Bohol

I haven’t blogged for a while and an online friend wondered how I was.

I’ve been busy but I’m doing pretty well. I was in Cebu and Bohol from July 21 to 24 and was going to write in length about my trip but it has been a while already and I’m not really sure I could still capture and write about the joy I had viewing their tarsiers, the Loboc river, the man-made mahogany forest, the Bilar landscape and the Chocolate hills. I guess at this point I could just say that I felt happy on my trip to Bohol and if you want to have an idea of the places I’ve been, just visit Christine Yap’s blog (searched for it since I’ve got nothing to show). She has been to more places there…lots of pictures too and what’s really important is she had a good time!

The drive to write on my adventure is gone since it would just seem like an old news if I insist on writing on it, however, now I feel like writing on how I was able to go to Cebu and Bohol. Okay, I took a 747 PAL flight to and from Cebu and an Oceanjet’s boat ride to and from Bohol but that’s not exactly what I had in mind to write about…

I promised one of our Branch Managers then In Davao that I’ll visit her once she gets to Tagbilaran. That was ages ago. She was transferred there since January and I haven’t been able to visit her… partly my workload plus also the budget of going there. I was hoping on getting a budget fair from Cebu Pacific but I never really came to it, their P1.00++ peso promo fare still amounts to something big if you consider the ++. Anyway, it was still in my mind and I actually prayed about it. Prayed that I get assigned to Cebu by our company so I could take a side trip. Possibility of being assigned soon was pretty remote. If I ever get assigned to Cebu that would still be in January since that's our audit period for an affiliate company there… now that’s pretty far away…

Just last month, one of our big bosses in sales asked me to make a presentation on “Inventory monitoring and control” for some of their staff in Luzon since he is in charge of that area. Okay, I said and prepared the materials. He allotted me one whole day for the presentation so I decided to have a workshop instead of just lecture. I thought it was good opportunity to improve the skills and build the morale of concerned staff so I put effort to it then gave him an outline of the presentation. The sales people probably liked the outline because their highest boss called me up (even before I made the presentation in Luzon) and told me that I will have to go to Cebu too to make the presentation. Boy! Did I get excited! Not just on the workshop but on the possible side-trip to Tagbilaran while on Cebu. I immediately told my boss that I would not go back immediately after the workshop but take my day-off for a trip to Tagbilaran then check on our branch and warehouse operation in Cebu! And she said yes!!!

Been reflecting on it now and I again realized the value of giving your best to an effort since “every act rewards itself” as Ralph Wardo Emerson talked on his essay on compensation (okay, the essay is long… I got lost reading it a long time ago but Nap Hill summarized it!). Though I wasn’t thinking of Bohol when I did the materials for the presentation, the effort of doing well (beyond what was expected) paid off by an opportunity to get to Tagbilaran…

But is it just my effort? Nope… I believe prayer has something to do with it too!

Nooo… I’m not a religious fanatic who can scare Senor Enrique but I do value prayer and of course God (love him!!!) and I think faith is a great factor to a good relationship with God. Prayer can just be a mouthing of wishes but I realized that if you really want it to work then you’ve got to really put faith on your prayer. Hmmm.. me thinks, I’m lecturing myself since I sometimes feel the lack of faith too! That’s why I like reading the evotionals I receive from my email from Pastor Mark Batterson of National Community Church. His whole series on the neurology of faith is great! (his last email, neurology of Faith V has not been archived on his blog as of this writing and I think that is the best so far.)

Anyway, ‘nuff of faith. Pastor Mark could address that better. I suddenly realized that there is something I still wish to share on Bohol. It is something that wasn’t in the pictures of Bilar nor even in the sites I surfed on the net. More than the Chocolate Hills, I was actually more fascinated on the landscape in Bilar. I don’t know if the people there get to appreciate it but I had a really nice feeling looking at them. I was awed!!!

Bilar is already near the Chocolate hills and they have some hills too. However, unlike the series of hills in Carmen and adjoining towns (I think 1268 hills in all) their hills are a far distance from each other and at this time of the year when the folks there have just started planting the rice, each hill which is all green and full of different trees is surrounded by the flat (like a carpet) cool green of the rice fields. The rice stalks are so fresh, probably just a little less than foot high so you still see the wetness of the paddies. And you see the landscape repeated all over. It looks soooo productive!!! Wish I had a picture to show you but the digicam I borrowed from an officemate conked out while on the trip and I’m not really sure if I could describe it well BUT I really felt good watching those stretch. I find nature amazing especially when the people do their share too!