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.

I'm savin'! Okay?

Geiranger Fjord, Norway

The Nanib Desert, Africa

The Amazon

South Georgia Island

Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa

Alcatraz (San Francisco, California)

Tikal (Guatemala)

The Great Pyramid (Egypt)

The Cyclades, Greece

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

St. Petrsburg, Russia


Stonehenge (England)


Ireland

Sydney, Australia

Rome

Prague, Czech Republic

Venice, Italy

Taj Mahal, India

San Francisco, California

London, England

Paris, France (!!!)

seriously happy.

How does it feel when you pretend to be happy? When you pretend that everything is right? When you actually did something wrong but no one knows? You feel guilty, right? Then, a little voice deep inside you will keep on torturing you to tell the right thing until you go crazy. Really ka-ray-zee. But did you ever feel so awfully happy that you cannot contain it? That your heart may burst any minute? Time's running and I'm growing. Growing old. And as I grow, past experiences taught me a lesson and that is, "True happiness comes only from goodness." Every time I see expensive, beautiful things, it's as though I just want to snatch it from the owner or break its glass container in a store. They just really catch my attention. But of course if I did either of the two, I'll end as a criminal. So instead of doing that, first, I ask myself, "Will I be truly happy if I have the things I want?" Second, I turn my back from those expensive things and never look back again. I just remind myself that I can get them myself through my hard work. But even without them, I can still live. In the future, I will not lie or cheat in business because definitely I'll be fired. Even if giving service to people is tiring, at least in the end it makes you feel very happy. And if I ever fell in love with somebody who does not love me back, I'll never buy his love because we'll never be happy for eternity. I'll never marry a man for his riches only but also of his abounding values in life too. For all the people I love, I'll never hurt them because it will only make me sad. Doing the wrong thing will only upset God and God is the least person I'll ever hurt. At first, I thought doing good is boring. People will only laughed at me. They'll hate me. But I was definitely wrong. Doing good makes me truly happy while doing bad may make me end up in jail.

:)

It's all about beauty.

How we see our Moms when we're...

One day old:

a blur.

Two months old:

milk machine.

Three months old:

something to smile at.

Six months old:

something that pushes a spoon in our face.

One year old:

a hand to hold while we try to walk.

Two years old:

something that says no all the time.

Three years old:

Daddy's ally.

Four years old:

bad-dream vanquisher.

Five years old:

role model.

Six years old:

expert French-braider.

Seven years old:

flash card coach.

Eight years old:

chauffeur.

Nine years old:

room cleaner-upper.

Ten years old:

piggy bank.

Eleven years old:

homework helper.

Twelve years old:

nag.

Thirteen years old:

worst enemy.

Fourteen years old:

source of shame.

Fifteen years old:

slave driver.

Sixteen years old:

clothing naysayer.

Seventeen years old:

non-car lender.

Eighteen years old:

college-selection sounding board.

Nineteen years old:

hypocrite.

Twenty years old:

"I've really changed at college"

sounding board.

Twenty-one years old:

career-choice sounding board.

Twenty-two years old:

housekeeper.

Twenty-three years old:

furniture storer.

Twenty-four years old:

apartment lease cosigner.

Twenty-five years old:

psychiatrist.

Twenty-eight years old:

psychiatrist payer.

Thirty years old:

confidante.

Thirty-two years old:

baby-sitter for our children.

Forty years old:

friend.

Fifty years old:

font of wisdom.

Sixty-five years old:

beloved memory.

Source: 1,003 Great things about Moms by Lisa Birnbach, Ann Hodgman, Patricia Marx (pp. 18-21)

better than GOOD

One word. Only one word for my first impression of her. Cheerleader. Make that two. Bully. Plus one. Show-off. That makes three words, three stupid words I've thought about her. Then again, I am alwaaays wrong. Puhhh-lease. I am too judgmental. With her short hair and eye glasses, she was definitely smart. At least, I got right on that part. With the way she acted and the way she looked at me, she was, I thought, the meanest of all. She walked not in humility. At least that's what I saw that day which is a long time ago. Scary she was. I would sometimes think that she's a teacher.

Luckily, I got to know her. First, she's a good dancer. An excellent one I must say. Second, she's very rich but thrifty. She lives a simple and humble life. That's one thing I admire in her. She's talented too. She's definitely intelligent that sometimes I wonder whether she comes from some other world. She speaks with persuasion and actually, the things she says can sometimes hit me worse than a volleyball in P.E. class. Her essays are good too. If I never knew her, I might think a college student wrote her essays. She walks her talk too. An environmentalist she is. She's actually the one who told the whole class to recycle plastic cups, bottles, Styrofoams for our play fest. A great leader she is too. The last thing I admire in her is her being insane. I mean, she's crazy. Really crazy that I sometimes cannot stop laughing my head off. Seriously.

Jessica Cuello, you're one of a kind. Out of the ordinary. Special.

Don't change. :)

-the angel that took me to heaven-

Bieber. The hot sexy Bieber. Justin Bieber. The idol of Marion Querubin. But I'll not talk about Justin Bieber, instead I'll talk about Marion. Marion who is the most chubby and cute little girl you'll ever know. She served as my teddy bear. She still is. Not exactly the stufftoy teddy bear but actually the one where I can lay my head onto. Human. Sweet she is. Probably the most sweetest of all the persons I knew. But that was not my first impression of her. How could I forget the first time she looked at me? With her glaring eyes, I felt nervous for that first day of school, three years ago. She looked at me as if she owned the world. I felt small. I could really feel haughtiness in the air. Then again, all of it changed. To my big surprise, she was not what I expected. Different.

She was the opposite of what I expected. Sugar and spice...and everything nice. She's so nice that sometimes I wonder if she's an angel sent from heaven above. When problems attack me I would prefer to go to Marion because she understands me more. (Marion, don't think that I am treating you like a friend for benefit.) But what I really hate with Marion is the fact that she's so obsessed with Bieber. Haha. But I cannot do anything about that. That's who she wants, and who she likes. No need to interfere.

Marion Mae Uy Querubin , the sweetest, the kindest, the everything nice, thank you! ;)

p.s. Marion, I am sorry because I did not grant your wish of you, being my 60th blog post! peaceout.

Somewhere in Time

God, I just can't get this movie out of my head. Aside from being addicted (very addicted) to the Harry Potter movies, this movie got me hooked up. I watched this movie during Christmas break and believe me, it's heartbreaking. Poignant. This movie was from the 80s starring, Christopher Reeves (superman!), and the ever so beautiful Jane Seymour. This is a synopsis from Wikipedia:

Somewhere in Time is a 1980 time travel romance film directed by Jeannot Szwarc, written by Richard Matheson and starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright and including an early appearance by then-unknown William H. Macy.

Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour). But her manager William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer) fears that romance will derail her career and resolves to stop him.

The film is adapted from the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by science fiction writer Richard Matheson, which was subsequently re-released under the film's title. The film is known for its musical score, composed by John Barry. The eighteenth variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini also runs throughout the film.

This is a must-watch! It's kind of short but you'll enjoy it. You'll love it! Many would say that if you'll not cry after watching the movie, then you surely don't have a heart. I did not cry but it does not make me have no heart. I just felt moved and sad. Really sad. But you still gotta check it out! It's a classic! You'll loove the music too. One of the best, best movie I've ever watched...

Today's Advice (one-ten)

TEN. Beware of starting, what you may later regret. (Publilius Syrus)

NINE. Never think that God's delays are God's denials. (Anon.)

EIGHT. Don't make the mistake of letting yourself use up too much of today.

SEVEN. Years wrinkle the skin; but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. (Anon.)

SIX. If we cannot do what we will, we must will what we can. (Yiddish Proverb)

FIVE. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. (William Makepeace Thackeray)

FOUR. Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none. (Shakespeare)

THREE. The only safe and sure way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend. (Anon.)

TWO. The quickest way to acquire self-confidence is to do exactly what you are afraid to do.

ONE. Improvement begins with "I".

Yo Mama!

An angel. That was what popped into my head when I first saw her. Many thought she was snobby. But hey, they were wrong. On that first day of school, three years ago, she was sitting ten seats away from me. She would just give me a smile and a wave of her hand. But we rarely, rarely talked the whole school year. Then, I began to wonder if I would ever be close with her.

But today, this girl, this special girl with amazing talents, which are joking and laughing, is one of the "best" friends I've ever had. This girl with big, expressive eyes, red lips and and hair that falls like a waterfall is c-ra-zy. Simply craaazy. Her laugh's infectious too. Too infectious. Once her jokes made me cry tears of joy. It made my entire body vibrate unceasingly. Her favorite words, are "Shut up!", which is by the way, she only says to me. Always. She's talkative too but not the annoying type. She loves green too. When she gets mad, it's as if she would eat somebody. Ha!

This girl, this special girl is always there for me. For everybody. When I feel sad, it would be gone because she's there in front of me, laughing her head off. This special girl, Jacqueline Marie Hortillas is one of a kind. Seriously. And I'm not lying.

Who's Filipino? well, I am.

An irony it is,
When I say I am not a Filipino in heart and deed
For foreign goods would suffice my need
And all I do is receive and receive.

And to think! that the duty of a daughter of the Orient Isles,
Is loving her country even until she walks death's aisle.
How could I do that?
If I serve with a "But"?

Learning our history,
Should be a long-term memory.
Never to forget.
Never to regret.

Saluting the flag of my beloved land,
Is making my country stand.
I hope I make my country proud,
By applying the values that abound.

Although we vary in culture and belief,
Never will I discriminate for it gives me nothing but relief.
Nevertheless, I am a Filipino and nothing more.
Nothing could change that even if you count to four.

Can't believe it still.

2011. Another new year. I'll not say how fast time flies. I've said and heard that a million times. But 2011? There's no some kind of mistake? Really? You may hit me with a hammer on my head, but I cannot believe it still. This could be one of my resolutions: MOVE ON. But it's really hard to endure it all. Life's too short, they say. Today, you're born. The next thing you know, you're in heaven. I just gotta say that 2010 had been a blast. I may do nothing but complain the whole year but actually, I learned to be grateful for the good or not-so-good challenges in my life. It was fun to worry and to cry. They taught me to be strong. I'll not forget the times I've slipped, tripped, fell and drown. Those things made me learn to survive. Nervousness, anxiety, anxiousness made me learn to be calm. Being paranoid is on the list. Wrong marks on my test paper made me study harder. Laughing is on the top of my list. Did I left something out? No, I haven't. These are the things that made me into, me today. I will miss you, 2010. You've been great. I hope 2011 would be like you too.