Aaaah, I can finally breathe (a little).
LIFE THUS FAR...ISAO (
ICCRS Sub-Committee for Asia Oceania) Conference was soooo hectic! I stayed at
Mercure hotel Ancol starting on Sep 12 till 18, sharing the deluxe room with my 2 friends (Vera & Ria). Every night we slept for only 3-4 hours, going to bed mostly after 4 am. Throughout the day, we took care of so many things: on Sep 13 & 14 we alternated between the registration, help desk, and accommodation posts. We initially thought that after the peak of the hecticness on Sep 14 had passed, we could rest and relax a bit.
WRONG!
There was always something (or a lot of things) that we had to do on Sep 15 - 18.
Sep 15: taking care of some registrations & help desk.
Sep 16-17: doing the rooming list for Novotel (the participants moved to
Novotel Mangga Dua on Sep 18) & some secretarial works.
(Plus, my roommate Ria had to take care of a very sick participant from the Philippines on the night of Sep 16, taking him to the ER at a nearby hospital, staying with the family till 3 am, and was awaken at 7.45 am by a call from his son that he had died 30 minutes before. So she flew to the hospital right away, and helped the family with all the funeral processes: the medical record, death certificate, the Philippines Embassy, the cargo to Manila, the funeral services, etc etc. Thank God the Filipino conference participants' group leader is a priest -- Fr. Bart Pastor, so the Filipino family felt better as they had someone they could count on in this country away from their home. My friend Ria helped the Filipino family everyday until they left for Manila on Sep 20. God bless her heart!).
Sep 18: our youth band was in charge of the praise & worship session before today's conference, and songs for the closing mass, so my friends and I were singing since early morning. The hecticness continued in the afternoon till late at night, for after lunch, the participants moved to JITEC for the revival & healing rally in the evening & stayed at
Novotel Mangga Dua that night. The walkway from Novotel to JITEC was really confusing, we had to help the international participants to get there safely. I and Vera and a few fellow secretariat team fell asleep for about half an hour when Fr. Rufus Pereira was speaking on the stage (before the healing prayers began) :P Finally, after a looooong and hectic night, I arrived home safely at 1 am. OMG soooo tired! >_<
Thank God we had a mass everyday during the conference!
Now when it's over, I breathed a sigh of relief, but I really missed it. Somehow, in our hearts, something is missing... Vera and Ria both have the same feeling.
We got to meet so many nice international friends (although most of them are well over 50 years old!), great bishops & priests from all around Asia & Oceania (and even one cool priest from the USA who's stationed in Marshall Islands, Fr. James Gould SJ), and we made new awesome friends from fellow ISAO Conference committee, young and old. We learned a lot from working with various people in the team. We got so many blessings from the preparation and during the conference itself.
Vera (my international registration partner) & I were even showered with a lot of gifts from the appreciative international participants (one lovely Japanese lady - grandma, actually :P - & her group were so thrilled when they finally met me. She was so cute, I saw her jumping up & down a little bit while shaking my hand -- like an SD anime character! *lol* Now I have 7 Japanese friends! :D).
Photos have been uploaded to Facebook (I don't have time to upload 'em to Flickr; maybe later):
click here for the full ISAO Conference album.
Friend me on Facebook if you can't open the album, since it might have something to do with my Facebook privacy.
OH FLUFF! :DLike I said in the previous post, I couldn't take a rest right away after the conference ended, since I had to take care of my own jobs, after abandoning them for two weeks. But I thought I'd be able to rest a lot after Sep 21.
WRONG again!
There was a
treasure hunt going on at (fluff)Friends on Facebook, from Sep 11-30. Alas, I was busy digging every night until morning came :P So basically I continued to be lacking sleep until the treasure hunt ended on Sep 30. Thank God it's finally over!
Now I can finally go back to normal life and catch up the things I've been abandoning, postponing, and delaying this past 1+ months.
DORAMA GALORELet's summarize this as a continuation to my previous post (
Japanese Overdose: the beginning).
Basically, after I wrote that entry, I started to explore a lot of dramas, movies, and actors/actresses by downloading endlessly. I also downloaded a lot of videos (non-drama, non-movie), mostly TV shows, games, talk shows, concerts, etc. Now my 1 TB external harddisk only has 180+ gb left! Oh nooeess! *_*
In trying to search which dramas to watch, I stumbled upon
this Crunchyroll forum.
From there, I started to download Korean dramas, since my friend also told me that the Korean guys are so much more masculine than the Japanese, and their bodies are so much sexier & more built! :D I got turned off by the sound of Korean language initially, but after a few dramas, I finally got used to it. I still don't like the language, but I got hooked on a few Korean actors already, so the language is not a (big) problem anymore :P
From that CR forum, the K-actors experience started from
Kwon Sang Woo,
Dennis O'Neil,
Gong Yoo,
Daniel Henney,
Hyun Bin,
Jo In Sung,
Won Bin,
Kim Rae Won (because my friend likes him),
Lee Wan, and
Yoon Kye Sang.
Although most of them have good-looking face & great body, I only like and crave for more of Hyun Bin, Won Bin, and Dennis O'Neil. The biggest reason of why I don't really swoon over Korean actors is because of their eyes. I like most Japanese eyes, they're big & nicely almond-shaped. I don't like chinky-eyed actors.
I tried a few Taiwanese dramas, but those failed miserably. I didn't like, don't like, and will never like the Chinese language (although I'm Chinese myself) and how it sounds! I did try learning the Mandarin for about a year, and honestly I never like it. I was only curious with
Vic Zhou and
Mike He.
As for the Japanese dramas/movies.... they're neverending! Simply because I get hooked on one actor over another all the time :D
From
Tamaki,
Nao, and
Kassy, the J-actors experience continued to (I will only list the actors I kinda like & crave for more)
Takuya Kimura,
Hiroshi Abe,
Satoshi Tsumabuki,
Tomohisa Yamashita (Yamapi),
Yutaka Takenouchi,
Jin Akanishi,
Takashi Tsukamoto.
There are a lot more J-actors whose dramas/movies I've watched, but I don't particularly like them, such as
Toma Ikuta,
Hideaki Takizawa,
Osamu Mukai,
Ryo Nishikido, etc (the others are not worth mentioning, since I don't like them at all, although I might watch their dramas provided that the story & other actors/actresses are good).
Of those I mentioned above, I swoon over Nao, Kassy, and Yamapi (coz he's handsome, sexy, and dances very well! *drools*). Since Nao & Yamapi are singers as well, I also diligently download their concerts, talkshows, etc. In Yamapi's case, since he's a part of
NEWS, I download all of NEWS videos. I also follow Jin closely & download his videos (and some of
KAT-TUN's because he's in it -- although I don't really like the other 5 guys!), since Jin is a smart guy who speaks pretty good English, has a good laugh (and teeth! :P), can sing very well (his voice is the best out of the 6 members), and he shines. It surprises me at first, but now I can settle for the much younger! *gasps*
I might need to buy another 1 TB external hard disk for next year! *lol*
Bottomline: the Japanese overdose is neverending! :3
PS: That's Kassy on the userpic, during his most handsome days.