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.