Monica's 2013 Highlights <3

Hey there! Monica here!! :>

YES! 2013 is officially over; we can finally close another chapter of our life and embrace this coming year, let’s claim it, it’ll be a good year! =)

2013 has been generally good to my family and I, it was indeed a year of fulfilling most of my dreams, a year full of “first-times” and it was a year of taking chances and overcoming major trials.

It was the first time that I had the courage to face the New Year with a “short” hair, well, for most of you guys, it might be considered as a medium hair length, but it was the shortest hair I’ve had for more than 7 years or so of my life. I felt darn courageous doing it! *smug. It was also the first time that my parents allowed me to highlight it, haha yes I was 20 then, but my parents wouldn’t allow us doing something “scary” or ‘damaging” to our hair. Haha! Thanks Parents! =))

I was blessed to be part of the outstanding performers for our course, sorry, it may seem arrogant taking the photo of my name on the bulletin but you know what, I am 100% sure that , that’ll be the first and last time my name would be there. HAHA! It was pretty awesome, knowing that my hard work paid off. At least I could say, that once in my polytechnic life I did something that everybody recognized =)

Boboy went to UK for his internship and it was also the first time that we would not see each other for almost 2 months! That was long! But on the other hand, I had the chance to do an internship in a local but prestigious research institute. Cheska and I have been through 2 nerve-racking interviews just to get in there. It was really really amazing, I had the chance to work in a “real-world-working-lab” It was fulfilling and I definitely learnt a ton of things from the people there. Not forgetting gaining new friends =)

My cousins came over and spent 2-weeks of their holidays with us and it was great! We had lots of fun and catching up, we went to Universal Studios! Yey! The word awesome is not enough to describe the excitement haha!

This year we celebrated my Dad’s 45th Birthday and My Mum’s 50th Birthday and my 21st! We just feel so blessed everytime we would celebrate birthdays! Hooray, Thank God for another year for all of us :>

On the 16th of April My parents celebrated their Silver-Wedding Anniversary hooray!!! They’ve been together for 25 years <3 Isn’t that Awesome? Cheers for more years to come!!

Cheska, my Sister and I had successfully made a good piece of work: Boboy’s surprise video which turned out incredible! Weee!

One of my greatest dreams ever.. came true this year! HAHA it is to see myself carrying my school’s name. Well simply seeing my name in a platform where the bigger picture talks about my school. And that was fulfilled. Thanks Boboy for making it happen. I became a part of my school’s 2013-2014 Batch of Corporate Model, where we did a photo-shoot for the school’s magazine, website and basically everything about promoting our school. I was thrilled to see my face on one of the magazines, I also did a photo-shoot regarding this seasonal-school promotion and the theme was “Back-to-the-old-school”. I got to be part of a short film/clip that I have yet to see and I am excited to share that with you guys and because of that I got to wear a graduation robe which made me so excited to graduate! I saw a huge photo of myself too (which I wanted initially but I was thinking maybe not, I feel kinda awkward to see my face there) so yea, nonetheless it was remarkable! Woot!

Throughout the year we have been working on our Final Year Project (FYP) which was indeed a roller coaster ride! It was a complete Love-Hate relationship and filled with whirlpool of emotions. The Stress, the fun, the excitement, the work, the disappointments and the success of course. This 2014, we will know what would be the result and we are praying so hard that it will do us good! Please pray for us too and wish us all the best! :D

Of course, this year we finally decided to make another dream come true and we took chances not knowing what to expect! We did our Blog (OurAvenue) and it’s one the smartest and most gratifying thing I have done this year! And Cheska and I will continue doing it, cos it’s what we love and now it’s part of us =) <3

Last few months of the year, I got to attend our first make-up related workshop with cheska, (we had a separate blog post about it) and I saw Larry Yeo in real life! Yoyo! :> hihi, lotsa lab works for our FYP! And attended Prom! And Celebrated Christmas with family once again!

But not everything that happened was fun and exciting. This year I lost my favourite Uncle, Tito Ronnie, it was really shocking and caused so much tears shed from our family, It is so cliché to always say that He’s in a better place now, (of course we know he is) but it’s the everyday life encounter that hurts, knowing that we won’t be with him anymore. I pray that His immediate family would always draw strength from God and so will we. Christmas and Philippines visit will never be the same anymore without Tito Ronnie’s laughter and jokes.

Another tragic thing that happened was the strongest typhoon that hit the Philippines, and till this very moment, I continue to pray for everybody’s safety and peace of mind.

Oh well, I don’t want to end this post sad. I just want to share a few learnings I picked up. I have learnt that problems will always be there but it’s our choice how we want it to affect us. Now that I am looking back at 2013, it pleases me that most (about 90%) of what I could remember are memories that are fun and exciting; therefore I think, I have improved on how I see trials in my life.

I am not perfect and I just want to say sorry to all those people I have hurt unintentionally. I am a working in progress and there’s nothing permanent apart from changes. Apart from doing what I want to do, I also want to improve myself for a better me. So I will share with you guys some of my New year’s resolution!

i.) I would want to have a healthier lifestyle (which I pretty much started last year) but this time I want to commit more and I want my family to do it with me :> More juicing and exercising!

ii.) I want to draw closer to God, I am a catholic since birth and I have gone through catechism lessons and all those, but I just feel that that doesn’t stop there, a relationship with God is a working in progress. I have also started it last year and I am pretty happy with the result! But I just want to have a deeper connection and understanding of Him.

iii.) Smile and listen more, sound very simple but I know I’d have to double my effort in doing this.

Thant’s all I could think of, and again I am wishing you all a blessed 2014! :> Let’s make use of this year to do good stuff, inspire people and shower everybody with love! <3