The Islander's Yearender

As the year concludes, it is time once again to recollect and look back the 365 days of 2008.

In particular, these are the following that I am so much grateful in 2008:

• Travel – I proved that people who are lucky in their career spent less time in some other thing. Though I had few in 2008, I am still thankful that at the early part of the year I had a blast of trips --in Cebu to experience Sinulog, followed by trips to the bonbons of Bohol, multihued Marawi, Ilonggo-dominated Sultan Kudarat, Intramuros and Manila Ocean Park in Manila, and ended with an island trip to the Island Garden City of Samal in Davao.

Going to the local corners of the province is a good wandering, too.

I am not sure how much I have gone with the archipelago but my latest travel grade was a:

My Lakbayan grade is C+!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan! Created by Eugene Villar.

• Career – the thing that I owe so much from 2008. I remembered I asked from God only a part-time job, I was given one with a full-time pay. While some are jobless, who cannot consider me as the lucky one? That is why no matter how occupied and exhausted I am due to heavy schedules, I will try not to complain about being too busy.

Having two jobs gave me the opportunity to do whatever I want and experience things that I have not experienced since childhood. It was stressful but at the end of the day, it provides me the pleasure of going to the bars during weekends drinking to death without worrying the bills, eat everywhere without worrying about the budget, and buy things without considering the price (i am kuripot. haha!). For a deprived person like me experiencing these little pleasures in life is too much of a privilege.

It is also worth a mention that every undertakings we had was a success.

• Gadgets –2 possessions was lost.. a 2-month old Sony W90 digicam while in Cebu and a long time partner/collector's item-designed Nokia 7610 phone while witnessing the fiesta activity here in Surigao. This I consider misadventures in adventures. But I moved on. The N7610 was replaced by a Nokia 6120 and a Samsung Omnia and my digicam replaced by a touch panel Sony T70. I hope, with fingers-crossed plus knock on the wood, that none of them will be lost this year or forever.

• Blogging –brother google rated my blog PR3. That was in spite of the absences in the blogworld. Created in replacement of the hacked blog sometime in July this year, in a short span as October it gained PR3. I was just so happy while sitemeter is driving me crazy for going back to square one in its counting of traffics (do i have it? hehe). I also gained blogger friends whom I am looking forward to meet this year.

So there.. Yeah, mostly guilty pleasures. My way of gratifying myself for the hard works and satisfying myself for the missing pieces, for being unfortunate the past 20 years of my life. It was so selfish, but at least now I can say, I have lived a life. And I thank God for all the achievements, if there any.

2008 provides me a good life. And I want to thank God for always showering me His overflowing blessings, my fellow bloggers, my SEDF/SCCI and HTS family most especially my boss, my high school batchmates, my family, my kinkus friends in Manila, my friends in TAG Project all over Mindanao, and to everyone who made my year 2008 a fulfilling one.


This is JP saying thank you, and this is the Islander’s yearend report.