Waiting for my friend, lounging in one of the most comfortable outdoor chair cushions I saw at his office lobby, I couldn’t help but reminisce how we both started in the same course and major in college and ended up in way too different career paths. Then again, people do change, and what’s important is that you grow with them and not against them. Communication is always the key to everything.

Right now, I only have a handful of friends that I keep in touch with regularly. The rest I consider acquaintances.

As years goes by, I realize that it becomes tougher to squeeze in time to meet and greet with friends. Then again, the only way you will know which ones are for keeps are during these times. Those who are able to sacrifice a portion of their precious time to find out how you are, are the ones for keeps. And sometimes, when you’re lucky, you find those that, no matter how great the distance, how long the years have passed, even with little to no communication, when you meet that person, it’s as if you’ve just both been away for a week or two. The friend I’m waiting for right now is one of those. And yes, I’m lucky. ^^;

One of my best staff, Andrea, resigned last month and her last day is today. She already informed me about her impending resignation last November 2009, but I still hoped she’d be staying in the company longer, especially after all the improvements in the processes in my team (not to mention task delegations).

Then again, I’m not the one to stop someone from fulfilling their dreams. Andrea looked very happy with her decision. And quite frankly, I envy her a bit. It’s been a long time since I was THAT happy in making a certain decision. Though expectedly melancholic about Andrea’s leaving, I am happy we’re in good professional-to-almost-friendly terms. That relationship was highly improbable 2 years ago. In fact, during our one-on-one last week, she told me she’d be willing to work for me again, at any time, only in a different setup. Heartwarming, ain’t it? ^_^

Anyway, as a farewell present, I gave Andrea a digital frame with a selection of our company pictures – from her first day to her farewell party. She was teary-eyed while viewing the pictures. I wish her all the best in her career.

Lately I’ve been hurting. Now before you dismiss this as another overly sentimental post, let me explain: I broke up with my boyfriend almost two years ago now. I don’t miss him. At least I thought I didn’t.

Lately I’ve been getting these strange pains in my joints (roundabout the knee area) that come and go during a specific time of the month (as if menstruation wasn’t enough for a woman to worry about). That time of the month just happens to be the 28th, our former monthsary date. It’s been driving me mad.

I went to the doctor and he told me that it might be a “psychosomatic disorder” - meaning the pain is only being caused by my mind and is closely related with someone of my past. Despite my insistence that I in fact had no feelings left over for my former lover, however, the doctor repeated that joint pain relief is totally dependent on my mind – my subconscious mind that is. Either I need psychiatric help, or I need to see a better doctor.

This happened to me a long time ago, five years ago if i remember it correctly…

I was so stressed in Differential Equations in junior high that I sleep very late at night just to finish my assignments. I felt weaker and weaker until finally, my body gave in. I was in the bathroom, getting ready for school when suddenly I blanked out. I only remember hearing some banging in the door, shouting, asking if I’m alright. When I got up, I was still in shock, yet annoyed by the banging on the doors by my family so I shouted back “HEY IM TAKING A BATH! WHAT’S YOU’RE PROBLEM?!” — not realizing that I fainted and was out for a few seconds. I came to realize what happened when I saw a cut in my forehead. Shocking really.

I consulted a physician immediately after school. It was midterms then so I took the exam first. Worst thing that came to my mind is that I had Epilepsy. Fortunately, it was not. It was though another ailment called “Orthostatic Hypotension”. This is a disorder wherein the blood pressure is too low. I remember being given”ephedrine” to treat that ailment.

It was not very serious, although the fainting could have happen anywhere. I could just imagine what will happen to me if I fainted while running in the stairs. Thank God it didn’t happen.

I shared this experience of mine because this happens to lots of people. Actually, it just happened to an employee early this morning. Anyhow, since I had the same problem as he did, we did not panic. He was later sent home to rest.

I got interested in playing the guitar through my childhood friends when I was in elementary. Unexpectedly, I became good at it and even became popular because of it.

Then again, I’m also fascinated with other musical instruments, so I tried every instrument I could get my hands on – drums, bass guitar, piano, and even the xylophone! Yep, I joined my high school drum and lyre band just to experience that. I had fun learning those.

However, of all the instruments I’ve tried, learning how to play piano by reading notes is one of the best achievements for me. You see, I just play instruments by chords or by imitation. But there was this tune that keeps playing over and over my head - Johann Sebastian Bach’s Minuet - and I couldn’t get over it. It was so grand, soothing, graceful, and jovial at the same time, but was difficult to memorize and play just by imitation… One day, I just decided I’ve had enough of wistful thinking; I will play it by the notes at all cost!

So I grabbed a simple piano piece of Bach’s Minuet and studied it feverishly like my life depended on it. It was painstaking, but my determination pulled off. Soon, I was able to play it by heart. Until now, whenever I see a piano, it’s one of the first pieces I play, and the piece reminds me that if I put my heart to something, everything IS possible.

I hope you find your “Minuet” that will help you get through life’s challenges as well.

It was a day to remember and it happened less than a year ago - April 24, 2008. I was in my off-white dress, he was in his tuxedo shirt, and we were at a restaurant in the hotel that we were staying at in Greece.

I’ve never seen him looking as dashing as that and I was blushing like hell. We ate a sumptuous dinner then after we had a bottle of red wine. And as we were looking at the starlit sky, we talked about what we both wanted for the future. Suddenly, he kneeled down and I felt my heart started pounding erratically. He said, “You are not perfect and you never have to be because I love you and no matter what happens whatever you do, I will love you for the rest of my life. Will you be mine?”.

Well you can all guess what happened after that. It’s been almost a year since that night and he still loves every single bit of me more and more each day.

After the network upgrade we had last week, the used cisco routers were donated to whoever is interested. And so I got one. I’m planning to review my networking skills at home just to refresh my memory. I used to work as a network admin but since I shifted career to SEO, I already forgot the IOS (it’s the router operating system).

I kinda miss being network admin. It was a lot more technical and hardware intensive than my current job as a manager. I remembered when some of my officemates got upset because my boss asked me to block some porn sites. They almost filed for a strike just to make those sites available again! Hahaha.

During those times, I got sick of doing routine work of checking servers, cleaning log data, managing connections, etc. which made me decide to shift career. In those times I thought that I want a more exciting job. But now that I’m no longer a network admin, I miss my old job. Not that I want to go back, I just miss the technical stuff. If only I could time leap to my old work just for a day or two. Sometimes we just can’t be contented with what we have, can we?