Been kind of busy in this part of the woods

I live.

And I've got a pretty lame good excuse for the lack of posts:

• Work. Um, yeah, pretty obvious, but will elaborate
• Class has begun, and we have to do some taste testing and rate attributes of the food, etc. etc. 
• Church stuff

... and these three commitments are basically what have been keeping me busy since last year, which leads me to think that these excuses are indeed lame. *facepalm* I'll just have to find more time to blog.

I'm contemplating on buying a .me domain, by the way. I'll probably do this when I have decided on a domain name. I don't want it under my name, and inasmuch as I want it to be wonderingwhattodowithdaylight.me, it's too long. 

Anyway, moooooving on.

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Church stuff - I'm getting a lesser load of assignments for the first three months of the year, which I really appreciate. That means I can devote more time to the other church commitments (hahahaha).

Most immediate among these commitments is actually not church-related, but will involve the youth ministry. We're auditioning for this thing here:

By the way, may band room pala sa STRC?! SINCE WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? All I did in STRC was run around and exercise during ROTC days!

Saka ko na ikukuwento yung experience ng pag-audition when the results are out. All I can say for now is that I am soooo relieved that I was able to sing bossa. I thought I didn't have it in me. Salamat sa mga bandmates ko, OSUM kayo. XD

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Ahhh. Work. I remember a verse in Ecclesiastes that says enjoying the fruits of your labor is a gift from God. This is especially true this month, since I was asked to participate in one of the projects I am managing - the author mentoring program I was talking about in the previous blog post. 

One of the assignments is to send invites to friends that you are launching a book. I don't really know the emails of my friends (plus they check their Facebook more often than email anyway), so I decided to post the "invite" there:

Mga friends, by faith I will be signing copies of my first book at the Manila International Book Fair this year, and I'd like to invite all of you when that happens! I don't know the book title yet, but it will be about how you can fulfill your dream of becoming an author. Heart is seriously pounding triple time as I type this. #thisisanassignmentfortheauthorclass #ihavetocomply #youhavenoideahowscarediam #idontshowmyworktopeople #gettingpublishedisbothexcitingandscary

The hashtags speak the truth. #youhavenoidea

A lot of people liked and commented that they were excited for me - some were even congratulating me already, which got me even more scared!

While most of the people I was growing up with wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be an astronomer, a surgeon, or an author. But out of all of these three dream ambitions, the one I worked on the most as a kid was becoming an author (Second to that is becoming an astronomer - I learned how to spot constellations and near stars as a kid, and I can still remember how to do this now. I never really worked on becoming a surgeon - when it came to dissecting frogs I decided to strike that out of my list XD).

If my memory serves me right, I finished my first fiction story when I was 7 or 8 years old, and it was written in pencil on scratch paper that was the kind used for dot matrix printers. I think the only reason why I did that was because [1] there were no notebooks available, and [2] nobody in the house would suspect that I would write something important on scratch paper, cause as early as that, I had an unexplainable fear of people reading my stories.

Oh, by the way, my first story was - you wouldn't guess it - FANFICTION! (of what series it was about I will carry to my grave - I think only one person knows what series it is, and I pray said person doesn't remember anymore XD) 

At about that age too, I started keeping a diary. It was the "Dear [name of diary] (yes, I did that!), Today was really fun because I spent the day in school...", and here I would chronicle a day in my geek-outsider grade school life.

I also remember a time during Grade 5 when I was so mad (at what or who I don't want to say =D) that I decided to throw away everything that I have written thus far - and that included the first story that I wrote on dot matrix paper, and the first diary that I kept. I regret doing that now - I mean, how nostalgic would it be if I saw what I wrote twenty years ago, diba?

During high school, I wrote for the school paper (news, features, the usual lot), and I also wrote an original fiction piece - the first one that got published (with much fear on my part!). It was was supposedly a four-part story (with the assumption that we publish an issue every quarter), but we were only able to release one issue that schoolyear (haha fail). Buti na lang that happened, cause the story was kind of dark for a Christian school - dark in the sense na a character was killed, there's mention of blood, and this will be read by grade school and high school students alike. If all four parts were published, there's a good chance that I'd be sent to the principal's office or a guidance counselor. XDD

And, there was also NaNoWriMo, which I joined twice and won both (with extreme consequences for my physical health, though). I don't think I'll be joining again, not unless I find a way to eliminate the back pain, which is highly unlikely. Some of my chapters for NaNo were published online as part of a local compilation of excerpts written by those who joined during that year, but I kept it a secret from everyone (haha!).

So basically, what I'm trying to say is that I am sooo afraid of seeing my work published under my name, for  various reasons said and unsaid. Hence, the mere exercise of me posting that status message was nerve-wrecking. It's like ... coming out. HAHAHA!

Even if the book doesn't come out this year (or during the MIBF), it will likely come out at some other time. I'm sure there will be much prodding from the boss to do it. Also, writing a nonfiction piece is something I've never tried before, and thought I'd never do.

So, this endeavor of writing and being published is by faith, simply put. =D

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I am so gung-ho with third term - gung-ho in the sense that I want to get a much, much higher grade than last term. I have no qualms with last term cause I gave it everything I could, but the situation now is very different from last term. I think I can make a comeback. *positive vibes*