There’s some expo at Mega Trade Hall… i’ll take a look around for new biz or export proj…
Got to cut may hair real short.
Work, work, work… clean… work, work, work!
Stop thinking.
Finish scrapbook.
Have my teeth checked.
"Why rob time and effort from the 10s in your life just to bring a lowly 3 up to a mediocre 5?"
Joyce Meyer, The Confident Woman
Here is an advice that makes perfect sense, something that Pam has told me before. Oh yes - a very sound self-management advice it is!
And it’s ver freeing really. It’s telling me that I don’t have to embrace such concepts as semantics and COMA101 or ENG107 stuff. Even if I was communications student, writing major. And I can always write commentary instead of scholastic or literary. If my "branding" of the writing styles is appropriate.
And I don’t have to come up with an artsy-pantsy blog lay-out (deadz. computer? no know. just little. just type. and Internet.) before I could go and write. This elementary friendster blog will have to do. Or I can always ask somebody to do it for me. I’ll just put in the content. The way K. Bu (hi kuya bu!) and I would work on Hush during college days (woohoo. as if ang tagal na nun!) - I decide what to put, he decides how to put it down.
As with every time there’ll be mention of somebody or something connected to UPLB (and I manage to connect almost every thing to the place), I begin to miss the school terribly.
During the last days of Macondo, the fictitious (but really, how fictitious? Don’t South American and Czech writers heavily allude to their national history when they write?) town in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Hundred Years of Solitude, Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula were lying together one night when they heard the traffic of the dead in the Buendia ancestral home - which stood with a resilience as formidable as that of the matriarch Ursula, having seen the rise and fall of 4 (or 5?) generations of Buendias - the traffic of the dead, which consisted of Ursula talking about some relative who had gone to the afterlife well before she herself had; Fernanda praying, I think her rosary; Col. Buendia obsessing about his wars and tiny gold fishes; and a whole lot more dead adding to the escalating ruckus with their signature ways, and there, the couple arrived at an "Ah!" moment: They realized that obsessions can actually prevail against death. With that, "they were happy again with the certainty that they would go on loving each other in their shape as apparitions…"
Makes you wish you’d end with somebody who’d feel as much - and with whom you’d KNOW as much. Well too bad Amaranta Ursula happens to be Aureliano’s aunt. (Nyahaha.)
So what would be my obsession that would endure long after I’ve died, and have gone to heaven? (If you’re wondering how I could be so certain, my doctrine of salvation says I’m saved because Jesus died for me. More on this later.) I rather think I have 3:
1. think to the point of exhaustion (can’t help it - it’s a hobby)
2. almost drive Jesus to boredom with my talk (but I bet Jesus would be so polite, He’d stifle the yawn to the very end)
3. clean my heavenly home (but would there be dirt in heaven to clean? parang wala) and bake
How about you? What would YOU be doing?
Ten Things I’m thankful for right now…
1. For a God who’s patiently teaching me how to stop hardening my heart… And I know that the reason why it’s bloody difficult is because it’s of grave importance for me to learn it now or else i won’t be ready ever to go to the next phase of my life… theatric, but true!
2. For my mom who has promised a great Christmas gift… Can’t wait.
3. For BrandSpeakAsia and my bosses and teammates… we just had our team-building a while ago: bowling and pizza, then eating late lunch at Burgoo! I’m way blessed to have landed a job in a company which feels like family… and really, it is a family.
4. Fast internet connection! I need to upload so many pictures!!!
5. Friends who try to overcome the miles separating us through "Anna, good morning!", "Good night an!", and "Um, mum, you want to watch Simpson’s tonight?"
(Oookay. hulaan ko sino ang nagsabi ng alin!)
6. For Pam, Jing, Ate Jo and Ate Tuki who took in my girls…
7. For my girls who call me up and text me their love
8. For PCCC prayer time tomorrow! I am so excited to be there!
9. For this account that, in Jesus’ name, we are going to be getting soon… I’ll be handling CSR with them.
10. For life… though it sucks, there’ll be moments that, as rare as they may come, would be enough to remind you that there is a great God who makes life worth living… or makes it just a little bit more livable. it’s for this God and those moments that i live.
Dramatic, but true.
Now that I have graduated, and my summer days are without the comforting thought that,come June, I’m going back to LB for another academic year, my sole comfort becomes music - the songs I "grew up in". From Hillsong to Casting Crown (tama ba?), I listen to them often these days, because they take me to places, times - memories. Most of all, they take me to people once again, even if just in my head, even if just for a while. I listen to the songs almost with desperation, out of fear that one day I might just forget without meaning to. Or worse, without realizing it.
This business of growing up and moving on, is simply happening way too fast for comfort.
Ito na ang huli kong pagsali ng patintero. Ang hirap kasi magbantay ng home, lalo na kung ikaw ang binabantayan. Sinabayan ko na nga ang bilis ng mga binti mo, tinapatan ko pa ang bawat sugod mo - sa kaliwa, sa kanan, tas sa kaliwa uli, tas sa kanan nanaman! Halos mapigtal na nga sa balikat ko ang mga brasao kong banat na banat na sa pagkakadipa. Hinding-hindi ko talaga inalis ang mga mata ko sa ‘yo. Kaya naman, kakabantay ko sa ‘yo, naharang nga kita. May iba namang naka-home. Talo pa din ako. Bad trip.
Kaya ito na ang huli kong pagsali ng patintero.
Comments lang…
sa question ni Kiko Pangilinan: Which of your experiences has prepared you for the task of law-making? - in your face grabe. bagay na bagay na tanong sa marami sa ating mga senatoriables!
Mr. Orpilla on the question of whether he would still push for the Agrarian Reform Law: alam na po namin na kaawa-awa ang kalagayan ng mga magsasaka, at na ang mga mahihirap ay naghihirap pa rin. kaya nga po kayo tinatanong kung isusulong pa ninyo ang Agrarian Reform Law (or Act?). hindi n’yo naman po sinagot.
Richard Gomez on "wanting the people to vote for him": you WANT the people to vote for you for your fresh ideas? why don’t you try entrepreneurship then? you don’t even speak the language of the masa.
Cesar Montano on "artista lang": for an artist pushing for the Philippine film industry, the culture and all that jazz, doesn’t that phrase say a lot of things? call me devil’s advocate - for the sake of argumentation and speculation, i’ll gladly be one!
some guy in glasses: very poetic. too bad the senate is in need of political leaders, not really poets.
Pichay: was a congressman?! talaga?
Mr. Pangilinan on the use of "tayo": nice… did somebody consult his PR adviser?
Atty. Pimentel on "bagong solusyon sa lumang problema": gusto n’yo po sumama sa entrepreneurship?
Mr. Orpilla: wrong move to spend 1 (or 1 1/2) minute discussing the country’s drug addiction history. simply not discussable, sir, given the time.
bumoto tayo po tayo sa ika-14 ng Mayo.
bow.
Things I learned the past few weeks…
1. I’m climbing this mountain to get to the summit, and at this point in my life, I’m in the most challenging leg of the climb/trek. I realized that if I want to get past this part of the mountain, I would have to relieve myself of some of the stuff I’ve been carrying around for what seems like forever. Past hurts. Past failures. Past frustrations. The past, period. And a lot of my fears. Because if I don’t, I may not only get stuck in this part of the mountain. I may actually fall down to my death. So if ever I’m planning to really reach the summit, I would have to downsize my pack.
2. I shouldn’t expect to have my God’s Best fix me up. I guess, semi-consciously (if there’s such a thing in Psychology - which I doubt), I’m doing that - hoping to find someone who could fix me up. Bottling up every resentment, hurt, disappointment, thinking that my God’s Best would be able to undo everything and make all go away. He is my God’s Best after all right? But it has been said time and again: Jesus is the only one who could actually fix me up. It’s only now that I’m really getting it. And what’s more? I realized that if I don’t let Him fix me up now, I’d be cheating my God’s Best out of HIS God’s Best.
April 21, 2007
The Israelites, in the third chapter of Deuteronomy - or is that fourth? - was already moving down from Horeb to a two-word name for a land that I can’t quite remember because of its complexity (I do recall the first word begins with the letter K, the second, B). So they were moving down from the mountain to the land that has been promised to them, as commanded by God through the Moses. At a certain point, I think when they were at the outskirts of the land promised to them, they decided to send spies to survey the land and its current occupants. The spies went, and then returned, bearing fruits. The land was reported to be fertile and fruitful.
But it happened that the Israelites turned to complaining. They were crying out to God that they were lost - that they have been displaced from Egypt simply to be delivered to a foreign land that was, yes, abounding in natural resources, but was inhabited by what I could only surmise as a tribe of fierce warriors. What amazes me was that, they could afford to address God in such a manner - this is the same God who had parted the Red Sea for them, who had seen them through the Exodus by faithfully providing manna and quail!
Okay, let me rephrase that: What amazes me was that they could afford to doubt God now, after the faithfulness He has shown them! That and oh, how I could relate very well to it!
I read somewhere that some Filipinos have this funny habit of going all the way to France to travel, only to eat at McDonald’s to cut down on the expenses. But I do know that if I were to go to France, I would buy fresh croissants for my breakfast from the boulangerie, take my lunch of quiche or a salad from the delicatessen (or is this Italian? Oh well…), and have coq au vin in a local cafe or pub.
The idea is to savor the experience while you could, because you’ll never know when you’d get to eat in France again. Unless of course you really have the money to go back any time.
For a while, one can forget about McDo. After all, it’s just there around the corner, open any time, offering and serving the same old stuff you order.The same thing with fruits: given the choice between the kumquat or a banana, wouldn’t you go for the exotic fruit whose name you can’t even begin to spell? I think any one would be intrigued enough to do so.
The banana isn’t about to go anywhere. Whatever happens, whether the kumquat turns out to be mean-tasting or not, the banana would still be at every stall, sitting and waiting for the next buyer.
So why miss out on the kumquat now, when you could get your hands on a banana any time, right?
