, which I am normally afraid of, but life vests are awesome. :P
• Watched Up and loved every single bit of it. :)

SEPTEMBER

• Started a 30-day blogging challenge in hopes of blogging more. It did help, although it was hard to do it without a specific theme or when work is taking up most of your time! Pfft.
• Experienced serious bouts of bitterness and patience woes. Being the third/fourth/fifth wheel whenever I go out with friends took its toll on me, and it was really sad. But I’m over it — it’s just that time of the month.
• Hid Switchfoot Mess of Me CDs around the area where I work. I wonder if anyone ever found them and used them?
• My dad went home to fix his passport, and it was a huge blessing because…
• …you guessed it. Ondoy happened. It made me not finish my 30-day blogging challenge, and it basically threw my entire life out of whack. Come to think of it, it threw everyone’s lives out of whack, so I shouldn’t complain.

OCTOBER

• I hardly blogged during October, too, but it was mostly because we were still recovering from Ondoy. There was that blackout thing in the east side of Manila that absolutely frayed my nerves too. I knew there were some interesting stuff in October, like NaNoWriMo planning, and Ramil hitting the country, but it was spent mostly cleaning up and trying to get my life back to normal after being shaken so much.

NOVEMBER

• November was probably one of my most difficult months. It’s usually a happy month because November is NaNoWriMo, but even NaNoWriMo was hard for me, because I didn’t feel like I was a good Municipal Liaison. Post traumatic stress disorder? Probably. I don’t know. But it was probably the sweetest NaNoWriMo victory yet.
• Watched Mae live with my favorite girl. :)
• Efren Penaflorida won as CNN Hero of the Year 2009…followed shortly by the Maguindanao Massacre. Something’s wrong, yo. :(
• Before November ended…Teo, my work laptop, started screwing up and my ID broke. Talk about making me hate November even more. :(

DECEMBER

• NaNoWriMo TGIO party at Bestsellers. :) Had fun, but I was glad NaNoWriMo 2009 is over.
• Went out. Don’t make me elaborate. :P
• Found out that I can shop for clothes a size smaller than I usually shopped! I also found out that I can get pants two inches smaller! WOHOOOOO. :)
• Well deserved vacation to Coron, Palawan with great friends. :)
• The rest of December was quiet, filled with work and friends and a huge anticipation for 2010. Can you tell?

And that was a long post, but I hope I didn’t bore you like some insurance quotes would do? So…yeaaaah, 2009 may not really be a bad bad year…just difficult in a lot of ways. But if there was one thing I learned sometime this year, bad things don’t erase good things, it’s just what you choose to focus on that matters. Right?

But still, I can’t wait for 2010. New year, new beginnings. Thank you, 2009, for all that you are. 2010, I’m ready for you. :)