Got Heart Planner Giveaway

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This Christmas season, I will be hosting my very first giveaway. 🙂

You know how ecstatic I was about getting my 2010 planner right? If I didn’t come across as excited when I wrote about it, surely my friends from the office could attest to that *chuckles.* Now I am aware that there are other Pinoy bloggers out there who are running contests to giveaway the coveted Starbucks planner, and there are many more who are collecting the stickers themselves (and emptying their pockets *grin*). So far be it for me to host another one of those. Besides, I don’t have the Gs to buy 13 cups of frappuccinos in order to complete the stickers before the month ends.

Without further ado, let me announce the star of this giveaway:

gotheart banner

The 2010 Got Heart Planner is from Got Heart Foundation. Here’s a description from their Multiply website:

Featuring at least twelve indigenous communities in the Philippines, the paintings of an Obo Manobo, Retchor “Ettok” Umpan, and passages written by young indigenous peoples themselves, the GOT HEART 2010 PLANNER is both interactive and youthful with its numerous activities and amazing information. The Planner also has different activities that will allow you to discover more about our IPs in fun and light ways. Aside from promoting love of culture, the GOT HEART PLANNER proceeds will help fund the foundation’s projects for the indigenous peoples, specially a T’boli School in Cotabato.

I didn’t get much information about the foundation on their website, but I’m sure if you contact them in the channels they provided,  you can learn more about specific projects they are sponsoring. I intend to do that one of these days.

If you’ve followed my blog long enough, you would know about my preference for charities and causes concerning children and upholding their rights. But the causes of indigenous peoples are right up my alley too. My grandparents’ families hail from the mountain regions of the Cordilleras, from Bangaan, Sagada, Mt. Province to be exact. Although I don’t speak Igorot, I am one. [I already ordered one for my mom, by the way.]

This giveaway is open to anyone with an address in the Philippines. If you are from another country, you may still join and then maybe give the planner as a gift to a friend in the Philippines 🙂 I take care of both the gift, and the shipping. Isn’t that awesome? 🙂

The contest will run from today until after Christmas. I will draw a winner (via electronic raffle or old school raffle, I haven’t decided yet) on December 26. Since the people behind the planner do not ship on weekends and I assume they also don’t do that during holiday, please allow until the first week of January for shipping. 🙂

To join:

  • Simply leave comments on this blog post and earn one entry per comment.
  • Comments on any of my blog posts dating from December 7 until the 25th will also qualify as one entry per comment.
  • Blog about my giveaway and earn 5 entries, you also earn an additional entry when you leave the link to your post here (so there are six total points here).

Easy peasy, no? 🙂

Wishes Granted

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As in any prolonged absence from the blog (last post here was 11/26, is 8 days considered a prolonged absence?), I have accumulated quite a trove of photos and fond memories that go along with each. Just as much as I am excited to tell them stories, I am also anxious about keeping my photos safe. I should seriously consider my online backup options and I’ve narrowed it down to two choices: Carbonite orMozy. It’s just that I need to use my CC for this and I don’t want to do that at this time.

Oh well. I just pray that my PC remains healthy until January…

Anyway, let me start with what this post at my photo blog was all about although those who are also collecting the stickers would already know about it 🙂

I started collecting the Starbucks stickers a few days after their Christmas  promo started in early November. The quest for the planner definitely ruined my plans of losing weight before the holidays, as you can see here, but it is now over. I can stay away from expensive coffee until next year!

starbucks wish box

Don’t you just love the packaging? Definitely better than the plastic that the other year’s planner came in. My brother threw it away already though.

starbucks wish revealed

This is the design I chose. There are three available, all different covers with their own textures too. I love the soft velvety feel to this one.

starbucks wish mark

And look at that marker? Isn’t it cute?

And of course the big bonus is the 3000 wishes granted by supporting this promo 🙂

I had another wish granted early. Alfred decided to get me the bag I had wanted for Christmas. So December has just started, and I’ve received my first Christmas present for this year (I wonder if I’ll be receiving more gifts?).

We went to the mall because he wanted to checkout something, then I also wanted to checkout the bag. He promised that if it was something he could afford, he’d buy it for me as a gift. They didn’t have the bags at the Trinoma branch of All Flip Flops, so we went to Megamall the next day. And it was right there on display. It was huge, a lot bigger than I expected. But I also knew that I really really wanted to have it.

mega_cores

I initially wanted to get the blue/brown in the middle, but Alfred preferred the yellow/grey combination. had the pink been available though, I’d have loved to take that but there are so far only two available colors. To be honest, once we found out how much it cost, we left the store to take some time to think it over. I really wanted to have it, and thought about splitting the cost of the bag with the boyfriend. Then I thought, it’s way too expensive.

Eventually though, Alfred decided to just buy it for me, as long as I really wanted it. And I really did. And I love him so much. 🙂

Thanks!

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Today, friends and family in the US will be celebrating Thanksgiving and feasting over good food.

To celebrate with them, let me say thank you for the blessings I’ve received.

Thank you:

  • for the good news I’ve received last week, and for the reason that make my colleagues at work happy for me.
  • for the choices I made, that turned out to be the right ones. For the wrong turns I took, and the lessons I’ve learned from them.
  • for the new friends I made this year. May I continue to get to know them, and have them in my life. I realize that I don’t have so many friends that I spend time with and that mostly I just have people I chat with when I’m at work. I pray though, that I continue to cultivate those relationships such that we truly become friends rather than just colleagues and lunchmates.
  • for the birthdays we celebrated this year, and the ones we look forward to.
  • for the freedom to express my views, that I am free to express outrage at the atrocity that was unleashed to 57 victims of the Ampatuan Massacre. 57 families cry out for justice, and the rest of the country cries out with them.
  • for the opportunities to give back, no matter how small I fell those gestures have been. Deep inside I have guilt, for I know there is so much more I can do to help your people. Yet I don’t beat myself up for it, because I also know that I do what I can when I can. And I know you do not wish anyone to do good out of obligation, but rather of their own free will. Someday, I will find balance.
  • for keeping us in good health, despite the many trips to the hospital this year. That there is no reason to file a disability appeal, is much appreciated.
  • that though I leave home in the deepest hours of the night, you always keep me safe.
  • that I have so many reasons to be happy and thankful, and not one reason to be sad.

Thank you for my blog readers too, and the comments they’d surely be leaving for this post. 😉

War of the Clans: Maguindanao Massacre

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The country is wrought with tension, as we bare witness to one of the most brutal killings we’ve seen in our modern history.

On Monday November 23rd, supporters of Vice Mayor Mangudadatu along with media practitioners covering the event, left their town of Buluan to journey to Shariff Aguak where his wife would have filed his candidacy for Governor of Maguinadanao Province. Despite their precautions, they did not make it to the provincial capital. In broad daylight, their convoy was intercepted by armed men (reported to be numbering upto 100). They were forced to a remote location (or locations) where the killings happened.

47 bodies found so far in shallow graves. Some of them beheaded, dismembered, even raped. Many of the reported 60-strong delegation who left Buluan were women and journalists.

I seldom read the papers these days. But today, I read all of the stories pertaining to the massacre, as told by correspondents of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. These are not fun, inspiring stories to read. But read them I must, for perhaps some of it might make sense to me. Since I heard the news, I could not comprehend what had happened. How could something this horrifying happen in these modern times? Perhaps, in our people’s long history it is no surprise to see word of tribal wars and clan wars. Of bloody feuds amongst people.

But one would think that such were a thing of the past. They belong in the history books. Not in present day Philippines. What happened in Maguindanao on Monday – that was merely a show of greed and cowardice.

Many point to the ruling clan, the Ampatuans, as the perpetrators of this barbaric crime. This clan holds many leadership political posts throughout the province, including the Governorship of Maguindanao and of the ARMM. They also secured GMA’s win against FPJ in 2004’s Presidential elections. It seems that to ensure their hold of the province beyond 2010, they’ve started early in terms of eliminating the competition. After all, if no one goes up against the elder Ampatuan for the gubernatorial race (just like last time), there’d be no reason for him to cheat.

The campaign season hasn’t even started and yet we already have these many casualties of election-related crimes. How many more lives will be lost in the run up to May 2010?

But this isn’t just an issue of election violence, is it?

Music Monday

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For the first time, I joined in with this meme and here’s my Music Monday blog post. It includes the McLinky list of participants and you will notice that there are about 46 aside from myself. I tried to go through each entry, kick back and just do some sound tripping on this Monday afternoon. I was able to make it until #27 only.

Though I spent a lot of time going through the other bloggers’ entries, it was time well spent. It’s a much better use of my time than if I had to read through alli reviews, as well as lookup for more weight loss info, or compare what the diet pills work and what do not.

I’m glad I did Music Monday, I rediscovered some songs I already liked, while I was also able to admire new ones. It’s like my ears were opened up, hehe. 🙂

Let me share this video of Carrie Underwood, that I picked up from here.

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