random thoughts

I’m doing a paper for my Economics/Marketing refresher … I decided to make my ‘future’ Philippine destination wedding planning business the subject for my paper. It’s a very good exercise … I will write up a business and marketing plan not just for a PASS grade … but for something I hope to use someday! J in my five years of MBA … this is probably the first time I did this, I used intel a lot in my previous papers … it’s only now that I am diverging and using other companies … (hmmm … how coincidental … J) … I guess, it’s about time I apply what I learned in MBA to good, practical use.

Anyways, I will not really write my paper here … the usual refresher paper length is about 20-pages on a short bond paper … so it’ll be a looong … and boring read … it’s good for my paper … bad for blogging! J

So what exactly will I write about? I’ll write about the research I did … J

Since the topic was on weddings … I did what every normal researcher would do … I googled it! J and since weddings in recent years became such a big business, there’s a lot of websites to choose from! I’m actually just in the first few links when I decided to stop my ‘professional’ research first and view some nice wedding videos! J haha … it’s kinda off topic … but what the hell! <I still have Sunday and Monday to start my paper, Tuesday-Thursday to finish it … and the whole day Friday to cram for it! J … yup, in true Mayzelle Atienza fashion, I took Friday off, the submission day, to plan for my inevitable cramming! J hehe … I used to joke about it a lot … whenever I do something, the last day is allotted for cramming … so that if ever I do cram, it’s still planned! J hehehehe

Anywho, I went to the website of a designer I know … I did ask her to design a dress for me before (hmmm … not a wedding dress, I wish! … just a dress I wore to attend my friend’s wedding) … in her website, there’s a link to a videographer’s website … one I do know and have met before for my friend Berns’ wedding … it’s www.bobnicolas.com (free advertisement!) (… ah, Berna had one of her videos, yup, one-of-the, since she had three! … with her friends being interviewed to share about her and John … I joined the video shoot/interview in CCP Harbor Square and that’s where I met Bob Nicolas himself … er … at least I think that was him! J) … anyways, the link was to Bob’s blog with links to the recent weddings he did and I viewed every single one of them. I know he does really brilliant work from what I saw during Berns’ wedding … so I was really excited to look at some more (ah … I looked at his page maybe a year ago when I was showing my friend in Union City in CA his website … my friend was also a starting videographer in the US … and I showed him an example of what’s being done in the Philippines … okay, really long explanation of how I met Bob and how fond I am of his work … and if I do get married, I will hire him! J) hehehehe

I digress … big time … so going back to my story … while looking at the wedding videos; several things went through my mind! J I was actually looking at the bride’s dress and those of the entourage, was looking at the bouquet, the motif color … I’m trying to identify which church it was at … which reception venue … I was really paying close attention to the details, no matter how brief it was (it was after all, a 3-min video!) … first for research purposes (yup, for my future business! J) … but moreso, for myself! The recurring thought for every single one of the videos I saw was I wish I’ll get married someday, too! They looked so happy and in love and I hope to be in one of the videos myself! (hmmm … I can shoot my own video … hehe!). The other thing I noticed was how he captures the groom’s face … while he’s at the altar, waiting and watching his bride come to him … in the movie 27 dresses, that was mentioned when someone asked what her favorite part of the wedding was … and it was looking at the groom’s face while the bride is marching up the aisle! J It’s a sight to watch, how the groom appears obviously relieved (she showed up! J) and at the same time nervous and excited … I even have a friend who sang, impromptu, while his bride was walking towards him … I don’t know … it’s amazing to see the groom’s face and it gets to me every time! J 

Hmmm … I’ve been praying for a change of attitude towards weddings … I’ve been praying not to have wild illusions of me getting married someday … don’t get me wrong, I hope I would, but I want to come to terms with the possibility that I might not … I want to come to terms with the fact that it’s not for everyone, and maybe I am one of them called for a different path … I still love weddings … and I will still pursue my wedding planning business … (and I will still submit my refresher paper on the subject!) … and I will still watch wedding videos hoping I’ll be in one someday … but if it doesn’t happen, I pray that I will be okay with it and that I will still be happy! J 

Haha! I started with a really fun blog (I think! J) … and now it’s sad! J hehe got to go back to my research … J

Here I go again … I am supposed to be doing my paper … hmmm … papers! … and I decided to write a blog! This is me cramming … i.e. de-stress and do trivial things (a lot of trivial things …) first before the actual cramming! J I guess you can say I was delaying the inevitable … the mark of a true crammer! J

Anywho, I just wanted to ‘document’ my recent ‘achievement’ at work! You see, we have an ergo challenge at work … lower down mouse usage/increase keyboard usage = lower down mouse-to-keyboard ratio … the challenge was to go down to < 10%! J I didn’t mind it at first, didn’t join the bandwagon … to hell with the Php400 reward … but then eventually I got challenged (literally!) and I wanted to prove to myself that I can do it! … (plus I used to work with this guy in AZ and he almost never uses the mouse when he works in Excel which is really cool and really amazing … hmmm, he was good-looking … your typical boy-next-door all American guy … hmmm … yeah … cool and amazing! J hehe) Anywho, back to my story … I decided one day (that fateful ww29.0 day!) that I want to work on my mouse-to-keyboard ratio … the Php400 was a good motivation but it wasn’t all the money … I guess I was just desperate to prove to myself that I can do something should I put my mind into it! It’s been awhile since I had success as measurable and as tangible as that! … true, it’s a very simple, trivial success … but I guess discipline in achieving something … no matter how big or small that something is … is the same discipline … and I was so desperate to prove that it still exists within me! … (my many weight loss/dieting misadventures and mishaps is a blunt reminder of how undisciplined I am! J) … The moment I tried it, it was a pain … clicking a mouse is so much easier than doing tab-tab-tab until it reaches where I want it to go … doing Alt-O-C-A in excel to autofit a column is so, so inefficient vs. double-clicking on the column! I got the hang of it eventually … and my score on my first ‘mouse-to-keyboard serious’ week? 4.22%! … it came from 22.55%! I’ve repeatedly asked our admin to add a most-improved category in the challenge but she wouldn’t budge! … I am pretty sure I would get it! J hehe my second week? 2.73%! third week at 3.35%. The challenge is to keep at it for 4 consecutive weeks … this week is my fourth week … J

I guess what’s easy with this challenge is that there’s a tool that provides real-time visual feedback … it tells you when you’re going off … and when you’re doing good -– real-time! There’s immediate gratification and that is a great encouragement! Hmmm … if only losing weight is that easy … if only it’s as easy as tab-tab-tab and there goes 10lbs! J (Hmmm … for that to happen though … there needs to be a real-time visual tool to provide feedback … now that’s scary! Imagine your body in all its glorious chubbiness, displayed on a computer screen with graphic images showing whether you lost weight or gained weight – real time!) haha!

Oh well … I’ve proven to myself that I still have some amount of self-discipline within me … of course I have to finish the fourth week to make sure I do it all the way … and I have to go back to my paper/s after this blog so as not to disparage this self-discipline pronouncement! And yeah … I have to translate my mouse-to-keyboard ratio discipline to losing weight! Haha! I can see my conviction waning now!!! … hmmm, it’s the same discipline?!