Happy new year!

A week and a half into the new year and I finally get around to making my first post. :) So before we get any deeper into the new year, let me do a recap of 2009 and all the great and interesting things that happened. Some of favorite moments:

My 6th marathon for charity
With some after-the-fact donations, I ended up raising more than P80,000! Looking forward to #7 this year. :)

Christmas with family and friends
I took my family to Subic to visit Zoobic, take photos around the waterfront, go shopping in the duty free stores, and hit the pool in our resort. I also had two family reunions, two family meals, and a whole lot of get-togethers with my friends. It was exhausting and I gained weight, but you can't beat quality (and quantity) time with the people you love!

Still Oz's 5-month stint in Ponti
Our last regular gig was in Bistro 110 back in end-2006, so to play for 5 months (our longest continuous weekly gig in one place) was amazing. We also have two new band members: Vince on lead guitar and Ria on violin. We also added some great songs to our playlist. Some of my favorites from our new songs include:

• "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice,
• "Run" by Snow Patrol,
• "Shattered" by O.A.R.,
• "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay, and
  
• "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers
  

Corporate Social Responsibility at work
I continued to head our Corporate Social responsibility organization at work. In the last year, among other things, we organized (1) a habitat for humanity build, (2) a run-for-charity that involved almost 100 runners who raised P150,000 for the benefit of Haribon and Kythe, (3) relief for Typhoon Ondoy victims, and (4) an orphan event for Christmas. We also made donations to GILAS, Habitat for Humanity, Golden Acres, and Typhoon Kiko victims.

Gigging at work
I also became the head of our band org at work. Towards the end of the year, we had two really cool gigs during corporate events that were well-received by the audience. I got to perform some DMB songs for the first time and I also got to perform "Closer" by Ne-yo. Awesome!

Watching a Formula 1 Grand Prix live
You can check about my trip in this blog post.

Some really cool firsts this year:

• Joined a tree-planting activity for the first time (one of my friends celebrated her birthday with a tree-planting activity)
  
• Went to Bangkok for the first time on holiday (I had been to Bangkok before, but for work)
• Visited Koh Samui in Thailand for the first time (I also drove and crashed a scooter)
• Had my photo taken with a real live tiger in Zoobic
• Visited Chinatown, at least as an adult, and went on a food trip (I may have been there before as a kid, but I can't really remember).
  

I also got to see concerts or live shows of the following artists for the first time:

• Oasis (and just in time as they have now disbanded!)
  
• Kaiser Chiefs
• Travis
• Underworld
  
• Cynthia Alexander
• The Backstreet Boys (yeah lol, they had a concert in F1 grounds during F1 weekend)
  

So all in all, another fantastic year. I can't wait to see what 2010 has in store. :)