My Bucket List: Living in Switzerland 2

I found a very talented photgrapher in flickr... his name is Abdullah Al-Qadeeri


he is sooo good, here are some of his Switzerland shots:

He is sooo good!! I want to meet him so that i can ask him about his photography and travel adventures!

Way to go Buddy! :)

My Bucket List: Living in Switzerland

...Yey! My first day of French classes at Alliance Francaise de Manille will be on 13 August 2011!!

.. cant believe that I am heading for the first step of my plans for migrating to Switzerland! :) Learning French will be a very big help since, a lot of regions have it as their Language!!

Je suis tellement excitée!

Suisse, j'arrive!

Commitments (29 July 2011)

"...stop it now!

I say, stop it now! It’s tiring. Exhausting. It’s not fun anymore."

Guess who that is? That's my inner self! Smacking me right in my head, telling me to stop accepting stuff, and learn to say NO the next time. 

Oh mighty God!! Please take my itch of taking all the responsibilities that can be given to others... please help me learn to say NO!! < and please help me tell it to their faces too!>

I used to love commitments. I love it, cause I love the feeling of having a jam-packed organizer... having a full schedule from as early as 6am to 1:00 am the next day. Oh, i love the feeling of getting my butt out and being busy all the time... being "needed" most of the time!

I used to love it all. Busyness, crankiness, bossiness, pressure and organization. But now that I feel so out of balanced, unfocused and fuzzy cause of too much commitment, I feel that I’m about to give up, any second. I didn’t know actually when it did start happening... the feeling that my insides are killing me because I kept on missing deadlines, unsatisfied with my results, and having a very “at the drop of a hat” kinda life. 

Like everything is either last minute or substandard.

The last time I drenched myself in this kind of mess was when my heart was broken.

But I don’t see anything broken in me now, except, i guess,  my sense of balance and inner peace. It’s weird that I just let this happen to me for the past few years. Three or four… Geez, I don’t really know. All I know is that, my hands are so full; and I’m losing my sanity, each and every day. <not much really... but a "little", every passing day>

Pero, hindi ko naman kaya bitiwan ang very thing na nakakapagpa-exhaust sakin! Seriously, I really can’t give up Toastmasters. Not now. Not ever. This organization (club) had really given me a lot. Relationships, satisfaction, reputation and endless opportunities.

I guess, what im saying here is, Im so tired of waking up “tired” all the time.

Do I really need to go away to do some soul searching? Hehehe I kinda feel im losing my soul a bit at times… it’s so much worse than those days when I’ve stuffed myself with so much food and looked at the scale afterwards… believe me, it’s Mardi Gras compare to the emptiness Im feeling when I get too much commitments and never make them at the end of the day.

I feel like I fail every time. I fail me. I fail them. When did failing ever became my routine?

Oh God, yes, I got to go and search for something… Peace and balance, perhaps?

I'm gonna go do some boating and feed the swans just like Noah Calhoun (The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks)

  

Currently Reading (July Book List)

1. The Help (Kathryn Stockett) --  < also shown here is the movie poster> 

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women — mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends — view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope,The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. 

2. One Day (David Nicholls) -- <also shown here is the movie poster>

Emma and Dexter spend the night together following their graduation from Edinburgh University in 1988. Though they do not become romantically involved, they become friends and in subsequent years, their lives take them in different directions, but they keep in contact. The novel visits their lives on 15 July in successive years in each chapter.

Emma becomes a waitress in Kentish Town at a horrible Tex-Mex restaurant, while Dexter becomes a successful television producer. Dexter becomes increasingly addicted to alcohol and other drugs, and is often presented as a wreck. Gradually, Emma fulfills her ambitions, first as a teacher and then as a bestselling novelist. Conversely, Dexter's career collapses, going from presenting a mainstream television show, to cable TV, to being fired from a late-night video games review show.

Each of the main characters have relationships with others, such as Emma with an unfunny stand-up comedian boyfriend Ian, and Dexter is with a fellow TV producer. By 2001, Emma has broken up with Ian, and Dexter has divorced wife Sylvie with whom he has had a daughter, Jasmine. The cause of the divorce is Sylvie's infidelity with Callum, one of Dexter's college friends. After the divorce Dexter goes to Paris to visit Emma, where she is writing her second book.

When they meet in Paris, they confront their relationship and whether becoming lovers is the right choice, after all the years they have been friends and with all the complications such a transition would make.

3. The Historian ( Elizabeth Kostova)

The Historian interweaves the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş, a 15th-century prince of Wallachia known as "Vlad the Impaler", and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula together with the story of Paul, a professor; his 16-year-old daughter; and their quest for Vlad's tomb. The novel ties together three separate narratives using letters and oral accounts: that of Paul's mentor in the 1930s, that of Paul in the 1950s, and that of the narrator herself in the 1970s. The tale is told primarily from the perspective of Paul's daughter, who is never named.

4. Impossible (Nancy Werlin)

Lucy has nine months to break an ancient curse in order to save both herself and her unborn daughter.

Inspired by the ballad "Scarborough Fair," this riveting novel combines suspense, fantasy, and romance for an intensely page-turning and masterfully original tale.

Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that the women of her family have been cursed through the generations, forced to attempt three seemingly impossible tasks or to fall into madness upon their child's birth. But Lucy is the first girl who won't be alone as she tackles the list. She has her fiercely protective foster parents and her childhood friend Zach beside her. Do they have love and strength enough to overcome an age-old evil?

Under-Achievement (28 July 2011)

I know, I know. This isn’t exactly a bad day. I'm a bit bored. No enough money to treat myself some shopping, but yeah, I don’t actually care.

This is my picture of the day. I'll try to include a picture in my everyday manifesto. 

Today is a very cloudy day. Just like my thoughts... just like my life.

My Boss is back from almost a two month long vacation in the United States. I guess, my happy days are now over. I’m a bit disappointed with myself, knowing that I could’ve made tons of stuff to follow up and do while he was not around. I guess this abnormality stops today.

Complacency builds familiarity. As I get to be comfortable with my workplace (though I’ve been here like more than a year now), I feel that I can tolerate underachieving as day passes by. Sometimes I go home knowing that I never did finished anything; nor accomplished any bit of task that’s related in my work. I remember, sa Accenture, I used to be complacent, pero hindi naman ganito kalala.

Now I am drowning under Underachievement and tolerance.

I guess, you could say this is why I plunge myself in too much commitments. I really don’t want to accept that na napag-iiwan ako. Na hindi ako nag-iimprove sa kung anong meron ako ngayon. Ang hirap lang kasi, naiisip ko, bakit pinababayaan ko ang sarili ko sa situation na ito. 

"But i can't leave my family now", I told myself everynow and then. I just cant leave them while theyre still enjoying my help and support. Kaso, until kelan ito?

I guess... Im still hoping for the best.

Today, my life might be cloudy. Vague and gray. As people exchange stories of their travel and adventure, here i am still contemplating on my dreams of living abroad and starting a very simple and comfortable life.

Ako kasi yung klase ng tao na, i have to assure myself that i am doing something to achieve that dream. That as everyday passes, I am but, one step closer to that dream. Hindi pedeng wala akong ginagawa.

Yun na lang ang konswelo ko sa sarili ko. Na alam kong the Toastmaster, Masteral and French class will be my added tickets in my dream life outside the Philippines.

Hay naku... I dont want to admit it, pero yes, I feel so jealous of Fred. I feel so jealous that his decisions matter and are more beneficial in the long run, rather than my practical actions/ decisions. Especially sa trabaho. i chose a high earning, non-promoting job. Not much opportunities for growth. Samantalang si Fred, he's now in Ireland. 

I hate myself for getting stuck. I hate myself for delving in wrong decisions.

I hate that I feel I am not doing well. I hate that I am not at my best. That I am not the "dream self" that I pictured in my mind years, and years ago.

I hate a cloudy day. Cloudy thoughts. And cloudy life.

My Bucket List

I am writing my Bucket List.


I guess, this one of those "you-should-forever-update" kind of list, because once you have accomplished some of them, you have to supply a replacement. 


I believe everyone should make their bucket list; particularly because, at some point in our lives, we will ask ourselves, "In my seventy years (or maybe eighty, for the lucky ones), what major stuff was i able to accomplish?" "What bad-ass stuff can I share with my grand kids?"


..." Am i ready to die now that I have accomplished this, and that?"




well, the problem, with too many things you want to do, is that you don't really know what you want now. Now. its difficult to actually condition our selves that, well, "you cant do everything, cant you? You cant actually read all the great books, buy all the beautiful stuff, cant be a model sized figure, and be a super woman in all your relationships.


Well, here it goes... my Bucket List for This Lifetime... 


Wish Me Luck!


1. Conquer Europe! Plus Brazil!


    


Greece, France, Italy, England, Germany, Brazil!




2. Study in Stanford University





I want to Study my Masters in Business Administration here, and have a great career in California, kahit sandali lang.


3. I want to marry and have children... with the man I love.


 


4. I want to live in Switzerland; have a healthy living and simple life there.

5. I want to die as a Pesco Vegetarian :)


 


as of this freaking moment... i dont see how i can give up my shrimps, squids and Chicken!! its so hurtful, just by looking at them.. this one i need some supporting to do!!!




6. I want to love Running. I have to love Running!!!





7. Learn The Art of Wushu


  


8. Learn to speak and write in Fluent French.


9. Learn to speak and write fluent German.


10. Finish my Bucket Booklist*


11. To earn the Distinguished Toastmaster norm in Toastmasters.





12. Nail the Chartered Financial Analyst examination


13. Develop my vocal chords!





13. Organized!!!!