A Year in Retrospect and a Year to Behold

First blog of 2009:

Sorry about being 3 days late, but I finally got a moment to myself. New Years Eve until now I have been blessed with amazing (non-stop) company. Now that I've got a chance, I can reflect for myself on how the year was and what I hope the future holds in store for me. In regards to the future, I don't want to get my hopes up too much because it's a long fall from the top, and I'm not planning on this being a disappointing year. On the contrary, this year is estimated to be the best one yet. But let's start with the previous year first.

This ain't going to be the easiest because quite frankly, I don't remember much prior to summer. Spring semester was a breeze. My goal was to finish my GE at Cypress in order to move on to bigger, better things. I ended up working out consistently for the first time in my life because I had to clock in 72 hours of weight-lifting in order to graduate. What a weird stipulation huh? Turns out I was 1 unit short from having all my units, so I had to increase my hours at the gym. I honestly don't remember all my classes. I remember having Biology (boring), Intercultural Communication (not as educational as I was hoping it to be), a hard-ass online writing class for English that I hated the teacher, and U.S. History with my ultra-Republican teacher, who was fun and interesting (she carries a gun ;) ). Got through the semester and ended up not going to my graduation because of work.

Boys and Girls Club
Work consumed me at some points. I never, ever took a day off for a year straight. To this date, I've only taken off one day of work, soon to be two at the end of this month. I worked hard, believed in myself and the kids, and I believe I made an impact on a lot of kids' lives. Special moments had to be during basketball season, which was my favorite period as a coach, and baseball season, which we only lost 1 game and won the championship. My boss brought me to my site because I told him that I could win their site a baseball championship. Not only did I stay true to my word, we completely dominated the competition. This next year I hope to instill a greater or equal love for the sport yet again while winning a second championship. Boys and Girls Club summer ended up being a breeze, where the kids brought me Ceviche for a fiesta party, and I got to know the kids a lot better. Best summer work ever. This new school year has brought me a promotion and headaches. The kids are great, even though something tells me that this is a new generation in more than the name, but the job is getting in the way of my schooling and my health habits. Because I'm working so much I don't get to eat with my family or have a good lunch very much, that I end up eating out with unhealthy food or not eating at all. Something's going to give, and although I feel that I have one of the best jobs in the world, I will not be working there past June or August (at the latest).

God
I grew tremendously in my faith this year, even being a guy that people would seek theological advice from at times. This baffled me because I never once saw myself as being that person, the guy who can help guide others in their faith. Stephanie Crandell asked me to be her sponsor, other friends asked information from me because they felt some of the other guys were too intimidating. Then summer and Steubenville came, and I was becoming involved with someone. It had been almost a year since my last relationship, but even though this one didn't get too far off the ground, I will always remember the faith experience that I shared on this retreat. I was talking to this girl on the phone after the first night. It had been a hell of a drive to get to Arizona, and we got there late. I felt that a lot of people were there with the wrong mindset, and seeing this retreat as a vacation or a hangout. I asked the girl on the phone to pray for me, to pray to God to grant me wisdom and be a guiding light to my friends in my youth group. The next night I did not know what to do when we were asked to accept the Holy Spirit in our lives. I stood there thinking, I've done this before, yet before I knew it, God had planted wisdom within me. I felt compelled to go to each member of my youth group and pray over them. Every person, and I truly felt God's presence guiding me. The night before God had granted me strength to lead the group discussion with the fellas after Eucharistic Adoration. Mike was MIA and I knew that I needed to step up. Thinking back through my troubles I've had during the Fall in my relationship with God, to the revival of my love for Him more recently, summer seems so far away.

Liwanag
Liwanag ended up being my saving grace last year. I went to every meeting Spring semester getting to know my "fellow Filipinos" and growing in my love for God. I experience His love through music and friendship, and that's exactly what I experienced Spring semester. I made some amazing friends with whom our relationships are still growing and strengthening. Prominent people that come to mind this past year would have to be Ace, Charmaine, Jem, Brenton, Joe, Chris Beltran, Gerard, Ray, and Nez. They are not the only ones, but these people inspired my behavior and taught me to be more selfless, humble, and Christ-like to everyone around me. Going to Liwanag actually curved my jagged edges of always wanting to be the center of attention. I now know God should be the center of attention, and when I try to place myself ahead of God, I am failing Him. The end of the year and summer actually gave me some of my best memories of the year with the camping, the dancing and the Improv (especially with 2011).

Hurt
I went through some tough times early on, while trying to get over my past relationship as well as hold onto some current friendships, I was being stretched. Rachel still had an effect on me on the rare occasions I saw her, but by June my heart had healed (duct tape can fix anything ;) ). I will always remember my friend calling her a slut on her birthday when she got off work. She sent me some nasty texts that night, but it was then that I realized that I didn't care. Yeah it wasn't the best idea for him to call her a slut, but if you knew the story, you would understand. That part of my life is over now, and as Scuba said, no need to dwell on it anymore. Another big hurt came from an unlikely source, one of my best mates and closest friend, Tony. It wasn't really his fault because he was just living life. He got his license, car, and Disneyland pass, and all of a sudden, we weren't hanging out 3-4 nights a week. I felt used, left behind, because I had driven him everywhere for the past year and a half always telling my parents that I wasn't being used for rides, then all of a sudden, my best friend and I weren't hanging out anymore. I tried to spend as much time with him as possible before he left for LA FIDM, but I knew he was in a struggle and I didn't want to push it. We ended up talking about it, which helped a lot, and things are good again. We both just have lots of responsibilities that we need to take care of. The last big hurt came from me. Like I said earlier, I got into somewhat of a relationship with this girl Tina. She was great, accepting me for who I am, I NEVER had to act different around her. She would invite me places and we would have good times, and she wouldn't mind my friends, and I was cool with her friends. The problem was that when I tried sharing with her, nothing seemed to be getting through, and she never seemed to share from the heart with me. It sounds messed up, but I didn't want to take it past the dating level if I couldn't talk to her, and ended up being in a very patient lite-relationship. It felt bad at times because I would fall asleep on the phone because I was so bored, but I kept hoping that she would open up to me. It ended up not happening, and realizing we didn't have much in common, I decided that I would tell her how I felt about the relationship and leave it at that. You see, this is not where the story ends. Just as I decided this, we had just started Fall semester at Cal State Fullerton and both got hella busy. She ran two clubs and was always working on something, I had school, work, school, sleep, school, work, sleep, school, work, school, pretty much every day. We ended up falling apart and never really talking about it. I hate myself for that because in my mind, I did what happened to me with China. She stopped talking to me, while I was left wondering in the dark, what went wrong? The difference is that with Tina and I, Tina didn't try to reach out to me when we stopped talking. I can only hope that I didn't hurt her as bad as I was when it happened to me =/

Etc.
The rest of the year is pretty vague, I've blogged enough since May for people to understand that I've been REALLY happy lately. I've got everything going for me. Most prominent people in my life this year, and if I leave you off the list, it's not to be mean, I value all my friendships. But these are the people that have affected my behaviors, actions, wisdom, and love for the better this past year: Julisa, Tony, Mike, Tina, Nez, and more recently Scuba and Stephanie. Thank you for teaching me about love, faith, and friendship. You affect me for the better.


2009
Here we go ohhh nine. You better be ready for me, cause this cat is hitting the year happier than ever, ready to start sweating positivity from his veins.
Inspired by Scuba and Stephanie is my things to do list:

...

(ten minutes later)

It seems Stephanie is having a big impact on me this year too because it seems that I can't find my list. Oh well, I'll just talk about my year so far instead.

New Years Eve. They say that the way you spend New Years is the way the rest of your year will be. I don't really believe in that after the last year, but I know that if it's true, this year is going to be more than awesome. The first moments of the new year are great memories thanks to Scuba and Stephanie. New Years day was the day I had been looking forward to all year: BASKETBALL. Last year Mike seriously injured his ankle, and this year we ended up with no one getting seriously injured. To top it off Scuba, Andrew, Rick James, and I ended up "winning" the "tournament" as team SARS, never once losing a game. Yes, I know it was kind of unfair to have 3 guys over 6 ft tall on the same team, but it was fun nonetheless. My team ended up beating Mike's team again in the big finale to continue what has become a consistent rivalry. I was a little bummed that I wasn't going to be able to play X-Box with the guys for the rest of the night, but bowling with Nick, Scuba, and Stephanie more than made up for it. The Champ severely kicked our asses (I bet you wouldn't be able to guess the Champ on the first try). Stephanie beat us all BOTH games, scoring a 94 and 111. We never stood a chance. I hate losing at ANYTHING, and it was a little hard to accept at first, but in the end, I accepted that she was playing wonderfully, and it humbled me as I congratulated her. Btw, I'm actually hopeful for the future of my fingers. I think I finally found someone who can compel me to stop.

Today, we filmed all day at my house for the Confirmation retreat. I was dressed in a hot Darth Vader costume the whole day. Stephanie came over later and we watched two movies: the emotional Click (Adam Sandler) and The Newsies (one of my favorite movie/musicals of all time). For once, I decided to choose just ONE thing for tonight instead of bouncing around to a couple different hangouts I was being invited to, and I did not regret it. You need that one-on-one time every now and then, y'know, or else you'll just explode. Today was one of those days and I do not regret it, "not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all."