Whew! What a week!

My whole week has been so tiring and full of complications. My research on biodiesel is draining my energy. I feel so pressured, especially now that the deadline for the results is near. I just want this research work to be over.

It’s Saturday morning, yey! It’s time to spend some quality time with my family, my favorite part.

By the way, here’s my favorite picture for this week:


Awesome job, Sir Mike!

A long list of things to do

I had my second exam in Inorganic Chemistry today, it was really long!

Today’s a very busy day. I called up so many people and went to so many places. I am so tired…

Also today, I just got this news from my thesis adviser that she’s going to Australia on April and she’ll go back next year. Oh no! I need to finish my research before the term ends! If not, I’ll be left hanging on the air, and I don’t want that. There’s another thing that I’m worried about… I signed up for the Chemistry Congress on April, because my adviser wants me to. I registered today, but I wasn’t able to pass the required extended abstract, because I don’t have the results yet:( I just hope the technical team of the Chem Congress will give me an extension.

I want to sleep already, it’s 12:24 a.m., but just by looking at my long list of things to do, I know sleeping is not a good idea.

Zoe rocks!

I feel guilty for I haven’t posted an entry for almost 2 weeks. One of my resolutions is to have an entry on a daily basis. This blog would be my journal. But due to a stack of pile of things to do, I can’t wok on that resolution. I wanted to blog on POPs, music, books, but I wasn’t able to do all that for the past days. I will just make up today.

My memory of the past contains the following:

1) My husband has bought a pink guitar for our baby Zoe.

His niece doesn’t want to lend her guitar to Zoe, so my poor baby cried and cried. JE and I told Zoe that we’ll just buy her a guitar when JE got his salary. So, when pay day came, he rushed into the nearest department store to keep his promise. The guitar that Zoe liked is the one with different shapes in it and a colorful one, but JE has bought a guitar with strings! I was a bit doubtful if Zoe will like the pink guitar. But eventually, she liked it, too. We took really cute pics of Zoe holding her new guitar. One of the pics is shown above. My baby really rocks!

2) JE has bought a guitar.

We’ve been planning to buy a new guitar for so many months, and last week, this plan has been implemented. I’m happy for this purchase, because JE liked the idea of having a new guitar, and now that he has it already, he’s much happier than I thought he would be.

3) I’ve finished reading John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker

It’s kind of funny to know that I’ve read this book just now. I’ve watched the movie before, but I haven’t read the book. While searching for a novel to read at our library, I came across this one. Since the story is more complete in a book, I gave it a shot. What happened after reading it? Well, I’ve had a more complete picture of the story, for I got more details. Plus, I got inspired by Rudy Baylor’s character. If you will recall, he’s the most unlucky man at the beginning of the novel, but then he didn’t lose hope. He continued to do what needs to be done, and by doing so, he found a job, then put up his own firm, and got a 50 million dollars verdict! But at the end, he realized that he doesn’t want to be a lawyer anymore, he just want to go away from Memphis and live a simple but quiet life with her new-found girl, Kelly.

John Grisham is an excellent writer on thrilling stories about lawyers and law (legal thrillers). I enjoyed watching the movie, but reading the book to which it was based is a more fulfilling experience (I guess that’s always the case). To those who have watched the movie, but haven’t read the book, I encourage you to do what I did, read the book! It’s more satisfying and enjoyable.

New year…I should be up for a fresh start

It’s the third day of the year 2007. Would it be a good day? Would 2007 be a good year for me and my family? Hope everything goes well for the three of us and for the rest of our relatives.

I was not able to talk about how we spent our New Year’s Eve. Well, here it goes…

We went to my uncle’s house on December 31, because my parents requested that our family spend the year-end celebration with them in Batangas. I would say the event was better than our Christmas Eve celebration. I am not saying this because the latter was spent with my in-laws. It’s better because there were a larger number of people in Batangas whom we’ve spent the evening. There were my parents, brother, cousins, uncle and tita. Plus, I got to visit the remaining brother and sisters of my beloved lola. I wish them good health and longer life. Another thing that happened there was we had the chance to chat with my brother in Korea and my another brother and sis-in-law in Dubai. We even saw them through the newly-bought webcam of my cousin (courtesy of JE and I). It was nice to see them again:) It felt good to have a chit-chat with my siblings once in a while. But I do admit, it’s much better to just have a chat using keyboard than to use the headphone. Well, it’s because there comes a time when the conversation stops and its quite awkward to just be there and say nothing than “ah” and “okay” (JE agrees with me on this one). I guess I’m not that talkative.

One more thing that happened on the last day of 2006 was Zoe fell down while running around Ninong Nitoy’s house. She got a bleeding lips when I saw her. It was not a very nice scene to look at. My poor baby… Plus, after an hour or two, I saw some wounds on her cheek, nose and leg. I guess it is just normal for a child to experience something like that in her life. At least now, she would be more careful (hopefully!).

On January 1, 2007, we spent the day running around (running after Zoe), eating crispy fried pork, singing using the “Magic sing” microphone, and catching up with siblings & friends using the internet. When Kuya Wen (my eldest brother who went home from Dubai–it’s just for the holidays) arrived after spending some time with his girlfriend, we started to place our baggage inside the van and prepare to leave. At around 8PM, we arrived at my in-laws house (my MIL was watching TV when we entered the house; my FIL was out spending some time with his friends). We told her some of the things that happened in Batangas. She mentioned that my bro-in-law’s wife, with her son and relatives dropped by to say hi and bring some gifts. They left a gift for Zoe, a set of eggs with shape sorter feature. Zoe likes it:) It’s just bothering me that we were not able to give Zoe’s gift for JA(my BIL’s son). During the Christmas, I thought he will not be able to pay us a visit, so I decided to give the gift (red car) for him to my husband’s other nephew Enrique. Then, I opened the original gift for Enrique (green car) and gave it to Zoe because she’s been eyeing that car when we were wrapping the gifts. Good thing, JA got hold of the green car when they dropped by on Jan.1, played with it and brought it home with him. At least it looks like that’s our gift for him, though it’s not wrapped. We’ll just buy something for him on his upcoming birthday.

All in all, our year-end celebration is fun. I hope this 2007 will be good to us. I should catch up on my astrology readings. I should know the description of “year of the pig”. I should know what’s in store for us in the year 2007… that’s what Tita Rose has said to JE and I. 🙂

Note: You can check out our pics in here.

Christmas 2006

Christmas this year is much better than last year’s Christmas. It’s because Zoe is a year older now, and she already gets excited when someone hands her a gift. There was just a point when my husband and I felt quite sad on Christmas Eve. Last year, we had a festive gathering on the night before Christmas. My sister-in-law and her family went to our house (JE,Zoe and I live with JE’s parents for 2.5 years now…Of course, we wanted our own space, but we don’t have money yet). They celebrated the night with us. This year, their family went to Macau to spend their Christmas there. So, who’s left in our house? It’s just the six of us (JE,Zoe,in-laws,nephew and I). It was quite sad that my in-laws didn’t prepare very well. There were no food that were ready to eat on the table; there was just a box of Cassava cake from JE’s uncle. My mother-in-law (MIL) told me to cook ham if we wanted to eat. It seemed they’re not interested in celebrating Christmas Eve with us. They went to their room, preparing to go to bed without greeting my family a “Merry Christmas!” Quite sad, huh?

Good thing, my husband still had the spirit of Christmas Eve in his heart. He asked me to cook ham, and to get bread and mayo. We waited for the clock to strike 12:00 , then we greeted each other and opened our simple presents. Zoe was asleep already at that time, we didn’t wake her up, we know she’s tired already. We tried to let her open her gifts before she went to bed, but she’s so grumpy and whiny already, I let her have her beauty rest. While eating our simple ham sandwich, we watched our new VCD (but it was bought so many weeks ago), “Lost in Translation”. I didn’t finish the movie, I was so sleepy. JE tried to finish it, but also not successful. That’s how we welcomed the Christmas day.

It’s our family posing for a pic 2 hours before Christmas.