changes

After sixteen months since my family arrived here in Riyadh, my life changed totally.

My photography activity is virtually dead. I still teach photography at Comsofil every Friday but that is nothing compared to my activities before. I can't even recall when was the last time I attended a photo session. To make it worse, I am not sure where my gears are. The last time I remember, Noel Zaragosa has my 40D, Emerson has my 20D and my accessories... nah, I doubt if they are still intact.

And my Toastmasters? I am not sure if I am going to be active this year. After three years of extensive immersion with Toastmasters, I believe I learned a lot. I got this year's Toastmaster of the Year award. I also completed my communication track and was awarded Advance Communicator Gold. I was also busy with my leadership track and completed my High Performance Leadership Program which I used for the Leadership Excellence Award. All I need is to serve as Area Governor and I will have my Distinguished Toastmaster norm.

But then... what up for me in the coming days?

someone ask...

I got startled when I saw in the Yahoo search result... that someone asked National Statistics Office via their Internet forum if Jorge Nathaniel F Amores is single or married. I readily open the URL and found out that there is this entity named Pearl who was interested of my civil status. She (I assumed she's a girl) even provided a date of birth, which was by the way - wrong.

Here's the URL link and search for the keyword "Can I ask the particulars of Jorge Nathaniel F. Amores?"

http://www.internetphilippines.com/nso-census/nso-birth-certificate-request-guide/

This kept me thinking... who could that person be? Heehehe... I would not wonder when one day, someone will just abduct me and accused me of _______. hahaha... fill in the blanks. This is what you get when you played too much. Bad Jorge

Marriage Enrichment Retreat

Last year, when our church community announced that they will conduct a marriage enrichment retreat (MER), I readily volunteer to join. I had always adhere to the idea of rekindling that lost spark between husband and wife even if their marriage is A-OK. Way back when I was still single, I heard of these program when I was still with the Bread of Life church and was seriously interested about it. When I was with the Every Nation Church in Singapore, Donita Rose announced that there will be a MER on Sep 2006. Gee... I was excited to join but could not. Pinky, my wife, was in the Philippines at that time.

Today, I got the chance to fulfill my long awaited dream.

How was it?, you may ask. Well, it was okay. It was like a regular church seminar except that the topic was more about the responsibility of the couple as a christian husband and a christian wife, respectively. The book of Ephesians was extensively used - which for me was just a review. I stumbled upon this material years before when I was still active with the Living Water Church. Nevertheless, I am glad that this topic was presented to us. For mommy, it was the first time that she heard about it. And I believe, the message sank in well with her.

Overall, the one-night and one-day affair was fruitful. It was like a honeymoon for all the couple. Imagine, we all have individual tent to spend the night with each other.

Hah! That was simply romantic.

Train the presidents

I never thought, I can speak in public!

Twenty years ago, I almost failed during my undergraduate thesis defense simply because I could not present my work in English. Can you imagine, I presented my case in our vernacular - 100% of the time. I could not speak a single word of English!

Then my speaking skills change and it came rushing like avalanche since three years ago. That was the time when I joined Toastmasters. I really never thought I would develop to be a leader much more a speaker. Yet today, I was invited to serve as trainer for the incoming club president for the 2nd term of Toastmasters program year 2010-2011. It was a great privilege, and I felt proud about it.

Officially, I have twenty-five registered participants - all presidents - from different clubs of the entire Division A. However, before I started the session, some members asked permission if they can sit-in during the training. I readily agreed provided they have to take the back seats and will not be given any hand outs. Then, people starts coming in to our large conference room in Riyadh Palace Hotel. To my surprise, the total participants swelled to almost forty.

* * * * *
The training went well. I didn't use the TI-ready materials because I know from experience that using that, as is, would be boring and flat. Instead, I use a different presentation slides. I incorporated the TI-ready material and merge it with some leadership resources. As a result, my material were reinforced it with new slides that aims to trigger discussion and open forum. True enough, I successfully get the participants involved in the discussion and even during the presentation.

My message was "Don't be afraid to take risk and accept the responsibility of being a leader of the club, because you are the club president".