2013 Goals: Pack Photo Shoot

OMG! Excited Much!

It's 6:01 AM on a Sunday morning and I was already awake by 5:10 AM. This ain't normal that's for sure. Thanks to that very very bad dream for this early wake up call. The dream was a failed attempt to bake cupcakes, which resulted to a massive explosion with walls eating up the waste. While digesting the catastrophe, I realized I was smeared with frosting that tasted like blood and the walls slowly closing in on me. Then I woke up. Well, the dream taught me that before I sleep to NEVER eat cupcakes after watching a horror movie. It also reminded me that I have no career whatsoever in baking. And I can totally live with that. 

But aside from that very bad dream, I think I can't sleep cause of excitement! Nothing really grand. It's actually shallow. But still, after this, I would get to tick off one of my listed 2013 Goals!

DOG PHOTO SHOOT!!!

Yeah. I know it's super shallow. But I need  to get good photos for my dogs. It's so long overdue! I had been planning one session when Harvey was still our only-dog. Due to schedules and failed prioritization, it didn't push through. Then Chivas came along so the desire for a photo shoot was there again, then Bruce came into our lives! Now I won't let this pass. I included it in my early 2013 goals.

And I know the perfect person to do this. Mitch, who else? Mitch, a self-taught photographer, is a part of these dogs lives. He knows their history and he is a dog lover himself. I still remember one random afternoon when he did a photo shoot with Harvey a couple of years ago. They clicked. It came out beautifully and I want a repeat now that they're complete.

I've tried amateur attempts using my phone and IPad, but nothing beats getting it done with good equipment and much more creative vision. For the life of me, I have no concept whatsoever of angling, lighting and a good shot. 

But finally it's going to happen today! Yahoo! Here's to my overdue portraits! I just hope the sun's out and the dogs are in the mood!

December 1st

As most of the Facebook posts say, it's already December 1st. Yehey. It seems like such a big deal. But it is in a way, I don't know what to say but in 5 days (not counting the weekend), I'll be officially starting my 3-week vacation. Yes, that's right. No work. I've squeezed everything in November and if you want something more, here's my out-of-office and I'll just try to get back to you in January.

If there's a time that I should panic, it should be now. December 1st reminds me that I haven't bought gifts yet. I probably would have to do it online, in an hour tops. Malls transform into this commercial mecca where close proximity is something to be expected. No thanks. Online shopping is fine for me.

As for the painful reflection, a sadistic year end exercise of mine, I am looking forward to it. I could be brutally honest with myself. I could list down things that sucked this year and judge from there if the entire year was a complete failure by my standards. If it is, at least January is just around the corner and it's still an opportunity to give thanks for your life. If it was a happy year, December would just be a piece of cake. Nothing could go wrong in this month. I like that power of invincibility.

Forgiveness, hmmm. Touchy. I do have a couple of people to ask forgiveness from. People I might have abandoned out of nowhere, completely detached myself from any communication or contact. I sound like an irresponsible parent, but I just meant in a friends perspective. Well, I have a couple of days to sum up the energy and not be a wuss about it.

December brings everyone to back to business, not the work business that you're thinking of, but business in fixing relationships, strengthening bonds and enjoying the things that really matter (read: immaterial). This month transforms people's thoughts that "it's okay to slow down" that "it's okay to feel alone in a room full of love." It makes us prioritize things that were put on a back seat 11 months ago.

December is not my favorite month, but it does have its good moments that I'm really looking forward to.

Too Much Coffee and Future Plans

I know I've had too much coffee when I got my 2nd planner from Starbucks in three weeks time.

To be able to get a planner, I had to pay for 17 drinks worth an average of 150 bucks each. 17x5x2. You do the math. The thing is my mom went ballistic. Though at my lame defense I am sure I didn't drink some, the point is I consumed the majority and paid all of it. There goes my attempt at saving and dieting before my Christmas beach break.

That first opportunity came when I gave a planner to a dear friend. On that day, she was suffering from a massive heartbreak. Out of the blue, her heart was crushed to pieces, pain I couldn't imagine. Since I'm not trained to cushion heartaches and have enough words of advise to share, I gave her the planner instead. Good thing I got the color that she liked. If there's a sane advise that I will stand by on, it's to find ways to move on and the planner is just a key to keep her right on track. I had an officemate who joined lots of activities after her breakup. She did yoga, pole dancing, spa nights, surfing lessons in La Union on the weekends, attended tons of parties and enrolled in a study program every Saturday. She squeezed in dinners with friends, old and new. That's what I wanted my friend to do, to preoccupy herself. And with the planner, she should be encouraged to fill in those blank dates.

The 2nd planner I gave to my sister. Unlike me, she's a planner person. She uses it for her meetings with clients and to schedule her next drinking session with friends. Her previous planners looked like a beaten cardboard by the end of the year. I know that she will maximize the planner to good use. But just as fate designed, she had just resigned from her work and is currently enjoying the job hunting scene casually. May the planner bring her luck and lots of offers to choose from

Too much coffee brought two planners for two ladies who would be facing too many positive opportunities. I think this also justified all those Starbucks trips for caffeine. I say always look forward to the greater things in life to come.

May the planners bring them purpose and luck on darker days.

On my way home

In a few hours, my sister and I will be flying back to Manila. I can still vividly remember my lunch in Cafe France last Saturday and I can't believe it's already Tuesday. Time indeed flies fast if you're having fun...so much fun.

Anyways, when I come back I still have an extra day to recharge and transition for work. I cannot imagine the stress I'll be expecting next week on the job. It's like this one final dreaded stretch before I take my major vacation in December. I hope I make it by then.

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As my cousin, sister and I are lounging at my aunt's veranda, I noticed I am craving for Japanese. My mind has been set when my uncle said earlier that we'll have dinner there before dropping us at the airport. Nonki is my uncle's favorite Japanese restaurant, in fact, in all my trips in Cebu I would eat here at least once. From the interiors to the freshness of their sashimis, it's a go-to place for an authentic japanese craving. They have a branch near the airport and in P-Remedios street, which is incidentally a 7 minute drive from my aunt's house. How convenient.

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It's now cloudy in Cebu with occasional rains. This always happens when I leave. I'm not superstitious or anything, but this always happens...always. It just makes goodbye extra sad.

Till my next visit, Cebu.

Sandy Storm

I got a call from a colleague last night about a certain conundrum that happened towards their end of day. She even, grudgingly, went back to the office to answer to some clarifications from the clueless but rather panicked management. Since I'm in the business of trades, certain closure of major markets where our funds are being dealt, should be published on our part to reflect proper settlement dates and trade information. I wouldn't bore you with the details, but an emergency inactivity of a major stock house spells a bit of a downstream change on our part. As the issue occurred, I double checked and verified there are known holidays that I know of yesterday, but as per news, the stock exchange in New York was on an emergency shut down.

We were not prepared for the Sandy storm that would hit the greater parts of the US. And surely I don't think the citizens there were expecting something huge as this and during Halloween at that. According to reports, it's one of the biggest storms to date, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of storm. New York became a ghost town some reported. It's kind of scary because come to think of it, almost all armageddon plots in movies usually happen in New York.

Living in the Philippines where the citizens are used to countless storms throughout the year with  immense flooding, it's kind of discomforting to see other more modern and developed countries suffer almost the same effects that we endure when it comes to storms. For sure, Philippines had always topped the natural calamity headlines when it comes to storms and flooding because thanks to our irrigation system, poor infrastructures, pollution and with our geographical location, we somehow have an idea why we get the worse and as expert survivors our shock level has gone a bit higher. But whenever I see developed countries emerged in floods, I get shudders because it really must be that bad.

Here are sample pictures taken from TIME.COM and NYTIMES. It's a part of New York and Brooklyn.

Seeing those pictures and hearing the news makes me shiver. Bottom line, even if I'm from the Philippines, I would never get used to really nasty natural calamities such as this. Natural calamities that make the world stop make me realize how powerless and puny humans are when nature goes amok. 

I have an aunt who lives in New York and I just found out that they are being evacuated. Evacuation in New York? That's really something. 

It's unfortunate but in calamities like this, we could only prepare so much and end up waiting for the worse to end. Time to pray for those out there, that's the best we could do at this point. 

Happy thoughts post #1

Every day I thought I would try to post one happy, inexpensive, natural and comforting realization, feeling or occurrence that remind me that life is essentially good. It doesn't have to be grand, well at least not for me, but it's something at-the-moment and really amazing in my perspective. It could be like a stormy night with a cup of coffee and a good book. The feeling of enduring one more day before vacation as if you're about to burst with excitement. It may be getting an official notice that you have a clean bill of health. Simple things that life brings that we tend to ignore in this fast paced, materialistic world. I intended to do this at the start of the year, but what's the point of delaying but to lose the extra drama?

As much as possible, I won't try to lose that sense of gratitude and wonder for something so natural and simple because taking pleasures in the simplest things that life gives us is a constant and strong remedy to jadedness and hopelessness. I'd like to always think that I'm extremely lucky and that everything that I want in life is here or within my grasp. These thoughts, as they say, make life beautiful.


HAPPY THOUGHTS POST #1: Sunny Mornings 
Oct. 30, 2012 (Tuesday)


It's a brilliant sunny morning  today though I'm not really a fan of the heat and sun, I really don't mind. Generally I like the gloomy, stormy weather, but once in a while I take pleasure in acknowledging that the morning sun brings colors  to life with a mood of endless possibilities.

Morning sun rays are also supposed to be healthy. I remember my parents would try to bring us to CCP for a morning bike workout when we were kids. I was generally pale and hated the sun even then and they would share that I should at least try to sunbathe in the mornings, before 10 AM, as the sun rays are supposed to be giving us essential vitamins at this time. This is called in Manila as "pinapaarawan." They do that in newborn babies actually. They would bring the babies out for a morning walk and have them enjoy the early rays of the sun.

Healthy morning sun with a good cup of coffee, bacon and eggs and a good internet connection reminds me that life is good.

Vacation, so near yet so far

Random Post about the Need for a Vacation
Oct. 23, 2012
11:54 AM


I'm tired. Seriously. I haven't been to the gym for months. I haven't shed a hard earned sweat. I find myself sitting in front of my computer with two air condition openings directly targeted at me. I wear a jacket in the office. So you know what I'm talking about is not physical.

My emotions and brain are tired from work. To put it to the extremes, I haven't even used any of my vacation leaves.  I have 20 unused vacation leaves and we're about to end October. Go figure. Apart from the allotted vacation leaves, I have complimentary time offs because of my dedicated attendance during Philippine Holidays since we service other Asian markets. I find myself easily irritated nowadays and frankly at this point, I don't care how many vacation leaves I have left. What I need now is an actual vacation to take place in the fear that maybe next stress level I will encounter may lead me to combust!

There's a reason why vacation leaves are created by companies. Take it or else you'll end up feeling where I am now. Mentally and emotionally tired from all the crappy decisions that define your work. Every industry and every position has its challenges that's why vacation leaves are there for you to take so you could recharge and regroup. Constantly facing crappy people and suffocating yourself with tiresome and unreasonable decisions made from outer space will tire you. Vacation leaves are there to take your time away from miserable, incompetent and sometimes unreasonable people or situations you work with, usually for. Enjoying a time off from the office make you value your work even more. You'd think at least with your work, you get to pay for the top service and luxury setting you could enjoy, but most importantly vacations make you think clearly and let's you strategize. They are supposed to keep employees sane. So I urge you to take it!

And I will take my first ever vacation this November 5 and 6. A Monday and a Tuesday. Oh-joy! I'm going to Cebu, the place of my birth, my ultimate place of relaxation and a city so close to my heart. Nothing new and nothing grand, but I'm drooling for it every single day. About two weeks left and I'm gone. Now my leave is down to 18. I've already planned out things for December.

So in moments of defeated feeling like this think of your next grand vacation and hold that thought until the crappy feeling subsides.

The Launch

Tuesday
8:32 AM


I'm at it again. The itch to blog never fails. I've always wanted to blog since I've discovered the joys in 2007. Due to excitement and racy hormones, I've come to a point of creating an angst ridden blog called opinionated banana.blogspot.com and after a long hiatus, a personal blog of iamkaye.com, which unfortunately never really hit home to me. Because of life's unexpected turn of events like changing of jobs, low creative energy and general adult responsibility, I've forgotten to strike the balance and left my blogging to be sucked at a vacuum of abandonment. It was just one of those phases that you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, lost and busy at the same time that you forget to do things that you love as time slowly slips away.

Nearing the crossroads and a milestone in my life, I've forced myself to look back and treasure the things I love doing. That's when I felt the need to blog again, but on a mature stand point this time. I've learned that this blog should have its core reason for being. It's not like an online diary that you flit from one mood to another. It has to have a mode of consistency, a core topic, an advocacy and expertise that you would always discuss and grow from.

Gone are the days of blogging of raw emotions and unadulterated hatred. There will be posts of disappointments for sure, but I will make sure it's constructive. This blog will not only share what I love in life, but hopefully it reaches out to people by sharing useful information. This blog aims to make people aware of certain animal and dog advocacies. And this is an avenue for me to share my thoughts on certain books that I've read or what I'm currently reading. Two things I'm willing to share to the world, my love of dogs and my love of books.

For shallow purposes this blog also has its reasons.

Well for one, I bought a laptop some four months ago and it has been ignored in so many ways. I need to use it for something that I love to do. I'm not a master downloader and I'm not into multimedia. Blogging seems to be the only perfect exercise for a non-techie like me.

Second, I want to document my dogs' growth particularly with that of Bruce. He is in his 4th month now and he has grown literally and figuratively. I want to document his progress, something that I was not able to do with Harvey and Chivas. From his transfer to his new territory, to his new tricks and to his new physique, I want to make them last.

Lastly, I want to reach out to people in the most comfortable way possible.

9:28 AM, I'm supposed to be getting ready for work. But deliverables have been submitted and my team is sufficient enough to carry on. They can lose me for half a day. Besides I ate a nasty pasta dish for dinner. I'm bedridden and near the bathroom until this fluke dies down. Until then, more posts to write for the day!