Book Number One

I just woke up one day thinking how nice it would be if I could write my life in "books". I'm 33 years old now. I started this blog in 2010 when I was 31. Many things had happened in three years: I got married, gave birth to a daughter, wrote a book, launched progressive projects, traveled. But one aching part is that it would be two years before I see my husband and my child again as I am currently on study leave in the United States. Two years without cooking, because I live in a dorm. Two years devoted in study and utter solitude (I should put on a monk's hood by now). I thought those events were just too much to cram in three years. But I was also thinking, if a lot could happen in three years, I could only imagine the infinite potential of many years more which I allow for Book No. 2. 

My older sister said that our lives are made of cycles. She said that in Indian astrology, it's called the Maha-Dashas. I don't know that this is. It's beyond my comprehension. She said, that my first cycle of 18 difficult years is about to end, and it's time that I start another cycle (16 beautiful years), which, fortunately for me, isn't as hard as the first any longer. (Yay:). Whenever we're talking about these things, she stuffs it in my head with a mortar so that I wouldn't make the same mistakes over and over again.

 Book No.2 would be my vision 2010 onwards (of course if it were up to me, I'd like to live that long :) but what exactly happened in Book No. 1? Is it possible that we will be guided with well into our future if we could recognize that our past actually has to do with what's to come? 

Well, I'll call it Book No. 1- the previous pages. If it started when I was born in 1979... I could recall them in summary- moving backwards. Sigh. So much work. But you can only connect the dots looking backwards, right? (Yes, Steve Jobs, this is true). 

So here it is: Book No. 1 in summary 

2009- Went to Japan, Singapore; met my future husband

2008 - Acquired my house; graduated MBA, hired as executive chef 

2007- Went to China for the first time 

2006- Got hired at a culinary school 

2005- Went belly dancing classes 

2004- Moved in with my siblings at an apartment in Manila 

2003- Enrolled in graduate school 

2002- Got my first promotion in a French cafe 

2001- Got hired in a French cafe 

2000 - Ranked 3 at the national board exams 

1999- Last year of college 

1998 - Compiled my first book of anthology, i.e., "home-made poetry" 

1997 - As a dreamy college student living in a dormitory, journaled my "ideal love story" which apparently happened 15 years later 

1006- Entered university for the first time 

1995 - Won grand prize in a national contest with college scholarship as the err...prize 

1994 - Went with a local traveling theater group in various performances 

1993 - Organized crazy class parties and stage plays 

1992- First year high school 

1991- My first taste of competing in national academic contests 

1990 - Love this year. Wrote my first "home-made" books and asked my classmates to comment them (or rather, I coerced them :P) 

1989 - Elected class president (duh...) 

1988 - Got healed from a childhood illness; got honors in class (yay) 

1987- A hard life. I was always sick 

1986 - Hard life. First day of elementary school; we didn't have much to eat

1985 - Life in Manila; my youngest sister was born 

1984 - Childhood in Manila; my first experience with balck-and-white TV 

1983-  Got my first dolls 

1982- Moved to Manila with my parents and siblings 

1981- Life with grandma 

1980- Duh... I didn't know what happened here except those I see in photographs 

1979 - I popped into the world. Oh, wow.