Happy Christmas morning, everyone!! 🎄

Almost every successful person has this advice for any straight out of college student, “surround yourself with people smarter than you are”. 

My most favorite part in meeting someone new is the exhilaration you feel the moment you shake hands. 

It is safe to say that I am online 24/7. I’m not even kidding you when I say that sometimes I stare blankly at Instagram wondering what people have been doing since my last Instagram follow-ee (not a word, I suppose) posted a photo.

While I may argue that I stay updated for work (which is true 80% of the time), I simply stay connected for one simple reason: I like knowing what’s up with people I care about (or you know, Ansel Elgort).  This may also be because I came from a time when internet access wasn’t freely given or evenly distributed. In high school, we had a really bad prepaid modem that took forever to connect so I relied solely on Netopia to be able to connect to reliable internet and check if my crush finally wrote me a testimonial on Friendster. In ways teenagers these days won’t be able to relate to, I agonized and hoped for the day to have free internet at my disposal 24/7.

Ten years later, the dream is finally coming true. However, not everyone in the country has the privilege to experience this (believe it or not, mobile data can still be quite expensive), and we’ve all been part of that population of users at least once or twice. You know the feeling when you have to connect to the internet because your boss is looking for you or you have that paper to submit or you simply want to hail a cab hassle free. This is the reason why we constantly hope and pray that the establishments nearest us would finally foster a free wifi environment. However, for reasons unknown to once upon a time internet leechers like me, a large percentage of public places are still (gasp!) wifi free.

So I was doubly surprised when one of my favorite people in the entire world (hello roz, the girl with the red glow) introduced me to WiFi Nation. It’s basically everything we’ve dreamed of, to have a nation that’s WiFi capable, but only it’s better because establishments (all kinds, imagine that, from restaurants to hotels and what not) get the chance to not just serve their customers but share as well through the very tough ball currency called the internet.

I’m not a technical person at all and rarely see the world in technical black and white so defining terms can be quite difficult. To describe WiFi Nation in the most simplistic way is this: you get to have free WiFi at their partner establishments courtesy of the establishment that they have partnered with. WiFi Nation is basically on a mission (yes, my rhyming game is still on point!) to have the entire country (or Metro Manila, for now) to be online 24/7 by encouraging businesses to share just a part of their WiFi with their Consumers.

I couldn’t help it so I tried it myself:

So now that I’ve connected with WiFi Nation through the ever reliable Facebook, I no longer have to spend the first ten minutes in a establishment looking for a connection simply because all the hotspots are already made available to me. Now, isn’t that one less thing we have to think about?

I know I know what people say about things being too good to be true, but believe me when I say that while WiFi Nation is indeed to good to be true, you have nothing to fear because just unlike most things and people in our lives, it doesn’t come with any hidden strings or agenda, it’s just there to serve and make all Instagram stalkers like me happy.

Buti ka pa, WiFi Nation, maasahan unlike some people I know, alas, that’s for another blog entry all together.

PS: Don’t forget to download the app now available on Google Playstore and soon to follow on the Apple App Store.

I’ve always prided myself as the girl who at least tries to do it all. I’ve always wanted to become my own version of superwoman – the girl who works eight to nine hours a day, goes to the gym for three while maintaining vital relationships and staying updated on the current trends. This on top of making sure that I have my eight hours of sleep a night.

In a weird way, I absolutely like getting things done – whether at work or in my personal life. It’s safe to say that I can be quite ‘controlling’ and like scheduling every single moment of my everyday to squeeze in everything that I have to do. But you know what they say about working too hard and not having enough down time to just relax. Basically today, my throat (though not as painful as yesterday) is not at its best (meaning I can’t eat all the sweets I want) and my body is crying for me to rest! 

You see my body’s been telling me this for quite sometime now but I’ve been arrogantly ignoring it saying I have all the vitamins in the world to sustain me while at the same time also arguing that there’s just not enough time for that.

Well today, I realized that I am not superwoman and never will be. I’ve been spreading myself too thin and not investing on what or rather who matters most – Jesus. Because of my busy hours I haven’t been spending enough time soaked in the truth of who He is and it became a downward spiral from there.

So today, aside from resting my physical body, I am also resting my soul because at the end of the day, my favorite verse comes to mind, what do you benefit if you gain the world but lose your soul?

So signing off to laze in bed and just be.

Up to this day, I am still pinching myself over the fact that I do have a real, legit column that comes out every week. For a girl who’s been writing to herself (and this online world I created ten years ago), it’s amazing to think that now people actually really my work. It’s also extremely encouraging to me to have people actually comment on the articles I have written. One of the people I’m grateful for is Danilo who manages to comment on my article every week. Having one person read it every week and take the time to comment is such a blessing, that has always been my goal to only touch at least just one person. So sharing with you his comment of the week. 

Without a doubt, kids these days are constantly glued to their smartphones, tablets, and even TV sets. This doesn’t give them a lot of time to bond with other children, or worse, make time for things that stir their imagination.

Good thing workshops like Santa Family: Gift Love on Christmas Day! exist, especially during the holidays. Give the gift of time and creativity to your children by attending this seminar. Not only will you get to bond with your kid but also get to help the He Cares Foundation.

You can choose the crafts you want to learn to make, here’s a rundown of the DIY tricks that you can learn with your tot, or even nieces / nephews. For more information, you can click the link above or check the poster below.

Since I’ve had this blog since I was sixteen, it has seen everything and I mean, everything that I have been in the past ten years. While some “bloggers” choose to “hide” the years of shame (aka years before the filter), I choose to let it be exposed for all the entire world to see. In my younger years, my blog (though filled with teen angst) have included lighter subjects such as: what I’m reading, what I’m watching, who’s hot, and so forth.

Today, however, my blog has become ‘heavier’ and so rather randomly, I choose to share again what I’m reading, listening to, and watching just for posterity’s sake. Maybe, in a few blog entries, I will also be sharing outfit shots, but for now, this would do.

Of course Taylor Swift’s 1989 is on the loop along with old favorites aka my eclectic playlist  like Lorde, Tupac (occasionally) , Drake, Hillsong, Bethel Live, Magic, Coldplay, Nick Jonas, Beyonce, and even Ariana Grande. But what keeps my ears busy all day are my favorite podcasts, that of which I’m sharing here.

Serial, This American Life 

It’s the story of the mystery behind the case of Hae Min Lee, a fifteen year old case in Baltimore. The Shelby Woo in me is really interested in this one simply because it’s the right mix of mystery, high school romance gone sour, and a judicial system that may have not gotten it right. It also touches the topic of race and discrimination. If you’re looking for something to listen to while doing mundane tasks, this is the way to go.

City Church, Judah Smith

Part of my day begins with listening to wisdom from Judah Smith. I’ve been following Pastor Judah Smith since reading Jesus Is at the beginning of the year and my heart has been transformed, slowly but surely.

Ted Talks

I’m the queen of short attention span so these quick Ted Talks are really helpful. It’s important to learn something new everyday and I’m picking up more than a few things from this channel.

Most of the time, we’re afraid. Afraid of what we’re not going to receive and afraid that we’re not being loved the way that we want to. We’re afraid to put ourselves out there out of the fear that we would never be loved as much as we love. 

If you’ve lived long enough to be hurt, you would find the need to put up unnecessary walls, thinking that until a person proves that he (or she) is worthy enough of you, you wouldn’t allow yourself to budge. However, you would also understand that sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way that we want them to. Yes, we can try our best to hide behind our masks or deny what we really feel. We can even put out a list of reasons why we shouldn’t feel a certain way, but at the end of the day, the feelings are still there and the more we deny them, the more they prop up.

I no longer want to be the kind of girl who runs away just because I’m afraid that I won’t be loved in the way that I want to. I no longer want to be the girl who’s so small and fragile that she can’t accept something as ordinary as unrequited love. I want to be the kind of girl who’s heart is so big that it can love beyond people’s faults and unreturned affection. While this doesn’t mean that I will go out and be wild with just about anyone as some sort of late rebellion, this means that I will no longer try to shove all my feelings inside of myself.

Truth be told, I am an emotional person and when I feel things, I want to feel them until I am emptied of them. I no longer want to hide behind the shadows of pretending to be someone I’m not in order to be liked nor do I want to always be cautious of how I feel, only “giving” feelings to those who are worthy of them. Truth be told, how do we know if someone’s worthy or not? Is it because of their looks? Their crassness? Is it because of how they treat me?

Jesus once said that if we only love those who love us, we are just like everyone else in the world for it is easy to love those who love us but the most difficult thing is to love those who have done us wrong and have hurt us, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I want to stop being so afraid of what I feel and I also want to stop waiting on life. I want to love until I couldn’t (which, through Jesus, maybe impossible). I want to feel everything without the threat of pride or without thinking of my ego.

I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to not be loved back. We have placed so much importance in what people do for us that we forget that we love in order to serve and not be served. This has been in my heart for quite awhile and the message is still as strong as when I first hurt, and while I danced around it this week (pride may have been stronger), I still choose to love.

I choose to love, I choose to feel and I choose to serve and encourage others. The ones I choose to love may never love me back with the same kind of intensity, but I believe that God sees my heart and as I do it unto Him, one day, I will be surprised that all the love I’ve given has been given to me beyond measure, but until then, my heart is open, my heart is big, and I am happy.

More than once in my entire social media existence, I may have been guilty of oversharing. When I’m excited, I turn into an emotional fur ball and start spewing the reasons for my excitement. However, I have come to realize that as things become more significant, the lesser I want to talk about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish I could tell the world what I’m feeling but instead delegated to sharing it with trusted friends who won’t turn on me when the time comes. I don’t like the tale to tumble from my lips out of the fear that the magic that goes with it will go away too.

So for now, I’m holding it all in and relishing the moment. And while it’s nothing like i expected it to be, it’s even better because it’s teaching me to love unselfishly and for the first time in my life, I am totally okay with it.