Which is which?

The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore.

-Mark Twain

Illustration courtesy of Dave Thomson

The 2nd of May

It really is not the workings of my overactive imagination that it's the second month of summer already. This is bizarre. Off the wall. With thirty-five days of summer left, I am still stuck in the house with nothing but boring things to do. But, I reconsidered that doing household chores is not at all boring. Although everyday I eat 200 million bars of chocolate (it depends on you whether to take it seriously or not), but household chores save me from the snares of obesity. Anyway, before summer ends, I hope I could experience some great big adventure without washing the dishes. I mean, I hope my family and I could go someplace we never visited before, even if it definitely wouldn't be Paris or The Pyramid of Giza. A place in the Philippines I have never seen before like the Chocolate Hills or Vigan would be great. The only problem is it's expensive to go to here and there. So my family is up for saving big and I too. I think that with saving we need to have a long, long patience like waiting for years and years. With saving too, we need to sacrifice our thirst for desirable things like Starbucks. *Sigh* Anyhow, with few days of summer left, I am left to bring out the best in me and to learn everyday. I am thankful for this summer. Who knows? Maybe, something good is coming in my way.

His words struck me.

"The truth is that I really don't have an idea of how I will die, or when it will happen. What maters is that I lead a good life and that people will remember me in a positive way because I am afraid to be forgotten as much as I fear death. I want people to know before I leave his life that I tried my best to live a normal life, that I made my parents proud of me, that my blood donaions were not a waste, and that I always wanted to be a good friend to everyone. Every night I pray that my death will cause another person to live. When I was born, I was crying and everyone around me was smiling. When I die, I want to be smiling even though everyone around me is crying."

-Lester Glenn Tabada

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Opinion page (March 31, 2011)

it was true fun :)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011. Seven days before school officially ends. This fact is too good to be true and too sudden for all of us. I am happy and sad all at the same time. I still remember myself wishing for a vacation. Now, here I am, feeling quite sad to have a long escape. That sucks, right? I'm suppose to be happy but I'm not. Anyway, I just want to say that this year was memorable. Being brutally honest, this year was not a waste. I remember myself screaming, shouting, singing, dancing, slipping, sleeping, drowning, jumping, cramming,running and.......eating. Those sort of things made my second year in high school a blast.

The people around me, especially my classmates, were the best persons I've ever known. They were strange at first. But I got to know a lot of them. I've made new friendships, and even renewed friendships. My classmates and I cried tears, and laugh our heads off. Never will I forget Jea's infectious laugh, Kimberly's nervous acts, Marion's Bieber fantasy, Roselle's dance moves, Kylie's Boy Abunda impersonation, Apol's Kris Aquino impersonation, my three angelic friends: Jacque, Allyza and Janina and so on........I'll never forget everyone.

Thank God for this school year. I wish this school year to repeat itself but I know that it will never be. So be it. But, the last thing I gotta say is that I had fun. True fun. :)

Say Yes to Life!

Life. A four-letter word with a lot of meaning. They say that this word is nothing but wealth. This word describes all living things. Some would say it is a nuisance. Some would say it is a pilgrimage to heaven. Some would say it is a grace. Whatever they say, life is simply beautiful.

Poverty worsens as the population grows enormously. These two are becoming superior problems in our country each day. Thus, the Reproductive Health Bill is born. According to Wikipedia, it is a Philippine bill aiming to guarantee universal access to methods and information on birth control and maternal care. The stated purpose of the said bill is to aim for improved quality of life through a “consistent and coherent national population policy.” Pills will be the way to control the growing population. But these pills are the ones which will kill young human embryos! I was eleven when I first heard of this bill but of course, it did not matter to me at all. I thought it was just nothing. “Some junk again”, I remembered saying to my sister. But it wasn’t a nothing to me anymore. To think that we are killing young human embryos who are purely innocent! They have not yet experienced the world and yet we stole their only chance. Who are we to decide on matters such as this? Are we God?

To all mothers in the world, do you want your daughters to engage in premarital sex? Many are sure that this is the consequence, if the bill pushes through. This should not be it. Premarital sex is a sin. Sex is sacred and it is created by God only to produce a baby and a means for the man and his wife to be as one. According to Kaiser Fernandez’s blog post, if the initial goal of the act is not to bear a child only to gain pleasure, then we are contradicting its true purpose and can be considered simply an act of lust. Sex is beautiful, as Mrs. Rhodora Clement says. The product of sex is a precious gift from God. My parents and my grandparents told me that you should do the act with the person you truly loved.

This bill is not the answer to decipher our country’s greatest and extreme problems. If truth be told, population is not the problem. Our government is! Do we know where our resources go? Do they go to a place where they could be a help? Or to a place where they become the source of nuisance and pain? Corruption should be erased from everyone’s heart. A stain that should have been removed before. This bill is not the way to opulence. This bill is not the way to unity. This bill is against life. This bill is against God. This is not the way. A big NO. As stewards of God’s majestic creation, we should value life, especially our own lives. This is our one and only life. We should love it, enjoy it, and cherish it. As Hans Christian Andersen quotes, a human life is a story told by God.

Hello Ajuy!

"It would be really nice if I got lost in a middle of a forest, together with my friends. We'll have some adventure and we'll be survivors. Then, we'll see ourselves on TV! Isn't that nice?" I stared at Jacque like she was the craziest person on earth. But pretty much, I like her idea.

Our field trip yesterday was filled with different emotions: excitement, anxiety, frivolity, enthusiasm and blah, blah, blah. I was really excited to go to Ajuy. First time in history. Luckily, I got to sit beside the window so I was able to see the beautiful sceneries clearly. I got to see every single person stare at our bus. Some waved, some stared like seeing a bus for the first time. Some smiled; some scowled. The lush fields were refreshing to look at. The hills were so amazing that I thought they were the Chocolate Hills already. After two long hours, we reached Ajuy. I looked around and all I could see was a sea of green. We were between valleys so it's like we're locked in a green container.

We met Mr. Regulus, the owner of the camp and he oriented us about it. First stop, the waterfall. But before you reached heaven, you gotta go through hell. The way to the waterfall was like crazy. With a wrong step of your foot, you might slip and voila! Dead on the spot. While my eyes were watching my every step, my hands were taking pics of every pretty, weird things for Bio. My classmates and I can't help but give a little scream every now and then. After the 3-5 minute walk, heaven. I stared in awe at the waterfall. Honestly, it was my first time to see one personally. Amazing. Some of my batch mates were posing already in front of the cam. Some were drinking from the waterfall. I wanted to try it too! So, without hesitating I went to the foot of the waterfall and I drank its crystal clear water. Aaaaah! Refreshing! Then, my classmates and I sat on big rocks; we posed and smiled. After that, we made the perilous walk back to the main camp where we would eat our lunch.


"Physically fit students are allowed only." So the physically fit went up the high hill. Our facilitators told us that this would be one of our greatest achievements in life. Although, my sister Pauline told me that going up the hill was definitely hard and dangerous, I didn't believe her. I thought it would be easy. Ha! Silly me. I was excited at first but when I did my first step, I was nervous. I thought of the consequences. They were scary but they did not hinder me from achieving the risky goal. Luckily, the sun was out and his heat was not torture. Step by step we went up the hill and it became scary. When we were in the middle of the hill, several can't do it anymore so they sat. I envied them, really. I felt I can't go on further but if I did I just wasted my time. Anyway, we achieved it! And it felt really good...

But the problem was, how could we go down? We thought going down would be easy peasy. But it was terrible than hell. I felt like crying back there but thank God, the plants were my saviors. Thank God too for the manongs and manang there to help us. Because of them, we survived. My friends and I lost our way. We went to a different route back to the main camp. For a while, I thought JAcque's crazy idea was turning into reality. But manong, our knightin shining armor was there with his beautiful horse. He accompanied us back to the main camp. We looked horrible but it was fine. We had a lot of fun.

After resting, we went to Gawad Kalinga and learned an important lesson. That is, to be thankful to God for all the blessings we have received. For one thing, I thank God for this wonderful field trip. It was unbelievable.

Our field trip in Ajuy was anything but ordinary. It was extraordinary.

...

hey.
I feel angry.
hurt.
I can't tell what I am angry about. I just feel angry. I want to shout and scream. But I just can't because luckily, I still have control of myself. I can't tell what I am angry or hurt of. I'll just stop thinking about it so that I could be happy again.
But I'll never forget this.