Constant Change

[Sarah (at the right) with some members of the volunteers for the Habitat for Humanity last 2004]

Last weekend, the Pack of Wolvers gathered for lunch at The Superbowl of China. It was a despedida (farewell) party for Sarah, who I first worked with in 2000 for less than a year, then we parted ways. She later joined our Marketing Team for a couple of years before moving on again to join a multinational firm. Always on the move, she always is.

Sarah is a burst of life. She is demonstrative of her feelings, and easily influences the crowd atmosphere. As a friend, we had a lot of fun times doing projects and being with friends after office hours, usually just to have coffee and chat, or sometimes watch movies. She was my advisor in adding color to my clothes closet which originally consisted of whites, grays, and browns.

Now, she is leaving for Singapore to mark another momentous event in her career. We will miss you, Sarah. Do come back soon.

***



Yesterday afternoon, I was doing some html coding to the baguio-quezon site when a Yahoo! Messenger call came in for my wife. It was Tetz! She's one of our closest friends way back in college over ten years ago (she's the one at the left in the above photo, with her sister). She's in Canada now, working to support her family, and soon, she can also pursue her personal dreams and aspirations. It is strange and interesting how our close-knit college friends of 9 have drifed in and out of our lives. One is undergoing treatment for cancer and stays in our apartment when she's in Manila; four of them are now abroad; a couple, I believe, are in Manila, but contact is nil, and another is living in Baguio. Many of us are now married.

My wife and Tetz chatted about old times and caught up on personal events. I'd sneak up a phrase or two while watching TV. It's great to learn that she's doing fine.

Sarah's leaving and an old friend catching up with us brought to mind the song Constant Change. It's a rather sad melody of having to move on just when are finally getting comfortable with where we are. But without change, I reckon things will become dull quite soon enough. So here's to life's pleasant surprises, and of keeping old friends and meeting new ones.

The Blog Virus

Over the past few days, we have been working on making blogit work. There are still a few quirks, but our software guy is on top of things.

I was just pleasantly surprised because at this stage in our promoting blogging in our office, there have been a couple of people that went ahead and created their personal blogs! Previously, as far as I know there were only two of us here who blogged: me and Pauline. Then I learned that our software guy has his own blog too. That makes 3 of us.

We welcome three new people in the blogging community:
Chu the Man - Anthony (our colleague in Marketing) actually got a blog way ahead of Pauline and mine, but he never got to jumpstart it. He now has one again due to peer pressure :-)
Dessa Girl - Dessa is our good friend from HR. And she's got the blog virus real bad. ehehehe. She has nice posts rolling up.
Princess Em - Emily is one of our Managers who got to travel abroad last December, and is now sharing photos and experiences in her blog.

It's fun because we learn something more about each other; things usually considered trivial in a conversation but are unique traits of a person is reflected in the blog, and it makes these people even more unique and interesting.

So blog on!

Visiting Narnia

First of all, thank you very much for Ms. Tatz for the pizza merienda break, and for Ms. Apple (Happy Birthday!) for the chicken dinner at the office. Sana araw-araw ganito sa opis!

***

I was visiting random blogs this afternoon when I came upon this post from Allthings2all. The noble lion Aslan in all his splendour behind a setting sun!

If you're not familiar with who Aslan is, then I highly recommend your visiting the wonderful, magical world called Narnia, where Aslan is ruler of all. I got my first does of magic and wonder back in high school through The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, where four kids got the adventure of a lifetime in Narnia. And I with them.

And a wonderful read it is! I can always vividly recall the crunching of the snow as the kids first stepped into a Narnia cursed with an endless winter, of sleeping in the woods with the beavers, of hiding underneath the bushes, devastated as the evil mythical beasts created a wild stampede, celebrating their victory after the fall of good, and of the joy in the coming of the sunrise.

I got all excited when I read the post from Allthings2all because I just learned that there is going to be a movie! Slated this coming December 2005, Andrew Adamson of Shrek and Shrek2 will be directing, and Lord of the Rings' Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop will be undertaking the completion of the sets. It is a thrill to hear of this, and it is assured that the overall theme and content of C.S. Lewis' masterpieces will be retained in the movie version. 2005 is looking up to be a great year for movie buffs!

So if you haven't read C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia yet, grab a copy today. Never mind if the book is targetted for kids aged 9-12 years old; I bought another copy of this book last year and it still wove its old, magical charm, prompting me to read most of the other books (there's seven in all). But I'd say The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is definitely the best.

News sources for the upcoming movie:
Narnia Web: The #1 Source for Narnia Movie News
Welcome to Narnia (Official Movie Site)
Into the Wardrobe :: a C.S. Lewis web site

[photo borrowed from here]