Jason Mraz in Seoul

Jason Mraz is one great artist whom I truly, truly admire— someone I am definitely willing to trade decent lunches for a week or two, just so I can finally buy a ticket to his concert. The guy already had two concerts back in the Philippines which I knew about, though I frustratingly did not get the chance to catch both. The first was due to lack of the moolah, and the second was due to lack of time.

I finally was able to muster both when I got here in Seoul, and finally had one of the most meaningful two hours of my life. Woohoo.


Jason Mraz’s songs are simply of great wit and profoundness, just not easily realized, given the rather light and playful melodies coupled with that cool-kid image of his. We have all been accustomed to only hearing deeply-thought songs from ballads, and from songs sung by neatly-tucked crooners with some piano or violin. Listen to “1,000 Things”, “Beautiful Mess”, and “You and I Both”. They’re the most romantic songs that I will forever wish to be sung to me, with even just a ukulele.

The concert was well-attended by people, and I am amazed by how the event was very much organized. Now being the great fan that I am, I have previously been checking on You Tube for videos of his concerts in all corners of the world, and he has always been equally witty and funny when jamming with his audience. In this concert though, he was just plain performing, that I thought he was rather impersonal in his Seoul concert. Still friendly though—very, very cute and sexy in that signature moja and white shirt.

Another thing that was so cute in this concert is I caught on several Koreans with papers that wrote the lyrics to this song. This is the “noraebang” style of humming to one of Jason Mraz’s current national anthems:

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The Financial Crisis Explained

I am just as confused as everybody else. Don’t count on me as more-knowing for having technically finished my Business Economics degree because there are far better people who have the logic and wit to understand the matter than I ever will. And so I do what I do best—googling, in my search for a topic for my monthly presentation at work, and stumbled upon this video that has a witty take on what the financial crisis really is.

It’s simply about daddies finding it hard to tell mommies that they don’t look good.
Ha-ha.

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Birthday Post

I know. Such a lame title above. Ha-ha.

“Are you at work today?”
“Yeah. I’m chatting with you in the office.”
“Tell everybody that it’s your birthday, so you can make it even for a half-day leave. Tell them it’s the Philippine working culture.”

And all I can do is hold back the giggles. “I am at the office”, I had to remind myself.


It’s funny how I am so living up to such culture that my friend just mentioned about, as I have practically been slacking at work today. I don’t exactly feel lazy, mind you, I woke up early to arrive just in time at the office. And you could imagine how my mind has already been so set with the fact that nothing can ever ruin the pleasant mood that I must’ve mustered from my early sleep last night. There is just something with birthdays and how the Filipinos make such a big deal out of it that makes me extra perky. Why not? Birthdays are meant to be happy. That is why it’s called a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. When you put that extra perkiness at work though, people in the land of the “Work-Hard, Drink-Harder” club might see it as irresponsible laxity. People in my place of work spend sixteen hours a day inside the office, and here I am planning to leave right at the tick of the official 6 o’ clock end of working hour schedule. Ha-ha.

Well, nobody has ever called my attention, really, since I have been so stoked to facing my laptop screen to type “nonsense-ries” to friends online so I can say my word of thanks for their birthday greetings. I have officially been given something to do at work, but let’s just say that I can make a general excuse for not finishing it since the means to do it has proven to be not always available. And so I give up browsing through the Bloomberg station where I have to dig on data, and talk to friends using Yahoo Messenger. Oh damn goodness, how I love YAHOO MESSENGER! Ha-ha.

I have been checking once in a while to see if the Bloomberg station was already vacant, so if not, I could then open my Hangeul manual for random readings. But point here is, my mindset is just far out from work. It’s really not that hard not to let it show (I have always been a good actor), but once in a while I would also feel guilty. I then probe on why I am here in a foreign land in the first place to work. Nah, that deserves a whole separate entry.

I check on what I’ve written now, and I then think about what I actually want my entry to get at. It may be so much telling now of how these scribbles have been written while at the office. Maybe I don’t want to say anything. That I just want to pass away time and wait until I can meet my friends for some dinner. Coolness, Ella. Ha-ha. Just this morning, I got my mother’s birthday greeting thru e-mail, which included a line wishing me luck in my career. I now think of where her wish of luck will eventually lead to. No one really wants to disappoint their mothers, you know.

I have honestly been so touched by people who have posted birthday greetings online through the social networking sites that I am currently subscribed in. There have also been personal e-mails that were sent to me, apart from the offline messages that I got from people who opted the messenger service (kudos to YAHOO!) for some birthday notes. Now the e-mails were more importantly from my parents who included wishes of luck to my life here. Oh well, parents want only the best for their children.

Now, birthdays and good food, I believe, go together, having been grown up by a mother who has never ever failed to cook something special for any of her children’s birthday. My mother is really amazing, I tell you. She cooks even for a dead person’s birthday. Talk about my grandparents (my mother’s parents) whom she loves dearly.

And since I cannot cook (now I'm missing my mom), I went ahead and still splurged this day with food as I spent my birthday with friends at an Indian restaurant in Sinchon. I got out of work pretty early (told you!), and met up with them. One thing so memorable with this dinner is when we asked the waitress to take a picture of us using my camera, she pulled out her own camera to take a picture of us as well. Coolness, Haha. We must've been very memorable customers!




My little celebration for my first out-of-the country birthday was continued at home. Talk about sweet cakes and sweet notes! THANK YOU!!!

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