Birthday Reflection: 100 Things to Do Before I Die

1. Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open.
2. Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
3. Swim with a dolphin.
4. Skydive. Gigi's forte... I have fear of heights.
5. Have your portrait painted.
6. Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
7. Go skinny-dipping at midnight in the South of France.
8. Watch the launch of the space shuttle.
9. Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
10. Be an extra in a film.
11. Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details.
12. Make love on a forest floor.
13. Make love on a train. – is my daughter reading this?
14. Learn to rollerblade. – tried to learn but stopped just before I cut the blood supply in my friend’s arm
15. Own a room with a view – my bedroom at home in the Philippines had a fantastic sunset view of Manila Bay, my apartment now faces a park… I didn’t own but certainly owned and enjoyed the view during my stay.
16. Brew your own beer.
17. Learn how to take a compliment.
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month. Nah, this would be scary
20. Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her. – I buy my mom flowers not just on birthdays and special days; often just because and yes, I tell her and my dad I love them as often as I can.
21. Be a member of the audience in a TV show.
22. Put your name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon.
23. Send a message in a bottle.
24. Ride a camel into the desert.
25. Get to know your neighbors.
26. Plant a tree. – The avocado tree behind my parent’s house
27. Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
28. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
29. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
30. Learn to ballroom dance properly. Scheduled for winter 2006
    
31. Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
32. Be the boss. Tech Pacific Philippines, Marketing Communications Manager 1998 - 2001
33. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally. ALWAYS. There is just no other way to do it.
34. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
35. Sit on a jury.
36. Write the novel you know you have inside you.
37. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
38. Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once). Oh, more than once – in Manila and in New York.
39. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
40. Be someone's mentor. I think I have – right, Jai?
41. Shower in a waterfall.
42. Ask for a raise.
43. Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
44. Teach someone illiterate to read.
45. Blow all your savings and take a flight on the Concorde.
46. Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself. You’re kidding right?
47. Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time.
48. See a lunar eclipse.
49. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
50. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it. Breast cancer research – ACS Breast Cancer Walk 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006
51. Experience weightlessness.
52. Sing a great song in front of an audience. Song: The End of the World, Iligan City, March 1998 (Was a great song until I sang it)
53. Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
54. Drive across America from coast to coast.
55. Make a complete and utter fool of yourself. ALWAYS
56. Own one very expensive but absolutely wonderful business suit.
57. Write your will.
58. Sleep under the stars.
59. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country. No way – fear of heights
60. Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
61. Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
62. Spend a whole day reading a great novel. A lot of times, most recently, Marley and Me by John Grogan and before that, Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
63. Forgive your parents. There had never been reason – my parents are the best in the world.
64. Learn to juggle with three balls.
65. Drive the Autobahn. Maybe this October?
    
66. Find a job you love. I only do work that I love and that interests me – it’s my rule in life.
67. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
68. Overcome your fear of failure.
69. Raft through the Grand Canyon.
70. Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
71. Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
72. Grow a garden.
73. Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
74. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring. Autumn 2005, New York Palisades
75. Accept yourself for who you are. A work in progress
76. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
77. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
78. Go up in a hot-air balloon. Fear of heights – no way!
79. Attend one really huge rock concert. Summer, 2003 – Dave Matthews Band in Central Park
80. Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date. Is my daughter reading this?
81. Be able to handle: your tax forms, Jehovah's Witnesses, your banker, telephone solicitors.
82. Give to a charity anonymously.
83. Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas. No way!
84. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
85. Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
86. Fart in a crowded space. Mwahahahaha!!! No way!
87. Make love on the kitchen floor. Is my daughter reading this?
88. Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch.
89. Create your own web site. www.geocities.com/victoria0918 and mavic.blogspot.com
90. Visit the Holy Land. Planned for Spring 2007, Tel Aviv & Jerusalem
91. Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
92. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty. Security wouldn’t allow me
93. Create your Family Tree. Did this for my daughter when she was born…needs updating though.
94. Catch a ball in the stands of a major league baseball stadium.
95. Make a hole-in-one.
96. Ski a double-black diamond run. Snowboard counts???
    
97. Learn to bartend.
98. Run a marathon.
99. Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile
100. Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength. A work in progress