September

A lot has been going in my life this month. I don’t blog about them very much though. All of a sudden, I felt like blogging about them here will just be too, I don’t know, invasive.

I’ve been feeling miserable lately. I may have smiled a lot in the past few weeks, but deep inside, I’m a big depressed shit. Thank you to my friends for their presence and support.

Enough of this emo crap though. Allow me to share some of the highlights of my September:

 

We “celebrated” Telaw’s birthday a day late, although we had dinner and coffee on September 17.

 

Random Friday night out with the girls from work.

 

My grandma and my aunt Glenda left for the US mid-month. We found out my great aunt had cancer so my grandma had to push her trip a month early!

The Barbie x Local Fashion Designer exhibit at SM. The clothes were sooo adorable. Buti pa ang Barbie, nabibihisan ng mga magagarang damit… sana ako din! LOL

I went out on a random lunch date with my college best friends, Karla and Leonard.

Omay turned 22! She had their finals on her birthday, but we went to her school and surprised her with balloons and cake to celebrate! We ended up having dinner at Yellow Fin with her family…

…and to Kapalong for an extended celebration!

When I got back from Kapalong, I found out my whole family stayed in Apo View Hotel for the rest of the weekend. Dad was in town for a business trip.

 

Lady was in town! We had coffee when we got back from Kapalong!

The days are obnoxiously HOT considering it’s September already. But clear blue skies are LOVE.

Despite all the bad feelings I’ve been having, I’m still very happy that I am surrounded with the most amazing people in the world. But well, I’m looking forward to a new month very much. Hello, October! I can’t wait to start next month’s adventure outside the city!

 

okthxbye

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

I happened by this speech of JK Rowling as she delivered her commencement address at the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

A very good read. Brief. Funny. Insightful. PAK!

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

 

Another testament to how awesome she is! Those in bold are the things I found moving in her speech.

 

okthxbye

My Closet Dreams Come True

I am definitely into the “BASICS". I believe in having must-haves in every closet, and the pieces for this collection from Theory are definite musts!

Ooooh I just adore classic cuts, prints and patterns!

These are my favorites:

The Business Casual

The Sporty Chic

The Power Player

The Sweet and Sassy

The Laid Back Temptress

The Too-Cool-For-School

Note the basics: oversized blazer, chambray shirt, cropped khaki pants, white shirt, white polo, slim fit trousers, cropped pale-colored blazer, striped shirt/dress, wide legged denim jeans, oxford shoes, black pumps, and motorcycle boots.

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

 

okthxbye

Behind The Teacher’s Desk

Tonight, I was lucky enough to feel how it is “behind the teacher’s desk.”

Earlier today, my former Marketing professor, Mr. Anthony Aguelo, called me up to ask me to be a part of the panel for his Mktg310 classes for tonight. I was hesitant at first because really, what do I know about being a panelist? I just graduated last year and I still don’t have that much background in the field. But I eventually gave in so after work, I found myself sitting in one of my old armchairs in school – this time not a student, but as a guest of my former professors. I paneled along with one of my favorite teachers in college, Mrs. Lynith Marte. YES. I LOVE MRS. MARTE. NO SARCASM HERE. I REALLY LEARNED A LOT FROM HER. MAGIS! (I had a chat with her tonight and I’d like to say more but that’s for another post really)

What was weird about it was that I was schoolmates in high school with one of the presenters. She’s a really close friend of my PBF, and though we don’t really talk, we do know each other by affinity. And for the second group I paneled for tonight, one of the presenters was a “friend” of mine from waaaay back as we were playmates when we were kids, we were carpool-mates, and most of all, his house is just a house away from mine. Also, one of the students from the second class who came to observe the first group was a childhood friend of mine from the province – our dads works in the same company, and our families often see each other. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!

While I was only supposed to panel for Sir Anton, I found myself going with him and a couple other teachers to the “final presentation” of 2 groups from Mrs. Marte’s class. For their retailing final grade, the have to do an actual promotional event for their chosen product/service. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I was bummed coz we didn’t have it back then – Mrs. Marte made us do a paper instead. That was the end of her comprehensive exams, and the beginning of her innovative final presentations. So going back, the first two groups held their “exams” at a bar in Jacinto Ext. YAY FOR FREE DINNER! The food was really great, and desserts from Anniepie!

I hope these students realize how  lucky they are to have experienced this kind of practical learning. I’m sure I’d have loved it during my time.

As a panelist, I’ve learned a lot. I used to think that it was only us students who learn from the comments and guidance of our mentors, but it’s really a two-way learning. From this experience, I’ve come to appreciate the role of my teachers more, and the roles of a student. My experiences in college are still fresh, and while doing the deliberation and all the interactions I had with the students and teachers alike, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really not easy for teachers to fail the students – but if they don’t deserving a passing mark, then what choice is there left for the teachers. Honestly, I love how objective and technical Mrs. Marte approaches things. On the other hand, I also love how Sir Anton mothers (for the lack of a better word) his students and encourage then. Today, I sat beside two different sides of a coin and it’s a very informative place to be.

So yeah, cheers to MAGIS, and cheers to AWESOME TEACHERS! I met two other professors tonight, Ma’am Rhea (who I heard is a terror prof) and Ma’am Michelle (who, I learned only on our way home, is a teacher of my brother Karl.) And even more awesome, they invited me for another “defense” this weekend. CHEERS!

 

okthxbye

 

P.S.

I’ve also learned how much we’ve done right (and wrong) during our time as students. We as in me and my groupmates of course. Having been trained under the terrorizing hands of Mrs. Marte, and the “fly-little-bird-fly” technique of Mr. Aguelo, really takes its toll. There is really no excuse to mediocrity. And yeah, BEING CHARMING is a great weapon. *bow*

30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She’s 30

This 1997 Glamour article has become a popular web chain letter, usually titled “Maya Angelou’s Best Poem Ever.” Glamour contributor Pamela Redmond Satran is flattered, but she wrote the list, updating it in 2005.

February 1, 2007

Pamela Redmond Satran

In May of 1997, I wrote this list. I had passed my thirtieth birthday and wanted to tell younger women about the things I really wished I’d had and known by that important milestone. I guess people agreed with what I had to say, because a few years later the list showed up in my e-mail inbox; a friend had forwarded it to me for my reading pleasure, completely unaware that I was the author. After that, every month or two someone would send it to me and I’d immediately hit “reply all” and type, “Hey, that was me! I wrote that for Glamour.” (After a while, I don’t think anyone believed me.) The list became a phenomenon; posted on hundreds of websites, it was attributed to everyone from Jesse Jackson to Maya Angelou to Hillary Clinton. Someone even published it as an anonymously written book. As I read over these lines now, so many of them still seem worth having and knowing—whether you’re 30 or 22 or 75. Being a little older and a little wiser, I’ve plugged in a few new “shoulds.” By all means, add some of your own.

By 30, you should have:

1. One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come.
2. A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family.
3. Something perfect to wear if the employer or man of your dreams wants to see you in an hour.
4. A purse, a suitcase and an umbrella you’re not ashamed to be seen carrying.
5. A youth you’re content to move beyond.
6. A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age.
7. The realization that you are actually going to have an old age—and some money set aside to help fund it.
8. An e-mail address, a voice mailbox and a bank account—all of which nobody has access to but you.
9. A résumé that is not even the slightest bit padded.
10. One friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry.
11. A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill and a black lace bra.
12. Something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it.
13. The belief that you deserve it.
14. A skin-care regimen, an exercise routine and a plan for dealing with those few other facets of life that don’t get better after 30.
15. A solid start on a satisfying career, a satisfying relationship and all those other facets of life that do get better.

By 30, you should know:

1. How to fall in love without losing yourself.
2. How you feel about having kids.
3. How to quit a job, break up with a man and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.
4. When to try harder and when to walk away.
5. How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn’t like to happen next.
6. The names of: the secretary of state, your great-grandmother and the best tailor in town.
7. How to live alone, even if you don’t like to.
8. How to take control of your own birthday.
9. That you can’t change the length of your calves, the width of your hips or the nature of your parents.
10. That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over.
11. What you would and wouldn’t do for money or love.
12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs or not flossing for very long.
13. Who you can trust, who you can’t and why you shouldn’t take it personally.
14. Not to apologize for something that isn’t your fault.
15. Why they say life begins at 30.

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

A poem on death. I first read this online when I was researching for a poem/paper for my Moral Philosophy class earlier this year. And then I heard this again on a tribute for the late Corazon C. Aquino, President of the Republic of the Philippines. I believe it is a poem that embodies our Christian belief of life after death. It’s so touching.

I Have Fallen in Love with the Same Woman Thrice

by Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aguino, Jr. (1973)

I have fallen in love
With the same woman three times
In a day spanning nineteen years
Of tearful joys and joyful tears

I loved her first when she was young
Enchanting, brilliant, middle-strung
Vibrant, fragrant, eternally new
Cool, invigorating as the morning dew.

Desperate, she shared, quieted my despairs
Hopeful, she fanned the fires of my hopes
Lavished me with days of bliss and peace,
Endless, perpetual days of fond memories.

She is my hope; I do not wish to realize
Hence my hope; forever green, eternal prize
My life transcending life, my ultimate quest
Dream of my life for whom Ill spare no rest.

I fell in love again
With the same woman the second time
When first she bore her child and mine
The first fruit of our union and our love.

The pains and anguish of motherhood she braved
Loved her children, their love she deservedly craved
Times were she hung on the very brink of death,
Unflinchingly fulfilling her mission to procreate.

In politics I plunged, she was always by my side,
Steadfast, uncomplaining, helping to turn the tide,
Amidst hardship, her rare courage would not relent
She was my secret weapon, the source of my strength.

The world was my concern, our home her domain,
The people mine, the children hers to maintain,
So it was in those eighteen years and a day
Till I was detained, forced in prison to stay.

Suddenly she became our sole support
Wellspring of hope, source of comfort
On her shoulders fell the burden of life
She emerged our captain in the sea of strife.

I fell in love again
With the same woman the third time
Looming from the battle, undaunted, unafraid,
Calm composed, she is God’s lovely maid.

It has been a year of many disappointments
Endless dark nights, long days of sad lament,
Of grave doubts, frustrations, bitter desolations,
Of privations, untold indignities, humiliations.

Dreams became nightmares; hopes, despair.
Rally to freedoms call, no one will dare.
Future is obscured, life has lost its meaning,
The tunnel is long, were only at the beginning.

Leaders I admired, whose advice I sought
Became fallen idols, their souls were bought,
Their conscience they bartered for soft convenience,
Due to despicable cowardice, theyve lost their patience.

Leaders became dealers, begging for part of the spoils,
Forgetting the value, the essence of the hottest toil,
Paralyzed be fear, they joined the amoral dictator,
Defending, waving the bloody flag of the new oppressor.

The pillars of society became the props of tyranny,
Be realistic, they urged, if not for safety, for money.
It is useless to resist, the tyrant is too strong,
Yet aware, with their help the tyranny will prolong.

Mother Pilipinas weeps, her noble sons are gone,
Her land of the morning, is now of the setting sun,
Back to her dungeon in chains shes been returned;
For all her sacrifices, this is what she earned.

The night is cold and dark, there are no stars,
Our prisons are full, our souls wrinkled with scars,
Afflicted, persecuted, struck down but not crushed,
How soon will this blight be erased by Allahs brush?

My only escape is to cling to the woman of my dreams
Who gave me a life full of love, a love full of life,
She is my urge to live, my sole motivation to survive,
She taught me not only to dream, but to make dreams alive.

Fight on! She says: Let not the guiltless ghost depart.
Your pains, our people know are caused by a thousand darts,
But be assuaged, remember the Filipino, his story, his past,
Soon, very soon, the tyrant will choke in his greedy power lust!

- – - – - – - – - –
about the poem: Ninoy wrote this ode for Cory from within his prison cell in Fort Bonifacio as a political detainee during the Marcos Regime. It’s a tribute to his wife sacrifices for him and their family as he served his country and fought for freedom. Its theme was both emotional and political. Parts of it was set to music in 1987 by Jose Mari Chan.

Wake Up Call

"Others are going to start doing the things you talk about doing. The right time to start, is right now."

Talk about a slap in the face. I’ve decided to just get up there and get things going. It’s time that I find my new place in this world.

I have to stop thinking like Meredith Grey:

"I just need something to happen, I need a sign that things are going to change. I need a reason to go on. I need some hope! And in the absence of hope, I need to stay in bed and feel like I’m going to die today."

Like what they always say:

Keywords are HOPE and PREPARE.

"Do you remember what you told me once? That every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." (Vanilla Sky)

What a quote-filled morning. Off to get my butt out here and start working!

To end things, I share: “It’s the busy people who make things happen.” (Manching, 2009) Flashback to college, smiles at memory, and exclaims INDEED..

Telai Is Thinking

I guess this is a day of reflection for me. I’ve been thinking since last night – just random things about life and my current emotional state. 

My service marketing professor told me this afternoon that based on my penmanship, I am a highly perceptive and intuitive person. I don’t really know why this bothered me but I’ve been thinking about this since. I don’t really know if this is true. I kept looking for evidences to prove or disprove this reading, but I haven’t found any. And so I decided to just not let it get to my head because sometimes, I have the tendency to do so. As well, I’ve also decided to just work on these qualities and make the reading as true as possible. When I got home this evening, I looked up the words “perceptive” and “intuitive” in the dictionary. I’m not sure if I have enough chutzpah to be able to develop these qualities but I do hope I’ll find enough determination to do so.

My next class was Philosophy of Ethics. It was all about virtue and dignity and rights and humanity. Sometimes, the school of thought seems to be in line with my values. I realize that if only I learn how to read and absorb ideas easily, I have so much to know about character and personality. I wish to become a better person. I wish to find people’s importance as human beings and not as things. I’m quite guilty of a lot of immoral behaviour. I’m still not sure how to approach this aspect of my life yet. My Philo prof shared a few stories about experiences and real-life situations, and one question struck me: do our generation have enough moral spine to live on?  

Though a lot of my classmates make fun of Mr. Enojado’s class, I love listening to him speak. Knowing that he was a former Jesuit priest made him all the more interesting to get to know and be heard. I admit that my faith is quite unconventional than my registered religion. I have a lot of questions that my present religion have not answered yet because I never asked. But still I’m interested to hear more from people who’s undying faith in God lead their lives. One thing that moved me in today’s class was the talk about principle and dignity. My prof shared with us that the Philippines have now moved to become the #1 Country in Graft and Corruption in the world. He asked, what happened to all the graduates of this country’s religious schools? Where have their values gone? He also said that the older people are already very hard to reprimand therefore our generation is the only hope for this country. I know it might sound corny, but I also know it’s true. We can do so much, we have the capacity to change this country and turn it for the better if only we have the collective mindset to do so. We should not let ourselves be overpowered by the rest with weaker faith, as Ateneans. Integrity, principles and dignity: they are the moral fibre that should govern how we deal with the world in general, whether we be in business or not.

Because of these discussions, I’ve been thinking about honesty, character, responsibilities, duties and dignity. I can make this world a better place, I’m sure of that. But the most pressing question right now is HOW? and WHEN?

Value of the Day

It just came to me again today. I never really thought about it for the past couple of months.

“Pay It Forward”

Picture this:

I was lost in the woods and dying of hunger. A lady found me, took care of me and fed me. I owe her for helping me out. I promise to pay her back for the clothes and food she gave me, but she tells me to just pay it forward. So instead of paying her, I pay it forward by helping other people as well. So that’s how “pay it forward” works.

I first heard this phrase in a movie during our retreat a couple of months ago. For those who haven’t seen it yet, I recommend watching it. It’s very touching and heart breaking.