The New Year...

.:Bessie Bonding:.

I find it amusing that the word “bonding” for me and Estelle has been synonymous to me and her vicariously sharing a bad experience, such as when we tried that weird-tasting cheesecake from Sugarhouse, which tasted suspiciously like spit.

Nonetheless, hanging out with Bess has been awesome for the most part, whether it be to achieve some Christmas shopping, or hanging out with her while we're at Jay Mata's place in The Fort, where we had a lot of interesting conversations and a few cool demonstrations of magic, especially since I met up with Deeji, who was my classmate a couple of years back in Heidegger.

She even made the very sweet gesture of wanting to adopt me for the new year's celebration, which was something I really appreciated, although I ended up being adopted by the Ching family.

One thing Estelle said made my day, though... apparently, she thinks that Erik Mana is “mediocre but interesting enough”, mainly because she finds Erik's patter boring, and she thinks I'm the better showman. I was touched. Yan ang Bessie! Hehe.

.:Et-Ching!:.

So I spent New Year's Eve with Clair, Dang, Tita Claire, and Panda, who was cowering over all the fireworks. Hehe. In any case, it was really awesome being there, because I even did a little magic show for the kids in the area, sort of as a taste of the kind of stuff I'm capable of doing already. Let's just say that I got a lot of reactions for the bite card, as usual. Haha.

After that, we went on a bit of a movie marathon, as we watched Take The Lead and Love Actually, plus of course, Michael V's Bubble G anthology... hehehehe.

All in all, an awesome New Year. I should do this more often and have myself adopted by a friend every New Year. Haha.

.:The Top Five People I'm Most Grateful For:.

It's been a really crazy year for me, to say the least, and it took a while for me to get around to getting this list down to pat. Nonetheless, I'm glad I finally found the time, albeit the list and the commentary itself would prolly be noticeably abbreviated...

5. To you who can make my heart skip a beat: In what would be quite a huge change of pace for me, I cannot honestly say I'm grateful to you the most for the year. This has been a year that hasn't been kind to my heart at all. And while the happiest moments of my year have involved you, so have the most painful ones.

Thank you for making me feel special and loved. Thank you for letting me love you, thank you for breaking my heart, thank you for making me laugh, making me cry, for making me feel the highest points of my life, and the lowest points all the same. I wouldn't be a stronger person if it weren't for you.

Thank you.

4. To Jay and Mr. Bing: To the two people who were instrumental to my newfound career in magic, I thank you both. For putting up with my clumsy hands as I tried to learn a double lift, to patiently explaining to me the finer points of misdirection.

For bringing back the wonder in my life, I thank you. Thanks for letting me remember the power that comes with but a wave of a hand.

3. To my Uncle Raymund: Out of my entire family, you're the one I'm most grateful to this year. For giving me a skillset I never realized I am capable of, to the fact that you've been someone I can talk to every now and then about just about anything and everything.

It's not what people say about you that matters. It's how you deal with the people who matter, and for that, I appreciate everything I've learned thanks to you.

2. To my friends: In the most turbulent times of my life, you came through.

All of you.

Words cannot express my gratitude for all of you, for having kept me sane at the moments where my head was spinning off its axis.

I couldn't have gotten to this point without you: the entire JGL, Row, Kathy, Krisette, Hrbs, Debbie, Moon, April, Johan, and pretty much everybody else whom I've failed to mention.

3. To Elbert, Estelle, Clair, Sacha, Jaded, Christelle: The ones whom I proudly call my best friends. You have no idea how much more colorful my life has been with you around.

To Elbert, for the countless nights of pleas... err... I mean, conversation, for being my dose of reality when my head is too mired in illusions, for being the best friend who believes in pushing me to be a better human being.

To Estelle, for having come into my life and being a never-ending source of new and interesting things, as well as for being my favorite audience for children's party magic. For having been the most wonderful new person I've gotten to know this year, Bessie-Moo, you are an amazing human being and I know things can only keep on getting better. Oh, and of course, by extension, I have to thank Kuya Allen and Mang Ted, too! =P Seriously, by extension, I also have to thank Tita Toots and Tito Fort, especially for proving to me that N.U. actually exists. For bringing out the inner child in me, I thank you as well.

To Clair, for being my voice of reason. There's never a dearth of interesting conversation with you around. You're awesomely cool, and you prove without a shadow of a doubt that friends like you are simply one in a billion.

To Sacha, for being there for me, even when you're a thousand miles away. It seems that you're always there just when I need you most. It's amazing, because it's not like we plan any of our encounters online, and yet, by some twist of fate, you never fail to come through.

To Jaded, for believing in me and reminding me that even if we're far apart, we never do truly lose touch, at the end of everything. Thanks for being one of the people who keep pushing me to excel and to try harder.

And to Christelle, for caring about me even when I feel that I sometimes neglect to remind her how much I care about her. For actually playing quite a hand in getting my magic career off the ground. I can only promise to try harder to be there for you when you need someone to be there for you.