Winning the high jump requires one person who can jump seven feet, not seven people who can jump one foot.

Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to a new power as a benefactor. – Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You’ve got to keep working that talent.” – Irving Berlin

“No matter the size of the bottle, the cream always rises to the top.” – Novelist Charles Wilson

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” -Stephen King

Talent is a God-given gift that should be celebrated. When we observe talented people:

1. We Should Marvel at Their Giftedness
2. We Should Recognize Their Contribution to Society
3. We Should Separate What They Can Do from Who They Are

JOHN MAXWELL’S BELIEFS

1. Everyone Has Talent
2. Develop the Talent You Have, Not the One You Want
3. Anyone Can Make Choices That Will Add Value to Talent

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

I’ve discovered thirteen key choices that can be made to maximize any person’s talent:

• Belief lifts your talent.
• Passion energizes your talent.
• Initiative activates your talent.
• Focus directs your talent.
• Preparation positions your talent.
• Practice sharpens your talent.
• Perseverance sustains your talent.
• Courage tests your talent.
• Teachability expands your talent.
• Character protects your talent.
• Relationships influence your talent.
• Responsibility strengthens your talent.
• Teamwork multiplies your talent.

Make these choices, and you can become a talent-plus person. If you have talent, you stand alone. If you have talent plus, you stand out.

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.

Disclaimer: I’ve taken these lines from John Maxwell’s book, Talent Is Never Enough. I posted them in my blog to share it with others and may they learn from these. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so. It’s one of the books really worth reading.

One of the trainings was about Presentation Dynamics, where they taught us how to present properly and professionally in front of many people. I was so lost the first time I had my speech. I didn’t even know what I was talking about. I had my fair share of criticisms. They weren’t kidding when they said that “The fire that burned the wood was the same fire that hardened the steel”. It’s true. I can definitely say that I’m getting better at presenting myself in front. I still get cold feet, but I know how to manage my nervousness now. I have been told that my voice was inaudible until now. Now that I’ve thought of it, I could barely notice that I’m almost shouting when presenting in front, which is the exact opposite of myself years ago, where I appeared to be whispering from the audience’s point of view.

We also had training on Achieving Meeting Results as well as English 101, which made me realize that even though your grammar sounds perfect, there are still things that were incorrect or inconsistent in it. I used not to raise my hand during discussions, but I do now. It felt better when I’ve lifted those questions or things that I’ve hidden from my mind. One thing I learned is that it’s better to ask questions than to assume. Don’t be afraid to raise your questions. You might think that your questions are stupid, but in a meeting, those who didn’t ask any question are the ones who appeared stupid.

Throughout the training, I wasn’t afraid of being corrected. I wasn’t offended when they correct me. Rather, I see it as an opportunity to learn and get better. If you’re a person with great pride, it’s difficult for you to accept criticisms, but if you want to grow, you must learn how to deal with them. I know that everyone would learn from them too. Our facilitators really know how to handle us, when to compliment, give feedback and shut us up when we’re going off the track, even though it was their first time to handle such a crowd. They know what they’re doing and they’re good at it. I know that teaching is difficult; I’m even terrible at explaining things even when I’m speaking in vernacular. And for that, my hat’s off to them.

This is the first training that I’ve attended at work and I can say I’m grateful that I have been given this opportunity because I learned a lot. Now that the training is ending, I can feel a little sadness because I have been enjoying it. It just feels so good knowing that by the end of the day, you learn something new!

I am more confident now and I feel like I can face the world without cowering.

To my facilitators, thank you for being selfless and endowing your knowledge to us. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have taken a step higher on the ladder.

A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.
~Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

We shouldn’t forget the things and people who are important to us. They make life worth while. Anyway, I have been meeting my friends after work after not seeing them for a while, especially my High School friends, who I rarely see. Usually when I see my friends, we just eat and talk about whatever we want. :P

This is Deohannah, my first ever friend when I stepped to High School. We had this boring program at school a long time ago and we talked about WITCH, which really made a connection with us. I also figured out that she LOVES Harry Potter and from then on, we’ve been together at school. We usually have lunch and snacks together, and just keep on talking about it. We have been labelled as “HP Freaks” at school. LOL.

She didn’t change at all. She’s still talkative. HAHA. And we still have a lot in common. Isn’t that great? Usually when you meet an old friend, you sadly realize that she/he is not the same anymore. You could tell that you’ve lost connection, but we didn’t. YAY! She even got prettier. LOL.

And this is Gemsan – which sounds weird because we all call her “Budyot”. LMAO! She is my closest friend in College. I treat and acknowledge her as my sister. I don’t know why, but if there’s someone who’d make fun of her or bully her, I defend her. And yes, I recently just cut my bangs short.

This is my closest male friend, Neil. We connected through College as well. He was like “Hurry and get the picture done with because I’m already hungry” in this photo. HAHA.

I guess one of the purposes of school is to help you find your life long friends. Never use work as a reason not to connect with them anymore.

On a random note,my cellphone has been lagging on me lately, and I realized I have too many messages in my inbox. I just emptied my poor inbox. LOL.

I made this years ago. We still look so young here. Yes, I am feeling a bit sentimental right now. *sniff*

When the daylight’s gone and you’re on your own
And you need a friend just to be around
I will comfort you, I will take your hand
And I’ll pull you through, I will understand

I’ll be at your side, there’s no need to worry
Together we’ll survive through the haste and hurry
I’ll be at your side
If you feel like you’re alone, and you’ve nowhere to turn
I’ll be at your side
~At Your Side, The Corrs

I was chatting with my workmates one day and randomly, my friend, Kim, who was the same person I mentioned earlier, informed me that there’s a promo going on in one of the gyms. And the yearly price is just 5,000 Php (which is about 116 USD). Pretty awesome, right? They had sauna as well so I decided to try it out.

This is our first day at the gym. I was ignorant of the tools, and I still am. LOL. This is me just posing for the camera as you can tell by the way my hands are positioned. This is way too high for me. HAHA.

This is the first time I used this. I was a bit hesitant because I’ve seen videos where people trip off when they use this thing, but I said to myself that I’m not going to learn anything if I let my fear overcome me. I walked, jogged and ran with this. WEEE!

Kim told me that the distance was measured by miles, which is unbelievable. I didn’t feel tired while on the treadmill. I only felt it after I used it. We rested for a little while then went ahead to experience their sauna, which is the only thing I’m very excited about and one of the main reasons why I joined this gym.

I find their sauna disappointing. There was too much steam. We kept on coughing and felt suffocated so we had to open the room for some time to let some of the steam out, which is such a pet peeve. It was really distracting us. We can’t even adjust the amount of steam, while in the boys’ sauna, they can. They even have this lemon smell which sounds so comforting. I wish they would improve the girls’ sauna too.

Anyway, it was fun! And I’ll have this service for one year. YAY for me!

I received this gift certificate last December from my previous employer to show their appreciation for our hard work in one of their biggest projects. I’ve had this for about three months before I was able to use it. I spent a lot during the holiday but wasn’t able to bring this during the times I was shopping. LOL. And I was on a thrift mode after that because I know I have to catch up on my savings. My wallet was really bleeding at that time. But these past few days, I’ve been itching to buy something but don’t know what to get. I was about to buy makeup, when I went to the shoes department.

I lusted over this pair of shoes last Christmas, but kept myself from buying because I’ve spent way out of my budget. It was 1,000 Php back then. It was just my luck when I saw this after a few months. And guess what? They have my shoe size, which is really rare. I ogled at the price even more when I saw it was reduced to 800 Php.

This was the last pair so the right shoe isn’t as new as the left one, but I bought it anyway. When I reached the cashier, she told me it had 20% off, so I only paid 720 Php. The gift certificate was only 500 Php so I had to pay an additional 220 Php. It was such a steal for me! YAAAAY!

I rarely have shoes with designs such as this one because getting a pair is already much of a bother for me due to my small size. If I like something and didn’t get it, the most probable reason was that there isn’t any available size for my feet. Urgh. It’s really frustrating. I’m tired of wearing black shoes (I have 2 high heeled shoes and flats – do you know how boring that is? Can you feel my pain? HAHA) to work, so this is a great alternative for me.

I feel like a child. I’m so happy.

I browsed and read my previous posts in this blog from the last few years, and I came to realize that I blogged more often and that there was transparency in most of my posts. I can still feel my emotions and what was going through as I read them. And I realized that the reason that I haven’t been blogging just as much isn’t really the lack of time or laziness. I just used the as an excuse not to blog. Should I be ashamed of myself because I’m a blogger?

As I grew and got to know more about life and its peculiarity, I learned that there are times when you shouldn’t or couldn’t disclose information or feelings. I think I’ve been masking my feelings lately to the point that I couldn’t blog about them, not even the things that I want to rant or what is happening to my life or what I think about them. One of the things why I love blogging was that it improved my grammar and sentence construction, but that’s the main reason why I love doing it in the first place. When I can’t express myself in real life, I do it through blogging.

When I started this blog, I post extremely long posts such as this one and I found out that most people don’t like reading this kind of stuffs. Who would read something that doesn’t concern them or they couldn’t relate to, right? So I started to lessen the things I write and posted pictures. I did enjoy them for a while, but editing and posting pictures just tire me out. I’m not as enthusiastic about it as doing this and ranting away. If you’ve been reading this blog years ago, you’d know what I mean and would have noticed the transition. I found it mandatory to include pictures to make my blog seem more interesting and would get more visitors. I got what I wanted, but in the long run, it felt like a chore. And people like me don’t like doing chores. So I procrastinate.

As my blog visitors grew in number, I became wary of what I should post, especially when people I know in real life, such as my classmates, workmates, and relatives found out about this. I don’t have control over who can view or read my blog. So I chose not to disclose things that I think might be personal. There are nosy people, and you don’t know that there are people who dislike you and would use that information against you. You might think that I’m getting paranoid, but admit it, it could happen to anyone. You might think that it’s silly of me not to think like this before, yes, you’re right. :P

After a long time, I’ve come to a conclusion that I can still bog without ever feeling the need to post pictures every time I post a new one. I can blog without the feeling of being stalked or watched that I tend to be too cautious with every information I give away and end up not blogging.

I’ve been restricting myself from the thing that I truly want to do and it feels heavy. I’ve learned that paying attention to everyone, being concerned on every little thing that everyone would say about you, being influenced on what everyone would tell you hinders you from being the great person that you would become. I don’t want that to happen so I shouldn’t continue doing that and I’ll throw this useless emotional baggage down the drain.

If you’re wondering, yes, this is one of the emotional and personal posts that I used to write and haven’t done so in ages. I’m actually experiencing goosebumps as I write this post. Nostalgia, maybe? It feels like home. This feeling. So I’m not letting this go.

And yes, I will continue to write things like this on my blog. I truly missed this. The old Senyth is back.

Home truly is where the heart is. I found myself where I’m supposed to be. It didn’t take so much time. ~Lady Antebellum

I’m not saying though that I didn’t learn anything from my first job (yes, I quit my job a few weeks ago), I did learn a lot and discovered a lot of things, but the thing is I didn’t feel like I’m learning enough and most of the time, I have people all around me who were all ready to provide me information up to the point that I became dependent and lost my passion, which has become my comfort zone.

I will surely miss this place and the people in it. For the 6 months that I’ve stayed there, I’ve made connection with them and we really got to know each other. They made my stay worthwhile. Thinking of them puts a smile on my face. I don’t need to mention names (and they don’t have to be in the pictures HAHA), because they know who they are.

This used to be my work place. I wonder who’s using it right now. BTW, I loved that monitor because it is big and I can see everyhting very clearly. XD That chair was my favorite chair as well.

I was backing up all my files because that day was my last day. LOL.

I’ve found a new job, but sometimes I can’t help but think of them when it’s lunch break, or when it’s 4:00 PM, which is our break/snacks time.

I miss them. Just because I let go of my first job doesn’t mean we’d stop being friends.

I waited for a month for me to get a hold of this since it is always out of stock. It’s definitely worth the wait though. :D I bought this from a local online seller and it saved me a lot of money! If I bought this in the mall, it would have cost me 14,000 – 16, 000 Php (about $325 – $372 USD), but I only bought this for 9,700 Php (about $225 USD). It’s a pretty good deal, right?

It doesn’t include a memory card and a case, but it’s no big deal. I can just buy those. :D There is also a user manual which I forgot to include in the photo.

It’s smaller than my hand and it just fits in my pocket. I won’t put it in there though because I tend to be careless. I initially wanted the Powershot A3200, which costs less, but I realized I loved the features of the IXUS 220 HS more, as well as its image quality.

It’s even smaller than my phone, though it’s slightly thicker. Here are some sample shots I took:

I wouldn’t be able to achieve this with our old camera.

I am really happy with my new camera. I can now take HQ photos and even videos, and some creative filters, and other effects. YAY!!

I’ve always been fond of taking pictures of nature and having macro shots, but the camera just can’t do justice to its beauty. We went to a province, named Dalaguete to visit a few relatives. I must say the life we live and the life we live are worlds apart. It’s much simpler and peaceful there, not to mention less pollution. :P They don’t have the complications of living in a city, which is quite annoying to me and makes me wish that I live there for a week. LOL.

We had to walk a long walk and climb in order to get to our relative’s house. It was hard because our slippers were wet and slippery. I actually had to grab a tree’s stems in order to avoid myself from slipping. But it was worth it, because as they say, “The harder the climb, the better the view”.

This is where they wash their clothes and take a bath. For a moment, I thought it was dirty but when we got closer, I stood corrected. We even took a bath there and it was enjoyable. It was hard to fight the current but it was fun playing along with it. The rocks made our bath taking session less enjoyable.

The happy people inspite of the scorching heat of the sun. Haha. I can definitely say that we enjoyed the trip especially my younger brothers and cousins.

I wish I could just sit there till sunset, thinking of everything that has happened in slow motion, weighing every little thing just to make the right decision. Sometimes, all we need in life is a little bit of a pause. It will do wonders, trust me.

I arrived at my friend’s house late, as usual, but the models arrived later compared to me. LOL. I arranged everything before the shoot started. And that’s what the workplace looked like 30 minutes later. Haha.

Our female model. Isn’t she pretty? :P One thing I like about her face is that she has a pair of naturally arched brows so it wasn’t so difficult primping her up. While I was doing the makeup, our photographer helped me curl her hair to save time since our male model has a different agenda in the afternoon. Talk about being famous and in demand. LOL!

One thing I can say with this shoot is that the people involved are versatile. It’s not everyday that a photographer can do the model’s hair. :P Our models can make cute and sexy looks in one shoot. Yes, they transformed from cute to sexy, like what our photographer wanted, which is kind of funny, for me. :P

Me, doing the sexy look of the model. :P

I’ve been known since we were still studying that I’d stop whatever I’m doing to pose and smile at the camera when it’s pointed to my direction. LOL. This is one proof of it. Want to see the awesome shots?

We didn’t do it on purpose, but it so happen that at that time, Harry Potter 7 Part 2 movie is about to be released. :P J.K. Rowling should pay us for advertising her stuff! HAHA. Not that she needs it anyway. (I still can’t get over Harry Potter and I’ve been loving it since I read Book 2. Crazy shipper of Harry/Ginny here and proud of it!)

The models are actually real life couple. Cute, I know. :P And did I mention that the female model and the photographer are two of my closest friends in College? They’re extremely talented! Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Friends of the same feather, flock together. HAHA! Kidding!

I really enjoyed the shoot and I hope I could do more shoots in the future.

Organizers/Directors/Stylists: Clarraine Tonog and Yours Truly
Models: Jen Curativo and John Vega
Hairstylists: Clarraine Tonog and Yours Truly
Make Up: Yours Truly :P
Photographer: Clarraine Tonog
Wardrobe: Clarraine's Older Sister and Yours Truly

And that’s me after the shoot. Tired as hell but fulfilled. :P Clarraine actually treated us some ice cream and bread after the successful day. YAY!

I’m sorry for the sort of pic spam post. I hope you enjoyed this post too. If you want to see more of the official photos, just contact me and I’ll give you the link of my friend’s album.

PS: I really do fervently hope that I could update this blog regularly. I missed blogging sooooo much, but I just barely have the time! Rawrbie is already 2 years old, btw. I renewed her before her birthday, August 17. :P