Mary Jane's Niche

And what do you know I remembered my blog!

How are you my niche? It has been a while since the last time that I poured my heart out to you. Maybe I was just afraid that someone might be reading what I’m writing here. Someone who I don’t really want to know what I’m really feeling because I am not used to sharing my feelings with him or her. But I guess I don’t have to worry about that now right? You have come a long way my blog. You are a part of a community now. You don’t belong to only me anymore. This might be the last blog post that I’m going to share with you how I’m really feeling these days.

So many things has happened last year. I thought it was going to be the best year of my life. But it was not. Year 2009 started really great actually. I was having the best time of my life. I finally had the freedom that I have always dreamed of. I was having fun with Tim. I felt so loved by him, my family and my few close friends. I was traveling to places I have never been. I had (and still have) the best job and the best boss ever. I work on my own time. I had (and still have) the financial freedom that I have always wanted. Everything was going so well. But the year 2009 left a devastatingly huge black hole of emptiness in my life.

I have learned so many things last year. One of them is to value time. Especially the time that you have with your loved ones, your family. I don’t have to explain why right? Now I believe that life is definitely too short. To those who don’t know this yet, don’t wait for your very own wake up call.

I have always tried to live my life to the fullest without stepping on someone else’s life. And I will continue to do so. I just want to get something out of my system. I just want the whole world to know that even though I am laughing, smiling and acting like everything’s doing great right now, it’s because I have accepted the fact that my father is gone. I know and feel that he is in a better place right now watching over us. And I also know that if I will be a really good girl, I will be with him too when the time is right.

God I miss Papang.

The happiest people in the world are those who have a hard time recalling their worries..

and an easy time remembering their blessings.

–Alin Austin

Iloilo Bloggers (photo courtesy of Junelle)

I had an awesome weekend! And this post is so late. LOL. Last Saturday August 15th was the first meet-up of the Iloilo Bloggers. We had lunch at Fort San Pedro and discussed the future of our group. We elected a new set of officers and planned for future events and meet-ups. Congrats to Claire – our new President! The lunch and meeting was fun because everyone really had the best sense of humor. You should hear Efren and Junelle laugh! It was also great to see Marcos again and I’m glad to meet Antoine Greg in person. We are also recruiting Ronald to become a member of the group as well as some of Junnjun’s friends!

To know more about the meet-up you can go here and for pictures you can click here.

And last Sunday, Tim went home to Kabankalan so I had the chance to hang out with my best pals Monica and Amy. We had lunch and coffee. I haven’t seen Amy since we went to Guimaras in May so we had so much stuff to ‘talk’ about. LOL. Monica and I meet often so I don’t miss her. Joke lang Nix!harhar!

MJ, Nicay & Mimay

For more photos of my Sunday please check out my photoblog.

Calling all members of IloiloBloggers.com, we are having our very first meet-up this Saturday, August 15th so all members are invited to attend. We are having lunch at Fort San Pedro so please come on or before 12PM alright? Don’t worry about the tab because some members are going to take care of it but if you want to contribute you are very welcome to do so too. We will discuss the following agenda:

Meeting Agenda:

• Getting to know
• Event to put up
• Site / Group administrators
• Fund raising activities
• Mode of communication
• Suggestions for improvement

So for those who want to attend please RSVP here. You can also state your suggestions and expectations there. Hope to see more Iloilo Bloggers this Saturday!

“SM believes that no customer should be left behind.”

-Mr. Abraham Imas

Last Friday, July 31st, I attended SM City Iloilo’s Free WiFi Launch with the Iloilo Bloggers and some of my blogger and VA friends. It was not as great as we expected because for one it didn’t start on time but still we managed to have fun and fulfill our duties as bloggers. We took photos and now I am writing my blog post. I met more members of the Iloilo Bloggers (it was really nice to finally meet Efren, Vincent Juanga of Inicenti, Alvin of Oh My Iloilo and Vincent of ExploreAklan!) and I also saw some popular Pinoy billiard players too and an upcoming presidentiable (although he’s not part of the WiFi event). I thought the launch was for bloggers, forumers and IT people only but it actually was not. It was also for the Senior Citizens, the families of the OFWs, people from OWWA, and various IT organizations and students from the different schools here in Iloilo as well. Everyone received freebies from SM and their sponsors.  Jonha, Monica and I also won a GC courtesy of Figaro from the raffle . A Lola Techie from the Senior Citizens organization won a Nokia Phone too! Congratulations to her!

I would like to thank SM City Iloilo for inviting the Iloilo Bloggers and of course for the freebies and the free Wifi. A big thank you to all the sponsors; Jollibee (for the free meal), Netopia (for the Click Club membership card and Microsoft Training gift card), Café Celina,  Mister Donut, Our Home, Saint Café, Picture City, Bo’s Café, SM Cinema, Text Terminal, Q-Solutions, Figaro and Philcom.

Here’s a copy of the program of SM City Iloilo’s Free WiFi Launch:

SM Wi-Fi Launch

July 31, 2009

3:00            Registration

Program Proper

3:15            Opening Remarks         -Majella P. Liboon (Mall Manager, SM City Iloilo)

3:20            Message                          -Nimfa Hirang (Sales and Marketing, Philcom)

3:25            Raffle                               -15 Gcs

3:30            Message                         -Steve Santos (Operations Manager, SM Cyberzone)

Countdown to the launching of the WiFi (test the system by by connecting to the SM Website)

Smash Collection Dancers

3:45            Raffle                              -15 GCs

3:50            Live Video Conferencing with SM City Bacolod

4:10            Closing Remarks        -Abraham Imas (Educ. Supervisor, SPED, DepEd, Division of Iloilo)

Final Raffle                     1 Unit Nokia Cellphone

4:10            Seminar                          -Angelo Arendain (Network & Systems Administrator, DepEd)

Free Tutorial                -for OFWs and Elderly (Facilitated by STI College)

***the live video conference with Bacolod didn’t happen because SM City Iloilo started their program late.

And here are our photos:

And by the way I have another blog post about the event somewhere on one of my web accounts. And it isn’t as nice as this one.

UPDATE:

Because of insistent public demand (as if! LOL) Here’s the link to the not so nice blog post.

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory is sending a rover to Mars in 2011 so they’re inviting and encouraging everyone to participate by filling up a simple form with our names so we could have our names included on a microchip that will be in the rover. Isn’t it exciting? So even if we can’t go to Mars physically at least our names could get to go. So if you want you could join in the fun too!

weeeee!

of course my name’s not going anywhere without his name too.

I made this video a couple of weeks ago. Just want to share it with everyone.

I know I haven’t blogged for 2 weeks now. It has been a couple of hectic weeks. What with my brothers getting sick and some urgent stuffs to finish at work. I’m going to postpone writing about our Boracay vacation for now to give way to my Kabankalan escapade.

Last Saturday, 23rd of May, I finally got the chance to go to Kabankalan. Tim’s hometown. I went there along with my little brother Rino John and Tim of course. I got to meet Tim’s parents for the 3rd time and his sisters the first time (except for Dainah because we met a couple of times in the past when she went here to Iloilo). We stayed there until the 26th so that’s about 4 days and 3 nights. I loved Kabankalan! Not only did Tim’s family and relatives welcome us in their homes but they also gave us a tour of the city. I didn’t know that they have a palace-like city hall. You have to see it to believe it. It looks more expensive than our Capitol actually., honest. And Kabankalan is a very clean city. They have clean streets. Yes I know Iloilo is also clean but Kabankalan’s cleaner. Maybe its because Kabankalan is still more a rural city than urbanized. Their cathedral is also a lovely structure. It won’t rival Jaro Cathedral but still it’s a beautiful place to worship the Lord. We heard Mass there last Sunday.

But seriously, I enjoyed my stay there. I got to meet Tim’s wonderful family and that’s all that matters. I think I got chubbier too, gained a few pounds. Because all we did there was eat and eat and I’m blaming Tita Warlit because of that. Haha! She went out of her way to make us feel comfortable at their home along with Tito Ledo and we really appreciate it. When we arrived on the 23rd it was Ken – Tim’s cousin’s birthday. And then on the 25th was Hans – Tim’s nephew’s birthday. So what with no exercise and just lounging around – who won’t gain weight? LOL.  Speaking of food, I miss Tita Jane’s spaghetti.

I wonder when I’ll be allowed to go back there again.

Here are a few of the photos we took during our stay there. Enjoy!