When people think of America, the first thing that comes to mind is New York City.

Filipino American History Month, also known as Filipino American Heritage Month, is celebrated in America in October. Various community leaders, advocates and their respective organizations schedule events and awards ceremonies  to recognize the history, heritage and accomplishments of organizations and individuals who have contributed to the betterment of the Filipino-American community.
One special awards event dominates the social media mid-summer, sometime in July, when nominees are announced on Facebook.  By October, when every family, friends and colleagues have voted, everyone's newsfeed is flooded with the photo-profile of each outstanding nominee. Such event is the "The Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York (TOFANY)"  - an awards ceremony held at Carnegie Hall.
Yes, you read it right.


"How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!"

Have you ever felt helpless, can't concentrate, furious or restless?

Well, I felt ALL that last month!

October brought a massive surge of negative emotions that I couldn't push out, no matter how hard I tried.

My  to-do list included:
1) Publish part 2 of  Out of Status
2) Finish the screenplay for a documentary
3) Exercise
4) Read a book - beginning to end
5) Follow-up my mother's immigrant petition
6) Renew health insurance plan

BUT I wasn't getting anywhere -- well, except the exercise. Items 1 to 4 are non-essentials and didn't have a definite deadline, while 5 was important to me, 6 needed immediate decision.

Immigration

I talked about my family's immigration story in my book, "Out of Status"  , with hopes that one day, legislation would change -- especially the 10 year travel ban for those who overstayed. The thought that we're 13 months away from revisiting my mother's approved yet denied immigrant petition gave me the motivation to write to my Congressman, Senator and the Administration.  Talks about the President issuing another Executive Order on Immigration also added to my false hope that maybe - just maybe, my family can be together sooner rather than later.

Sadly, last month - not much changed.

"Your cholesterol numbers are high. Since your family has a history of heart disease, I'd like to put you on Lipitor."

Cholesterol.
High.
Lipitor.

These three words from my primary care doctor felt like I got in hit the head - really bad.

My rationale: I was turning 50 and I was having a tug-o-war with my hormones. Not my fault!

For the past 2 years I struggled to keep the weight. In addition, I'm petite so when I whined about the 10 pounds I gained and that my clothes were tight, people dismissed me like I had weight and body image issues.

For the past two years, Mother Nature had a blast with the snow machine. I practically lived in stretchable work-out clothes which made it easy to not notice that I was gaining weight.  I was in denial because I always had this genetic power to lose weight fast.

You see, when I was 25 years old, I was pregnant with my first. I weighed 95 pounds but by the time I gave birth, I was 167 pounds! After childbirth, I never lost all of the weight I had gained, remaining in the range of 105 to 118 pounds, depending on the season.

After my fourth child, I started looking into working out. It still sounds silly when I hear myself say "working out".  I never consistently worked out in a gym because I got intimidated by the machines and really had no clue how to work them.

I think when women approach 40,  there's a trigger that pushes us to be obsessed with working out. In my case, I was about 39 when one infomercial caught my attention. Maybe the audio and visuals were emitting subliminal messages in the frequency resonating with my brain waves. I became convinced that I, too, could be ripped and fit like the people in the infomercial.   (Although I doubted my baby pouch would actually turn into a 6-pack abs. I teased my 4 kids that I had 8-fold abs courtesy of them!)

Do you like to walk? Do you like to run?

What if you can turn those miles into something powerful -- something that can help donate funds to help purchase lifesaving pills which can help put an end to mother-to-child HIV transmission?

Bank of America, (RED), and Nike+  joined together to "TURN YOUR MILES (RED)" - a campaign that started on October 12 and will go on through December 7, 2014. 

For every Nike+ Running miles pledged to (RED), Bank of America will donate 40 cents - up to $1 million dollars.

As posted in Bank of America's Newsroom:

"Today, it costs as little as 40 cents for two lifesaving pills called antiretrovirals (ARVS) which, when taken daily, can prevent an HIV-positive pregnant woman from passing the virus to her unborn baby. Still, 650 babies are needlessly born with HIV every day. TURN YOUR MILES (RED) is an initiative designed to enable people at every fitness level to play a part in delivering up to $1 million to HIV medical clinics and programs in sub-Saharan Africa. That amounts to 2.5 million days of lifesaving ARVS. " 

It's really simple.

The day started out on a positive note.

I have a bad habit of checking my email every morning. You see, my family lives continents apart and the only way I keep in touch with them is through social media or email.

That morning, my dear friend happened to email me about her 21-Day Complaint Free Challenge, and one of the quotes she mentioned was that of Thich Nhat Hanh's, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk.

So is it true that the present moment is filled with joy and happiness?

I was up early because I needed to be in uptown New York to find answers to a medical concern that was haunting my child for months.

Spending time with my son is always a happy event.

So I guess, so far so good.

Fortunately, the neurologist gave us good news. To celebrate such a day, my son and I had an impromptu breakfast at a diner nearby his school.

Another happy moment!

Around noon, my oldest daughter met me in the City. She was anxious getting into the City but I decided to make the rest of her day a better one.

First, we had lunch at the rooftop of the Local Café and Cocktails across Penn Station. It was a chilly morning so spending a couple hours on the rooftop under the sun was a warm treat. PLUS, I get to spend my "lunch break" with my one and only daughter.

Another moment filled with joy and happiness!

My daughter and I decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Getting the right subway train was sort of stressful especially when your old 3G iPhone kept flashing "Low Battery". Surprisingly, 2 geographically-challenged girls managed to make it to Central Park West.

That afternoon happened to be lovely afternoon that we opted to take a walk in the Park and had  profound conversations about life and what makes someone happy or when does someone realize the thing  - that spark - that makes you happy.

Right there, was another moment filled with joy and happiness.

      "Your parents?" she asked.

       "Not on that plane."

It also reminded me the hope Spring brings. Everyday is a new beginning.

Ever since then, we've been trying to get a hold of Billy Joel concert tickets. So in October when we found out that Billy Joel is playing at the Garden, we knew we had to bring our son to see him. It's a big purchase, a long overdue Chanukah and Christmas present.

Anyway, so on day the tickets went on sale, my husband logged into TicketMaster. After a few hours of frustration, and with our daughter's Chase Card, my husband was able to purchase 5 Billy Joel concert tickets at Madison Square Garden (MGS) on January 27th. ( Note to self: Get a Citibank Visa Card to get access to advance sales )










Billy Joel engaged the crowd as he marveled at the new technology like seeing his image in one of the big screens. He mentioned that he looked so much like his father -- and all the while he thought he was going to grow older looking like Cary Grant.

When he performed "The Piano Man", the crowd knew that Billy Joel will just accompany his fans as the fans sang most of the verses to his trademark song. It was a tradition I hoped to continue for generations. I'm not sure if Billy Joel gets tired of singing that song, but that song will always be the national anthem of his fans. Singing along to that song with Billy Joel's hands on the piano keys and occasional harmonica fills was like a Mega Karaoke night.

And then he said his Thank You's and Good-Bye's and the deafening cheers echoed for minutes inside the halls of MSG and continued on until Billy Joel returned for his encore performance.