Chronicling (and tweeting) 2009 | Anticipating 2010
The collage above summarizes my 2009 in retrospect. It illustrates my how my
personal and professional life was, the
books I read, the
movies and
TV shows I watched, the
trends that I took part of, and
food places I went to during the year. It also contains a few kodak moments I shared with friends and acquaintances. During the year, I had to make more difficult choices. I had a bumpy ride over the winding road, and I look forward to even bumpier paths in 2010, that's on the assumption that I will reach my destination with pride.
Aside from the series of tweets I shared in my blog, below are a few of my top picks:
Most scary day of the Year
- When I resigned from my second employer
Runner-up:
- When I resigned from my first employer?
Most stressful period of the Year
- September 26, 2009 - The day Ondoy created the most hassle day of my life
Runner-up:
- When I was preparing a tender offer proposal for my second employer. It should not have been stressful since it's just a proposal, but the turn of events that led to the drafting made it stressful.
Happiest day of the Year
- When I passed Level I of the CFA Examinations
Runner-up:
- The series of celebrations during my 24th Birthday
Best buy of the year
Runner-up:
- My Giordano Concepts T-shirt
- Merger polos
Kodak Moment of the Year
FYI: I am packing relief goods, haha.
Runner-up:
This was at Harbor Square
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I will no longer set several goals and targets for 2010. I will only target just one, which is to be more serious with my CFA Program review. After the CFA exams, I will enjoy my Macau vacation. Macau, here I come!
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2009 is probably the year that had the most controversial headlines in recent years. The AH1N1 scare, the typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng's unprecedented back-to-back visit to the Philippines, the Maguindanao massacre, Hayden Kho's s-e-x scandals, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's congressional bid, and the death of certain prominent personalities like Francis Magalona, Michael Jackson, and former President Corazon C. Aquino.
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I sincerely pray and hope that we will have a disaster-free and blessed year ahead. Next year will be election year. I really pray that we will all be able to elect the most deserving leaders of our country. I also pray that the coming year will bring us a step further if not closer to our goals and aspirations.
Happy New Year to one and all. May we have no more wacko in one-oh!
Labels: 2010, blessings, New Year, personals, thoughts
No more Wacko in One-oh!
Wishing you all a blessed and hassle-free New Year. I really hope that for us all, there will be no more wacko in one-oh. My personal cheers to all the people who made an impact in my life this year.
Labels: 2009, 2010, New Year, wishes
Tweeting 2009: Personals- A Winding Road
At almost the same time last year, I mentioned in
my blog that
2008 is the year that can be described through several adjectives in the superlative degree. I was so wrong. It is actually 2009. It is the most challenging, stressful and difficult year of my life to date. If I were to think of a metaphor for describing 2009, it was like a winding road.
I was extremely delighted when I received the
news that I passed Level I of the CFA Examinations. At that time, I felt that the news gave me bragging rights and bargaining power in order to move to a hopefully better opportunity. In the last few months of my stay at my first employer, I felt that I had to move in order to grow professionally. It felt as if I was a talent of a local television network who wasn't given a TV show with a format suited for my capabilities and goals. Thus, even if I had to let go of my comfort zones for one year and eight months (after graduation that is), I had to do the
final association on my first employer.
At my second employer, I finally witnessed what investment banking is like. A lot of times, it felt it wasn't as exciting as I imagined, but oftentimes also, it felt overwhelming. Though in general, despite the not-so-alive capital markets, I enjoyed my "saling pusa" investment banking stint in my second employer. It was quite a challenge though because my colleague of the same rank was more capable and knowledgeable, but she remains a really good friend because she is a nice person inside and out. But the real difficulty came from the head of our group and the company's "organizational behavior". Let's just say that my officemates (except for those that are part of what we labeled as the "SNF" group) and my former boss were too exhausting to deal with. However, I would have opted to stay if not for the invitation or offer from my current employer. Thus, I decided to leave. Sadly, my resignation at my second employer was quite controversial.
My current employer is a fast-growing investment house. I thought that the opportunity is timely, and that it might be a worthy grab especially once the company really reaches its intended growth. It will really feel good if I will be one with the company during its growth stage. Also, I believe that the pilot and co-pilots of my current employer are really competent. I hope that I can survive the challenging world of investment banking next year while being with my current firm.
Aside from the change of employers, I also ventured into the not-so-rewarding world of teaching. The pay wasn't big, and it is still being taxed. It also consumes my review time because teaching requires me to prepare for the class. It is also disappointing because 97% of my students do not seem to do their fair share of our academic engagement. However, it quite feels good to do some "filling the skill gap" to the students. Also, at least my teaching stint gave me some sort of better chances in accomplishing my strategic plan.
As usual, I met some new friends and acquaintances during the year, most of which were from the world of work.
Aside from the challenges in my professional aspirations, I actually remember having a lot of literal inconveniences while on the road. I can distinctly remember two events:
- Not sure if June or July 2, 2009 - On the way back from Local Water Utilities Administration, my colleague and I had to take a jeep in going to Katipunan before going to LRT2 and eventually MRT3. We got wet the entire time because of the strong rains, not to mention that the jeep had to pass by a bumpy road, I even remember my head bumped at the ceiling of the jeep. Upon reaching MRT3, there was a blackout that lasted for an hour, and the blackout happened at the exact time I reached the ticket counter.
- September 26, 2009 - Who will forget this date? It was the day when Ondoy surprised the nation with its unanticipated strength, and it was the most hassle day of my life. At 12:00nn, I left San Beda and passed by the flooded Mendiola and Legarda. The body of water was so deep, it was even higher than my knee.
I remain optimistic that things will be better in 2010. Hopefully, I will bid farewell on 2009 wiser and more experienced.
Labels: 2009, blogging, personals
Tweeting 2009: Trends and Discoveries
For the fourth installment of my blog-series titled "Tweeting 2009", I will feature a few of the popular trends that influenced me during the year, as well as a few the food places that I bumped into during the year.
Facebook and Applications
Technically, I started to officially take control of my Facebook acccount as early as 2008. However, it was in 2009 when most people suddenly flooded the cyberworld of facebook, so it's not really inaccurate to say that 2009 was the year of Facebook. Most of my friends and acquaintances who wanted to be a bit "anti-social" tried not to create a Facebook account, only to find out that you will receive a "friend request" from them afterwards. In fact, even the big bosses surprisingly have a Facebook account.
What even made Facebook a major hit this year are the so-called "Applications". In layman's term, Applications pertain to the programs inherent with Facebook that enables you to do something else while connected to Facebook (e.g. playing games, posting and editing pictures, etc). One of the applications that made me become active in Facebook to date is "Mafia Wars". It is a multiplayer browser game that revolves around doing and mastering jobs in order to earn cash and experience, with the goal of establishing and advancing one's criminal empire (description from Wikipedia). It is so popular that even the busiest Facebook friends tried to find time to play the said application. I started playing since April 2009, and I'm still slow relative to the others because as of this writing, my account reached "Level 385".
Other favorite applications of mine include Farm Town, Uno and Scrabble, haha.
Twitter
Another popular web craze during 2009 was the website that became the inspiration of the title of my series of year-ender blog entries. Twitter is a website that allows internet users to short messages of up to 140 characters that are readable to the users' "followers", more popularly known as "tweets". Users and followers can interact with each other via tweets. I remember starting using my Twitter last July 2009. However, I only have a few followers at
my Twitter account. It became useful to news organizations in sharing breaking news, as well as to companies in informing everybody about their latest products and services. It also somehow closes the gap between ordinary people and celebrities by allowing the former to react to the tweets of the latter. Right now, I'm using twitter in getting the latest updates from Cebu Pacific.
The Heckler
The political humor blog "
The Professional Heckler" has been in existence in the cyberspace for like 2-3 years, and yet, it already gained a massive following from the web surfers, particularly those that are keenly interested in politics. It's quite unfortunate that I became a regular follower of the said blog for like a year now. This blog really deserves our views.
White Hat
Did you know that all of a sudden, several yogurt stores/stands popped-up on different shopping malls? However, my favorite to date is "White Hat", the yogurt store inside the Kidz Station in Greenbelt 5. I love their strawberry yogurt, for it's delicious even without toppings, not to mention the fact that it's not crowded.
Other favorite food places during the year:
- Yagami Cafe (now closed, formerly at Dela Rosa) - super small cafe with only around 5-6 tables. We used to dominate the place just for ourselves while I was still with my very first employer.
- Cafe Indulgence (Perea, Makati) - though their food presentation is quite bland if not plain, their pastas are really tasty. The PHP165-180 pasta would be "sulit" enough.
- Cafe Agogo (near Makati Medical Center) - such a nice "hideout", literally.
- Cafe Saguijo (near Bagtikan, Makati) - an even better "hideout", literally
- Kimchi, Makati Square - aside from enjoying their chicken barbeque, you can enjoy going around Makati Square to look for DVDs
- Lamesa Restaurant (Greenbelt 5) - quite pricy, but their peking chicken and laing are both really delicious
- Mr. Kabab, West Avenue - really nice and heavy chicken and beef kabab at very affordable prices.
Watch out for my last year-ender entry titled "Tweeting 2009: Personals", as well as my opening blog entry for 2010 titled "Chronicling 2009 | Anticipating 2010".
Labels: 2009, blogging, food, technology
Tweeting 2009: Books
The year also allowed me to slowly attempt to do something I'm so not good at doing: Reading. There are at least two books that I spent quality time with during the year.
Last January, a good friend of mine sent me the book "
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand". I fell in love with the book. The protagonist in the said novel chose to live in a life of struggle rather than compromise on what he believes as what architecture should be. In the novel, the main character is some sort of an unwanted architect because the architectural world finds his architectural works as unacceptable. In particular, the protagonist's modern architectural works are being challenged and are treated as unwished-for. Unfortunately, as much as I want to be like the main character, it cannot be done.
Outliers
On the other hand, an ex-boss of mine told me that there was a book that suggests that it only takes 10,000 hours before a person can be a master of anything. Out of curiousity, I grabbed a copy of the said book from Fully Booked. It had a very interesting take on how success should be viewed. The author acknowledges that inherent talent or capabilities are a major part of the equation of success, but the other part of the equation is timing and opportunity. The author specifically cited the stories of Chris Langan, Bill Gates, and the founder of Sun Microsystems to prove his point. He also pointed out that culture and upbringing is equally relevant, citing the stories of plane crashes to further prove his case. I am about to finish reading the book as of this writing.
For 2010, I look forward to completely reading the book below.
Labels: 2009, blogging, books
