my life so far (wala lang) September 25, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in Uncategorized.3 comments
I remember how I imagined myself at 26 when I was younger.
When I was in grade school I wanted to be a writer, a scientist, an interior designer, an architect, a lawyer.
When I was in highschool I imagined I’d be a senator by this time. That was it. I didn’t think much about my future, you see.I had no plans. I guess that was something I regretted.
When I got to college, things became more of a blur. I knew then I didn’t want to go to law school and I didn’t have the resources or experience to run for Senate. But I went on with my course. I just wanted to get it over with.
I wanted to be married by 24. Have kids on my 26th. It just seemed so old to me. I assumed I’ll be stable and settled by then.
Well, I’m 26 now. And I’m not anything as I imagined I would be. One thing you realize when you get older is that things don’t always turn out the way you imagined or wanted them to. Life throws you things that you’re never ready for and puts you in positions you never thought you’d get into. So you just have to adjust: emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. You make constant mistakes but you deal with it and move on.
I graduated Political Science but I’m now working in a Multinational IT Corporation. I love my job. I’m taking up my MBAs, venturing into a new business and has only started to invest. My family’s healthy and complete and I get to spend regular time with my lifelong friends. At this point, I can safely say to my younger self, don’t worry, I’m happy. 
Summer officially starts todayyyy!!! April 9, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in summer, trips.add a comment
Oh yes it does!!! For me, anyway. The last class of the term for my MBAs was yesterday and I’m just over the moon about it! It’s not that I hate school. I actually love taking my MBAs but its just so liberating!!!
I don’t know. I guess you just appreciate things more when you experience the opposite of them. For instance, you don’t appreciate feeling normal until after you get sick. You don’t appreciate the absence of pain until after you know how it felt like. You appreciate silence after a lot of noise and you appreciate food more when you feel hungry. Well, I guess I proved my point. Needless to say, I appreciate rest time after months of late night cramming and sacrificed night outs. Haha.
Its not that I’m stress-free now. I need not say the piling problems at work (that will be a long different story). Let’s just say the term break removed a considerable load off my back. So I am sooo looking forward to summer. It starts today because its a holiday syempre! Its the first Saturday of the year that I got to sleep in as much as I wanted to. I even have time to blog, watch TV (the new commercials are hilarious) and home movies, clean my room, run etc. And I have a lot of activities in store for me for the coming weeks!
Tonight: Saguijo with officemates (Stonefree, Chicosci etc.)
Monday night: Bugsy’s with Nikki
Tuesday night: Kanin Club with MBA classmates
Wednesday night: KAOS with family and highschool friends
Thursday night up to Holy Week: Samar and Bicol with the fam
April 30 – May 1: Company Outing @ Puerto Galera
May 13 – 16: Cebu-Bantayan Islands with officemates
May 28 – 30 – Singapore with officemates
May 30 – First day of Ethics class
Haha no wonder I’m excited! At least I can say I’m living life to the fullest. I’m having the time of my life without compromising anything. God has blessed me with so much
Mygent-Capones Nuptials – Preview February 22, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in weddings.Tags: acuatico, batangas, beach wedding, laiya, wedding
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We attended the wedding of a former colleague in Acuatico, Batangas. It’s a beautiful place. And I really enjoyed taking pictures. I will blog about it soon. But here’s a preview of the ones I edited.
Will blog about this soon!!!!
I LOVE WEDDINGS
Our Adventures in Beautiful, Beautiful Coron Day 2 and 3 February 13, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in trips.Tags: corals, coron, coron village lodge, fish, Mt. Tapyas, palawan, snorkeling
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Anyway, Day 2 started kind of late. We waited by the dock for around an hour. It was okay though, I was on the phone with a client half the time. But I was still able to take lots of pictures of the port.
on the right side of the picture is Mt. Tapyas
We went to TWO shipwrecks that day. It was September 24, 1944 when the Americans bombed some Japanese warships docked near Coron island (Arnel, our tourguide, said this and google confirmed! cool, cool Arnel). The first one was quite deep so we just saw the tip of the Japanese warship. It will give you the creeps the first time you see it. Even though its a few meters below, you can see the clear outline of a ship covered in corals and other marine life. I can almost imagine a giant octopus wrapped around it. Its really like what you see in movies, only creepier because you don’t hear any soundtrack, just peaceful, anticipating silence. Its a sad but beautiful sight.
From there on we saw all kinds of marine life: fishes of all sizes and colors, sea urchins with their long black needles with orange menacing eyes that seem to watch you, beautiful corals, dead corals, green, blue, yellow red corals (puro corals??)
fishes eating bread, i hope there's no tuna spread in it
The second shipwreck was much much shallower. We even stepped on it and took lots of pictures with it.
look closely
Joyce and I decided to remove our lifevests (gasp!) and realized to our delight that it wasn’t that difficult to keep afloat on seawater!! FREEDOM I tell you!!! It felt liberating. Too bad we didn’t know how to dive. Haha..
We stopped over an island for lunch. Its shorelines were covered with mangroves (bakaw in Filipino, bakawan if plural).
There we met someone so smart and funny I would take him home if he wasn’t married: Panday, the island dog.
Panday
Did you notice the leaf in his mouth? He carries it to tourists in exchange for food. We later discovered that his partner is pregnant. Talking about making ends meet. He’s hilarious! He even knows how to shake hands, er, paws. Haha.. After he realized no one’s going to give him food in exchange for his leaf, he started looking for something in the sand.
what are you looking for, Panday?
He literally buried his head in the sand!
Haha enough with the dog. I got some pretty nice pictures on the island too.
You will notice that I didn’t post pictures of people. But I just had to post the last two above ’cause I love the differing perspectives.
After a heavy picnic lunch of steamed fish, seaweeds, adobo, pansit and salad, Arnel was determined to make us burn everything we’ve eaten. We snorkeled around the island for 500 meters (well, Arnel pulled us with his buoy but still). This is the area they call the Coral Garden. And boy, did they mean it. Corals everywhere! That was why I mentioned so many corals earlier. Haha.. Green ones, blue ones, branchy ones, spikey ones, smooth ones, ones that looked like brains, ones that looked like skeletons. Some were so close you can step on it if you try floating upright. And fishes of course. Striped ones, bright green ones, slender ones, fat ones, schools of tiny silver ones that dart around so fast. We even saw a seasnake and a turtle!!!
It was really, really amazing. It was like having an aerial view of a completely different world that held so many mysterious secrets. I felt like an intruder to a beautiful kingdom. Words cannot describe it beautifully enough, but underwater pictures are with Dee’s camera. Hehe
Not to say it was all beauty. It was also menacing and painful. Yes, painful! There were some stuff that continued to sting and make us itch all over. It was like nature’s way of protecting itself. Planktons, Arnel says, they burst when they touch the skin. And then once in awhile someone from your group accidentally kicks you in the head, that’s also painful.
Alas, before we knew it, the day was ending yet again. We went to our last destination for the day, another hot spring. But this time, we had to swim through a mangrove forest to get there.
behind these mangroves are the hot springs
The water shifted from hot to cold and then cold to hot. We had a great laugh accusing each other of peeing in the water. When we got to the hot springs, I could just say wow. Its like God asked us if it was too hot or too cold – the temperature was just the right kind of warm, snuggly comfort- it gave me happy goosebumps. Haha. We stayed there for awhile until we had to leave so we can go back to town to look for pasalubong.
Once again, we were exhausted. After we had dinner and yummy strawberry margaritas with chocolate, we had massages: all of us groaning about our aching legs and backs, our wounded feet and scraped arms. But we were all happily reminiscing about the past 2 days, about the beauty and adventure and laughs we just had. And we were ready for the next day. Because for the next day, we’re going to hike up Mt. Tapyas.
Coron Village Lodge restaurant
“Tayo nang umakyat sa bundok ng Tapyas!” was the music playing in the restaurant during dinner. It was actually a full album about Coron by a local band. I really liked it. And I even recorded some if it to perk us up while we climb up the 700+ stairs of Mt. Tapyas. I was really excited to take pictures of the sunrise.
Unfortunately, things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. Arnel arrived in the lodge at around past 6 and the sky was already bright by then.
700+ steps to Mt. Tapyas
sunrise? not quite...
But the view was spectacular nonetheless. Mt. Tapyas was once used as barracks of Japanese soldiers, so the US Military bombed it. Part of the mountain was destroyed. This is why it is called Mt. Tapyas.
view from Mt. Tapyas
the sleeping giant. can you see it?
We were back at the lodge by 8 am because our flight was 11. But when we got to the airport, it started raining. Cebupac flight got cancelled, our Airphil flight was delayed for two hours. But still, it was goodbye to Coron.
As I looked out the plane window and saw Coron for the last time, I whispered to it… I love you, goodbye…
Joke lang. I just looked at it sadly and promised that I will be back. Next time, marunong na ako magdive
Our Adventures in Beautiful, beautiful Coron Day 1 February 13, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in trips.Tags: coron, coron village lodge, palawan, siete pecados, twin lagoon
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my first nice pic in coron :p
I was sooo excited to experiement with my Nikon D3100. I bought it last year especially for this trip. I had a hard time dealing with the harsh lighting of the sun but with a little, okay a lot, of test shots, I think I got a few nice pictures.
Anyway, since we only had technically 2 and a half days to explore the sights, we made the most of it. We checked in the lodge…
our accomodations
puti tat
fine white sand, mysterious, limestones, the waters of different, beautiful shades of blue….
limestone islands
Then there was the twin lagoon. It was where the saltwater met the freshwater (called brackish water). The two lagoons were separated by a limestone cliff so you can swim underneath to get to the other side. The good thing was, there were actual wooden stairs on the limestone cliff so you can carefully squeeze in between the jagged rocks.
this leads to the small gap where you can pass through to get to the other lagoon
On the other side was a cul-de-sac of more mysteriously-formed limestone cliffs and mangroves. The beautiful view of how the rays of the sun formed rainbows amongst the trees was breathtaking. That was when I exclaimed, “Thank you Lord for creating something this beautiful!”
After that, we headed to Cayangan Lake, revered as one of the cleanest lakes in the Philippines. To get there, we had to hike for a few minutes. We passed by the “most photographed scene” of Coron. I really had a hard time with this one. I have no idea how to deal with the sun and the shadows!!
overexposed?
too many shadows
So I didn’t get a good shot of that one. I was starting to annoy my friends so we moved on to the place beside that – the cave. Our tour guide, Arnel, was really good. He pulled us with his buoy while we were snorkeling, took some of our group pictures underwater and on land, and the best part is, we learned a lot of things from him. He told us fun facts, legends and actual histories. He said that Japanese soldiers hid in this cave when the Americans came back.
it was a reaaaally dark cave
sloooow shutter speed (shaky hand) to get natural light
Do you see anything creepy? My friend with a 3rd eye says he saw a Japanese soldier there…
Outside, I tried taking a picture of the “most-photographed” site again.
Okay, let it go, Ish…
Anyway, back to our quest for the Cayangan Lake. It was a downward hike from there… until finally, we found it.
- the buoy and Cayangan Lake
By the time the sun was about to set, we were at Siete Pecados. Translated, it means the Seven Sins. Arnel speaks of the legend of a rich couple who had seven sons. Needless to say, they were all brats. One stormy night, when their parents were out of town, they set out to sail in a small boat. As to why, I have no idea. But that’s what happened. Their boat capsized and they were nowhere to be found. When low tide came, seven islets arose. And each were named according to the seven deadly sins that the brothers were known for: Pride, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Greed and Sloth.
Siete Pecados
Wow. Sad story, dramatic picture, still a beautiful place. Oooh sunset!!!
sunset at siete pecados
Last stop for the day was the hot spring.
pathway to the hot spring
This was shot after the sunset. I am amazed by the powers of DSLR technology. You see, it looked brighter!
Wow. That was just Day One.
let’s save the world! (in our own little ways) February 6, 2011
Posted by krismaniego in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’m reposting this from my old blog.
I’ve watched countless doomsday movies showing how the world will end in a thousand different ways… But when I watched KNOWING recently, I’ve come to a realization that it is more possible NOW than EVER!! and I keep asking myself, what can I do? how can I help…
So I’m going to share here the little things I’ve been doing to help save our environment… They’re not much but it’s a start!
1. ALWAYS carry with you a foldable/expandable bag and use it when shopping instead of accumulating useless plastic that you will just end up throwing. And even if you don’t have one of these, just put it in your bag if there’s still space! But remember, keep all your receipts in case they accuse you of shoplifting. Haha
2. Turn off the lights and unplug your appliances when not in use. Seriously, don’t be lazy to do this! You’ll get used to it eventually. This may even lessen your electricity bills.
3. Carry your own water bottle. Instead of just buying water bottle in every stop (when you’re joggin, eating out or on a road trip), carry your own bottle and have it refilled in restaurants! The good part is, you spare yourself from the extra calories of softdrinks and other fake juices AND you get to save your juice money pa
4. Reuse paper. Unfinished spiral notebooks? Cut the metal spring and sew the pages together to form one new notebook! You can even put magazine cut-outs and pictures on the cover! (We used to do this in gradeschool and highschool) Bond papers? Use both sides! Old calendars? Use them as notepads/scratch papers.
5. Have your leaks fixed! whether it’s the toilet, the faucet, or the shower.. you have no idea how much water is wasted with all these leaks… when the leak is in a PUBLIC restroom, report it to the janitor or administrator immediately!
6. Don’t let the water run when you’re brushing your teeth. Use a cup, or turn it off immediately after using.
7. Easiest one: THROW YOUR TRASH IN THE TRASH CAN. I admit I am guilty of throwing candy wrappers here and there when there’s no nearby trash bin. Promise I won’t do it again!! If there’s no nearby trash bin, keep it your pocket for awhile… until you find one. ^_^
…..
I think that may be all I’ve been doing… I’m sure there’s still lots we can do!! hehehe… I really hope we’re not too late… Join me na!!
i am thankful for… October 16, 2010
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But then I received a text message from my father asking me to meet them at Eastwood. He was with Mama and they wanted me to join them for dinner. I was almost home at that time. It was past 8. I was exhausted – physically and emotionally. I told him I kind of felt lazy to go back out again. But when he replied his disappontment and about how I’m always tired when it comes to them, I felt guilty and met with them. And it was the
best choice I made today.
with Mama and Papa
I had fun! I realized how much I missed them. I only see them Sunday afternoons and 5 minutes a day for the rest of the week, when I say I’m leaving and when I get home and they’re still awake. I’m so swamped with work and school that when I get home I just go straight to sleep. I’m bad, I know. So I decided to join them today. We had late dinner and beer at Something Fishy and then frozen yoghurt at Red Mango. The time I spent with my parents made me realize how insignificant other stuff are. This morning, after a meeting, my officemate and I went to offer eggs at Sta. Clara. Mind you, it’s not just for asking for a sunny day. I prayed that I win this account. I prayed for me and my girl friends and that may we find the one for us. I prayed that my brother find a true friend. I prayed for my family’s health and that we may always be together. I prayed for my best friend.
I guess I shouldn’t ask for too much. I don’t know how this unfortunate event will turn out. But I’m leaving it all up to God. I’m not going to question Him or be angry at Him. My goodness, I am blessed with SO MUCH already. So I am going to list things I’m thankful for:
1. I’m thankful for my family. We’re not perfect, we shout at each other at times, but we’re happy. We have a beautiful house and the cutest dogs. And most of all, we’re complete. I know that no matter what happens, we’ll always have each other. And I’m so thankful for that.
my family
kulitan in our pajamas at canyon woods
- practicing dance moves for the family reunion
tres marias
my favorite brother
2. I’m thankful for my friends. They’re simply the best! I may not be Ms. Popular coz I don’t have a gazillion friends, but I know I have the best ones. They love me for who I am and even though I don’t spend so much time with them lately, nothing changes when we get together again. We’ve been through beautiful and ugly moments, accepted each others’ faults and weaknesses and loved and supported each other through it all.
piglet. pooh. eeyore. tigger
ang gago, ang baliw at ang tanga
10 years of friendship
graduating college
FIVE years after college
the original LSI kada
way back when it was all platonic. haha
highschool friends
HS reunion
3. I’m thankful for my job. I have been here for almost five years now. From an awkward newbie, I’d like to think I have blossomed into a confident, experienced woman (professionally ah. hehe). I find satisfaction in helping out my clients and finding solutions to their problems. And my boss, my boss is the best (although he recently got promoted and is technically not my direct Superior anymore). Even though there are MANY problems every day, I know there’ll be a way to solve them.
Basically, I’m thankful for life in general. You see, it’s just a matter of perspective. Not all days will be good. But you’ll just have to remind yourself about all the blessings God has given you, and the rest will just pale in comparison.
my prezi October 10, 2010
Posted by krismaniego in Uncategorized.add a comment
Dear Professor Avila,
Here’s the link to my Prezi.
http://prezi.com/presentation/krismaniego@yahoo.com/f4smbyz/
To edit http://prezi.com/presentation/krismaniego@yahoo.com/yoq3je8/
Thank you and I hope I pass the validating exam.
Warm regards,
Kris
iPad October 10, 2010
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When I first heard of the iPad, I just assumed it’s a giant iTouch and dismissed it entirely. until my father brought one home, that is. So I decided to do some research.
Of course I wanted it for the games. But then I discovered eBooks. As a book lover, I simply cannot resist this. Imagine, having all your favorite books in one lightweight thing? I had butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it.
Now Blackberry’s coming up with something to compete with iPad for a more corporate use.
Well, right now I don’t think I’m going to buy an iPad just yet. Maybe someday when they already come with USB ports.
Innovations in Voice Communications October 10, 2010
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I have always been amused with the things people come up with these days. Someone once told me that in the year 1898, people thought we have invented everything we could think of. I think that is the understatement of the century. When it comes to technology, I believe we will never run out of discoveries. Since I sell telecommunication products, I would like to share the latest innovations in communications.
Years back, voice and data communications are totally different worlds. Voice over IP (VOIP) is a technology where your voice communication channels can now “ride” on your data or IP channels. This technology allows for seamless communication between multi-site companies looking at centralized and cost-effective communications. To give you an idea of exactly how this technology works, see below video.
Unified Communications, on the other hand, offers a single platform for all your communication needs. Imagine that you can make calls, chat, share files and applications, do video and audioconferences, receive faxes and emails – all in one tool.
Lastly, I’d like to share one of our new products that will be released late this year. I’m so excited for the release of the My IC phone. It’s like a desktop iPhone! You can install all kinds of XML applications you can think of, AND you can even surf the internet with it.
