Happy Birthday!

It's the first of the month! Hopefully everyone who is going to celebrate their birthday have a wonderful time doing so with their loved ones!

My laptop is out of commission right now, so I'm going to rely on past entries to list all those celebrating this month. If I miss your birthday, my apologies and message me so I can add you to my list.

2 - Ed I.
3 - Val P.
4 - Chay P.
5 - Pat B., Jonil B.
6 - Jen L., Ambo E., PJ C.
7 - Jench C., Eugene T.
9 - GT M., Janice C.
10 - Lolo Frank, Cecile A.
12 - Maha M., Aisa L.
13 - Lola Charito
15 - David H., Nicole P., Nageeb I.
16 - Gina T., Adrian L.
18 - Frankie T.
19 - Ryan C.
20 - John & Paul I., and me!
21 - Lola, Jego R., Joey E., Cris T.
22 - Joey T. and Tito Kay
24 - Loric B.
27 - Bhonny C.
28 - Enzo C., Ken E.
29 - Cris S.
30 - Kelley M., Paolo A.
31 - Miqui G.

God bless and may you all have more blessings in the future!

Noelology...

Let others know a little more about yourself, repost "_______OLOGY"

Q: What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. Caesar

Q: What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. Arbee's unfortunately you can't find them in NYC

Q: What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. Dallas BBQ, Curry in a Hurry & Brazil Grill

Q: On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. here in NYC, i just double the tax, if the service was excellent i add a few more dollars

Q: What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of it?
A: Kellog's special K, and Fried Chicken with white rice - i ate that for a month when franny went home to manila.

Q: What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. cheese, pepperoni and sausages

Q: What do you like to put on your toast?
A. just plain butter

TECHNOLOGY

Q: What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. no pic, just a plain blue screen

Q: How many televisions are in your house?
A. 1

BIOLOGY

Q: Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. right-handed

Q: Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. they took out my wisdom tooth last summer.

Q: What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. a large suitcase someone was trying to get up from the subway

Q: Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. nopes. but i have been knocked silly already

BULLCRAPOLOGY

Q: If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. after thinking about it, yes

Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. i'm happy with my name already

Q: What color do you think looks best on you?
A: no idea, though lately i have been shifting to brighter colors

Q: Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. not recently, but many times when i was a kid

Q: Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. nopes (in the very literal sense)

Q: Has someone ever saved yours?
A. nopes

DAREOLOGY

Q: Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. nopes

Q: Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000
A. depends which finger? and which hand

Q: Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. just show me the money

Q: Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. nopes

Q: Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. even if i wanted to, my stomach wouldn't be able to handle it

Q: Would you, without fear of punishment, take a humans life for $1,000,000?
A. nopes

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A. handkerchief

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. haven't seen the movie except for the dance scene

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A. carpet - dull gray

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A. stand

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A. 2 pairs - one for home use, the other for gimiks

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A. Jan 1, 2005 - got caught speeding in Ocala, FL

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. content with my life

Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8?
A. top 8? important people? friends? movies? huh, pero i'll take it as i see it -> God.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A. franny

Q: Last person who called you?
A. karla

Q: Person you hugged?
A. franny

Q: Person you kissed?
A. franny

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A. 3

Q: Season?
A: fall

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A. yup yup

Q: Mood?
A. tired, my body is aching all over

Q: Listening to?
A: the sound my keyboard makes

Q: Watching?
A. nothing

Q: Worrying about?
A: my lesson plan for tomorrow

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A. bathroom

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A. go on a nice vacation out of NYC

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?
A. in the cinema, Bourne Ultimatum

Q: Do you smile often?
A. yup

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A. i'd like to think that i am.

Advanced Happy Birthday to me!!!

Even though it's just september. I have already received my birthday gift!

Thank you Franny. Love you so much!


Oh and to clarify, I didn't wake up to find the wii next to my bed. We bought it last night, cause Target finally had some consoles in stock!

i'm tired...

as the subject goes...

I am tired...

i'm this kind of ice cream...

You Are Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

http://images.blogthings.com/whatflavoricecreamareyouquiz/chocolate-chip.jpg" height="100" width="100"> You are kind, popular, and generous. You tend to be successful at anything you try. A social butterfly, you are great at entertaining a crowd. You are most compatible with strawberry ice cream.

What>http://www.blogthings.com/whatflavoricecreamareyouquiz/">What Flavor Ice Cream Are You?

producer surplus...

Today was a rather pathetic day for me with regards to my teaching.

Let me just go straight to the story, for the love of Adam Smith, I couldn't explain to my students producer surplus properly with the use of a graph. It just felt like my brain decided to just shut down and say, no more lessons for today! I was drawing the graphs cause that's easy enough, but for some reason, none of my calculations were making sense.

My God it was so bad!!!

I just promised that on Monday I'll have everything straightened out. What annoys me more is that I actually figured out the problem after class. At least I don't have to think about it during the weekend.

Parable of the Prodigal Son

For those of us who are catholics, I'm sure the parable I mentioned is one of those that we pretty much can retell off the top of our heads. It is one of those stories which gets retold every year and is always to talk about God's unending love and how all we have to do is ask for His forgiveness and He will accept us back in his fold.

You might be wondering why the sudden talk about this parable, well it was one of the readings read during the Gospel last Sunday and it was also read during a prayer meeting which I attended while my in-laws were in town.

I'll admit that at some point, one tends to drift off when one is listening to it, or to the Homily that follows given that the moral of the story has pretty much been the same always. But this time, I guess for some reason, I thought about the parable and came out with a few thoughts about it as well.

One of the main ideas is the the fact that God is there, willing to forgive us and rejoices in our return to Him. And that the repentant son, has realized the error of his ways, and asks for forgiveness.

But I guess what struck me, was the fact in which the son comes to that realization. It is in the lowest point of his life that he comes to this realization. In some ways, I feel that one of the lessons we have to pick up is that we shouldn't fall into despair. It is indeed easy to wallow in self-pity or to just give up and just surrender to whatever fate we are in. But that is the trap that we must not fall into. We must also remember that God is there waiting for us to come back and guide us with open arms. It just necesitates that we are willing to accept Him into our lives, and not push him away or walk away, just as the son did at the start of the story.

That's really what I thought of during the Mass, that we really must try to stay away from the feeling of despair. It is indeed understandable to go through a period but to allow ourselves to remain in such a state is unacceptable for us, knowing that the Lord indeed is there, and that He has a wonderful plan for us. (on a personal note, I really didn't believe in this as well, but after all that has happened to me the past few years, I really am a firm believer in this!)

Just a little something I thought I'd share...

How to Relax about Money!

Here is a little something written by Sark. It's a poster I bought during my first year in the US.

relax.
your money is not your life.
it just seems that way sometimes.
true wealth is inside of you.
learn to cultivate
money miracles. go back to
money innnocence.
be who you truly are
and the money will follow.
you are safe.
if you find yourself worrying
about money, why were you lost
in the first place? read
"money and how it gets that way"
by Henry Miller.
make friends with money.
money is like love -
the more you give away,
the more comes back.
watch the movie, "it's a
wonderful life." when any money
flows in for you, it's time to help
others.

Help them now.
money was invented to be shared.
start a revolution: refuse
to believe in recessions.
we need to rewrite recession
to read : money recess.
remember recess? you got to go
outside, kick a ball,
and feel free from school.
we all need to feel free
about money!
take a deep breath.
what you are worth is not about
money.

Relax. You are safe.

friends in town...

Mark and Ton-ton, two of my closest friends from high school came over for a few days to go around NYC. Was a pretty quick trip for both especially for Mark since he arrived on Thursday and left Sunday while Ton, spent just a quick week.

We had dinner at Olives a restaurant owned by Chef Todd English located in the Union Square Area. It was a nice quiet restaurant which allowed us to relax and catch up on how things were with each other. I highly recommend this place.

We then just walked towards Times Square to enjoy the nice weather. There are more pictures during their visit on the photos page of my blog.

Ton-ton went to six flags with his friend during the weekend, while Mark along with the other pinoys here and I went to check out Coney Island, which we heard was going to be shut down (I have no idea if this is confirmed).

It was nice having them in town. Hopefully next time the others from our barkada can join us and spend more time here in NYC. One week really isn't enough to go around and check everything out. You could try to cram it but more than likely you'll end up looking like this...

another school year has begun...

Well school has officially started, this semester, I was assigned to teach 2 basic macroecon classes, but since I'm now working, I was allowed to drop one of the classes and retain my 6-715pm class.

I know some might say I'm crazy for still wanting to teach especially after working the whole day in the city. But I just say that I enjoy teaching. For me, I really don't get tired from teaching. I find it actually energizing and refreshing. Teaching is the fun part, having to hold consultation hours however is what I don't enjoy.

Hopefully this rush I feel when I teach lasts throughout the semester, since before I was always just teaching and not doing anything else. Good luck to my students, may you find clarity and substance from my lectures. Hehehe!!!