Meet Me on Monday

A meme designed for my blogging friends to know me better. Pretty cool, right?  Hence, my answers for this week.

Questions:

1.  I really need to clean my _________?

My closet and get rid of the unnecessary stuff. Winter time is here and my wardrobes are still set for the summer lol! Just been very busy lately.

2.  What food makes you think of Christmas?

Fruitcake! Wish I could make one.

3.  If you could choose to stay a certain age forever, what age would it be? 

Oh, this one is funny. I happened to have the same exact answer with our fabulous host Java. 30 for me is the best age. Not too young nor too old. Just perfect.

4.  What was your first paying job?

A university teacher. I taught college students for two years. I happened to enjoy it a lot.

5.  Have you read the Twilight series?

Oh too bad, not one. I just skim the pages but not read it thoroughly. Just doesn't have this luxury of time to read and enjoy one yet. On a lighter note, I never missed a movie and looking forward for the new one.

I wanna know more about you too. So why not join the fun and link up.

Thanksgiving Giveaway

I love scrapbooking!

I usually make one for my good friends especially for those who are leaving for their home countries. Such is a special gift and remembrance from all her/his crazy friends left behind. Rest assured, she/he will be missing us dearly.

What a fun way could it then be if we create a digital scrapbook by using a special software. I never tried to make one and I'm pretty excited to try it.  A generous mom blogger Rose from Rose's Obstacles and Glories is giving out a digital scrapbooking software for free. Yes you heard me right, for free for her blogging friends and readers. It's a $50.00 value giveaway sponsored by My Memories Suite. Using this software, you can easily and inexpensively create digital scrapbooks, photobooks, cards, calendars and other self-made gifts. Plus, My Memories Suite is rated #1 by Amazon and Top Ten Reviews. How awesome can that be!  For more information on how to win this cool give-away, visit Rose here. 

Fragmented Friday

This is my first time to join this meme. I found its theme very interesting where we can document fragments of recent events in our lives ~ too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard. Hence my fragments for this week.

***I was so busy this past week with my experiments and at the same time pressured for my oncoming oral presentation where I'm not that prepared yet. I'm freaking out! Can't help blaming it to my late night experiment schedules that further exhaust and stressed me out. I know I had time management issues.

***I realized coffee is no longer effective for me. Drinking a cup still doesn't wake me up and more than a cup gives me palpitations. Crazy!

***I felt so bad my daughter had to endure staying with me in the lab till late night, sometimes until 3 ~ 5 AM the next morning. So terrible. To make up with her, we usually ate at nearest McDonald's that wee hour. But I managed to fix this by dropping her off to stay with some friends for the night.

***In spite all of the challenges rocking my week, I got many blessings to count and thank for too. I'm so grateful with Prof. H1, an expert to what I'm doing right now. Although he's not my adviser but he always find time to discuss with me regarding my research.

***I'm so thankful with Prof. H2, who without any questions entrusted me their lab keys and entitled me to use their laboratory and its equipment anytime. His PhD students are equally very helpful to my project, imparting their expertise and skills to the betterment of my experiments.

***Ah, Prof. S is the best. He is not my adviser and it's my first time to solicit his expertise, but he goes beyond from simply improving my protocols to actually performing my preliminary experiments as part of our class activities. He offered the experimental animals, the experimental area, the skills and the assistance of his research assistant and students. The bonus part, I got to learn a lot of experimental skills and have parts of my experiments done. How great can that be! Indeed, I'm beyond grateful.

***My daughter learns Math and Chinese mostly without my assistance. And she often gets 100 score which I buy for 3usd each, so to further encourage her. My hectic schedule plus my weakness in Chinese can't help her in any way but I thank God for heaven sent angels to assist her ~ her teachers and some of my friends. I'm so proud of her independence, smartness, diligence and for understanding our crazy situation.

***I'm so glad to have good friends around me. Their support and hugs are very much appreciated. I would have gone crazy had I didn't have them around. Truly they're my true friends. A Thanksgiving greetings and a chat with a good friend from Fiji last night was a nice surprise too.

***My husband's constant chat and text messages everyday, though he's a country away from me, strengthened my weakening perseverance and optimisms. My mom's text messages brightened up my days.

***Indeed, for this Thanksgiving Season (though we don't celebrate one in our country), I had so many things worth thanking for!

***This particular message caught my attention. So true and had me thinking and reevaluating my priorities in life.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Also linking for

My blog is great! Yey!

Yay my blog is great!!! 

Thank you so much Judy for the affirmation and for granting me this award. I'm very honored. Please come and visit my new blogging friend Judy on Judy H-J's Thoughts - A Twinless Twin and join her as she reminisced her adventures with her beautiful twin Janine. I really love her blog. It gets me teary-eyed at times as she celebrates her twin's well-lived life.

Here are the rules for accepting this award:
1. I must tell 7 things about myself.
2. I must pass it on to 15 other bloggers.

Hence, these are my seven confessions:

1. I never make it out to the door without forgetting something. I don't know, maybe some early manifestation of Alzheimer's disease? I hope not.

2. I got two sweet hyperactive daughters whom I love so much but both delivered through Caesarian sections. My first baby was intended for a normal delivery, but she just won't come out so the doctors decided to open me up. My second baby I guess was fated for CS delivery after everybody got traumatized with my first emergency CS operation. Thus, my ugly CS scar on my no longer flawless belly lol. However, this scar and the continents of cellulite along with it were worth my precious girls.

3. Library and book stores are my havens! I don't mind spending my whole day and sometimes buying loads of books for me and my kids.

4. At present, I'm a PhD student (veterinary medicine). However, I'm not so sure anymore if I'll finish this degree. Life with it often gets too stressful and miserable.

5. I was once casted for an extra role on a Hollywood movie (in 3D to be released on December 2012) directed by the famous Brokeback Mountain's director. My part was a nurse, a good friend of the protagonist's mom. I was called twice for costume fittings and I saw my own star for Hollywood walk of fame coming lol. But nah, I canceled the said event since I'm crazier about going home in my country and chose to spend my long-awaited vacation with my family.

6. I once got a scary biking accident. A reckless student on a scooter bumped my little bike from behind one night sending me flying upward like some trapeze superstar (as recounted by my traumatized best friend). I was lucky my face landed on my bag (with a jacket inside) and not on the hard pavement. Ouch! otherwise, I don't wonna imagine! Got some bearable scratches on my knees and a small but deep bloody cut on my chin. As for the culprit, she was sent to jail. Nah not really. She just paid for my hospital bills and for my Romanian friend's trauma for witnessing everything lol.

7. I once won our college beauty title but got stripped of it when I was discovered being two months pregnant. Hahaha, not really! Thank goodness I was just a first runner up. Otherwise, that would be a huge scandal, isn't it? LOL.

That's it guys and my apologies for my usual craziness. Now, I'm passing on this award to fifteen other great blogs. I love these blogs and hope you will find time to visit them and you would know why (in random order).

Say It With Roses
Perspicacity
Jo's Precious Thoughts
Scientific Nature A Whammy
My Photo Meme Blog
A Go-with-the-flow Mama's Blog

Spice Up Your Life
Just Another Mom of Twins
My Little Angels in America
Someday Somehere
Rolled Up Pretty
Pinay Mom in Germany
Write in Motion
Belles Roses Romantiques
Climbing the Digital Mountain One Step at a Time

Congratulations guys! Your blog is great so tell us about yourself!
Cheers!

The Beach

I am linking this post to the  Best of 2011, having the most comments on my blog for this year.

For a three-day conference at Boracay island almost five years ago, I seized the moment to mix business with pleasure. Thus, I brought my two kids and their two nannies along with me. For three days, my guys enjoyed the beautiful white sand beaches and the clear blue sea of Philippine's famous Boracay island.

Behold the beach!

Early morning beauty of Boracay!

My then 5-months old Aron enjoying the cool refreshing water.

Yes, the white sand.

My then 4-year old Joey enjoying the white beach .

This is Paradise! the other end of Boracay!

with my little Joey.

Island hopping with my colleagues!

On board the motorized "bangka"/canoe on the wavy sea! Fun!

Snorkeling on the clear blue water.

Enjoying the beautiful pristine part of the island. 

Enjoying the great waves!

Enjoying the beautiful sunset!

Photos were taken with my then vintage 2.0 mega pixels Sony Cyber-Shot U camera.

Wordless, Wordful or Whatever Wednesday

 

  

Pretty Saree

Once more, we celebrated Diwali Festival last month with our Indian friends. Check out here what we did last year. This time, the party was held no longer at our university but at National Tsing Hua University (Hsinchu, Taiwan), a one hour train away from our school/place (Taichung, Taiwan). Yes, it's quite far but then we just couldn't resist from accepting our dear Indian friend's invitation. Who could? He bought me a beautiful Indian Saree when he went home to India two months prior the event. I so love the design and the color he picked for me. It's a modern type ~ in chiffon cloth (truly refreshing) and in polka dots with orange hues, a color my friends said suited me. It's my first time to wear a Saree, so what the heck, we decided to pick up our lazy selves and invaded the party. Oh yeah! After all, we no longer have other good opportunities to wear such a cultural beauty but only on special occasions such as this. Belated Happy Diwali!

This is my Saree. It's a beauty, right?

With my  friends on our Saree.

Us in the party with my daughter.

Crazy us on our 1 & 1/2 train ride home (about 10: 30 pm).

Still us, feeling like crazy models lol.

That's me with the curious guard at the back lol.

Our Indian friend who bought me the Saree, with his pretty girl friend.

Verena's Wordless Wednesday
Whatever, Whenever, Wednesday

Tardy party hosts

Every year, we organized a Halloween party for a group of friends. Actually, we did such themed parties since my daughter Joey came to Taiwan. Such occasions are rare opportunities and good excuses for us to dress up, get a little bit crazy and just have fun. Last year's Halloween was a blast too. However, the real intention for this simple gathering was to celebrate my best friend's birthday.

So for this year's Halloween/bestfriend's birthday, we organized the party once more and guess what, the hosts, that means me and the birthday girl were late, very late. It was so embarrassing and I'm not proud of it. Anyways, that day was so busy ~ bestfriend and I studied from night till morning to catch up with our deadlines, slept for 4 hours, then went shopping, cooking, went to my lab for 30 minutes to culture some bacteria, then went to assist bestfriend's cooking, decided which dress to wear, then took a shower and dressed up my daughter first, then me. Crazy day huh? Yes but I survived it although the consequence was bad ~ got late to start the party like at least for an hour. Terrible indeed! Just grateful all our guests were our good friends, who understood why the tardiness, or kind of expected it from us already lol.

Meet my best friend or we call each other "sisters". Planning ourselves to tour Europe together one day or just simply retire on one of the beautiful islands in the Philippines. Hmmm, it's free to dream right? As for the friendship part, we've been through a lot together ~ in the highs and lows of our lives. For almost five years of being together, we learned to love each other practically like sisters.

She was a Roman goddess and me, I don't know, some lady in pink?

A better view of our dresses! I'm supposed to be Poison Ivy  that night but this girl managed to convince me to wear the pink chiffon dress! I so love it too though I'm no longer sure what I will be..

That's my daughter in green. She was Tinker Bell. Somebody stole her wings lol.

Some of our friends! Indeed a good time to take a break from our stressful lives!

For this particular pinky meme, I and a good friend/colleague from Cameroon who also wore pink that fun-filled night posed for the camera. He was actually the earliest bird among all of us~ never failed to be on time on events.

Pinky us!

Showing off our pinks.

Everybody had fun that night especially our birthday girl and of course our little princess Joey that the extreme tardiness of the party hosts were totally forgiven (and hopefully forgotten lol).

Linking for: 

Pink Saturday

and

Wordless Wednesday: Chinese Baby

My baby in a Chinese outfit alongside with Chinese ladies in Thailand's outfits.

Linking for: Spilled Milkshake, Tina's PicStory, Mom's Online Garage Sale, Rolled Up Pretty, Just Another Mom of Twins, Nshima Servings' Colorful Weekend meme, vB Wed Free hops . 

Whitewater Rafting

Cagayan de Oro City, a gateway to Northern Mindanao, Philippines (a region where I hailed from), is becoming the country's  thrill seeker destination for whitewater rafting. Cagayan de Oro river boasts 23 rapid counts ranging from difficulty levels 1 to 4.

Last January 2007, six of our friends and fellow students (from Russia, Germany, Turkey, Czech and Poland) went with us on our way home from Taiwan to Philippines. They enjoyed touring our home university, touring Samal and Camiguin islands, riding our crazy jeepneys and even hitch-riding the tubo-tubo (a huge cargo truck for sugar canes). On such particular tour, we enjoyed whitewater rafting at Cagayan de Oro City. We took the beginner rapids.

Here are some of the highlights:

The jeepney that brought us to the site.

Us ready to rumble with the rapids!

Paddling the white rapids.

Clinging to each other as not to fall in the cascading water. 

Clinging on or we might fall! so funny and scary! 

Rapids or not, we still managed to smile lol!

Look at these scary noisy rapids! 

Paddle paddle!  

Conquering the rapids! Oh yeah! 

Surfing the rapids! 

Fell down!

Me and a friend outbalanced and fell, scary! we need to grab the rope asap or we might get carried away by the strong current. 

That was really fun! 

At the same time enjoying the panoramic view. The forest along the riversides are havens for monkeys.

The river was clean and refreshing!

Plunging to our deaths lol. No, this scary jump was for our graduation (crazy me, 3rd from left).

That was fun! Indeed, adrenaline-pumping one!

Us after the fun (meaning, after eating barbecues with our bare hands lol)!!

So, what are you waiting for? Come and feel the rush of nature's wildest at Cagayan de Oro City. Click here for more info. I wonna get back there myself and experience the fun once more.