A toast for the New Year!

In about 9 hours' time, we welcome Year 2007. As many people already know, 2006 has been quite of a rouch patch for me, having to deal with finishing school with good grades (Theology!!!), almost accepting a job offer and tying myself up for 2 years, figuring out my life's direction, seeing my dream of getting to England and catching my first football match... and seeing that dream get crushed, changing plans every so often- from wanting to do an MSc (in the UK), to go to law school, to med school, to CS, then finally to MA, finally settling in with a plan, preparing to get the visa, getting shit scared about getting denied, doing the interview and finally, inching and being so much closer to finally fulfilling at least part of the plan.

While the most memorable of moments for some people are those in high school or college, or grade school even, mine just has got to be the moments when I finally got out of school. For the past 16 years or so of my life, it's been nothing but an almost dull and lifeless work of art. But I'm finally breaking away, just as Kelly Clarkson sings. This is what I consider the turning point of my life. A new opportunity, a new year, even a new life perhaps. Whether this point onwards would be as good as I how I make it sound to be, I'd still have to find out. It could take another 5-10 years before I can make another blog entry of this sort, before I can say whether this 'exciting' new facet is really as exciting as I think it is at this very moment or not.

Apparently, it's difficult to tell. In fact, there's no other way we can tell except by living life. Living it as it unfolds right before our eyes, my eyes. Will I find good fortune? I don't know. It certainly sounds lovely; almost everyone just dreams of a good fortune. It's living the American Dream for some, it's digging gold some place else for others. I belong to the latter, refusing to follow the bandwagon of people migrating to the States. My newly found love for sport, for football just fuels that refusal to follow so much more. At one point or another, if not in England, I'd at least settle in a footballing country. In one of my previous blog entries, I said I don't really have to settle in England, that as long as I satisfy my intense craving for a live football match once or twice a year, I'd be good. Perhaps when I said that, I was partly convinced I'd be living in the States a couple of years from now. But then again, I don't know. One, again I'm not so sure I'd want to migrate there. Two, there's just too much of the sport going on in my mind. Finally and most importantly, we don't know how things would go for me. I, would, just, have, to, wait.

For now, here's to hoping that everyone gets a blast (and I don't mind bloody, exploded hands) welcoming the new year, that 2007 serves a lot of promise, that we all succeed in our endeavors, that there be less politicking and insensitivity, that hope keeps Filipinos alive no matter how much adversity they meet, that there be more opportunities for more people- and that these people make wise moves towards those opportunities, that they prioritize life, success and well-being over the mundane things, and finally, that all things that people do, think, and say, would make sense. Instead of giving each of us some bits of rubbish.

As for my short-term toast- here's to hoping that I get a roomie at least half as passionate as I am with football, that I get an internship at WB or IMF, and that what I'll be doing for the next 3-4 months would be exciting enough for me to ignore the freezing blows of winter.

Now that would be a blast.

Worker during the day, sportswriter by night.

Because my sportswriting career just kicked off, there's still the excitement that comes along with every article written, edited and published on the site. It was good seeing my first article on the front page, thought it wasn't the headline. It motivated me to submit another one just a day after it was published. It was actually a revised version of an old blog entry about falling in love with the game, how it started during the World Cup and why I fell in love with it. How lucky that the second one got published a day after I submitted, albeit not on the front page. You don't get lucky everyday.

And the body...

This is getting serious. Am I really pursuing this?! As the blog title says, I'm becoming a worker during the day and a sportswriter by night. I'm already on my way to the third article, which I hope to finish before the week ends. It's not as easy to do as the first two, where they're purely based on observations and opinions. The third one's requiring some research. Hehe. See? Told you I'm serious!

Football Writing Career Kick-off

As some of my friends already know, someone from Sportingo.com left a comment in my football blog asking if I want to publish some football articles. How she came across my blog, I don't know and it doesn't matter. My first reaction to the offer was, seriously? Maybe this isn't too much of a big deal. After all, we're not talking about me being the only writer on the site. Neither are we talking about publishing my articles on the national paper. But well, given that I'm a newbiew to all things football, yes, 7 months of fanaticism is still pristine compared to the million others who have already spent half their lifetimes following the sport.

Given my utter love for the game, of course, I said yes to it. I won't get paid of course. There's no commitment as well to the number of articles I'd have to submit every week/month. I submit at my own volition. Moreover, this gives me the feeling of taking my love for the sport a step further. I'm not expert in the sport but I guess I know enough to be able to write something about it and my team. I was far from being an A student in my English classes back in college (take note: I finished college just 9 months ago) but I guess I can write pretty decently.

So I submitted my first article yesterday and people at Sportingo were surely busy working people, even during the holidays. Remember it was the 24th yesterday and just hours after I submitted my first ever articles, I already saw it on their site. Hurrah, hurrah!

That was from the main site. By the way, when I checked this morning, there were already 2 comments and one of them was: "You are a cunt!" Way to gooo! Ha. Ha. Ha. The admin apparently found it offensive and therefore, deleted it. Now there's just one left.

This is a preview of my article on the site:
Thinking about it, I'd want to make this part of whatever I'll be doing in the future. Seriously. If I can't play football, (my status message in yahoo messenger the other day said: Hey, it might be too late for me to become a striker or a midfielder or a defender, but it ain't too late to become a goalie! Or something like that) I could only follow it and write about it. After all, I maintain a footie blog. So why not continue, right?

For anyone interested (though I doubt there's anyone out there), feel free to check out my article.

Happy Holidays! Cheers!

Changes

Today is December 19, less than a week before Christmas. This year, a number of things have changed.

1. Around this time last year, I was already feeling the breeze of Christmas, feeling giddy over nobody in particular, just giddy over the season- as I've almost always been.

2. I missed the first night of Simbang Gabi since I had to leave very early for Manila for an appointment. Because I have been significantly less religious this year, I decided to just abandon the whole novena altogether... in exchange of, well, uninterrupted 10-to-12-hour sleep. I know, I'm becoming more and more evil, one by one dropping the common practices of a Christian.

3. I am no longer THAT excited over the prospect of leaving since I am not leaving to catch live football matches. Again and again, football has become my primary, if not the only, reason why I want to fly to UK.

4. In lieu of #3, some people say I'm 'obsessed' with football. I'm in love with it, admittedly but to say that I'm obsessed is an overstatement, I think. Compare myself with the rest of the people of the footballing countries especially England. Maybe I'm just half as obsessed as them. I have never followed anything this closely my entire life but look at how these people follow the games. (Or could it be that I'm only disadvantaged because I'm here, otherwise I'd also be exactly just like them? He, whatever.)

Anyway, happy holidays everyone!

All I Want for Christmas....

...is you!

(If only you weren't expensive!)

Post-Op; Recovering.

I'm now on my 4th day of recovering from the endoscopic sinus surgery and septoplasty I had last Friday morning. I am feeling fine. Thank God and the doctor, I am not feeling pain. Friday and Saturday were two of the most difficult days of my life, not being able (wanting) to talk all throughout. When talked to, I only gave a nod or a shake of the head for yes or no questions. At times, I just didn't bother answering. My throat was hurting too much that I didn't eat almost the whole 2 days. But now I'm fine. I started feeling good when the tube/balloon inserted into my left nostril was removed on Sunday; my throat also stopped hurting that moment. I opted to go for a soft diet. I'm still eating porridge for lunch and dinner. My first non-soft-diet meal was yesterday when I had a burger for merienda. I just needed to have something else.

Tomorrow, I'm going back to the doctor for the check-up. I hope everything would be fine. No infections whatsoever. I just want to be and feel normal. I just want to feel as normal as what I felt that very moment the balloon was removed. Ah, relief. I am happy I decided to have him do the operation. I don't trust anybody else to do it. Perhaps I just fear having a less competent ENT do it for me. Of course, I don't have a basis in saying the others are less competent but knowing that couple of people told me he is very good, he is the best, then despite it being more expensive (I suppose), then what the heck, we're talking about safety and well-being.

I am looking forward to that day when I'd completely feel normal again. He said it'd take about 2-3 weeks of recovery period. Thank God in advance.

Weirdo.

After watching the most recent episode of Grey's Anatomy, all of a sudden, I felt tired. I was left longing to feel, and think, and talk. But also left with nothing to feel, and think, and talk about.

Labo.