Thursday, December 30, 2010

New Year Resolution

With the end of the current year 2010 and the looming arrival of 2011, people around the world have in some ways come up with a goal to improve one's life. But new year's resolution is much easier to make than to keep it all throughout the year.
Here are the most common, Top 5 New Year's resolutions I found while searching online:

1. Lose weight. I guess you were thinking on this, too.
2. Spend more time with friends and family. Most people are busy with their life's business that sometimes you take for granted the most important people in your life.
3. Get out of debt. The current economic situation probably triggered this to make it into third place.
4. Quit smoking. Just like the top resolution of losing weight, quiting smoking is one tough goal to pursue. It will take a lot of strong will, self-discipline, and determination in order to succeed. There are always a lot of help and resources to help and guide you towards your goal.
5. Do more in community. I'm not sure about the statistics but I know that there are still a lot of kind-hearted people willing to help our unfortunate brothers and sisters. If you're resources are in abundance, it would be good to give back to the community. Try it, you will feel good. I have done it before with my community organization.

Now, it's my turn to come up with my own new year's resolution for 2011. I want to improve and maintain my health. I am currently doing some steps to pursue this goal. I've been trying to regularly exercise in the gym. I've been watching my diet and the kind of food and drinks to take. This year, I have discovered that I have only one functional kidney left and I intend to keep it healthy in order to outlive it. The next step is to work closely with my nephrologist in order to be successful.

How about you? What's your new year's resolution for 2011?

Happy New Year to one and all. Wishing you good health and prosperity for 2011 and beyond.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Simple Christmas Celebration

The world was so excited with the coming of Christmas Day. Preparations for food and gifts were done just to catch-up with the festivities. After Christmas Day, people are now looking forward towards the end of the year and the start of the new year. For the past three years, I've been celebrating Christmas and the coming of the New Year away from my family because I was working on these holidays. This year is no exception. Dec 24th and the 25th were on a Friday and Saturday respectively. The same will also happen for Dec 31st and Jan 1 of 2011 as these are my regular working days.

I was planning to go through these holidays as simple as possible, and I was able to send some christmas greeting cards to my friends and relatives. With the use of the advancement of technology nowadays, I sent christmas cards using online merchants. I went to these greeting cards website, designed my own card using a not-so-old family picture. I let the site mail the cards to my intended recepients in order to save some mailing times. For the rest of my friends and family, I used my social network account in order to greet them.

Since I was in the hospital where I worked, the passing of the Christmas Eve was a quick one. The hospital management provided a special free holiday meal for the night shift staff. On the day itself, I went to hear mass right after my work. I also spent lunch with my parents on that day. Right after lunch, it was my time to hit the bed in preparation for my work that evening. On that evening at work, I tried to monitor the Christmas party of my family back in the Philippines. We used a messenger site in order to transmit voice and video content over the internet. Unfortunately, the internet connection where the party was held was very slow. Since my internet connection was fast enough, my video images were clearly viewed at the other end but the video that I got from them were flickering and erratic and the quality of the images were not good. Since I was still working at that time, I decided to hang up the video call and just wait for the pictures to be posted and shared online.

The most important thing though, is that I was able to greet the child Jesus on his birthday and spent a holiday meal with my parents.

To those who were not able to receive my greetings, whether by mail or online, I wish you all the best for this Christmas Season and a prosperous and healthy New Year 2011.