I encountered the Big O way before GandaEverSoMuch.com was born. It was during one of my 'pumapapel' stints at the Yaman Gensan 2009. The Sir Orman was one of the judges in the Business Plan competition, and I was one of the representatives of our university whose business plan was to be bashed with no mercy by the judges.

Yes, our paper was judged and critiqued to our hearts' despair. He delved into the complexities of our business plan, as we have expected and prepared for. But as the session came to an end, the Big O complained of our below-standard thickness of paper, as well as the single-spaced document that we submitted. "Wala bang matinong photocopier sa school n'yo?". My colleagues know me as someone who'll never stop defending something that we worked on for a week of bloody, sleepless nights, but instead of speaking further to defend myself, I was amused and got no words to speak anymore! (Speech cloud above me: "'T*** **a, 'di ko naisip yun ah!") 'Hell, he's right. Our school in the desert lacks a decent photocopier, and we have misunderstood the instructions for the business plan.

President Benigno Aquino III delivering his first SONA - photo: Yahoo! Southeast Asia

See the full text of Pres. Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III's State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) 2010 below. The English version follows right after the original Filipino text. Thanks, Manolo Quezon III for the transcript.

I have been writing for over a decade and I only get a few people to read my write-ups. I’ve also been reading for over a decade already. And the writings I read are made by big and small people with equally big minds, and equally big hearts to share what their amazing minds are coughing out.

I created this blog for more people to have a piece of my mind, and as a gratitude to all the big-hearted writers for all the things I’ve read.

In picking my favorite post in Sir Orman's blog, GandaEverSomuch.com, I thought that it has to be something special from among the whopping 400+ posts in the blog in just under a year. But, believe it or not, there is one really recent blogpost that I have read more than once. It is the blog post entitled '21 Ways To Celebrate Happiness Today', posted the 15th of July.

Resilience summarizes the thought of Confucius, a great philosopher, who lived his teachings not just by mouth, but by his life.

Quit wondering why there are very few people who can manage to start and end the day with a smile despite the rising prices of commodities, including the so-called ‘ulam ng bayan’-instant noodles. Some might think that some people are just to numb to feel the ever-worsening situation of all- well, most- of the people in the tiny specks of land in the Pacific called the Philippines.

5. You have a phobia of the Letter "O". The letter 'O' usually connotes something big and fearful. GandaEverSoMuch is indeed going big on the blogosphere, but is rather lovable. One cannot help but smile or shed a tear when reading the blog posts that range from the topics of current issues, events, and even updates of his colorful daily experiences as a banker, a blogger, a friend, a lover, and even just one of us who experience occasional emo attacks. When one visits GandaEverSoMuch.com for the first time, either or both of the following happens: the visitor clicks the 'Subscribe' button and/or the visitor shares the link on Facebook for everyone to visit. I did both! If the letter 'O' reminds you of a partner of a failed romance or something else not worth remembering, it's not yet too late to say 'O is for Orman' and it pays to follow the blog of this big and huggable O!

Having spent the last five years of my life in a school where you'd thank the gods for failing to acquire skin cancer (from extreme heat and lack of real airconditioning) and nervous breakdown (from over-acting and self-overrating college unstructors), you just can't imagine my relief when my days as a college student were over.

I finished Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Entrepreneurial Marketing. By the name of the degree conferred to me upon graduation, it is a given fact that the industry that my education would fit in is very unclear. And also, if possible, I refuse to be a second-class citizen of any country. In other words, I am unemployed, and I am an unproductive mass of life.

Don't get me wrong. I intend to land myself in a real job (which means, a job other than sitting in my mother's store and waiting for errands to wake me up from an open-eyed slumber). I have submitted an application to one of the good firms in the locality, and I think that they do not plan, in the next few decades, to respond to my application - which leaves me a lot of time to think about the real job to get. It is not all the time that monetary compensation matters in every job that we wish to be in. The satisfaction brought to us by things more valuable than money matter more, and will ultimately dictate the length of time that we will last as a worker of a firm - which is why I don't submit my application letters and CVs like promotional leaflets to every company possible. But no, now is not the time to think about the happiness factor of my future job. It's a beautiful weekend and I want to share some unimportant stuff!

I am a certified movie buff. When I was in college, when the cat is away and wallets were full, I always see to it that I get to watch at least one movie in a week. I always frequent the cinemas that the attendants at the ticket booths might have noticed me as one of their regular customers.

No matter how cockroachy the smell of the theaters are (not to mention the sticky floor and couples creating their own porno flicks in the dark corners of the theaters), I still love watching movies on the big screen. One cannot make me watch a Hollywood blockbuster on pirated DVD on a tiny-teeny TV set when I can wait for the movie to come to our local theaters. For me, movie-watching is all about experience. Of course, the Oscar factor of every movie that we watch definitely matters. But no matter how Oscar-winnerish a film is, if it was not watched in the beauty and splendor that its director was thinking about, the experience of watching a supposedly wonderful movie is crap.