I Am Blessed, I Am Grateful...

     I celebrate my birthday today with a thankful heart and a humbled spirit.  Words cannot fully illustrate my gratitude and to bespeak them will always be an understatement.  I live not a perfect life but I have made it my rule to always look at it with positivity and deal with circumstances with sincere optimism.  It doesn't make me complacent nor less vigilant, instead, I acknowledge imperfections for what they are.  And then I take the challenge without losing sight of what's truly important.

     We have things to learn from each moment of life and yes -- even from the darkest of hours.  To face it with optimism requires nothing less but courage and character, and at the end, for what we have lost, we also have gains.  We gain truth from the pain, strengths from the weaknesses, realizations from the shortcomings, maturity from the experiences, acceptance from defeat.

Post-Birthday Post...

     It's been weeks since my birthday but I'm still getting a few greetings here and there.  Thanks a lot for the warm birthday wishes!  Special thank you to my guest writer who wrote a truly touching article about me.  That was one birthday gift I shall never forget! 

I also wanna say thank you to my little sister Hannah for the cake!

     Uhm... what did I do last November 4?  I was still awake at 12 midnight, got some greetings from my really close friends who always remember every year to greet me the moment the clock strikes 12.   I slept for 8 hours and I started my day around 10AM.  While drying my gel, I responded to some greetings on facebook, on twitter and on here.  My parents texted me and a few friends who knows my mobile.  At 3PM I went to Pasig church to hear mass and thank the Lord for all the blessings.  When I got there, there's a funeral going on and I was wearing black -- how convenient!  So I made a quick prayer of thanks, made a U-Turn and promised myself that I will go to church on the Sunday that will follow.  I went to the mall to buy some stuff for myself...  watched 'the social network' while munching on some pizza and sipping on a monster coke float... and had some coffee at Starbucks on my way home at around midnight.

My AWESOME birthday for 2010

Yay! Happy Birthday to ME! 

     To spice things up and to divert from the usual (and to make my birthday week a bit more special), I've asked someone to write my birthday post for me.  

     So... just who is my guest writer?  She's an accomplished author, an editor-in-chief of a publication in Manila, a brilliant professor, a trusted friend, a lady and a confidante.  If you've read my posts, I might've mentioned her somewhere on here.  Here's what she has to say about ME.... 

This was my profile picture on Facebook (which she obviously abhorred) at the time she added me...

     He was a bane.  Until I got to know the real person behind the naughty profile pic then I came to realize that he was actually a boon.  Our common friend Butch Lotivio asked me to add him in facebook.  At that time, he wanted to gather all his friends so he asked me to add him in my list.  Butch must be kidding when he told me that his friend was a nice guy.  His profile pic showed otherwise.  But to do my friend a favor, I opted to add.  He did confirm days after and eventually changed his profile pic to something relatively amiable and ABSOLUTELY HANDSOME.

Real Name:     MICHAEL LOTINO MONTALBAN
Nick Name:     MYKE/BONG

     There he is -- Michael Lotino Montalban to his friends in Facebook, Myke to his more familiar friends, Bong to his long-time buddies but to me, he is the Chief Justice.  (Sorry peeps, I will have to leave out the part on how he became the Chief Justice as that part seems to be the most boring part of his prominently colorful life.)

Then i changed my profile picture to this after a few days...

     I barely know CJ (Chief Justice) -- given only a couple of months of sharing a love-hate kind of friendship with him.  What I am about to reveal here is just a small portion of how I see him but not a faint proof of how much I value this man’s friendship with me.  What I am about to say may or may not be true but I bet it would be totally interesting for those who want to know your kind of guy.

Jeb's Birthday

     My brother Jeb celebrated his birthday a week ago and we thought it would be a good idea to pig out on the eat all you can buffet at Dad's.  Afterwards, we agreed it would be awesome to either go bowling or watch a movie.  We were full and we'd like to sit down so we opted for the movie instead.

     We had a hard time choosing between Toy Story and Inception.  We kinda liked Sorcerer's Apprentice too.  In the end, we watched Karate Kid since nobody wanted to give up his/her choice.  We were hungry again after the brain draining discussion about which movie to watch -- so we indulged ourselves with coke floats and fries.  LOL!  We just agreed to have a movie marathon on the next free weekend...  And we're gonna watch all three of them and maybe some more... whew!

     Here are some shots taken at the mall and inside the movie house...

     That's me. I like wearing comfy shorts and some nice shirt...  I'm actually just wearing slippers that day. Please don't mind the goatee, I shave once a week and let it grow evenly on my face on areas where I want them... except that week, i got so busy that I hadn't had the time to take care of stuff...

Hannah's Birthday

     I share an apartment with my bro Jeb and our little sister Hannah.... We all work far from home so we needed a place that's both comfortable and convenient for all of us. We are young professionals so as much as possible, we need to be smart asses about our expenses.

     We hang out if we have spare time or if our days off work are the same. We go watch movies that people are recently raving about, or have our favorite fraps (mine's java chips) at Starbucks or  indulge ourselves in those yummy pizza and pasta at Yellow Cab or Sbarro -- pizza time would be my favorite activity.

     We went out last week and watched Eclipse, it was also Hannah's birthday movie treat... It's been something we've been meaning to do and it was long overdue.  (Did i just rhyme on that last line? ☺)

     I did not enjoy the movie much... but i tried really hard to like it!

     Anyway, here are some pictures taken that day...

She's trying to decide which team she'll side on...