Midway September

These two weeks have been really interesting for me.

First of all, I've decided to take a break from Ballroom dancing. I plan to continue, but not this month, and maybe not next month.

Secondly, I got to see my parish priest again. I asked him some pretty tough questions regarding Catholicism. Especially the dogma surrounding Mary. Still, he stood his ground and gave honest answers. Mad respect to him. He's definitely not an intellectual lightweight.

More than that though, that follow up meeting was very important to me. I'm struggling with what I should be doing with my life right now. I've lately been wondering what I really am meant to do in my life. Talking to my priest, he's suggested a few things (pray, discern) and I'm more than likely gonna have another follow-up meeting with him again.

With that out of the way, how did I fare in my last two weeks? Well here's my progress:

I've learned a new phrase in Ilokano! Adda napintas a dammag ditoy which literally means "There is good news here."

As far as my Calorie counting? Well these past 14 days I've eaten about 25,600 Calories worth of food, or around 1,828 Calories a day. I'm surprised because on September 4th my cousins and I went out to the LA County Fair and gorged on deep-fried everything.

Speaking of food, I'm gonna be cooking Pork Adobo by the end of this month!

And another thing I'll be doing by the end of the month will be finishing up that Game Design Document. It's been a while since I've touched that, but I plan to finish at least a proof of concept by the end of the year.

Books. Ah books. I never thought I'd be reading so much. I used to hate books. But I'm finding more and more that I really don't hate it so much. I finished Mere Christianity (brilliant book) and am onto The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton, who is another Christian Apologist. I love how these guys use rational, coherent thought and logic to explain the Christian faith.

And that's it! How's my swearing? Well I feel weird now if I ever say a vulgar word. I'm pretty sure I haven't used any swear words these past 2 weeks. So I give myself a pat on the back for that one.

Until next time, keep hitting F5 on your browser!

One month later...

Hello readers! I am back. Where was I? Well let's just say I went out on a journey. Lemme summarize a few key things that happened while I was away.

At the end of July I went to Las Vegas over the weekend. It was awesome. To my surprise, two other sets of friends were going! I met up with one of them, but the other eluded me. But most the time was spent with my buddy from Canada. I'll detail this in a later blog post

Mid-August, I had to say farewell to a (relatively new) friend of mine. I've known her for a bit over a year (if that; in total I've probably spent only a day with her =]) but for some reason I felt she was a very good friend. She's off doing mission work in the Philippines for the Sisters of Cabrini. I really admire that.

Finally, I had good one on one time with my parish priest. I found myself in a situation where I was the best one to pick him up from John Wayne airport, so I did. Interesting talks we had. I'll have to write about that in another post as well.

I've decided to change things up a bit. I think I went wrong with my goal list. I've been trying to achieve goals for the sole purpose of just achieving that goal. I've been reading books just so I can cross it out of my list; playing songs, the same reason. I think it was too cold.

So to warm things up again, I'm going to be re-doing some of my "crossed out" goals. Moreover, I'll be posting in a little less structured manner, but with a little more "heart" in my posts.

So here's Warm Progress Report #1. Enjoy!

I've managed to progress with my Tagalog-ing and Ilokano-ing skills. I've been speaking to my coworker (also Flip) in Tagalog more and more, and he wants to learn so it's all good.

I've also managed to miss cooking meals 2 months in a row! Booo! BUT! I've decided I'm gonna focus on cooking Filipino meals from now on. I have my recipe set on pork adobo.

Speaking of food, I've still been keeping track of my Calorie count. So in the 37 days of absence, I've eaten about 70,060 Calories, or 1893 Calories per day. That's still within range. It's really a amazing because of all the food I ate in Vegas and during the Farewell parties. Reached almost 3000 Calories on some of those days alone.

I've managed to control swearing pretty well. I've only sworn (to the best of my knowledge) at most 3 times these past 37 days. So where am I at with that? 195 swear-free days. Nice.

As far as books, I'm starting to re-read some of them. I've re-read C.S. Lewis The Four Loves. I'm also re-reading Mere Christianity. Wow. I didn't realize how brilliant he is. His writing and insight are just amazing. I can't believe I read these just for the sake of saying "I read it." I am kicking myself right now.

That's it! I'm gonna be updating in the coming weeks some of my "adventures" during these "37 Days". I'll try to keep this posted every week. Thanks for reading! Until next post.