As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Sunday, August 04, 2019

Surprise On Whom?!... Sunday, August 4

My surprise surprise party was definitely a surprise but it was a surprise on me. 

I showed up with donuts, juice, games, and prizes, but when I walked into the orphanage, I looked up and what should I see but my name and my picture on the wall.  

Surprise... it's a surprise for my surprise surprise party!!!

I had several games picked out to play and had prepared various little prizes for them.  I was actually quite shocked that they knew some of the games, like Wink Murder.  I tried to lessen the strength of that name by being funny and calling it Wink Patay.  The Tagalog word "patay" means to die and I thought they'd get kicks out of me trying to speak their language.  But anyways, I played about 5 different games and they appeared to have a blast. 

They're good kids but tonight I felt they were really good kids. 

That's the thing about them, the more and more I see them, the more and more I really start to connect with them, see their personalities and character come out, and really start to form a friendship with them.  I feel more like their cool aunt, in a way.

After all our games, I then went to hand out the donuts and juice but they stopped me and said they had something for me.  I filmed a bit of it on my phone and shared it on Instagram -- one Lil' Sista reading off a card they had created for me.  Honestly, it is probably the coolest card I've ever seen.  It was this three page card that was so beautifully decorated with paper flowers on the front and my picture but it's what was on the inside that really got to me.  I opened up the card and there, on the inside, were all these little post it note letters that each of the girls had individually written to me (in many cases, that meant them getting it translated too) and stuck on the pages.  There were 21 little post it notes in total.  And as I read each post it note this girl or that girl would come up and insist on pointing out to me which letter was hers.  It was so adorable.  Later on, after I returned home, I ended up getting emotional over this card as I showed it to Skittles.  Those little girls had made such a beautiful card for me and it was so touching.  The plan is to frame that card and put it on my office wall as a keepsake and reminder to myself as to why I'm doing this all and who I'm doing it all for.  

To tell you the truth, this probably was my most favourite birthday ever.  I mean, I've had the occasional good birthday but this one really took the cake (and lack there of it).  Celebrating my birthday with the very group of girls that sparked a passion in me a little over a year ago, the same group of girls that I launched the Lil' Sistas because of, it was so very memorable.  I wanted to celebrate it with my Lil' Sistas at the Center of Hope, I'm really attached to them, but the truth of the fact is I met the girls at Holy Family Home way before the girls at the Center of Hope.  They were my original crew of Lil' Sistas and there were just 26 of them.  Now I have 76.

No comments: