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Several Unique Keepsake Birthday Gifts You Could Give

2011-05-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

photo credit: weheartit

A keepsake special birthday gift could make a birthday celebration more special. You can consider giving a document depicting the birthday celebrant's birth history, a personalized astrological graph, a piece of jewellery inlaid with the birthday celebrant's birthstone, or even a framed picture together with written birthday wishes.

Even though there are a couple of birthdays that are specially given special recognition such as the 21st as well as fiftieth, you could actually make any birthday into a significant celebration by giving keepsake birthday gifts. Keepsake gifts fundamentally hold more meaning than any other present and will let the celebrant think of you for many years. Below are some keepsake gifts you may consider giving to your loved ones on their birthday:

A document showing the birthday celebrant's birth history

Not many people have a written copy of their labor and birth history. You could make the historical record yourself by doing careful investigation and interviewing the birthday celebrant's mother and father as well as other relatives. Data such as the celebrant's childbirth weight, birth place as well as news reports happening from all over the world on the same day could be included. You can even add trivia such as a list of well known men and women and celebrities who share the same special birthday as the celebrant to help make the document more interesting. Present the details you acquire as a historical bday scroll penned on parchment. You can also have the record framed for posterity.

A custom-made horoscope graph or chart

Some people believe that zodiac charts can offer a glimpse of a person’s personality and character. The celebrant may cherish a gift which can give them a special viewpoint on their characteristics and a clearer awareness of their strengths and weaknesses. A complete zodiac chart can guide someone on their trek through life and inform them of any obstacles which come their way. You could have an astrological chart exclusively made by commissioning a professional astrologer. Have the pages of the chart and the written text bound in leather so it can be a durable and lasting record that the recipient can go over in the coming years.

A piece of jewellery decorated with the birthday celebrant's birthstone

Birthstones are among the valuable things which will definitely commemorate a person’s birthday party. Find out what the celebrant’s birthstone is and then have a piece of jewelry custom made with the stone. You may personalize the present even more by having the receiver's name or initials engraved on the surface area of the jewelry or a short but genuine birthday message. Each birthstone possesses distinctive properties and qualities as well as a historical background and folklore. You can include these types of interesting pieces of information along with the gift that you give by having it printed and then laminated.

A framed picture along with penned birthday wishes

You could give an item that will not only be able to capture your sentiments but include those of the celebrant’s colleagues and other loved ones. Have a picture of the celebrant duplicated and then put it as a centerpiece in a large frame that has sufficient space around the picture for composing messages. Compose a genuine birthday wish for the celebrant and ask his or her friends, family as well as loved ones to post their own messages as well.

When selecting a gift, always consider the recipient’s personality and interests so it will be more meaningful to him or her.

Six Valuable Truths You Must Know Regarding Liposuction Procedures

2011-04-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

photo creadit: weheartit

If you're thinking of getting liposuction surgery, you need to know that it requires suctioning out fat cells, it's executed by a surgeon to remove excess body fat, it might contour different parts of your body, it has a unique set of dangers, people undergo it for different reasons, and it is not a remedy for general weight problems.

Liposuction is one of the most popular cosmetic surgical procedures in the world. In fact, in the year 2004, lipo surgery was the most executed cosmetic surgery by associates of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. If you're thinking of going through San Diego Liposuction, you must first consider these factors:

It involves suctioning out the human body's fat cells

Liposuction begins by creating small incisions on the human body parts that need to be medicated. A medical apparatus known as the cannula, which is a tube having a blunt tip, is inserted to the incisions. The doctor handles the cannula and suctions out the fat cells. The incisions are then stitched when the surgical procedure is completed.

It is executed by a surgeon to eliminate excess body fat

Liposuction is a surgical procedure designed to eradicate unwanted and also excess body fat. It is alternatively labeled body contouring and fat removal-suctioning and results in an improved body look. Liposuction involves the use of a unique surgical tool to suction the excess fat. Plastic surgeons typically conduct this medical procedure.

It could contour different parts of your body

Liposuction can be applied on several areas of the body to enhance its appearance and shape. The operation may be used on the abdomen, hips, upper arms, cheeks, breasts, thighs, neck, calves and ankle areas.

It features its own set of dangers

Like every surgical procedure, liposuction features its own set of dangers. Most of the common dangers associated with the liposuction are fluid overload, damage to the nerves, skin, tissue and organs, burns, drug reaction, bleeding, infection, blood clot, drug reactions or drug overdose and scarring. These risks can be further aggravated if health issues including hypertension, diabetes, pulmonary problems and allergic reactions to certain medications are present in the individual. For this reason, it is very important that individuals consult with their health care provider and seek to correct these pre-existing problems before pursuing the surgical procedure.

People undergo it for many reasons

There are many purposes why this surgery treatment is made. People want to have liposuction to further improve their visual appeal and remove fat bulges and also irregular chin lines. It may also enhance an individual’s sexual function by removing unwanted fat on a woman’s interior thighs. Liposuction surgery can also be an efficient solution for people who wish to shape their figures and take away fat bulges which can't be fixed by simple physical exercise or diet.

It's not a remedy for general weight problems

Though liposuction surgery has several uses, it has its own limitations. For an individual, liposuction surgery must not be perceived as an answer for general obesity nor should it be designed as a alternative to physical exercise or diet plan. Liposuction surgery should also not be used to treat cellulite. There are also sensitive parts of the body which must not be treated with this particular medical procedure like the breasts as they are sometimes a site for cancer.

Liposuction is a serious surgical procedure which involves enough preparation and oftentimes a painful recovery process. Because of this, it is very important that patients considering this type of surgery thoroughly think of their decision and discuss it with a specialist.

Where to go if you can’t write your essay?

2011-03-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

Writing an academic paper is not easy. It requires research, analysis and technical writing skills. Because of multiple intelligences, some students who are good in other areas may not be good in writing. After all, it almost always carries that those who read a lot are the ones that excel in writing.

There are also individuals who are good in expressing their thoughts through informal writing such as blogging, for example, but aren’t really familiar with the rules of technical writing.

Sure, before students are given tasks to write essays or term papers, professors guide them on doing it. However, polishing a really good piece requires more than just technicalities. It demands God-given gift too.

Of course you can argue, a gift itself isn't sufficient to produce a piece that’s worth an A+ grade without practice. Practice makes perfect, therefore whoever practices writing as often as they can has a bigger chance of developing that great writing gift.

But we’re talking here about individuals whose passion lies on other things, maybe not academics, such as sports or music for example, that they’d rather spend their precious time enhancing their passion. What option is left for them if they are to submit high quality essays or term papers just to pass a course?

Thankfully, there are essays online available to aid them in their need. Whoever has difficulty meeting up such requirements, for whatever reason – be it their lack of ability to meet the professor’s demand or limited time left before submission – they are rest assured that they need not fail the course.

All they’ll have to do is go online and contact the essayists who are always ready to produce the papers that they’d need. They are always available to assist their customers throughout the process. All they would need are the important details of your project. They will handle the research and the overall polishing of tour paper.

Many professionals also hire essayists. If they’re running a big business and they’re schedule is busy, even if they are very capable of writing their papers, they would prefer to do something else that would impact more their business. Why bother spending too much time writing, if there are lots of professional writers available for hire. You can trust them with your life.

You don’t need to be an expert in technical writing to become a great musician, a celebrity, a model, a fashion designer, a technician, or a famous football player. So if you are having troubles in your technical writing courses, don’t panic, tell your self - “someone can write my essay.”

I dreamed of great white shark attacking me, I need dream interpretation

2011-02-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

photo credit: lostinasupermarket.com

A great white shark with dangerous sharp teeth ready for a bite chased me in my dream last night. I woke up morbidly horrified. I was standing in the water close to the shore, seeing some friends – which I couldn’t identify on my waking time – swim. A guy friend called out to me informing me that there’s a white shark heading to my direction. I turned around and saw its huge body swimming speedily towards me. It looked very angry. I ran towards the shore and climbed an unfinished skeletal house. I hanged on the roofing frame of the house just in time when the shark attacked me. It hit the wooden post of the house and it fell to the sand. The shark then turned into a student, my student from year 8 (a boy that I’m actually fond of). He smiled lovingly at me and said that he was simply joking, and then he was gone. I saw myself smiled back at him, remained in my position, still very scared, wondering what it meant.

I woke up. I got off my bed and went to the toilet to pee, sleepily pondering my dream. The feeling of fear was still very strong. I said a quick prayer in my mind when I went back to sleep. There was one person that immediately came to my mind while I thought of the shark, that person is not the student in my dream.

When I slept back I had again very interesting dream. There was a sort of retreat for people and students that I seem to know. There were lots of them. The group stopped for a swim in a somewhat akin to a lake. Everyone went down to the water, each carrying a fish of different size, some small, some big, to feed the big sharks that are in the water. There were lots of laughing; everyone seemed to have fun feeding all the vicious sharks. I was standing on a rock beside the lake, watching and wondering if it’s safe for the people.

When all the fish were spent everyone hurried to climb up to the edge of two rocky platforms in each side of the lake. The sharks were after them. Both kids and adults all ran for their safety, terrified by the beasts that chased them. Everyone escaped safely except for one man. His right foot was bitten by a shark before he was able to hop on the rock. I saw him froze; only the upper part of his body was visible while the lower half was still in the water. Then I saw his face winced. Somebody pulled him out of the water. I saw his bleeding footless leg.

That’s weird isn’t it? When you wake up from a very terrifying dream then sleep back just to have it continued? I saw just too many sharks in one night.

So the moment I got up this morning I googled for the dream interpretation of shark. And here’s what I got. According to Deanna Joseph of Dreams Site:

Predators

Sharks may represent predators or predatory situations in waking life. This can be a person, a relationship, or even a job situation that feels as if it is taking a serious toll on your life. Look at your waking life and see if there is a situation that feels predatory.

Danger

A similar interpretation is that of a dangerous situation. The shark may come into one's dream as an omen, a warning that one is in deep water, in over one's head, and that the results of continuing on may be disastrous.

Emotion

Animals in dreams often stand in for parts of one's self. As underwater creatures, sharks may represent deep emotions hidden in the unconscious. Since many people associate negatively with sharks, the shark may represent negative emotional states such as frenzied anger or resentment. The shark may be symbolic of the destruction these emotions can bring about if not recognized and dealt with.

The shark, especially if it is chasing you, may represent emotions that feel irrational and uncontrollable. Similarly, the shark may be standing in as a "shadow" symbol - parts of one's self that one is not acknowledging.

7 Things Wives Need from Their Husbands to Stay Happy

2011-02-01T02:27:00.000-08:00

photo credit: weheartit.com

Though not all women are the same, a wife usually wants her husband to be a good listener. She also wants regular reminders that she is loved and wanted, craves understanding, needs to feel appreciated, wants you to fulfill your share of responsibility with regards to your kids, needs you to take her out a date every now and then, and longs for occasional alone time.

When it comes to saving your marriage and keeping your relationship healthy, both you and your wife should do your part. Marriage is a give-and-take relationship and it is important that you are able to address her needs and her wants as much as you can to make her happy. Here are the things that a wife usually wants from her husband:

A good listener

Wives usually want their husbands to be good listeners. Aside from your wife’s friends, she needs someone to talk to about the things that go on in her life, at work or at home, with your kids, and her worries or concerns and achievements. Actively listen and pay attention so she knows you are with her every step of the way no matter what.

A reminder that she is loved and wanted

While you may feel like words are not enough to prove your love for your wife, saying sweet little things that remind her she is loved is what she wants. Say "I love you" when you mean it, not only when you are leaving for work, when going to bed, or after a phone conversation. Say it whenever you think it surprises her. Do not forget to admire her when she deserves it, especially when she looks great with her dress, when she looks nice with her new haircut, or just the way she is. Simple words of appreciation can make her really happy.

Understanding

Although understanding is more of a need than a want to get through relationships, women want to be understood more than you think. Women can get really difficult to deal with at times, and when that happens, all she wants from you is to understand why she acts the way she does. She wants you to forgive her for being complicated at times.

Appreciation

In as much as you do, your wife wants to be appreciated with the things she does. She wants to be complimented even with the little things she has accomplished, especially at home. Make her feel delighted for the great dinner she has cooked and for helping your kids get those good grades in school.

Fulfill your share of responsibility with regards to your kids

Kids need attention and discipline from both parents. If in case you are a little too lenient or a bit unconcerned when it comes to rearing your kids, she might want you to be a little bit more responsible. You are a couple, and she wants you to be her partner and discipline the kids when necessary and nurture them through play and quality time. Show her you are as concerned about the kids as she is and that you are doing something to fulfill your responsibility as a father.

A date every now and then

Now that you have a busier job and you have kids around, your time with your wife may not be the same as it was with much less distraction and responsibility. This is one thing she wants more from you now, more than ever. She wants to spend quality time with you. Perhaps a movie date or an occasional night out will make her happy.

Some alone time

It is not that she is tired of having you and your kids around. She just deserves a break from thinking about all the responsibilities at home so she does not get burdened and start feeling depressed . From time to time, she needs her own space and may want to spend it at the salon or spa, go shopping alone, or spend time with her friends.

There may be other things your wife may want from you, but before you can know what they are, talk to her about your relationship and ask if she is happy with her life. This way, you can both learn about each other’s needs and wants so you can both be happy and satisfied with your married life. After all, you both deserve a good life despite the storms that come and go.

Who needs cheap insurance quote and insurance essentials?

2010-12-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

If you are not with any organization or institution which provides with an insurance quote, it is your duty to look for a cheap insurance quote that provides your needs at a price you can afford. If you are a parent or a student, you must be thorough in searching for a quote that caters your need as well as of your family which is not always guaranteed even by some high insurance quotes. Your satisfaction and needs are met at a lower price if you know where go. There are many online services that allow you to compare prices and services of insurance quotes. You need to orient yourself and do proper research.

One way to enhance your knowledge about insurance quote is insurance essentials. Many people are aware about insurance and quotes, well-educated people who are concern about their health and future, but are not deeply knowledgeable about all the technicalities and background of insurance quotes. Insurance essentials give employees or any individual the knowledge base of the insurance operation. Regardless of the size of your organization or its geographical distribution of its employees, or regardless if you are self-employed or a student, insurance essentials provide valuable information about insurance quote. There are online courses that you can take in order to learn about insurance essentials. Moreover, it is recommended more for the employees, who are new to the insurance industry, those professionals that are not involved in hands on, day-to-day technical insurance operations.

4 Tips Men Can Use to Make Their Relationships Healthier

2010-12-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

photo credit: weheartit.com

As a man, there are several things that you can do to contribute to a healthy relationship, including communicating and being intimate with your partner, being sensitive to your partner's needs, being confident, and being true to yourself.

Relationships may be harder to deal with than you think. As a man who is concerned about the quality of your relationship with your spouse or girlfriend, you have to do your part. Here are some useful tips to make your relationship with your partner better and healthier:

Communicate and be intimate with your partner

One key piece of relationship advice for men is to communicate. Communication is an important component in a successful relationship, second only, of course, to the love you have for each other. Openness is what most men lack, and that can cause problems to grow and weaken the relationship. Make it a habit to talk about your adventures, concerns, dreams, and even your fears over a cup of coffee every day. Remember that communication must be give and take. Listen to your partner when she needs to talk something out. You can also let her speak first if you are more comfortable with that. This may not come easy for you, but slowly opening up, perhaps starting with the not so personal stuff, can help you get a fresh start towards intimacy and trust.

Be sensitive to the needs of your other half

Women love to shower you with love and attention, reflecting their own need for you to reciprocate similarly. Prove to your lady that you can be as caring and responsive as she is. Be a gentleman always. Do not forget to do the little things that can make her smile, such as opening the door for her, giving her a seat, carrying her, and even simply asking how her day was. Surprise her with flowers from time to time or take her on a date somewhere special, even if there is no occasion. Sweet little gestures like these will help strengthen the bond you have.

Be confident

Weakness is never a manly pose. When challenging situations come your way, it is important to be strong and confident. When there is a misunderstanding with your partner, be strong enough to admit your mistake if you are at fault. Furthermore, be confident enough, without being self-righteous, to respond if your partner is at fault. Assure yourself that you can handle even emotional situations simply by talking things out with your partner.

Be true to yourself

The final piece of effective relationship advice for men is to be true to yourself. Do not pretend to be somebody else in order to please your partner. Pretending to be someone else would probably be the worst thing you can do. Remember, she is with you because she likes you just the way you are, not who she wants you to be. In fact, she would probably beg you not to change at all.

All relationships go through storms. But, by carrying out the right attitude and following the tips mentioned above, you will surely get back to shore.

6 Important Lyme Disease Facts

2010-11-22T05:32:00.000-08:00

photo credit: methodsofhealing.com

To be thoroughly educated about Lyme disease, it is important that you learn about its definition and infection, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, complications, and prevention.

Although Lyme disease is not an epidemic, it is worth knowing its nature in order to avoid or treat the disease and prevent further health problems, such as:

Nature and infection of Lyme disease

Lyme disease got its name after its discovery in Lyme, Connecticut in 1975. It is an inflammatory disease caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Human beings get infected with Lyme disease through the bite of an infected tick, such as a deer tick, especially during late spring and early summer.

Symptoms of Lyme disease

A few days up to a few weeks after being bitten by an infected tick, a circular skin rash, erythema migrans and otherwise known as the “bull’s eye” rash, appears at the site of the tick bite. The rash could grow bigger in diameter after a few more days. Other than the rash, you may also feel other Lyme symptoms that mimic a flu and include fever, chills, headaches, joint pains, and muscle pains. In some cases, these flu-like symptoms show without the rash.

When Lyme disease remains undiagnosed and untreated, symptoms could get worse within a month’s time. You will experience more and worse headaches, pain and numbness in the arms and legs, and even fainting and palpitations. Memory problems may start to appear as poor memory retention and concentration. These symptoms will get worse over time if not treated immediately or when medication is not effective.

Diagnosis of Lyme disease

As soon as symptoms of Lyme disease start to show up, consult your doctor for proper diagnosis. Your physician usually identifies Lyme disease through your symptoms, especially with the presence of the rash and your personal history of a tick bite. Laboratory tests are also conducted, such as the ELISA blood test and western blot to diagnose Lyme disease.

Treatment of Lyme disease

When detected earlier, Lyme disease can be treated effectively with oral antibiotics, such as cefuroxime, amoxicillin doxycycline, tetracycline, phenoxymethyl, or penicillin. Erythromycin and azithromycin may also be used in combination with other oral antibiotics. If you have cardiac or neurological problems during the early stage of Lyme disease or during the later stage of infection, you may be given intravenous antibiotics.

Complications of Lyme disease

When not detected or treated immediately or in rare instances when medication does not prove effective, Lyme disease can complicate and cause long-term health problems. Your nerves, joints, brain, and heart may be affected, causing severe fatigue, chronic arthritis, facial nerve paralysis or bell’s palsy, meningitis, heart inflammation, and heart enlargement.

Lyme disease prevention

Prevention is always better than cure. To avoid getting infected with Lyme disease, make sure you cover yourself when going to grassy and woody areas where ticks are most commonly found. Wear a cap, long-sleeved shirt, long pants, socks, and shoes that cover your feet well. When hiking or camping, regularly check your body for ticks, and bathe after outdoor activities to make sure ticks do not stay on your body.

Lyme disease is not that common, so you need not cancel your outdoor activities. The fear of Lyme must not hinder you from enjoying your outdoor hobbies and interests. What is important is that you know all about Lyme disease, especially its prevention strategies and symptoms in order to avoid long-term health complications.

5 Clever Ways to Waterproof Your Laptop for Better Protection

2010-11-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

photo credit: wehearit.com

To waterproof your laptop and keep it from getting damaged, use a waterproof laptop case, get a Neoprene laptop sleeve, make your own waterproof laptop sleeve using Tyvek envelopes, protect your laptop from spills with a keyboard cover, and use accessories like skins and screen protectors to prevent water seepage.

Your laptop is worth protecting not only because of the money you have invested purchasing one, but also because of the files stored on it. You need to protect your equipment from rain, spills, and drizzles while traveling or when traveling or participating in outdoor activities, like fishing or hanging out at the beach. Here are helpful ways to waterproof your laptop and keep it protected everywhere you go:

Secure a waterproof laptop case

Get a waterproof case for your laptop to keep it safe from rain and drizzles when strolling, traveling, or hiking. There are many varieties with a range of features, sizes, and specifications that are available in specialty shops and that can meet your budget requirements. There are even submersible waterproof laptop cases perfect for military use.

Get a Neoprene laptop sleeve

Neoprene is a soft, flexible, durable, water-resistant material used to make wetsuits and now as laptop sleeves to protect your computer from getting wet and scratched. You can purchase one from retail and computer stores to suit your needs and preferences. If you have old wetsuits, you can even make a laptop sleeve of your own. All you need is the proper measurement and some basic sewing skills. Make sure your laptop sleeve snugly fits your laptop so that it is well-protected.

Make your own waterproof laptop sleeve using Tyvek envelopes

Bring out your resourcefulness and grab some Tyvek mailing envelopes used by couriers to make a waterproof laptop sleeve. Depending on the size of your laptop, you may need to use several envelopes that are both waterproof and very durable.

Protect your laptop from spills with a keyboard cover

If your laptop does not feature a spill-proof keyboard, consider buying a keyboard cover to protect the internal components of your computer. These covers come in silicone or plastic materials that will protect the keyboard from accidental spills. Make sure the size of the cover perfectly fits your keyboard to ensure great protection.

Use accessories like skins and screen protectors to prevent water seepage

Other ways to protect your laptop from drizzles and spills include using screen protectors and laptop skins to prevent water seepage. With screen protectors, you will be able to protect your screen and avoid glare when outdoors. Laptop skins are also used both at the top and the bottom of your laptop to avoid direct contact with water and other foreign objects to your computer, helping avoid damages. Just make sure the bottom of your laptop is not completely covered with skin to give way for ventilation and avoid overheating your computer.

A smart tip is to always find accessories that fit your laptop to waterproof it well. You can also avoid further damages by keeping all liquids, including drinks, from your computer and putting them on a different table. When traveling, always waterproof your laptop because you never know what you will run into. The weather could suddenly change from sunny to rainy and the one sitting beside you on the plane could accidentally spill a drinks. Wherever you go, make sure you waterproof your laptop to avoid damaging it and losing your important files.

5 Easy Ways to Fix Dry Hair

2010-11-14T06:11:00.000-08:00

photo credit: weheartit.com

To fix dry hair you can avoid using hair color too often, avoid too much heat when styling, protect your hair while you sleep, avoid over-shampooing, and apply conditioner daily.

Dry hair is characterized by the hair lacking moisture and looking dull and being difficult to manage. There are a variety of reasons why hair gets dry. Some hair types are drier than others because of genetics or lifestyle practices. Fortunately, there are several products such Moroccan hair oil and other treatments specifically made for dry hair care. Additionally, there are some ways to fix dry hair which include:

Avoid using hair color too often

While some women might not have a problem with coloring their hair, there are instances when color treatments can dry out the hair, especially if bleach in part of the process. You can wait to color your hair until it becomes healthier, or if you can opt for a color rinse which is gentler on the hair.

Avoid too much heat when styling

Using blow dryers, curling irons, hot combs and flat irons for styling hair is quite common but, unfortunately, these devices can cause your hair to become dry. Heat is damaging to the hair and can strip it of its much needed moisture. It is not advisable to use heat styling devices on your hair regularly. If you use these styling devices on a daily basis and notice that your hair is becoming dull and dry, then you might need to avoid heat styling for a while to help your hair recover. You can also experiment with alternative styling options such as wet wraps, wet sets and air drying which are milder alternatives to heat styling.

Protect your hair while you sleep

You might not know it, but while you sleep, your hair rubs against the pillow or bed sheets, and certain fabrics like cotton can cause friction which makes your hair dry. You can protect your hair by wearing a night cap made of soft fabrics such as silk or satin. You can also choose to change your pillowcases and bed sheets with similar types of fabric.

Avoid over-shampooing

Over-shampooing your hair can strip it of its natural oils and moisture, causing your hair to become dry. However, constant shampooing might be unavoidable, especially during the summer when it’s hot or if you are regularly working out because you will need to remove the dirt and sweat from your scalp and hair. To avoid the adverse effects of over-shampooing, apply conditioner regularly.

Apply conditioner daily

Conditioner washes are great for keeping the hair soft and moisturized. If your hair is becoming dry, you can deep condition it to help restore its natural moisture. Deep conditioning doesn’t necessarily involve a hood dryer. You can simply apply a liberal amount of deep conditioner to your hair and put a plastic cap over it for a few hours. For severely dry hair, deep conditioning is advisable at least once a week.

If you have dry hair, caring for it doesn’t have to be difficult. Sometimes, using the right products for your hair type is enough to keep it healthy and beautiful.

How to save money on cell phone plans

2010-11-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

It's easy to self-indulge on text messaging, calling and net surfing if you use monthly cell phone plans. How does mega texting to all your friends without the disruptions of "check services!" bomb when you run out of credit sounds like? Better yet, how does calling your friends without limit feels like when you're in the middle of a task and you need information from someone who's answer to a text message you can't wait? I bet you prefer to dial right away and it's just a relief to not worry whether your credit has expired or not. If you're on a holiday or queuing in a counter, you can kill time or do simultaneous task by surfing the net through your cell phone. Technology, how I love Thee!

But while you enjoy the mass of cell phone plans benefits, you reap the rewards at the end of the month. When the bill comes in an envelop, I bet most eye balls bulge out with the sight of the figures sky rocketing. The down side of unlimited access to calling, texting and internet connection services is the inability of the user to monitor his usage and thereby using/spending services more than he is willing to pay.

It is beneficial to use a free cost-savings tool that works continuously to save you money on your everyday expenses. You must wonder how that works. First, if you want to use monthly cell phone plans by Sprint, you should check the variety of services available from this company such as the Verizon Wireless cell phone plans. Evaluate carefully how much are you capable to spend each month without hurting your pocket. Bear in mind the cons of choosing an unlimited plan. They give you a list of plans with specific amount and services. They also compare their services with what you have now, giving you an idea if you are currently spending more than you are suppose to.

Furthermore, to all the guys and gals who love to stay at the edge of technology, you might want to check Sprint, the company who offers the latest cell phones such as the new Blackberry 6 OS. But do so, with the thought in mind, do I really need this?

How to easily ruin your online credibility: The prize that was never delivered.

2010-10-20T01:22:00.000-07:00

photo from google

I received an email one day inviting me to join a 55 Fiction writing contest. I love writing short stories, in fact, it's one of my strongest writing skills. But I had not written a short story of only 55 words before – ever. So I visited the website to see what was in store for me and I was impressed with all the collective literary works that I saw. The site isn’t really big and is still thriving to grow but I joyfully subscribed for their newsletter and became a regular visitor.

The invitation was very enticing and challenging. Whenever I had some free time at work, which was very rare, I wrote my drafts. It didn’t take long and I came up with my 55 fiction - Last Grip.

I devotedly campaigned for my story. My friends and colleagues supportively read and reviewed my work in the forms of comments below my entry. Several of my competitors were puzzled with my story. They commented that my 55 fiction has a unique take. Indeed it has and it was well-received.

The judgment day came and I won the Best Read award. I had hoped to win the first or the second prize; but my story was only the most voted entry. I was sad but that was fine.

All the winners were said to receive a book as prize. Being the Best Read, I was supposed to win the book of a rich Indian woman who chose the man that she loved over her family’s wealth but only to be abandoned by the same man that she fought for. I was eager to read her story because I wanted to know how she survived all the challenges that she faced and managed to rise above them. I knew that she eventually succeed.

Several months passed but the book never came and I never heard anything from the organizer since she asked for my mailing address. I waited and waited. Four months later I decided to send her an email inquiring about the status of the book. It probably was miss-sent and I wanted to know. But I never heard anything back.

It’s exactly one year now, the month of October, and the book never came. The book isn’t expensive, just an autobiography of an unknown woman therefore it isn’t its monetary equivalent that I am chasing of. However, I felt that after the traffic and the publicity that the site and the sponsors received, the organizers failed to handle the post-contest responsibilities, e.g. monitoring and making sure that the prizes were delivered as promised. Or, if in some reasons, the sponsors decided after the contest that they could not afford to part with their books for free, at least, they should respond to email inquiries.

I lost my trust. Obviously, I stopped my subscription.

Princess Sarah: The Mystery Resolved

2010-10-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

These aren’t the exact words, but I’ll try to retell them as close as I could … Sarah held her doll tightly, the news was hardly registering – her father is dead? With pride that always made her stand out, she lifted her chin and left the room as fast as she could; she wanted to stay away from Miss Minchin’s sight. “Aren’t you going to thank me for giving you a home you child with no gratitude?” Miss Minchin’s cry echoed the room. “Why should I?” Sarah called back. “You are not nice. And this is not a home.” Sarah knew the doom that awaited her but never really knew how hard it would be.

“How sad.” I thought turning the pages of the book before putting it back to the shelves. “Just another children’s book.” I sighed and left the library.

Several weeks later, I was with year 8 class when I noticed a hardcover book. I looked at it and read its summary. It says the story is about a rich half-Indian half-French girl named Sarah who was sent to a boarding school in London by his rich business man father who pampered her with stuff and care as if she was a princess but until he died penniless due to a failed diamond business. It hit me! Isn’t this the book of Princess Sarah? The cartoon TV series that I was die hard of when I was a kid which I watched religiously every day but not until I saw its ending, our family had to move to a new place where we didn’t quickly get access to TV channels. I never knew its ending. I never knew what happened to Princess Sarah. When I got to high school, I saw parts of its Filipino movie version starred by Camille Prats but it didn’t really amuse me that I didn’t even finish it. I looked at the title of the book, “A little Princess Sarah” written by Dr. Arthur Pober adapted from the version of Frances Hodgson Burnett.

I’m now on my late twenties, a teacher. How many years passed since I was in grade 4 when I’d cry if I missed its daily show. I suddenly went back to being a kid. I saw again the cartoon characters - the turbaned man climbing the roof when he visits Sarah in the attic, the monkey, the old sad Indian man, Emily the doll which Miss Minchin sent away along with all of Sarah’s belongings immediately when the news came that Sarah dad died and she was no longer rich.

I devoured the book in an hour. Then I came to the part when Sarah called back, “Why should I? You are not nice. This is not a home.” Oh my! How funny. Isn’t this the same book that I ignored in the library? Now the puzzles were meeting each other and all the questions answered. I no longer wonder about the turbaned man and why Sarah became poor. I no longer wonder what became of her. I am now rest assured that Sarah got back her title and her fortune. Princess Sarah, the girl that I loved so much when I was a little girl, is no longer a mystery.

Why my dad changed career

2010-09-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

My dad completed a Mining Engineering degree and had worked in some big mining companies in the country when I was young. Several accidents in the mining site almost cost him his life but he was unshakable. He has witnessed several fatal bar down incidents that took the lives of many of his men in some thousands of feet below the ground. But there was one incident that served as a turning point in his life that lead him to completely abandon his profession.

He saw some very refined sand dripping down the walls of the tunnel that connected the blasting and the panning department one night while he was on shift. He was the Supervisor of three departments at the time. He went to report his observation to the General Manager and requested a thorough check on all the structures in those specific areas of the underground. He believed that if ignored, another doom would come. But the General Manager dismissed his proposal on the grounds of big expenses that my dad’s request would incur. My dad urged his superior to do something otherwise his people would die, but the General Manager dismissed his worry as nonsense. On the next day, my dad served his resignation.

Quickly the company replaced my dad’s abandoned post. But not long there after, a very tragic accident happened burying the new Supervisor and the workers to death - just as my dad prophesied.

Because of the accident my dad lost interest in mining. He started to see his profession as a waiting grave. He also disliked the irregular night shifts and not being able to take a complete weekend holidays and spend time with his kids. It made him decide to change his career.

photo credit: weheartit.com

Putting up a T-shirt printing business

2010-09-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

I was in year 5 when I came home from school one afternoon wondering why our living room was so dark. I quickly smelled the aroma of paints and rubber. My curiosity grew when I saw a stranger in our living room trying to adjust an electric fan. Then I realized he was with my dad, they seemed to be doing some science experiment only with lots of paint. There were white sheets of cheap material on the table and floor and some rectangular net screen. The doors and windows were closed. I came closer and checked. They were printing the white sheets. It dawned on me that my dad was trying to learn another new skill.

It wasn’t a surprise. My dad is a very versatile person who loves to learn new things. Several weeks later, another sign was raised at my dad’s Furniture and Upholstery shop that says “WE accept T-shirt Printing”. He had a variety of custom t-shirts patterns readied for the customers to choose. One pattern that completely amused me and I can still picture out clearly right now was his painting of a sexy woman on her knees wearing only a brassiere and a bikini with a caption below “Wow sexy! If you like it, try me.” Every woman that sees it when they come to check the patterns for printing giggled while the men loved it. It was the most sold out pattern.

T-shirt printing as it turned out was seasonal. The business was at its peek usually during Christmas or fiesta. My dad took his printing designs from different things. Sometimes he took ideas from Christmas ornaments or inspirational posters. He modified them and applied some personal touch. He also experimented with which designs actually worked in the market and which did not.

I usually made myself useful to my dad when the t-shirt printing was at heights. Say for instance when there were hundreds of t-shirts to print and the deadline was fast approaching. But the best job that my dad could assign me to was only to wash off the paints from the net screens so he could use them again to apply a different colored paint. The paints were sticky and smelly. I always hated the job.

photo credit: weheartit.com

Know when to walk away from your relationship

2010-09-18T03:14:00.000-07:00

Some people stay in their relationship just because they're scared to walk away; they find the relationship a probable way to escape a hard life e.g. financial improvement, they see it as a relationship for convenience, they love the person so much that they are ready to take whatever it is, or simply because they think they couldn’t find someone else. These individuals stay in a relationship even if it means losing self respect and self worth.

A good relationship is something that equates whatever you give. It is a safe haven which allows you to retreat from a very harsh world and allows you to be just who you are. It is a relationship that gives you support to achieve your goals, protects you from the meanness of life, allows you to grow into a better person and gives you the opportunity to give all the love that you have and appreciates it.

When should you walk away from a relationship then? The answer is actually simple –when you are no longer happy. But in some situations, the answer is complex.

If you see yourself holding on to a relationship just because you see it as a means of escape from your unhappy life, you better take a pause and carefully examine yourself. Jumping into a relationship with so much baggage is not a good thing because it would deter a happy union. The bundle of unhappiness from the other areas of your life would always give you reason to be unhappy in your relationship. You better work them out yourself first before you can expect much from your relationship. Also, if you see the relationship as a means to improve your financial situation, then that really can be dangerous because you tend to become blind on other things. For example, you might be too focused on the monetary benefits your relationship can bring but unable to see that your partner is not capable of providing your other needs. Money is not everything.

If the relationship causes you to lose self respect that is a very clear indication that you better walk away. Self respect is very important because unless you respect yourself, no one would. But if your relationship takes that away from you, then you better take heed. A loving relationship must be able to reciprocate what you give. You give respect to your partner and you get respect back. If that fails, everything would.

If your partner does not see your worth, then you must work on showing him your value. For example, if you feel that your partner is not proud of you, then make it a goal to become successful in your career or in anything that you do. Perhaps you should improve your looks and become more attractive. However, if nothing works, then maybe it’s time to consider walking away. Someone’s junk can be someone’s gold. Never push yourself on someone who does not see your worth.

A meaningful relationship makes you happy in every aspect and in every little thing it gives. You deserve to be happy.

P.S. This post is primarily focused on relationships before marriage. However, on some situations it can also be applied to marriage relationship. A more detailed article on walking away from your marriage relationship is coming soon. :)

photo credit: weheartit.com

Should you change your career?

2010-09-17T04:44:00.001-07:00

Does it come to you when you feel so stressed out from your day job that you wish you’re somewhere else? I guess wishing to be somewhere doing something else is better than wishing to be someone else. So far, I’m not sure if I ever did wish the latter. My mind says “No” but my heart says “Yes”. Now I’m confused which one to believe. Of course I'm happy for having a job. Just take a look at those thousands if not millions of individuals fighting to get a job, or those who just got fired - which is thanks to recession - they’re frantic to get a new one for survival's sake. In most developing countries, and even in some developed countries, for one single vacancy, hundreds of potential applicants are queuing to get an interview. Oh, but did you know that you have a better chance of getting your target new job if you still have a job just wanting to switch company than someone who has been jobless? But come on, that’s not what I wish to talk about.

It’s just that sometime in your career you probably must have considered changing your path. It might be due to the low demand of your profession, a not competitive salary in the market, or probably simply because you’re not happy with what you do. But let’s face it. It’s definitely scary! Many people might have contemplated it, but the uncertainty and difficulty not to mention the big risk that changing a career imposes is deterrent to actually pursuing it. People can just be too scared and would opt to remain at their safe harbor.

For most times, changing a career is all about timing. For example, you probably must wait when the market gets better and you are certain that your move is not a total blind gamble. Perhaps it’s better to stay with your job right now and wait when everything is perfect. However, sometimes, the perfect time just never comes. Thus changing a career also requires a strong mindset that cannot be shaken by any obstacle. A decision carefully considered and a will that is hundred percent determined is what you need. Changing a career can be very tedious, expensive and timely. But if it’s about getting a career of heart, then it’s a worth thing to do. You would never know what lies ahead unless you throw up the sail.

photo credit: weheartit.com

Do you have health insurance? What about car insurance?

2010-09-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

My health insurance is from BUPA, a one year coverage renewable annually relative to my work contract. Among the fifty+ employees of this small institution where I work, I enjoy the health insurance benefits of 500baht deductible to my hospital bills every appointment. But that does not include toothache and food poison. Funny. Of course, the remaining hospital bills would be from my pocket. When I get hit by a speeding car and die before my contract expires, my beneficiaries would receive 50,000baht - although I wonder who would they be since I have not signed any paper that identifies them. Not a handsome sum, sure, but must be better than nothing. When I attended the orientation about BUPA, I was thinking "Is this patterned from other Business Insurance?"

A health insurance such as mine is an example of group health insurance rates. It is a health insurance written for all the employee, a master policy that is issued by my employer, the institution of which I am affiliated. There is a great advantage for both the institution and the insurance company when the deal is group health insurance. The institution can choose for a program to purchase, the employers can either seek for the cheapest most affordable program or seek for quotes that are most likely needed or appreciated by the employees which, of course, would cost more. On the side of the health insurance, they can check the health status of all the employees and if there is one that is at risk of expensive medications, they can charge for a higher quote which eventually is divided among all the employees. But since most of the employees are healthy, the insurance company can sit back a bit and relax. Probably, just probably, no one would get sick this year.

On the account of insurance, not only is your health the subject, of course it also includes all the important properties that you own. That as well includes your car. However, unlike health insurance where there are group rates, the young healthy worker pays a much and receives as much as the old dog with heart issues, I doubt if it applies to cars. But since in most States and European countries car insurance is obligatory, car owners must then be aware of the best Netquote business car insurance that is available in town.

photo: vaxa.com

The secret in making a relationship or marriage work

2010-09-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

I am a strong believer of the notion that for a relationship to work, it takes great effort from both parties. The love and fire might be there, but if not nurtured, doesn't take a while to wither. Love and relationship are like a rose. You plant it, water it, cultivate it, and talk to it. It grows, it flowers, it spreads its beauty right before your eyes. But stop watering it, stop talking to it every morning when you wake up or after you arrive from work, its stems would slowly grow thin, the flowers would start to grow shy, not spreading its petals to its fullest anymore. Not long, its roots would dry. Even if its stems and flowers seem to survive, the roots are dried. Then it dies.

But sometimes you wonder why your plant dies. You water it every time, you make sure you tend to it as much you can. But why it isn't growing as healthy as you want. It remains thin, it never flowers and eventually it dies. Then you decide that maybe growing rose just isn't your forte. Maybe, some people are just blessed with rosy hands they're the only ones that can grow beautiful roses. But I agree not. It isn't about the hands, instead, it's all about the skills and techniques. Growing up with a mom who grows lots of beautiful roses of varied types and colors I learned, that roses are very sensitive. It requires care in watering and tending them. For example, in watering a rose, you should avoid applying water directly to its base. When the pressure of water moves its roots, the rose reacts to it extremely against especially if it's still young. The amount of water applied should also be considered. Is it newly planted? Is it too young still thriving to grow? and the like.

Tending a relationship or marriage is similar to tending a rose, only more complicated. As a soon to be wife, I am aware of this fact. But I am on a mission of making my relationship and soon to be marriage work. I read a lot of relationship tools and a lot of articles that unwrap the mystery of an opposite sex. I found that understanding how different a man and a woman and how their differences can actually create a stronger team instead of a chaotic double if dealt properly has lead to a happy relationship that I am enjoying right now.

The fear is still there, what happens if I wake up one morning to a mundane marital routine? But to armor myself, I am turning to books. Four books that would make me equipped to enter marriage are sleeping beside me at night. I devour them as much as I can. These books are the ones that I hunger to read and thanks to a dear friend, the blogger behind Nice Thoughts and Thrills, she has made my access to these books possible. "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" by John Gray, "Making Marriage Work" by Harold J. Sala, "A wife after God's Own Heart" by Elizabeth George, "The Act of Marriage, The Beauty of Sexual Love" by Tim&Beverly LaHaye are ones of the rare books that are written to help couples achieve a satisfying and healthy marriage based on Christian principles.

The secret in making a relationship or marriage work, aside from prayer, is orienting ones self with the complexity of love and marriage, the difference of sexes and learning how to work as a team in using these differences as an advantage for a loving and satisfying union.

photo: weheartit

What it takes to be frugal and practical?

2010-08-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I debated in myself the concept between frugality and practicality. Are these two words synonymous? If you are practical, does that mean you are frugal?

In today's world, when people are quick in judging you based on what you wear, how much you've acquired, or how much money you have, you are challenged to acquire more and display more. Take a look at this sea of fashion bloggers that sprout rapidly from every corner of the world, most of them are indulging in excessive consumption flaunting at their blogs every new purchases they had. The competition is too tight and every fashionista wannabe is dying to create a by-line for themselves. Looking up for those few who were blessed with money that wearing new clothes daily does not hurt, plenty of these fashion bloggers dream of somehow making it in this universe of blogging if not ending up in a runway or attracting attention of pr firms. But that, however, is despite their credit card.

Thus my question, to whom is it necessary to be frugal? Spending too meager for something that I so love - fashion - is difficult. Ignoring my desires just for the sake of savings, at times is impossible. There are many things that I love to have even if they are not really a need. It is at this angle that practicality comes in. I try to buy expensive dresses and shoes ONLY and only if they are on sale. Spending less in exchange for an expensive item demands not only skills but creativity. I learned to surf the net for online shops that advertise clearance sales and discounts. But they demand time. It is amazing to discover that there are actually websites such as the Hewlett Packard promo code and Home Depot coupon code that devout their services in scouring the web for savvy discount codes, coupons and deals from thousands of online shops. These websites serve very useful in aiding me to hunt for sales that I so need. Buying something worthy of my money and passion for less through creativity is my idea of practicality.

However, I met this very well known blogger who authored the list of more than a hundred ways to save your money. His principle is complete frugality. His techniques are applicable to anyone who dream of retiring a millionaire. He sees the advice of collecting coupon codes and hunting for discount sales in shopping as nonsense. He claims that bargain or discount sale does not help at all in saving money because it only encourages spending more for less. The key word is MORE. He believes that the secret for being debt free with lots of money is downsizing of things that you don't need or things that you are not suppose to prioritize. Avoiding unnecessary spending and practicing economical spending is the way to go.

As for me, I wish to stay in the borderline of practicality and frugality. I dream to retire with money but I don't wish to deprive myself of things that can make me happy. What are your thoughts?

God saved me from fire, the first time

2010-08-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful summer afternoon; I had finished cleaning the kitchen – dishes and all. I always loved afternoons because unlike mornings when I had to wake early to prepare the breakfast, serve the table, clean the dishes, cook for lunch, prepare the table and clean the dishes once again – a routine that consumes the entire morning of a holiday – afternoons are long, lazy and free for play. There weren’t many playmates around the neighborhood. I never made friends with other teenagers or children in that place. I always felt that I and my siblings were different. We just didn’t get along with them. Their parents weren’t friendly towards our parents. There was always element of envy.

I and my siblings were climbing a huge Casio nut tree at the back yard, about 100 meters away from my dad’s Furniture and Upholstery shop. At third year high school, I was not very mindful of my looks. The only time I combed my hair and behaved like a lady is when I was in school aware of the presence of the boy who had captured my heart. I climbed every tree possible of climbing. No matter how difficult the track that even my brothers refused to climb, I always dared myself. It gave me feelings of satisfaction to be able to conquer not only heights but also a very challenging path.

While enjoying my conquer that afternoon on top of a very tall tree, I devoured the beauty of an irrigation water that extends to the horizon, the hills on the South and the sight of plenty of trees that were inviting me. The wind blowed my hair restlessly. But I felt that something wasn’t right. There was uneasiness in me that didn’t allow me to fully enjoy my haven against the wind. Something was telling me to go home and check what was wrong. I hurriedly climbed down the tree and headed home.

My instinct told me to check the kitchen. I couldn’t see anything wrong. I went to check the dirty kitchen but everything seemed normal too. I wanted to ignore the weird feeling but it kept telling me to continue searching. I removed some of the woods beside the stove, and there I saw, a growing angry red readying to spark and consume the entire dirty kitchen. A single burning charcoal must had escaped when I was grilling some fish for lunch. It must had hit the back of the stove and then bounced and landed the bottom of the wall made of sawali, woven split bamboo mats. The charcoal silently consumed the bottom of the dried sawali wall and with the help of the wind, was making its way up. It wouldn’t take much time before the charcoal, along with its conquered wall, would turn into an angry roaring fire, consume the rest of the walls and reach for the electric wires. I quickly went to the kitchen to get some water and went back to kill the fire. With intense anger, I drowned the threatening fire. When I was certain that the fire was fully stopped, I felt myself trembling and exhausted. I went inside the house imagining what could have happened. I realized that my youngest sister, a little more than 2 years at the time, was sleeping in my parents room. My dad was in his shop adjacent to the house. I and my other siblings were at the backyard more than 100 meters away from the house. My mom was not around.

That lazy peaceful afternoon could have turned into a tragic one. I would never knew how tragic it could be but God did not allow it to happen. He saved me and my family from fire the first time.

The necessity of business insurance for business entrepreneurs

2010-08-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was young, I dreamt of putting up a business of my own when time and money is already sufficient to start. I first thought of buying farm lands, putting up a rice mill and run an export-import of rice. While working abroad, I was able save some money to try to give it a go. Unfortunately, to only finance a business without me running it first hand proved to be unsuccessful. The business went nowhere. I then thought of putting up other businesses and I started to do research of them but then events in life can sometime turn in directions that you do not anticipate; and before you knew it, you're heading in a different direction, different than what you've planned. That's what happened to me. However, the entrepreneur side of me still thrive, it always does. Even if life would bring me out of Asia and would settle me in Europe, I already have a business in mind that would matter not wherever I'd be.

Since my mind has been preoccupied of business matters during spare time, business insurance quotes came into picture. I realized that the safety of the business should be one of the priorities of an entrepreneur. It does not matter if the business starts small, it does not matter if there is not enough money to allocate for a major financial setback, it does not matter if you are a first-time entrepreneur, what matters is your knowledge about local business insurance in your area that is affordable for you such as Texas business insurance.

Even if you take precautions in running your business, catastrophes are just elements of nature that is beyond control. Hurricanes, fire, flood, accidents and among others in most times are inevitable. Therefore an entrepreneur who takes safety measures seriously knows the benefit of having an insurance for his/her business. Searching for the best business insurance suitable for the range of your capital is even more easy nowadays with the birth of Netquote. It "is an online insurance quote marketplace that allows consumers to apply and comparison-shop for quotes from a variety of major providers of auto, home, health, life and business insurance."

Netquote defnition from wikipedia

God saved me from fire, the second time

2010-07-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

I was drifting through the sea and it was very dark. I struggled, pushing through the waves and reaching for a hold, desperate for a grip. Shortly, I felt the wind through my face. Slowly and peacefully I was riding a swing. “Wake up …” I heard His whisper. “Wake up …” He whispered again. “No, I don’t want.” I was enjoying my ride it was very different from the troubled sea, why should I leave? “You have to wake up darling, you have to!” There was urgency in His voice and I felt the push.

“What time is it?” Pulling down the blanket from my face I was figuring out where I was. Quickly and automatically, I turned my head to the door. It was ajar and through the curtains, I saw a growing light from the sala. I jumped out the bed and ran to see the light. Behold, the center table was on fire. The table mattress and the plastic flowers in the vase were already consumed and the fire was rapidly growing. I ran quickly to the kitchen and took buckets of water, ran back to the sala and threw the water on the fire. Twice I did run back and forth for the water before the fire was completely stopped. I sat on the floor, astonished. “If I did not listen to the call, what could have happened? And where are my parents?”

Then it came to me that my parents were not home yet. It was already past midnight. They went to visit some friends after we had dinner. I and my younger siblings were watching tv when the lights went off. There was a black out. I took a candle, lighted it and put it inside a glass making it stand by melting its bottom. We killed time by talking and laughing while having some ice cream. When the candle was almost finished, I blew its fire off and replaced it with a new one. However, I did not notice that our youngest sister only three and a half years old by the time took the used candle and lighted it again. She already finished her ice cream. She used the empty plastic cap of her ice cream as a stand for her tiny candle and enjoyed watching it burning.

Not long thereafter I felt tired. I put everyone to bed. But before going up to her room, the youngest put her candle on the table, still burning. I saw it but I thought it was okay. We slept.

Sitting on the floor beside the burned table I figured that the tiny candle did not die as I had thought it would. Instead, it burned the plastic cap then slowly consumed the table cloth and grew. How stupid? Why did I think it was okay? Why didn’t I figure that it would cause fire? I was scolding myself. If the house was burned down by fire and we six siblings were burned to death, then I wouldn’t get to graduate high school. It was only six months away.

I stood and checked the table making sure that the fire was entirely stopped. When certain, I went to check my siblings, they were all sleeping good. I went back to bed. I knelt and prayed thanking God for waking me up and saving me and my siblings from fire for the second time. Before I drifted back to sleep, I recalled that a year ago, God had saved me from fire the first time. ZzzzzZzzzz

God saved me from fire, the first time will be the next publish :)

I’m thankful that my journey in searching for “The one” has ended

2010-06-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I thought that I am professionally accomplished but romantically a failure. I was a straight A student since elementary, high school and up to college and was always an achiever. However, I found that being an achiever has got its cons when it comes to relationships; at least, that’s what I thought. Some men were obviously into me but they never came up to speak up. Those who did, however, did not measure up to my standards. Time has passed that I was always lonely wondering when I would find Mr. Right.

I grew up into an adult and learned how to deal with men better so that I started to be in a relationship. However, one relationship after another always ended up in broken heart. But I noticed that each relationship was not independent of each other. In fact, it was a chain. A broken relationship would give way for the next, and so on. But I was anxious to meet Mr. Right and I wanted to meet him at the right time. I wanted to get married at 28 and I wanted to meet him at age 27. Four years before my target age for marriage I thought that perhaps I should make a marathon prayer. I decided to pray for what I wanted for an entire year. Nobody knew about it but my prayer every night was the same – That God would introduce to me Mr. Right at age 27 or a little earlier and that I should get married with the one that God has intended for me at age 28. So it was a complete 366 days that I was praying the same thing every night before I go to sleep. After that entire year of marathon prayer, I started to be in some meaningful relationships, of which three ended up in break ups and so much pain. A part of me was losing hope, but a bigger part of me believed that God would just send me the one when it is time.

At one time I was nursing a broken heart when I met a guy online. I thought that I could use him as a rebound. I was not very attracted at him at first but I did like the fact that he was sexy and a very appealing man. What was supposed to be a play around rebound driven by my desire for revenge had turned out into a very loving and satisfying relationship. Seven months of daily chatting and phone call, and two months after I turned 26, the man flew for 21 hours to meet me in person. Three months later, few months before I turned 27, the man flew back again to propose. And by this date, we are six months away from our big day. When my boyfriend proposed, it dawned on me that I was actually nearing 27 and the date that we agreed for the wedding would make me nearing age 28. Just perfect for my calendar! But above all, more than the age, the man that God has given me is everything that I had asked for. I am marrying the man that loves me completely and who’s determined to make me happy.

I am thankful for the faith that I had, believing that God would definitely give me the one at the right time. I am also thankful for having God beside me throughout my journey of search, strengthening me every time I get hurt when the pain nobody could fathom, and teaching me to let go and to forgive and for always giving me hope. Finally, I thank God for giving me what I deserve and for making me genuinely happy.

How personal do you get in your blog?

2010-05-18T03:32:00.000-07:00

I met this question in a forum: Just how personal do you get on your blog?

Blogging has become so phenomenal that there are tons of blogs struggling to get heard and stand out in this blogging world. Whether it is niche blogging or personality blogging, it is crucial to understand just how much information about yourself are you willing to disclose. I understand that people had become very tech savvy nowadays that instead of pulling out their journal pad to scribble down their thoughts, they instead simply pull out a portable notebook for their fingers to comfortably kick up and down the keyboard, and with just one click, the entry for the day’s journal is done, published for the world to see.

When you blog, how much information about yourself do you include? Which people do you talk about? Do you include your husband, boyfriend, children or friends? What topics do you discuss? Do you speak about work? Do you write about which village you are living in or which specific place do you and your family is planning to move in? Do you show photos of your apartment or house with the entire village visible in the background? Do you speak about you being alone in your house because of other family members traveling around?

When you blog, do you openly unload all your rants in life? All your frustrations and limitations? Or do you simply flaunt about your recent purchases and how much you just spent shopping?

Blogging after all boils down to your own preference and disposition. There is no exact rule about what you should or you should not speak in your blog. We practice freedom of expression, yes, however, I believe that it is vital to draw the line on things that you want to disclose through your blog. It is important that you protect your privacy. You would never know who would come across your blog in the future. Your boss might just stumble on your site one day and read about your rants in life, worse, if he reads all your rants about work. How many bloggers were fired from their job just because they blogged about work or twitted some personal stuff of which spying workmates took gravely and reported to their administration? Although some of these bloggers turned out professional bloggers after they were fired, that is not the rule for everyone.

If you blog about where you live or your new residence, or if you show photos of your apartment and speak about how you would spend the next few days alone because your hubby would be on a trip, are you not opening yourself to potential danger? If you show photos of your kids in your blog and speak about how cute they are and which school they go to and how good they perform, are you not suggesting something for some potential stalkers? You would never know.

If you are a young blogger and you speak about personal things, are these information something that you would like your parents to read? There is one blogger who thought her parents would never find out, but a family friend did and eventually told her parents - something that she had never perceived.

There was this extremely dirty and humiliating blog fight that I ever witnessed in this blogging world, between two bloggers whose friends later on got involved. The simple bashing each other attempt turned into an enormous shaming and slandering of each other. But those involved had never met each other in person. How come they were able to dig each other's dirt? How the degrading stoning back and forth was made possible in the first place? It’s simple, through their archived personal posts.

Freedom of expression is there for everyone to enjoy. However, in every freedom to act, there is consequence. Make sure that when you write for personal blogs, you are able to draw the line from the very beginning. Write to educate and amuse your readers but keep the personal stuff to yourself. Guard your privacy.

How IQ and Personality Tests Contribute for IQ and Personality Development?

2010-05-08T21:51:00.000-07:00

I became adept in understanding my personality traits through my habitual answering of personality tests available in magazines and books. I used to spend my free time in our University library or city library during college which enabled me to have free access to all the types of magazines and books. When I enter the library, I always spent my time immediately at the periodicals section scanning and reading all my favorite magazines; women’s magazine, reader’s digest, etc. and never left any available personality tests unanswered before I’d move to the circulation section. It never failed to amaze me how the interpretations of results were always true and applicable to me.

When the internet became accessible after I landed a competitive job, I no longer had to travel to libraries to have access to all those tests. From printed periodicals, I moved online. Online testing is so much fun because it provides easy access to tons of personality or development tests as well as IQ tests. The methods used to execute those tests are always convenient and quick. Many style of tests available online are not available on prints. I exhausted almost all personality tests that were available to me before I focused on the IQ tests. It was always important to me to understand “Who I am?” “How people see me?” “What message do I tell others about me?” “What makes me unique?” “Why I behave that way?” and so much more about being me before I had to address the question “How smart am I?” It took me several years to entirely understand myself. While life experiences played a major role in the process, orienting me about psychological principles and theories through personality tests - which are not all provided in the classroom – made a significant contribution.

If there are reliable personality tests that truly help in understanding one’s self, there are also not quality tests that are created purely for fun. Examples of these are some but not all tests available at facebook. You would know the degree of the test’s reliability mainly through the quality and quantity of questions they ask. For several times it occurred to me how it is possible for these individuals to create quizzes. They may or may not psychology experts but they were able to come up with tests/quizzes with purposes targeted for a specific audience.

While we struggled to absorb the lectures of our psychology instructors about the learning theory for some basic psychology courses: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism of which are three main philosophical frameworks, we do understand that in this era, multimedia learning is becoming more effective to a lot of students, to a lot of people.

Multimedia resources were scarce during my time but I had books and periodicals. Yet, no matter which era you are blessed to live, it is always necessary to take advantage of learning whether it is to satisfy your intellect or personality development, or both.

Buy text links on my site easily with Ask2link

2010-05-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

If you have a blog, website, or forum, with a minimum PageRank 1 or Alexa rank under 2,000,000 (2 million), you could earn more money from your website beyond Google Adsense contextual ads. I have recently joined Ask2link.com (http://www.ask2link.com/refer/gleenn) to enable advertisers to buy ad space on my website. Ask2link.com provides secure, easy, and fast checkout flow so you could get your text link ads or banner ads live within 2 minutes after online payment. Platforms supported include PHP, Ruby on Rails, Perl, ASP, JSP, and hosted blogs at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com . They also provide you with the ability to customize the 'nofollow' tag tag when you sell your ads. This may affect your ad sales, though.

If you would like to monetize your blog or website, you could visit Ask2link to learn more. Ask2link is a search engine marketing company that specializes in selling text links and banner ads. Advertisers, you may want to think about spending your marketing budget beyond PPC(Pay-per-click) such as Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter, or Google Adwords. Why?

Static HTML links can bring you targeted traffic, bring you more organic search traffic, and also potentially improve your search engine rankings (SERPs), and you could increase your website traffic or sales. It also has uses in search engine reputation management. Search engine reputation management companies also use various SEO techniques to fight negative publicity. Start advertising now in this website as part of your SEO or online marketing campaign. You could now purchase static text links or banner ads on my website by following on the links below:

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How to increase page rank in the shortest possible time

2010-04-13T01:06:00.000-07:00

Unless you’re a total newbie, you should know by now what page rank is. In layman’s term, page rank is the score 0-10 that Google awards on a site to identify its quality and significance. Although there are a lot of quality sites out there with no or with lower page rank, a high page rank gives a feeling of supremacy on webmasters because it quonotes popularity. If your site has a high page rank that means that you have a quality and important website. Ironically, page rank is not identified based on the quality of your content nor with its quantity. It is however identified by the number of quality [from high page rank sites] inbound links that your site receives. Therefore if you ask me how would you increase your site’s page rank, you are actually asking me how to earn quality inbound links for your site.

The following tips would guide you on how to increase your page rank in a shortest possible time.

1. If your site is new and has no page rank, you can sign up on free directories such as technoratti, topblogging, blogged, portachi, etc. If you do not wish to accumulate colorful buttons that make your site look like amateur, you can actually skip this step.

2. Produce quality contents. Even if content does not directly help to increase your page rank, quality contents are your key weapon to strike your target. It is through these contents that the rest of our methods mentioned here would work.

3. Add site map to your web/blog site. This is very important to enable Google and other search engines index your contents quickly. Adding site map to a blog site such as blogger can be tricky for newbie and thus requires a lot of reading to guide you through. Search Google “how to add site map to blogger blog?” if you use blogger.

4. Identify web/blog sites that are related to your niche, or, if you don’t have a niche, sites that are relevant to your content. Make sure that these websites have good page rank. For instance, target sites with page rank 3 or 4 if your site has still no page rank. The concept here is for you to aim for sites that have higher page rank than yours. Build relationship with the site’s owner. Read their content, post quality comments that engage to the topic. Blog owners appreciate this type of comments and would certainly visit you back to return the favor. That way, you are building relationship. Once the relationship is established, exchanging links would be easy. [Be informed that sending emails or leaving comments asking for link exchange at your first visit is usually being laughed upon by webmasters especially if your site’s page rank is significantly lower than theirs]

Note: Only links from sites that are related to your content are the ones that actually matter.

5. Create an account at established Do follow submission websites such as EzineArticles, Idea Marketers, Aticle Dashboard Directory, etc. that allows you to submit and publish articles written by you with links within the body of the article as well as in the resource box that points to your site. Getting an article published at Ezine with a link back to your site for example, gives you an easy inbound link from a pr 6 website. Submit the same article at other dofollow blogs to earn you more quality backlinks.

Note: You should learn to write articles that tease your readers so that they will feel the urge to click the link in your article, this would generate more traffic for your site. For example, I have a very good article about "How to wear short scarf for a fashionable look" published at my fashion blog. I wrote an article with the same title and published it at Ezine. The article discusses the neccessity of a scarf as an accessory and why the need to maximize the different looks that you can create out from this very versatile material. Thereby the article teases the readers to find out the answer to their question "How?" by clicking my link.

6. Look for dofollow blogs with good page ranks. When you leave a comment on their post, and your comment gets approved, your comment gets an inbound link for your site. Make sure to check first that the site has good page rank; otherwise, you might just waste your time. Make sure too, that your comment is quality and that it engages to the conversion and contribute good points. Webmasters of dofollow blogs always moderate comments to scan spammers and dismiss comments that are obviously aiming only for juice.

Note: (1)Most blogs are nofollow. That means that even if you include your link as a signatory to your comments, you actually do not get a link back to your site and you just build a spammer image for yourself. Read more about dofollow blogs and how to make your blog a dofollow if you do wish.
(2)Be aware that since there are not a lot of dofollow blogs, these blogs raise on top and receive tons of comments. The amount of link juice that the site is capable of giving is divided by the number of comments therefore your comment may not get link worth as much as you would like.

7. Be clever. Some websites with high page rank seem to be good targets for inbound links. Therefore you build relationship to eventually earn a link. But once you get the link, you discover that the page where your link is listed has actually very low page rank, a lot lower than the main page, or worse, no page rank at all. That is just a waste of time. Believe me, it happened to me. My fashion blog has a page rank of 4 and another fashion blog with page rank 5 agreed to exchange links with me. Turned out; her xxxfashion.com with pr 5 has a link list with url xxxfashion.blogspot.com with pr 0. Crap! She gets a link from my pr 4 and I get a 0 from her pr5. Haha! Play with me. I gave her a nofollow link. We’re even. Go figure.

Note: Make sure that the page where your link will be listed has a page rank that you desire.

8. Go for guest blogging. Writing a guest post for websites with very good page rank can be intimidating. It might take time for you to earn confidence but it would eventually come if you always work on providing good contents for your web/blog site. It will come naturally. A guest post with a dofollow link for you within or at the bottom of your post is a good way to earn quality page rank.

9. Keep building relation with high pr websites and maintain those relationships that you already earned. Some partners remove you from their list if you no longer appear visible on their sites. Therefore, to monitor your links, keep visiting and keep commenting on your partners and that would enable you to meet potential partners in the process.

p.s. You might wonder why this blog has only pr 3 if I have all these tips? Good question. I actually learned all these on my quest to increase the page rank of my fashion blog. I don't flaunt about clothes and what I have therefore getting links and relationships and breaking into fashion blogging required hard work.

3 Things to know About Hairstyles

2010-04-09T03:11:00.000-07:00

Hair is a woman’s crowning glory. Hair is to beauty as ace is to cards. It is the last weapon a woman can use when it comes to styling. Different hairstyles create different looks that would work for specific occasion or activity. For example, a hairstyle that you wore on a dinner date might be too extravagant to wear for shopping, or, a hairstyle that looks very fresh on you on a day at a park might look too undone for a formal party. Also, different hairstyles work for different types of hair and especially different face structure. A hairstylist must know what style would fit you best, however, it is necessary that you yourself is able to identify hairstyles that would suit on your face structure.

There are many advantages if you have long hair. Of course, first in the list is that your partner would love your hair because men always find long hair sexy [I know you can challenge this argument but this is a fact based on documented researches and even based on my own experiences]. Another advantage is that there are more hairstyles that you can experiment with long hair than short hair. Also, long hair does not require frequent trimming because it can live with the same style for quite a time and still would look good. On the other hand, long hair is much more difficult to maintain compared to short hair. It is more expensive because it requires more shampoo and hair conditioning. It requires more water and more time to wash and dry. It is even more difficult to maintain a healthy long hair when you grow older and are faced with a significant degree of stress at work. Your hair starts to grow thinner.

A very common way of enhancing the hair for women is hair color. Women nowadays love to try wearing different colors for their hair starting from blond, brown, and white to yellow. But it is important to use colors that blend with your skin color. For example, wearing blond hair if you have dark skin would not really work. Highlighting your hair with purple or green does not fit if you are a teacher or an executive. Although hair coloring or highlighting is a fashion, I never ever tried it on my hair. Not that I found it unattractive, in fact I do like to see it on other girls, but that I prefer to wear my hair color naturally, black. I also find that hair color, if not maintained properly, can bring unhealthy effects to the hair such as split ends and dryness.

Therefore, in making the best styling for your hair, it is essential to identify the perfect hairstyles that suit your face structure, to know the advantages of having a long hair and to use hair color only if you are ready to create the best out of it and maintain it.

Red shirt rallies in Thailand how futile?

2010-04-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

I woke up early that Saturday and prepared myself to go to church. I thought that perhaps this red shirt rallies have subsided. But I was wrong. Hopeful to get to church early at least for the second service, I was entirely disheartened to find myself inside the taxi trapped in the midst of the red shirt rallies. I don’t entirely understand what these people are up to. What are their goals and what do they recommend? Is their fight for ex-Prime Minister Taksin valid? Let’s suppose it is, then how would they explain these weeks of disruptions to the city/country and society as a whole that their activities bring?

Rally and people’s power is not new in my own country. I actually believe that this country where I am residing now patterned this rallying to ours. But there is a big difference between how my people do it and how these people do. My people rally, that’s the least they can do compared to revolution that is always bloody, but they do it out of principle and not money. They are not paid. They don’t get paid like 500-2000 per day just to stand under the sun and hammer their red pompoms-like materials. I find it lame.

I never spoke about this rally of them before and I actually kind of ignore it. But experiencing being caught in the midst of them, I wanted to hammer them. I was literally sitting waiting for them to let my taxi get a way for like an hour and a half. I did not force myself but winked on the taxi fare that accumulated. I was so pissed off. When I finally reached my destination, the service was almost over. And what spirit did I have on a Sabbath day?

I was told of how much is the approximate budget spent for this people just to stand under the sun or parade and guess what? The figure is unbelievable. Something great must have been accomplished out from this amount if used otherwise. But who am I to speak? I just can wish that the people behind these rallies would get into their senses or I can as well write it in the air.

My passion for pottery

2010-04-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

If I get to have my own house, the place that would be closest to my heart is the kitchen. Not only would this area of the house enable me to serve special dishes for my husband and children, it is also where I’d be able to monitor and to make sure that everything they eat is healthy and clean. I imagine my kitchen to be where the family spends most of free time: cooking and experimenting with new delicacies/recipes that mommy and daddy found at Food Network. My dream kitchen would be a place that entirely defines “bonding”.

However, even before I got myself engaged, and even before the thought of having children crossed my mind, my passion for pottery has already consumed me. I love to collect plates, bowls, mugs, vases and just any version of pots possible. I like them to be colorful with varied designs. Therefore, counting many years back, my dream of having a perfect kitchen was driven by my love for pottery.

I probably credit this passion of mine towards tableware to my mom who always had a wide collection of figurines and pottery. I remembered it well during childhood how I hated the task that I was always assigned to do – to wipe my mother’s tons of collections of figurines. They were always delicate and I had to be very careful not to drop them, otherwise, I would get scolding from mom if I break them. Also, I had to make sure that I did the cleaning thoroughly because they would be checked afterwards. I did hate that job that I had to do every holidays but it never made me hate figurines and pottery at all. In fact, growing up with them cultivated this love.

I dream to be able to have a house someday with a big kitchen full of things that I adore: cooking utensils, stainless steel flatware, and kitchen appliances with hanging cabinets full of pottery. It would make cooking and dining in my own kitchen an incredible experience. I am determined to develop skills in cooking which I still lack as of now. I know that it is essential for me to be able to take care of my family to be but I also believe that a perfect kitchen would be an enough motivation to do so.

New forms of clever hacking

2010-03-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

We all are well informed about hacking and the dangers that it can bring to the victims, right? We know the possible ways we could get hacked, e.g emails, facebook, bank accounts, credit cards, etc., We know as well how to protect ourselves - at least, since I assume that we are all clever enough to take heed. However, having knowledge about how it might be like is nothing compared to actually experiencing to be hacked. Being a victim of this vicious activity is no joke.

We should never underestimate hackers. They are the most educated individuals knowledgeable with technology; they had A+ rating in psychology with expertise in public relation. They know how to trap their victims. They scheme and they plan well. You would never know, you can be the next in their list.

I was contacted by my best friend M**. She sought my advice regarding with the business deal she was negotiating with my other close friend N** [best friend and close friend are also friends]. I asked “what’s the deal?” My best friend is in the Philippines [she just got back after two years of stay in Bangkok] while my other friend is still here in Bangkok. She said that she was asked by N** to provide her with mobile loads/credits. These mobile credits would be for roaming Sim cards that Filipinos based in Thailand are using. M** would provide, N** would sell. The demand is said to be very high. They would be able to sell P50 000 in just a matter of three days. N** would send the money to M** after she collects the payment. Quick money. Therefore best friend asked if she should use her savings that she prepared for the processing of her visa going to Dubai since she was told she would quickly get her money back. Obviously I did not agree that she postpone her processing of her documents so I said “No.” matter of fact. I held that if the business would really work, then she might as well try out first starting with small amount like P5 000. If it does work, then she can increase the capital. I also believed that they should agree to share the capital 50-50 so that it would not be difficult for her. That said, my best friend followed my advice and proposed to Miss N** that they start from a smaller capital. However, immediately the next day, I received a call from my close friend N** informing me that her yahoo messenger and facebook were hacked and that the hacker has been communicating with her friends that were in her contact list. What was even scary was the news that one of her good friends in the Philippines was ripped of P50 000 because she agreed to do business with the hacker. She provided him with mobile loads. My hair stood while I listened to my friend over the phone. I informed her that our friend Miss M** was also contacted by the hacker. As you can guess, I immediately contacted my best friend to inform her that she was communicating with a hacker and not the real friend of ours. But she did not believe. She said she was hundred percent certain that she was communicating with Miss N** because they chatted cam to cam whenever they discussed about the business. She was seeing her over the cam. Great! How was I supposed to explain that fact and convince her not to communicate with the hacker anymore? She sent me the copy of their exchanges in chat. As I read it, I noticed that the hacker used conditioning method. He repeats the phrases, “we’ll earn big”, “and we should not let this pass”, “big profit”. Naturally, as a prospect victim, if you let excitement and desire for big money over power your rational side, then you easily fall in trap.

I was online checking my facebook account. My cousin who is based in the Philippines found me online and buzzed me up. She asked “Hi yen! What’s the status of our business?” I was like “What?!” I couldn’t believe it. “Oh my God! Don’t tell me my own yahoo messenger and facebook were hacked.” I was praying. I replied, “Don’t tell me you’re talking about the mobile load business?” “Yes. Should I send you the credits?” That was exactly something I never expected to hear. I was shocked. How many of my friends were contacted by the hacker from my list? I was getting paranoid. I went on interrogating my cousin on how her communication with the hacker started. She said it started with a simple text message. Somebody sent her a text saying “Hello guys, this is my new roaming number. Xx Yenyen.” The sender used my nickname, a nickname only my family and relatives knew. Other friends do not know me by such name. Then started their business deal. I cracked my head hard trying to connect the puzzles figuring out how the hacker got my identity and where he got my cousin’s mobile number? I first considered the possibility that since my facebook account was once suspended due to some suspicious activities of which I was asked by the facebook team to change my password, it could be that the hacker was able to access my cousin’s contact information by scanning her profile page. But cousin said she does not publish her mobile phone number at facebook or anywhere in the web. Therefore how does the facebook anomaly and her deceiving business partner relate?

I could go on and on, crack my head out, but only more theory branch out from these possibilities that I've got.

How to combat bitterness in life

2010-02-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

Have you been at a time felt bitter in life? I know this is quite a direct and bold question; however, it takes so much to feel bitterness in life. It could be caused by a thankless or poorly compensated job, a one-sided relationship, an unhealthy environment, an uncaring and unprotective home or the like. This bitterness can cause sorrow and depression. It makes a person dwell only on the negatives and it is a battle so difficult to endure that without a sign of hope, can cause a person to end his life.

Take a look at some famous suicide stories. We had Daul Kim, a famous Korean model whose achievements at the age of twenty is something every other girl envies. Very recently, we had Lee Alexander McQueen end his life because of unhappiness. These people had money, fame and success. But they had been bitter and that bitterness won over them.

If you feel that you are unhappy and that unhappiness is staying with you for sometime, evaluate yourself. Why are you unhappy? What are the results of your unhappiness? What are the things that can make you happy? How can you get out from this unhappiness? Who can help you out from this unhappiness?

It is very important to understand why you are unhappy because until you come to terms the reasons, only then you would know where and how to start to combat them.

Due to your unhappiness, what other areas in life are affected? Are you bitter with your job? Is your relationship with your boyfriend or spouse affected by this bitterness? Is the unhappiness brought by your unhealthy job is worth over your relationship?

If not, you might as well change your job. Or if not, then you would have to work on other aspects that can help change the course of your job. These are the examples of identifying the ways to get out from your unhappiness. If it is a relationship that burdens you, which I know is very complicated, you can start reading relationship tools from some experts that can guide you through. Or discuss it with your partner if both of you need help from an expert. Whatever the situation, there has to be a way out that you have to figure whether it is quitting your job and looking for another well-compensated or well-acknowledged occupation or quitting the relationship and looking for someone’s better. There has to be a way out other than suicide!

Who can help you out? Oftentimes the battle is too much to handle by ourselves. You have to ask for help. Express what you feel to whoever you can trust. It would be better if you can speak with your parents, or your siblings or you best friend. However, my message for this part goes more to the other parties. If you know someone who is unhappy, be selfless enough to lend your time and help. Some people jokingly talk about suicide and we take it as a joke, but it should never be taken lightly. A talk about ending one’s life is always and is always a cry for help. Look at Daul Kim, she had been crying out for help through her blog, a blog that I actually met after her death, but her fans, oh so many of them who claim to read her words religiously every day, never heard her. She had been crying out for help. People always hear the cry not until it’s too late. However, if you feel that nobody around can be trusted or can understand you, there is always One faithful friend Who is always ready to hear and to help you. Speak to Him in prayer.

And if it’s you who is unhappy, try to google the beautiful words of Desiderata.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself…

No matter how hard the situation can be, there are always people lesser than you. Think of them that are hit by worse catastrophes, who are battling for their lives amidst famine and dehydration, they would make you appreciate your life.

Having fun with bunnies

2010-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

I am purely a cat lover, so I thought. They cuddle, they communicate and they are very sweet. I never thought that having bunnies as pets would also be as fulfilling.

Before my boyfriend flew back to Germany, he thought of buying me bunnies. Perhaps the idea came to him so that his departure would not be so painful. He asked me if I would want to take care of bunnies. I shrug at first, not really interested. But the next time he brought the subject up; I thought “why not?” He asked me if I was serious and if I would be ready to take the responsibilities. He knows that when work starts, I would always be busy. But I was already conditioned to have new pets. Thus we went to check for some lovely tiny bunnies.

These are the things I learned after a month of taking care of them.

1. They grow up so quick.
2. They cannot live alone. They need a buddy.
3. They love to play hide and seek. If they are happy, they run around and jump swirling in the air.
4. They have behavior. Just like humans, each bunny is unique.
5. They require too much labor in terms of cleaning, but their presence around the house is so worth it.
6. They are easy to feed. They shouldn’t be given only rabbit feeds most of the time but also vegetables and fruit, otherwise, they would grow obese.

I named them Nouty [because he is very naughty] and Browny [because he is totally brown]. Nouty is very adventurous and playful. He wants to discover things. He is also a prodigal type. It takes skill to be able to touch him. His behavior as a whole is so fun to observe. On the other hand, Browny is very sweet and behave. He loves to cuddle and to touch. Although he is not as adventurous as Nouty, he was the first to find the way to get on my bed. The first time he did a great leap, he was calling Nouty, who was watching down the floor, to follow him.

Here, I made a slideshow of them. See for yourself how fun my bunnies can be.

How do I become more comfortable talking to people?

2009-12-22T06:01:00.000-08:00

Some people are not comfortable talking to other people. They are especially nervous talking to strangers. Others clearly show this discomfort while others don't.
If you are one who has this discomfort towards conversing to people, you are not alone. Several braves have came up and asked “How do I become more comfortable talking to people?”

These tips to overcome such plight are gathered from the ones who used to be not comfortable talking to people but have overcome it.

•Practice

Make conversation with strangers at the store. If you get nervous just think "who cares what they think, they'll probably never see me again!" Try talking louder, you may think you're being loud enough but your voice is always louder in your own head, so try to raise your voice a bit. This should help with people not responding to you in a group. Hold your head up and make direct eye contact with the people you're talking to! It may be awkward at first but you'll get used to it and you’ll feel a lot more confident.

•Just be yourself.

But if you find that hard enough, maybe you should try reading some books or watching a lot of TV shows. Talk about things you like next time you talk to a stranger. This helps break the ice and boost up the conversation. :)

(Share opinions and talk about the world...but of course, let the other person talk as well...)

•Karaoke

Try doing karaoke at a bar or something and be sure to do it with a song you know by heart. It worked for me now I can talk to anybody because I've already made a fool of myself. [James]

•The stranger feels the same way

Remember that the person you are talking to is probably feeling the same way, we are all human and there are many people just like you. I use to be the same way. You just have to over come it. [Lilia]

•Top your assets

Focus on your strengths. Put in mind that the discomfort you’re feeling is caused by some insecurity. Therefore overcome this insecurity by topping your strengths. When you focus more on your assets and enhance them, you would dramatically feel comfortable of yourself and overcoming conversation with strangers would be a piece of cake. [Gleenn]

Thanks to edwincrozier.com for the photos

How to choose an International School in Thailand

2009-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

“There are numerous international schools in Thailand and in Bangkok in particular. Some of these schools are very well run and have the students’ best interest in mind. Unfortunately, they are in the minority. The majority are owned and run by private owners whose main concern is making a profit. It is very unfortunate because children’s education should be of paramount concern and profit should not be made at the cost of quality education.”

“So how do schools in Thailand become international schools? Apparently, there is a lengthy process, but in the end, it seems like those who can afford to pay for an international school are the ones who build them. So you often see rich people buying schools in an attempt to make some money. Again, the wrong motives at work.”

A well-known educator, under the alias name Mr. Messier, talked to Thailand calendar about how to choose an international school in Thailand.

I was seated in our school library one free period when my co-teacher handed me a Thai Calendar magazine urging me to read an article. The heading immediately caught my attention. And after reading the article, I couldn’t help but give a nod in approval.

Five years of working in Thailand exposed me to the educational system of the country as well as the educational objectives of most of the schools.

Mr. Messier was right in saying that the rich buy schools [either international or bilingual school] generally with profit-driven objectives. They build up a school and run it by themselves. Thus, you would not be surprised if you see a businessman ending up as a principle of his own school or someone without even any units in education running a school. In my country, for someone to be a principal of a school, regardless of its size, should have a minimum of PhD. But in Thailand, there are no clear qualifications for the said position.

For the money-making-schools, the students and parents are very powerful. The teachers are there to entertain and to baby sit with so many unwritten rules. For instance, there was an American who landed a job as a teacher in one of the most expensive schools in Bangkok. He was receiving a very handsome salary; however, he had no power to discipline his students. At one time, he was having an activity for his English class when one girl came close to him and grabbed his private part, held for a moment, laughed, and walked away. The teacher was stunned but chose to be quiet. He knew, that should he make an action regarding the behavior, the school would have to take the side of the student. Obviously, she brings in handsome dough.

Some schools fake the quality of their education by having magnificent buildings and educational equipments and therefore, collecting very expensive fees. Some schools however, undermine the necessity of advance educational equipments and materials because instead of investing the profit on the school, they use the money in buying elegant cars or other personal investments thereby pressuring the teachers to somehow make quality education out of scarce resources.

Mr. Messier held that as a parent, you can quickly determine which schools are more concerned about education than about making money. He further gave some important things to look for or questions to ask:

1. Does the school have a board of governors, which democratically votes on decisions made concerning the school? Most “for profit schools” will only have one owner making all the school’s decisions – dictatorial vs. democratic. Ask to see the names of board members. This is the single most important thing to look for in international schools anywhere in the world.

2. Is the school a non-profit school? If so, then you know that all your hard-earned salary will be going back into the school and your child’s education, not the owner’s wallet.

3. What is the length of tenure of teachers? If it is a good school, teachers will stay a long time. If not, there will be high turnover of teachers.

4. What is the percent of non-Thai students at the school? if the school is 80% Thai students or 80% of a particular race, then it is not truly an international school. It is basically an ESL school with a small minority of foreign students thrown into mix. The unfortunate result of this being that the foreign students feel like a huge minority and are often treated as such.

Furthermore, Mr. Messier advised that “you should go and take a look at the school. Don’t be fooled by nice tress and beautiful flowers. Take a look in the classrooms. Do you see a lot of resources and supplies? Are there a number of athletic facilities including an exercise room? Take a look at the cafeteria. Does it look like the students have a great of selection to choose from, or is a budget lunch being served? It is very easy to see if money is being put back to the school.”

“Also, ask other parents about the school and how they feel about it. Find out about the reputation of the school.”

“Don’t be fooled by fancy advertisements. Most top schools don’t even need to advertise. Their reputation is what they rely on.”

“A high tuition cost does not guarantee a good quality; you don’t always get what you pay for.”

Source: Thailand Calendar

55 Fiction: Last Grip

2009-12-02T05:24:00.000-08:00

Despite the blasts he gripped her wrist, leading her to the edge of the cliff. She gathered her long white dress and halted, “I can’t.” Hurt, he loosened his grip.

Wedding bells echoing!

Phone rang. She reached for the bed lamp. “Hello?”

“Elisa? About George …”

Numbed, she checked her wrist. It’s purple all around.

-------------------------------------------

Reviews:

Bernardo M. Billeza said:
The author herself is exceptionally skillful, artistic and commendable at using implication that makes her work provocative especially in making possible intelligent guesses. Her way of suggesting the seemingly abrupt flow of events apparently and paradoxically encapsulates the vital elements of a story. One will not be able to get across the story at once if he/she is not good at making inferences and implication. Hence, filling the gap in order to capture the whole story maybe based on one’s experience or schema on how he/she conjures her abstract thinking process into connecting to a real concrete one.As for me, her use of this technique may be in accordance to her track of thinking and experience. In this way, she is connecting to her readers through their varied experiences and line of thinking. One is temptingly compelled to focus not on the words directly stated in the text but in using inferential thinking and logical reasoning that will lead to making intelligent guesses. A Reader will be attested of using her/his inferential thinking because it leads him/her to use his/her available experiences as proof to link his/ her guess with the text itself. On the other hand, he/she also uses logical reasoning as he/she needs to based his/her said available experiences if they match up the state of nature and facts of life.My own interpretation of her story based on inferential thinking and logical reasoning can be clearly summed up in this way. And I believe one of the most predictable and educated guess. Thus, implication is used to sustain my own judgment.The first three lines that talk about his gripping of her wrist at the verge of falling down the cliff defines to me that the woman and the man were on their way to their church wedding when suddenly a bomb blasted. This maybe implied because of the white dress she was wearing. The strong force of blasting may imply that it threw her on the edge of the cliff and the man immediately rescued her by gripping her hand. Hurt, the man loosened his grip can possibly be implied that he was most strongly impacted by the blast. Hence, he surrendered the grip and the woman fell on the rocky cliff.Then, wedding bells echoed. This may imply that they were near the church about to receive the Holy matrimony blessings.Phone rang. She reached for the bed lamp. “Hello?”“Elisa? About George …” This implies that she woke up she was already in the hospital. Someone rescued her. Then, she received a call from a concerned party or a friend of what had happened earlier within the day. By the way, Elisa is her name and the husband’s name is George. Elisa ? may imply that the concerned party or friend that he/she has a shocking news about George. It may possibly that George is dead because the news is stressed about him. The use of ellipsis after his name implies that the news is worst.Numbed, she checked her wrist. It’s purple all around. This implies that her bruise on her wrist ,a product of George’s gripping, is still paining and the terrible experience. It’s purple color symbolizes that he, George never surrendered up to his last breath to save her from falling down the cliff.
The elements of the story could also be implied as:
Characters: Elisa, George, a concerned party or a friend.
Setting: Cliff and hospital
Theme: Facing dangers in the name of love
Plot: IMPLICATION IS A LITERARY DEVICE

Michael said:
The limit of 55 words inevitably leads to the necessity of an impressionistic writing style. With this piece, the author has shown to be a master of impressionism–giving just enough information to get the reader’s imagination going, yet leaving enough space for a free flow of associations and the joy of constructing a deeper meaning.
At first, the setting, indicated by just the single word “blasts”, seems to be clear: We are in the middle of a firefight. However, the protagonists “he” and “she” are entirely a construct of our mind, led by associations. We only know she wears a long white dress, which triggers the association of a wedding dress, and he wants to lead her to the edge of the cliff and jump down with her to certain death. However, she cannot step over the cliff.
“Wedding bells echoing” could either mean that they can hear the bells while standing on the cliff, or she hears them in her dream. I assume she is sleeping or at least snoozing in her bed, since she reaches for a bed lamp when the phone rings. Either way, it’s a cut, an abrupt switch from one scene to another, from battlefield to bedstead.
When she gets the phone call, she checks her wrist, which was previously held by “him”, George. She is numbed, which could mean she is either hurt physically after an injury or emotionally after receiving bad news. I assume in this phone call she gets the news that her fiance George, passed away. She is probably not at a hospital, and George did not jump down the cliff, otherwise someone would have brought her the news personally or seen his jump with her own eyes respectively. That means she’s at home, some time after the incident at the cliff. It could not have been a dream, otherwise her wrist would not be “purple all around”. Therefore, I conclude her love died at war, well knowing that there was no escape from death.
One final question remains. Why did she not jump down with George? To answer this question, we have to remember that with a limit of 55 words every word counts, and in this case I believe the answer lies in her very name. Elisa is Greek for ‘my God is a vow’, ‘God’s promise’, or ‘dedicated to God’, which means by committing suicide with her loved one she would break with God, as suicide in Christian belief is considered a grave sin. On the other hand, her husband George’s fate of dying in war is predetermined by his name, the name of Saint George, who fought against a fire-breathing dragon (a symbol of satan) and eventually became a martyr.
With this in mind, Elisa, the one faithful to God, can be sure that George is waiting for her in paradise. Therefore, being reunited would be the ultimate stage of God’s plan for them. Suffering temporary pain due to the loss of George on Earth is then a price she will be more than happy to pay in exchange for being with her love in eternity.

nice A said:
Wow, this piece has drawn a number of reactions! Bernardo’s and Michaels’ comments impressed me a lot though as they exhaustively interpreted the entire short work. Their interpretations remind me of a Literature teacher’s flexibility over various ways of interpreting any fiction. The saying, “there are a hundred and one ways of killing a cat” applies here. It’s a big mistake if we limit the interpreter’s (e.g. students) diverse experiences that they may relate to the story to come up with one interpretation.For me, it’s a reality not a dream as may be inferred from the last sentence (Numbed, she checked her wrist. It’s purple all around.). I can see that Elisa was prevented by George, a third party, not the groom to fulfill her wedding. George might have not been able to accept the fact that Elisa is now going to be wed as he still loves her. So on the wedding day, he abducted Elisa and ran away with her while some police were running after him, thus the blasts. While passing a cliff, Elisa struggled physically to let her go but George gripped her hand very tightly resulting to the bruise. It could be inferred from the telephone conversation that George jumped off the cliff or was shot by the police chasing him resulting to his possible death.“She gathered her long white dress and halted, “I can’t.” Hurt, he loosened his grip.” I’m a bit confused on this part who is hurt. Is it Elisa or George? I muse though based on the punctuation after “hurt” that it’s he probably because Elisa can’t run away with him to escape the wedding. It’s feasible this way as he believes that she loves him still but she refused to run away, thus he loosened the grip when he realized that it’s no longer true.So, Gleenn, I would say that you have achieved your objective as a creative writer in rousing the interest and imagination of your readers. I’m sure a bright fiction writing career awaits you. Keep writing and improving your skills.Congrats, you’re the winner to me for the depth of imagination you have stirred in your readers!

photo credit: weheartit.com

Where to go for online dating tips? Best recommended dating sites

2009-11-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

When I go to church to worship, I am always teased by friends that I “go to church to search”. Actually, there is truth on it. I do search in church. However, all the great guys in the church are taken.

At work, very few single men are around and in most cases, they are either in a relationship or they are engaged. If there happens to be anybody that is available, he is not my type.

Then I was told to spend more time socializing so that somehow, I will meet Mr. Right. But the sad thing is Mr. Right is not socializing. He is busy at work, spends his free time at the gym, and goes home and spends the remaining free time with his computer before he goes to bed. So what am I supposed to do? It is when online dating comes in.

With the world battling recession, Mr. Right and Ms. Right understands that competition at work is stiff, thus, socializing becomes less a priority. That is why more and more great guys and gals turn to online dating as a means to search for a partner and to ultimately find his or her soul mate because it is convenient. It is available whenever it is free time.

However, there are things that should be kept in mind when you do online dating. Since too many people now turned to online dating, there is an unwritten competition. It is important to stand out from the crowd. It is necessary to choose carefully the photos to use which would captivate Mr. Right or Ms. Right and at the same time would show the real you. It is a must that you make a great presentation of you. It is prevalent that you know and apply the tactics in an effective online dating.

So how would you know the effective way to online dating? Does it have to be a trial and error experience and spend too much of energy and time in figuring out? No, you do not have to waste unnecessary heartaches. I, having my own relationship a product of online dating, recommend you a site which gives online dating tips to guide you through every facet of online dating. They have readily available articles about tips for effective online dating and they have listed FAQ that would give you a quick peek into the minds of other searchers such as you and that eventually, help to cater your needs. They also recommend tested quality online dating websites which have good reputations in helping people find their mate. Above all, you are always free to contact them for any queries or assistance that you would need.

In as much as it is crucial to find Mr. Right or Ms. Right, finding the right dating website and the right online dating guide is also imperative.

What it takes to live in a foreign land?

2009-11-14T05:33:00.000-08:00

When citizenship and nationalism started to be an open border, more and more people found themselves in a dilemma on figuring out who they really are. If one is born to parents of Asian race for example, and yet raised in the West, he identifies himself as one of the Westerners but with a package of Asian cultures and characteristics that are fixed in him if not taught by parents.

A friend of mine is in peculiar situation. He was born in India to Indian parents but was raised in Brunei until young adulthood. He identifies himself more as a Bruneian and his loyalty is for the Brunei country given it is the nation that he had known more than anything else. However, the country couldn’t give him a citizenship because of some reasons such as; only children born to parents with Bruneian citizenship, either immigrant or native, can earn a Bruneian citizenship. Thus, this friend of mine, was forced to move to India when his parents decided it was time to go back home. Unfortunately, he found that he no longer belongs in his own country. He no longer could fit in. He moved abroad, working and finding ways to somehow, be able to move to Brunei which he calls “home”. It’s taking him quite a time, and until now, he is still working for this ultimate aim. He calls himself a "citizen of no country".

The boys that I molded into great debaters are Indians. But they were born or raised in this foreign country which is the home that they have known. Their features and cultures are very Indians but they speak this country’s local language. They are loyal to the country. Just very recently they again participated in the National High School debating championship with the aim of winning the tournament and getting the opportunity to go to World Debate to represent the country. This is the fourth local tournament that they had participated. They did very well, debating with all the wisdom and power of great gem debaters. Yet, they realized that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they work, they could not get into the final round. The highest round that they could reach is only semi-finals if not quarter finals. They always end up broken hearted and angry of racism and injustice that are too big for their minds to understand. Their coping mechanism is the phrase, “We’re getting used to it” amidst tears. It’s simple. If you are the owner of the house, you have a son, and you have a family guest with a son as old as yours. You held a competition with a wonderful toy as prize. To whom would you give the prize? To your son or to your guest?

These are just examples of the plights that the citizens of a foreign country endure. What are your thoughts about this?

Learn to be rude at times

2009-10-31T00:36:00.000-07:00

“In order to survive a chaotic world, you’ve got to learn to be rude at times.”

How would you define rude? If we take the decoded meaning of the word “rude”, it is a state of being ill-mannered or discourteous. That, actually, is the lightest definition we can take because the word also means being undeveloped, uncivilized, unlearned, and primitive among others.

How bad is being rude? Who can be rude? Is it only the primitive and the uncivilized that can be rude? What about the people who are well-learned and well-educated? How would you react if you are met by such a person? Someone who thinks that he is above and/or better than you?

Some people believe in themselves too much. They believe that they can be someone or something because they are intelligent and able, however, they refuse to work hard, to train hard, and to devote time. In short, they just want the end but not the means. They want to be a winner but they are not willing to take the pain that comes along. This is a picture of being ambitious without passion and discipline. Sometimes, these people might be intellectually good but emotionally they are not. For example, would you make a good debater if you are good in research and memorizing but you cannot take pressures, stress and criticisms even if they are constructive? Even in the world physical sports, athletes need passion, devotion, discipline and emotional stability in order to get ahead and win. Many good athletes failed to achieve success because they lack these essential elements.

If you are a game maker, would you not demand time from your players? Would you not require their commitment, devotion and above all respect? How would you coach a player who does not show up to practices? A player who does not communicate with you and to his team mates? A player who does not respect you? Would you put him on the first line? Or would you kick him out the team? Now, what happens if he expects to be player No. 1 even if he does not practice? And what about if the parents or family members come and demand that you put their son/relative in the team as a priority player because they want him to? Worst, how about if the parents/relatives start to teach you how to coach and how to train your players when in fact they don’t know anything about the sport? Don’t you think that is totally ridiculous?

This is when the rude meets the rude.

Sometimes, you have to be rude in order to maneuver rude people. If you know what you are doing, and if you know that you are doing the right thing, you are in the right track then it does not matter if you have to be rude as long as you maintain your professionalism. A new argument comes in; “rude” is defined accordingly based on the situation. We differentiate them as the “white rude” and the ‘black rude”. You can choose which color.

In whatever you do, you cannot please everybody; therefore, focus on the common good even if it means being rude to the antagonists. You should not back down to people who underestimate you, show them what you can do.

Is lending hand to elders old fashion?

2009-10-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

I was tired and exhausted on my way home from school today. I had not a good sleep last night, I had six classes straight during the day, I had to use my remaining two free periods to complete some paper works, and I had to stay behind for the debate workshop which are always held after school. Evaluating my accomplishments for the day while walking, I noticed ahead that an elder woman was balancing her huge push cart trying to climb it up the road. She was selling barbecues and the cart was carrying a grilling pot and some meat. A good amount of smoke coming from her cart tells of her existence. Two ladies passed and smiled at her while she struggled with the cart. She smiled back. Drawn to the woman’s plight, I hurried to see if I could do anything for her. I grabbed the cart’s handle along side her and helped her push and pull the cart back and forth to find a perfect way for the wheels. It took us about 5 minutes and it demanded some reasonable strength [as if I still had enough strength, must just be the adrenaline]. After she had said her thank you and I had said my welcome, I fixed my hair back to place and walked. Just then I noticed a gentleman sitting beside the road looking at me. I shook my head thinking, he could have helped.

I was walking on a side walk one night heading to a shopping mall. People were bumping each other on that crowded narrow side walk because illegal side walk vendors were consuming too much space. On the other side of the road, a very old man with severe osteoporosis was pushing his cart full of old news papers and books. I saw him hurriedly passed the pedestrian lane and with all his might pushed the cart up the elevated side walk to avoid the approaching cars. Unfortunately, it could be because of lack of strength, his cart slipped and all the papers fell down the road. He saved his cart first and anchored it on the side walk and slowly, oh so slowly, started picking up all the papers and books that fell. Nobody stopped to help. Seeing a very heartbreaking sight, I ran to cross the road avoiding the cars and immediately helped the old man before any car could hit him by mistake. The smile that stretched that wrinkled face was unforgettable. I smiled back and gave a wai.

Thus my question, is helping the elders old fashion? Is it considered not in on today’s time? It is sad to notice that more and more people are not concerned with their elders. It is very hard to take a few minutes from their busy time to lend a hand. I am not sure if it’s only me, or are you also noticing this?

Prayer stopped the bank robber: How powerful is prayer?

2009-10-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

Just exactly how powerful is prayer? Do you think a prayer with faith can actually move mountains? If you search the net, I am certain that you will find many accounts on how people found prayer powerful. There are even plenty of unpublished testimonies out there that prove that God indeed listens to prayer.

While writing this post I was reminded of some funny but dangerous experiences that I had in the past where prayer saved me. For example, on one Christmas vacation our family and friends had a retreat in a secluded island in our province. The island was beautiful and untouched. There was a big wooden house beside the beach and a huge meeting hall in the middle of the island which I never saw how it looked in the inside, it was always locked. Unfortunately, all the toilets were located beside the meeting hall. So one morning after breakfast, I was walking towards the toilet not minding the environment; my mind was flying [as it always does], when suddenly I heard barks of an angry female dog. When I focused to see where it was coming from, I was frozen to see the beast, big and scary, approaching me in a leaping manner eager to devour me. Not a panicky person, I took off my sandals and threw them to her to no avail. There wasn’t any stone or anything that I could grab. The last resort was to run. I ran screaming “Papa, papa!” but everyone in the house was too far to help. My mind was thinking about how many injections I would get. However, what frightened me more was the thought of ruining my legs, my biggest assets. While running I was looking back and saw that every time the beast was about to bite a leg, each leg just move to run. I then remembered to pray. So while my mouth was screaming my mind was praying, “Jesus, help me.” Just then I bumped into a huge tree, and then fell. I waited for the pain, but there was none. I raised my head to look at her; I was met by two lamb eyes. And then she moved away. I gathered myself up with bleeding knees, but it was far better than getting non-bleeding bites.

These scenarios I mentioned above happened ten years back, were refreshed to me today after I saw a yahoo video featuring the woman, who, through prayer, was able to unarm her robber. I wanted to download that video of her interview because she left such good message towards the people who have nobody that are becoming hopeless. She said that things can’t be so bad to just throw away your life in prison or in death. There are people who care. There is God who cares. She also addressed company owners saying that they should also give chance to people who are desperate to get a job to survive. Sometimes, some people are just forced to do crime.

Teach the teachers

2009-10-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

I didn’t realize that it is already two years now since I found myself seated face to face with six young faces across the table trying to figure out how to produce good debaters within eight sessions, a month prior to a competition. [Read the story Giving birth to great debaters] Time flew too quickly. I saw myself once again seated across the table, but this time not as the trainer, but as the supervisor [technically]. Seeing my former junior debaters teach and coach the aspiring new members of the team, I felt very accomplished. I realized how much they have grown. I had not produced only good debaters, I had also produced good teachers.

If asked about where did I draw my motivation to go through all the pain of putting up a debating club for the school, and to bear all the exhaustion in prepping and sending teams to at least two competitions each year, and to work hard to meet the expectations of parents, teachers and employers, I am not certain. However, I can say, that it is my passion that drove me to make a difference in the lives of my young debaters. It was that passion in debating and my strong character towards a challenge that made me take the mission and do what were supposed to be done.

It is true that your passion towards what you do can be so powerful to influence and attract others to follow you. It can motivate them to set a goal. It can push them to work hard to achieve that goal.

Whenever I see my debaters take a floor and speak, it makes me smile. I smile because they serve as a mirror of me. But seeing them mentor their junior debaters is even more fulfilling. Their love on sharing what they learnt from me, coupled by what they learnt from their own experiences, is what I call, the greater passion.

Who can use which middle name? The Philippines and her laws regarding the use of middle name.

2009-10-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

I spent about two hours trying to google the laws regarding the use of middle name for a Filipino child out of wedlock. I read almost all related results that emerged but nothing has directly answered my question. What middle name should an illegitimate child use?

The use of middle names does vary from one place to another and thus laws regarding the legalities of its use vary as well. In the Philippines, the middle name is used exclusively to refer to the mother's maiden surname. For example, in the name "Juan Miguel Batumbakal dela Cruz", the name "Batumbakal", his mother's maiden surname, is his middle name. For a legitimate child, it is of everyone’s knowledge that the child automatically bears the surnames of the father and the mother; the father’s surname becomes the child’s surname and the mother’s surname becomes the child’s middle name. However, it is not of everyone’s awareness the issues regarding which middle name an illegitimate child is entitled to use. And sadly, more and more brave women found themselves confused and misguided when the day comes that they have to register their child. [I use brave to refer to women who freight not with the responsibilities of raising a child alone otherwise called single moms].

I have heard two cases of filipino single moms working abroad who, after they received the birth certificate for their babies issued by the hospital where they had the delivery, and after they had the birth certificate translated from the local language e.g. Thai into English, and they were ready to apply for their child’s passport, only then they were informed by the Philippines embassy that they had to reprocess everything. It is because the birth certificates reflect both the middle name and the surname of the mother. The embassy says that the child can only use the mother’s surname but not her middle name otherwise that would mean that they are siblings. Thus the question: How are we supposed to know? Is there anywhere we could get informed that we ought to leave the middle name for our babies blank?

As I did my research, I found that most of the Philippines legal articles related to this matter that are available online discuss about which surname should illegitimate children use but are silent about which middle name should these children use [for examples, check here and here].

I found one article however that discussed the issues and concerns in the registration of illegitimate children. And much to my interest, I found this:

IS IT ALLOWED THAT THE MIDDLE NAME OF THE CHILD MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE AN ENTRY?

The item on the middle name may or may not have an entry. However, if there is an entry may be any of the following:
1. The mother’s maiden surname, if the child is legitimate;
2. The mother’s middle name, if the child is illegitimate, was born before August 3, 1988 and was acknowledged only by the mother;
3. The mother’s middle name, if the child is illegitimate and was born on or after August 3, 1988;
4. The father’s middle name, if the child is illegitimate and was acknowledged only by the father;
5. The mother’s middle name, if the child is illegitimate and neither parent acknowledged the child.

This will make a good debate. Are single parents forced by the Philippines law to leave the middle name empty or are they given a choice?

More women today realize that it is better to raise a child alone rather than being trap in a relationship that does not reciprocate everything that she needs and gives. Therefore I believe that the government should start to orient women about legal issues that would guide them in preparing for their child’s future starting from the birth certificate. More information and resources should be made available to them.

I am still not resolved about this matter. If you have any information that would be of help to this campaign, I would love to hear.

Please pray for my people, pray for my country

2009-10-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

A week after the devastating flood in Manila, Philippines, a back to back typhoons furiously hit the country once more on the northwest provinces of Manila causing landslides burying people, children and homes. More people are left without homes and without love ones. Read here for details.

The lack of words to describe what i feel about this news made me create this slideshow. These are my people. This is my country. I urged you to pray for them, to pray for her.

If you have more to spare aside from prayers to help those thousands of people who are badly damaged by these typhoons, please visit here, here, and here. Thank you and God bless.

A tag to reveal something about me

2009-10-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

The blogger behind my blogging career has again tagged me. rare*jonRez is a virtual friend and reading her answers to this set of questions was fun. I decided to take my turn so as to make a little shift from my generally, heavy topics.

So here we go…

Do you think you’re hot?
=>I think I am.

What kind of hot, hot mama or hot woman
=> I’m no mama yet so that leaves me with being a hot woman.

Please, upload your favorite picture.
=>I decided today that the photo above is my favorite. I did this graphics myself but it wasn’t really hard. Lol.

Why do you love this picture?
=>Perhaps because it brings across the message that I want to say.

When was the last time you ate pizza?
=>That must be four months ago. That reminds me to get some tonight. Right!

What is the latest song you’ve heard?

=>“In Christ alone will I glory, though I can pride myself in battles won. And I’ve been blessed beyond measure and by His strength alone I overcome.

Oh, I could stop and count successes, like diamonds in my hand. But those trophies could not equal to the grace by which I stand.”

I'm currently at the point where I am bountifully blessed, yet ironically, am drifting spiritually. This song reminds me of what matters most to me.

What is your favorite song?
=>My heart will go on by Celine Dion. Oh, how I love Celine.

What is the most stressful thing to you?
=>When I reap my procrastination.

Mention the three must have items on your purse/bag.
=>Wallet, cell phone, lip gloss.

What is your favorite color/s?
=>Blue, white, black

What is your not-fulfilled-yet dream?
=>To be an expert with guitar [I can play but still has to improve]. And drums too.

What is your favorite city to stay?
=>Bangkok. But I prefer a country side more.

Done. Now I'm passing this tag on to my favorite bloggers: Dorothy L, Eunice A and Leah. Have a great Sunday everyone.

Free blog hosting at okayblog

2009-10-01T08:39:00.001-07:00

Have you decided that it’s time to take a new endeavor where you can share your thoughts and write about the things you learnt all accumulated from birth up to this day but at the same time you don’t want to spend a dime? Sure you can start your very own blog site and get started with reaching out to people who are willing to read your writings and learn from your experiences and expertise, easily, and freely at okayblog. Through this free blog you can create posts about your life, job, hobbies or anything that interests you.

Okay Blog is a free blog hosting site powered by Wordpress blogging software. You can create a blog at your own url. Signing up for this free blog is completely quick and easy. You just have to choose a username, type your email, enter the code given, click "sign up" and you’re blog is up, live and is waiting for you to fill with exciting posts. Easy to use widgets are available for you to enhance your blog and more features are there for you to explore and make the most out.

If you are a blogger and had been running one or two or more blog sites and yet still want to venture a new blogging territory, you can also try okayblog.

Does punishment make the best reinforcement?

2009-10-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

I understand that in order to maintain peace and order, punishment is necessary. It is true to any social group starting from the family, the community and up to the nation. Punishment is deterrent to fear that will result to control. He who can execute punishment holds the power. However, excessive and unreasonable punishment can make a relationship or a system unhealthy that would eventually lead to rebellion and break down.

I have this question in mind. “Which makes the best reinforcement? Punishment? Or reward?”

A system that is extremely power and monetary driven, which uses more punishment than reward as reinforcement, is certainly at stake.

Picture this in mind: If you worked hard and gave your best on a project but you didn’t get reward for its success, would you still be inspired to do your best on the next project?

And what about this: If you didn’t work hard and did your best to ensure success on the project assigned to you and you reaped punishment, would this drive you to do well on the next project?

This is what I learned today.

“Punishment can control people. But it never can inspire them to do their best.”

Share your thoughts and meet people at thoughts.com

2009-10-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

There are numerous social net workings or social conversation sites that you can choose to join out from the cyber space. These sites generally can help you find old buddies, old classmates or colleagues, or meet new people.

Just recently I found a blog site that is conducive to people who love to share their thoughts and interact with people who share the same passion. People at this site love to write and they enjoy sharing their expertise, personal experiences and honest thoughts through their blogs and posts. The site also has a daily news section where members can discuss breaking news stories and participate in the discussion board. Members can agree or disagree about a particular subject and air their honest opinion yet whenever minds don’t meet; everyone is encouraged to respect each other.

The blog site has varied and easy to use widgets which enable you to enhance your profile page and have maximum control over how you interact with the community, how much you want to expose about yourself, and how much you want to know about your friends. An automatic update will inform you about your friends' latest blog posts, emails, updates and more.

The best part that I see rewarding for me as a blogger and as a member of this site is the fact that the more that I participate in the forum discussions, the sooner that my forum rank will improve. And since I have my personal URLs displayed in my profile, it would eventually drive traffic back to my sites.

I had signed up to a number of social sites partly due to the purpose of exposing my blogs but I never realized that it could also be fulfilling and enjoyable at the same time not until I built profile at thougths.com.

Philippines flood: A catastrophe or a curse?

2009-09-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

I received a call yesterday evening from a friend; he said “Check YouTube. See how the typhoon Ondoy submerged the entire Manila.” I felt weak when I heard the news. But I was completely stunned when I did see the videos posted in YouTube as well as the slideshows about the flood in Pinoy Channel. I found myself whispering, “God, why do my people have to suffer this much?” I couldn’t stop the tears.

This typhoon named “Ondoy” or “Ketsana” shouldn’t have been underestimated. And yet, isn’t the country used to heavy rains once the year approaches the month of December? Isn’t the country used to calamities whenever Christmas is coming? I remembered clearly how terrifying the news was when a landslide caused by heavy rains buried an entire town in Leyte on February 7, 2006. Nearly a thousand people lost their lives. There were plenty of calamities left buried in the minds of filipinos. They are there to embrace.

While the nation struggles to fix its economic crisis, while she works to unite her people, and while she finds ways to manage her meager resources, an overnight rain simply washed her efforts away. Who to blame?

We can start blaming each other and finger pointing, would that help? Would that bring back the homes of the victims and the lives of the dead? Would that pacify the pain of those who lost everything?

So many questions are in my mind. Where will they get food? Will the country be able to feed everyone? Where will they get water if everywhere is stained of flood water? What’s next?

I made a call to my dad worrying if they were in anyway harmed by the typhoon. Thank God it didn’t hit my province, Palawan. My parents expressed their grief about what they saw on tv. My dad is even worried because two more typhoons are expected to come probably in the next weeks. Oh God, bless don’t.

I simply reasoned, it’s geography. We don’t have cover. We are bare against the open sea. We are the best target of typhoons. Now what?

That left me with a question. Is this another catastrophe? Or is this a curse?

Looking for a writing contest? Check out The Colors Magazine

2009-09-24T04:16:00.000-07:00

I was having a shower today at 6:30 in the morning when something hit me. I want to bring my literary writing into the next level. Why? I had been writing for how many years now and I saw myself matured from a potential writer into a skilled one [I’m speaking about creative writing: poetry, short story and novel] but I still don’t have a visible grip. And then I thought of Lena, the owner of The Colors Magazine. She owns this wonderful literary website that I came across a few weeks back. Having a tour in her web and seeing her contents, she inspired me to put up my own. The decision became final today.

But I am not going to talk about how I will launch my own literary website. This post is actually about how Lena inspired me to go back into writing short stories through her writing competition. The last short story I wrote was done two years ago, the Informer. Therefore, an entry for her 55 Fiction Contest will make my next short story after such period of idleness. Yes, I am joining her writing competition. What made me decide to join the contest is the challenge of being able to write a story that consists of drama, suspense and shock by using only a total of fifty-five words. Now, that is something that I have not done before. I am excited to start writing my entry and I am determined to find time to complete it and submit it on or before the deadline which will be on the 1st October 2009.

Do you also want to challenge yourself and come up with a winning piece for 55 fiction? Thus visit The Colors Magazine for details. All the best.

How to defeat burn out from work?

2009-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Did you ever find yourself easily angered, depressed and uninspired at some point in your life?

Did you take a moment to evaluate what caused you these negative feelings and found that in fact, you have so many things to be thankful and be happy for? And yet, after a while of figuring out, everything points out to overworking, tiredness and lack of recreation as the root? In a layman’s term that is what we call “burnt out”.

Indeed, it comes once in a while. And recently, I found myself caught up by this situation. I lost my drive to write articles for my literary blog. I felt lazy to do my basic household chores. I go to work with a hard determination of surviving the day when actually, it used to be fun. I need to start the debate training for both my junior and senior debaters for the next debate competition which will be in less than two months, but I could not get the drive to organize anything. I get easily angered by any little things which I knew I could have ignored. And because of these feelings, even my relationship is getting affected.

But it is not a question of whether it comes or not. It is about how to defeat this negativity once it does come.

I thought that I needed something which would help me channel this negativity out. It was my fashion blog. I spent more time blogging about fashion and connecting with other fashion bloggers. It gave me a different world that could make me feel good. But then when I step back into the reality, the same feelings come back.

I confessed this conflict to my girl friends and was surprised to find that they were also feeling the same. We decided we have to make time for ourselves. We need to go out more, hang out and unwind more. Given our busy schedules, this time has to be made. The very functional all work life that we had has started eating in us and is now bearing fruit.

Thus, we dressed up and went out to unwind. We spent our night just dining out, window shopping and chatting about anything. It felt good. We went home tired but relaxed. Eventually, more hanging out are listed in the calendar.

Getting burnt out from work is inevitable, however, if it does come, you should be able to find ways to defeat it.

So how do you handle yours?

How to nurture a long distance relationship

2009-09-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

I understand why many people refuse to be in a “romantic long distance relationship”. It takes a lot to nourish and nurture such a relationship and it requires much more effort from both parties to be able to strengthen it compared to a normal relationship.

I'm in a long distance relationship. I'm so much blessed with this relationship and it helps me feel excited to live every day of my life. However, there are so many hurdles that I and my boyfriend endure and I wouldn’t say it’s been easy. Yet, I can also attest that regardless the difficulties, if the couple is determined to brave them, there are ways to nourish the relationship despite the distance.

Communication is always important and it’s the strongest weapon for the couple who maintains a long distance relationship. Make sure to spend quality communication time every day. For us, we spend at least an hour and at most 3 hours talking over the phone for week days. For weekends, we spend more time over the phone simultaneous with a web cam. Note: we discovered later that Skype is very efficient for both web cam and voice chat. It saved us lots of bucks.

Trust. Any relationship requires trust otherwise without this element; the relationship wouldn't thrive to grow. However, trusting your mate is much more needed in a long distance relationship. You cannot see what your mate is doing and where he goes. The only thing you can hold is his words and your trust on those words. On your side, make sure that you, too, is worthy of trust. Don't do anything that can potentially ruin his trust when he finds out.

Find a recreation that you both can enjoy. Talking over the phone for hours every day can exhaust topics that are left to discuss and thus would lead to boredom. It's important that the couple find other means to spend time creatively with fun. When my boyfriend found out that I felt bored with always chatting over the phone, he started to look for websites where we could play online games together and laugh together. It's really fun.

Send crafty personalized gifts. My boyfriend pampers me with a lot of gifts but the best gift he sent me was his sketch of the portrait of my godchild, a very beautiful girl. As a return, I also made two charcoal sketches for him; one is a portrait of him and the other of me. When he received them, he was completely stunned at how good I made them. He immediately framed and displayed them in his room. Sometimes he sends me a t-shirt with his perfume on it, the one which is my favorite. As a return, I also send him a favorite dress or a sweater. [But since it's a favorite dress, he gives it back to me when me reunite.]

Send letters through postal mails. Even if technology makes writing too quick and easy nowadays; e.g. emailing or instant messaging, sending hand written letters or cards to your mate is much more romantic. It feels good to read something written by your love by hand.

Find time to see each other. Even if it can be expensive and stressful, it's important that the couple finds time to meet and be together especially if time and resources allow. It can be during summer vacation or Christmas vacation. Reuniting for a week or two and making the most out of this short time can refuel the relationship. The memories and experiences can inspire the couple to look forward to more exciting reunion in the future.

These are the top elements that proved necessary for my own long distance relationship. Feel free to share what you think. I'd love to hear them. 

Fragrance

2009-09-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

A fragrance very manly
Still lingers in the air
Despite being lonely
I embraced your trail.
Here in my room,
Alone.

Broad shoulders
I use to lean on,
Strong muscular arms
Those serve as my pillows
Are gone for tonight
More nights.

The last vision I saw
Your arms around me
Sitted on your well-built thigh
I smelled the perfume
On your neck.
Secured.

But you left your
Heart for me
And brought mine
With you.
I'll endure the distance
For you.

How to improve your English: for English as a Second Language

2009-08-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

When people hear me speak, they usually mistake me as one who studied English as a field of expertise. Not only do I speak English with fluency, I also speak with an accent that is natural and effortless [I stick to American accent]. My English skills enable me to communicate with people of any race and status with ease and confidence. However, far from being an English major, my field of expertise is actually Mathematics. It is my bread and butter.

So how did I develop my English skills?

For someone who grew up in Asia who speaks and understands three languages and three local dialects, learning English was never difficult. In fact, my journey to better English was so much fun.

The following reasons helped to enhance my English skills:

I was very obsessed with reading. I always hungered for reading. This was essentially during my high school and college years. There was no best thing to spend my spare time but to read. During the time, very few people owned a cell phone. When my friends wanted to see me, they looked for me in the city library where they would always find me in the same corner, in the same table, buried with books. [The library was smaller compared to the university or school libraries in the city but it was more peaceful compared to the rest].

I only read English. Well, there might be a little of exaggeration here but it is 99.9 percent true. The only time I could read non-English materials was when I had to learn for my Filipino subjects. Otherwise, I enjoyed reading English materials more. I read a lot of fiction novels from the genres of romance, adventure, action/thriller and mystery. I read a lot of history books too as well as literature. Along side the history and literature books were encyclopedias. Obviously, so I could have an immediate check on the background of authors, places or characters that I would come across. And oh, I always craved for women’s magazines, Time magazines and Reader’s Digests [actually, they’re the very first that I pick up when I enter the library].

I prefer to see English movies. I saw more of English movies simply because I could get to hear new words and I could mimic the way the characters say the word/s. I always pick up one or two liners and would keep repeating them even if I was having a shower.

I prefer to hear English songs. Not that I am bias, but I just have more collections of English songs compared to non-English songs.

I was friend to people who were studying English. I was a member of the Math society in the campus and a member of the debate club in our department but my friends were the best English students in the entire University. They rule the spelling, essay writing and public speaking competitions. They even graduated Cum Laudes. Every time we got together, they discussed, brain stormed and shared things that they knew. I was there absorbing.

I used to find ways to get to talk to westerners. This is a little bit funny but is true. When I was younger, whenever I could spot some westerners around, I would make some stunts just to get his/her attention so I could talk to them. I would then go home feeling fulfilled, lol. But years later, working with westerners just became a daily part of my life. I never looked at them as superiors unless otherwise they are my immediate superiors. They are simply my even that I enjoy company with.

I welcome corrections and constructive criticisms. When I was younger, and even now as an adult, I always welcome corrections and positive critiquing. Instead of feeling upset if corrected by someone who is more superior in English, I feel happy and thankful. I always stand corrected.

The wonder of dream interpretation

2009-08-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

I started paying attention to my dreams when I entered the University. At first year, I became aware that some of my dreams were symbolical and that they carried some special messages. During the time, I spent hours thinking and trying to decode the dreams that I had but usually, it took me months to understand what the dream meant and only if I am confronted with the actual meaning of the dream.

I applied some biblical symbols in interpreting my dreams and later, I was able to identify the meaning of some of the dream symbols myself. From the biblical interpretations for example, the water means people while air means war. The snake in the Bible symbolizes Satan, and related to it; snakes in my dreams symbolize trials or problems. The size of the snake, its number, its behavior and how it ends up in my dream is crucial in interpreting. Was I able to kill the snake? Was I bitten? Or was I able to run away? If I dreamt of water – salt or land water, I look at its behavior as well. Is it calm? Is it turbulent? Is it deep? Is it chasing me? Are there fish coming out? Fish would then represent a particular individual or individuals out from the group of people. And every time I interpret my dream, it happens.

Thus, I started reading a lot about dream interpretation and was amazed to discover more wonders in dreams. I recorded some of the significant dream symbols that I had that proved to carry essential warnings to me.

Mushroom: I saw myself eating a big umbrella-like boiled mushroom with soup. I checked the meaning of the dream and it said, “To eat them denotes that you will be humiliated and disgraced by love.” Not long after I had the dream, the guy that I was with proved to be a wrong choice.

Fire: I saw a small fire grew big and consumed my parents’ kitchen. I tried to stop the fire by fanning it but the fire just grew bigger. I checked the meaning of the fire and specifically in my parents’ place and it said “that my family and siblings are doing well in their endeavors and that there will be a significant progress in financial status.” Four months later, I was informed that my mom opened a retail store and my sister a whole sale store and that money was quick. My brother-in-law landed a job with good salary while my brothers in the university are doing well in the fields they chose. One brother even earned a scholarship and he is a 100percent free tuition.

There are still many dreams recorded in my diary that proved to be good warnings and some of them are very personal. While going through my dream diary one day, I came up with an idea. I took a pad and a pen and in an hour, I came up with a very beautiful poem. If you love dream interpretation, you are welcome to interpret my poem.

Broken Dreams

It lurked behind the sun, watching
Waiting for the curtains to close,
When all dogs finished their dinner and
All vendors took their last satang.
At last it succumbed the entire city,
Spirits drifted up and down their sleep.
The shriek of silence so deafening
Darkness!

Underneath the soft cotton blankets,
Beside the silky pillows and
The hugs of plush toys,
A soul was fully awake.
Could anyone free her from those barricades?
Her hands struggled for freedom
But her wrists were tied.
She screamed for help but no one heard
The joyful song of the river swallowed her screams

The same soul stood above the waves.
Balancing, longing to cross to the other edge.
She dug squared fox holes deep down the ground,
But couldn’t find what she was looking for.
She needed to wash her hands,
But everywhere were glasses of wine.
Yet before anything could besiege her;
A whirlwind of fog surrounded her.

She focused her blurred vision, a figure.
Clad in white panama shirt
His long white trousers touched his feet
Every time he stepped;
His long eye lashes were very beautiful,
His full lips curved in a smile, inviting.
The gleams in his eyes hid their color
But wisdom they did mirror.

They trailed along side the beach.
Little breezes crept over polished water;
Ran towards the sand in lazy cottons
And touched their feet.
Birds were flying above their heads;
Flashed up and down in happy songs.
Hand in hand they beheld the beauty
Of their new found paradise.

But then birds’ songs turned into witch-like cries;
Echoed one after another.
Bright colors turned into gray
When from the water a predator
Came out hungry for prey.
In her own eyes, the violent whale took him away.
With tear-blind eyes she bowed,
His spectacles in her hands.
Her hands were free! They’ve been freed!
She jerked to run after him. She needed him back.
But lo! Her feet were bounded with chains.

The fire, hungry like a devil,
Crept along the branches;
Consumed the trunk of the towering mango tree,
Determined to reach the fruits.
She watched the healthy fruits gave in,
Breaking!

Why some women love to gossip a lot?

2009-08-08T01:01:00.000-07:00

Women are known to talk more compared to men. They love to gossip among other women and to talk just about anything. Most women love to talk about bags, shoes, make up, clothes and boyfriends or husbands while some prefer to talk about facts and thought provoking topics. Chitchatting among girls and talking about people is what we call gossiping. However, some women go beyond the typical chatting for girls. These women make gossiping an expertise that they can’t seem to live without it. Their hands and feet sweat for any news tossed to them. Their eyes widen and their ears expand when they do malicious ear-droving. And the worst thing about them is that they crave for dirty small or big nonsense. Most of the time, if they can’t dig dirt about someone, they twist some truths [add or minus] and make it a splash. I understand that this is how some tabloids, celebrity magazines or journalists earn their living, and however, even some plain creatures earn their PhDs in gossiping. Let us take a look at why these females love to gossip a lot.

These women are insecure. What can they do more to cover their flaws and broken self-esteem than to talk about other people so as to divert attentions away from them? That’s right. People who gossip more are the biggest insecure on Earth. When they talk, they seem to be perfect and they picture their target as trash. That boasts their self-esteem. Geez!

These women are bitter about their lives. Have you met women who are so bitter about how their lives turned out? I did. I tell you, it is totally unfortunate to have to see them everyday. They have so much garbage that they look for trash cans to empty their load. Gossiping is a way of emptying.

These women are lazy. They have so much free time to spend in gossiping, does that not mean they're lazy? I can’t even get time to finish writing my novel, or finish my cross-stitch, or start my long-time planned yoga, or start revising my TOEFL reviewer not even listen to the CD, or start learning my ‘latest Microsoft Excel Tutorial Modules” because of too many things to do even if I always sacrifice sleep. How could these people find time to search for dirts?

These women are worse than scavengers. Oh, I so love this reason. Why? Scavengers in water search for dirts to eat and absorb them. They are there to clean the seas and oceans. But what about the high caliber gossipers? Well, they also search for dirts, but when they eat them, they release them double dirty.

Is Carbon offset the solution to global warming?

2009-08-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Discussions about global warming are usually considered overdone. The melting of icebergs in the Atlantic, the death of the polar bears and the threats of small islands vanishing under sea are nothing new. But how many people are actually aware of the extent of these threats of global warming? How many people and businesses are actually aware of their own contributions to global warming? How many people, businesses and governments are actually exerting efforts to minimize if not stop their contributions which are potentially harmful to the environment? And what could be those efforts?

Let’s talk about carbon offsets.

Big companies and businesses are the biggest contributors to global warming. However, while individual consumers’ effort to prevent further contribution to global warming such as minimizing the use of plastics or recycling and reusing of non- biodegradable materials would only mean a little of discomfort, forced reductions of greenhouse gas for businesses and companies would mean reduction of their profitable production. That is tantamount to losing in business. Reductions of greenhouse gas for them might include controlled frequency of travels via air and land, etc.

On the other hand, instead of us forcing companies and businesses to radical or impossible reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG), we can let them pay to reduce global GHG. This is how carbon offset comes in.

But how does carbon offset work?

Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) and may represent six primary categories of greenhouse gases. One carbon offset represents the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

Offset companies first estimate a customer's personal carbon output. Their Web sites include carbon calculators that determine the total GHG produced by a year's worth of electricity or driving, an event or even a round-trip flight. Offset companies then charge an amount based on their own GHG price per ton. When you buy an offset, you fund projects that reduce GHG emissions. The projects might restore forests, update power plants and factories or increase the energy efficiency of buildings and transportation.

On the opposition side however, carbon offset is seen to encourage indulgence. It is a way for the guilty to pay for absolution rather than changing. According to English environmentalist George Monbiot, carbon offsets are an excuse for businesses as usual with regards to pollution.

The lack of regulation in the voluntary market is another issue. No standard governs the industry and some offset providers are even accused of exaggerating or misleading carbon reduction claims. For example, 1000 dollars offset used to fund the planting and growing of a 1000 trees in the Ecuador will be reported even if the trees died in two years.

With the above arguments given, thus the question; can carbon offset be the solution to global warming?

Back with renewed energy to blog

2009-08-04T01:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, I’m back now with renewed energy after a month of idleness. My blog archive shows only four entries for the month of July. That was very idle. It was not that I felt lazy last month, but it was that I was on a vacation at my parents place in Palawan, Philippines. My parents own a retail store and adjacent to it is my sister’s whole sale store of grocery supplies and drinks. I found out when I was there that the store is very busy. I couldn’t just sit down, I had to help out. The store opens at six in the morning and closes at ten at night. After the store closes, we had to pack water to put in the big freezer for ice. It’s very in demand. After we finish preparing for everything we need for the next day, only then I could retire to the house to have a shower and prepare for bed. But if you think I immediately sleep because of tiredness, well I don’t. I had to wait for my boyfriend’s call which would be around midnight because he lives in a country that is six hours late. He could just make a call after work. Because I sleep very late everyday, I also wake up very late. But once I wake up, there are just too many things to do that the day goes too quick. It’s a blessing that we have a helper who can do the house chores. If we don’t, it would just be too hard.

So basically, that’s how I spent my vacation, working in the store. I was unable to visit around the island of Palawan or visit the friends that I planned to see. I did see some old classmates from college and high school but only because they dropped in the store. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen anyone.

Now I’m back in Bangkok and have all the time in the world to do what I want or what I need. I arrived on the 30th July but I was very groggy of tiredness and jet lag that I had to wait to get back my mood to blog. I woke up very late again today and felt that it’s time to start again. I feel guilty to all the good friends who keep dropping in my page but whose visits are left unreturned. But since I got my energy back now, I will always be around again to share my thoughts and to gain from others’ thoughts.

Should you date a colleague?

2009-07-26T03:56:00.000-07:00

When you sign a contract with a company, the rules listed in the contract might consist of you not allowed to date a colleague. It is not a rule to every institution, however; there are a number that has a clear policy against dating within colleagues. Thus the question, should you date a colleague? Or why shouldn’t you?

I know, you might be thinking “well, it is not allowed as stated in the contract”. But what if the institution you joined is not prohibiting it, would you still consider it?

Here are some good things in dating a colleague.

1. You get inspired to go to work.

Going to work is no longer boring with too many stuff to do. It ceases to be a routine. You start to feel good and to always look forward to go to work. The eight hours just fly too fast and you would not mind working overtime.

2. You start to be particular on how you look.

Okay, we always make sure that we go to work well dressed, but if you date a colleague, you go beyond the simple following the dress code to putting more effort on being attractive. Hectic schedules and business does not stop you to always get a second to check in the mirror if you still have your hair in place, your tie fixed or your lipstick gone.

3. You get the drive to achieve more.

You’ll work harder to achieve more to impress the person you’re dating. You just want to show that you’ll make a perfect mate.

4. You feel that you always have an ally.

Yes, it feels good thinking that whatever happens, you’ll always have someone you can rely on within your institution or perhaps someone who can defend and protect you against any political issues that would arise [if any].

5. You are certain to find a lot of common things from each other.

It isn’t hard to find commonalities or you wouldn’t be working in the same field. And isn’t that the reason why an affair usually happens at work? Where people meet intellectually with the same interests?

However, if the dating or an affair does not turn out well, there are some good reasons you’ll find why you shouldn’t have dated a colleague in the first place.

1. Even if he’s/she’s the last person you want to see, you’ll have to stand seeing him/her everyday.

This is the sad part because in letting go, not seeing the person who broke your heart helps out the process. But if the person is a colleague, then you would have to endure that. You would have to maintain professionalism despite the broken heart.

2. If you’re the one who got dumped, the other party has a big tendency to prove to you that he/she made the right decision. That’s the biggest slap in the face. And the worst part is that he/she has all the opportunities to do it in your face.

Do I have to say more for this? Oh, it’s totally awful. But I tell what? Even if you’re initial reaction is hate the person, in the end, you will have to thank him/her for doing so. Not only has he proved that he does not deserve to have you but that had he not left you, you would not get an opportunity to find someone’s better. So go, say “thank you!”

3. Friends are put in an awkward position.

Friends wouldn’t know how to act around the two of you. They might be forced to divide or be left tagged in the middle. It simply is a break down of a good circle.

A rare family video

2009-07-17T02:13:00.000-07:00

Once the kids start to go to universities, then go to work, then get married, getting together becomes a rare occasion. This is true to us. It is always fun when all siblings come home and have a reunion in our parents' house.

In this video, I'm introducing to you my family. We were having a picnic at our new bought land which has a river. It is located just below the Estrella falls, one of the fascinating water falls in town. The video above shows how much fun it is to be in our family.

My cat is a doting mom

2009-07-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

I´ve been living abroad for four years now. When I left the Philippines, I had to leave behind my four cats. My cats were unique in there own ways. The eldest was quiet, neat and jealous. The second eldest was playful and a comrade of the first. The third was the most playful, most adventurous and troublesome among the four. The youngest was sickly but the sweetest of all. Yet, even if I had been away from home for such a long; my love for them was always with me. Whenever I made a call to my parents and siblings, I never failed to ask about my cats. I´ve always missed them.

However, when I reached home for the first time since I left, none of my cats were alive. All of them were gone. They were survived by their grandchildren and some great grandchildren. I had been longing to my cats. How sad it was to be met and snuggled only by their children? If it's a compensation, the grandchildren manifested the same characteristics as those of their grandparents and their looks were distributed among the youngs.

Two little kittens greeted me "Myawww!", a sound for "hello" when I entered their territory - a male and a female. The female cat had just bore four kittens. She was such a doting mom that I couldn't resist taking her video.

See her cuddle and breasfeed her little ones. She too, now rests in peace.

The value of a simple “Thank you”

2009-07-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

I love giving gifts. I feel that unexplainable happiness when I see someone’s face brightened up while receiving my gift. I give gifts to friends and love ones. I even feel oblige to give alms to those disadvantage people sitting beside the streets. Whenever I come home, I always make sure that I’ve got some presents. However, choosing gifts is always not easy. You have to consider the likes and dislikes of the receiver. You also have to make sure that stuff you choose to give such as clothes and shoes would fit. It is even much difficult to buy gifts for love ones you have not seen for quite a time. And yet, even if you are not obliged to give, you give gifts anyway because it is your way of expressing love and care.

But what happens if your gifts are not appreciated? What would you feel?

I flew all the way from Bangkok to Manila and straight to Puerto Princesa City, after which, I had to travel for two hours through a shuttle van to reach home. I was carrying with me a good 28 kilos of luggage, a 12 kilos hand carry, a laptop and a shoulder bag. I went extremely beyond the allowed number of kilos so I was forced to pay an unbelievable 4,200 baht including both the international and domestic flight. It hurt my pocket but I was thinking that the presents would please my parents, my siblings, some love ones and friends. I chose to let go.

Everyone was happy with what I had for them and they rightfully expressed their happiness and gratitude except my sister whom I heard nothing good about my presents for her but complains. She complained about the expensive shoes I had for her because her toes are too big for them [well, not really too big. She simply got not so sexy toes]. She also complained about the pair suit and skirt I gave for her because her arms are too big for the sleeve [yeah, a little bit bigger arms but does not really look bad]. I was trying to convince her that the shoes and suit just look good on her but she was not convinced anyway. I was hurt so I told her that she does not know how to appreciate. I brought stuff all the way from Bangkok just to be criticized. She said she does not criticize, she simply air what she feels; “Is that wrong?”

“No. It isn’t wrong. My apologies.” Was my answer before I walked away.

My dad intervened after I left explaining to my sister the value of gratitude and appreciation. That regardless of what you feel about the gift, it is important to look at the thought and appreciate. That if she wants to air her thoughts, she should do that in a careful way. That it is all about the approach.

That left me with some thought provoking questions. The ethics that parents teach their kids while going down the stairs to met aunt Griselda to say “Thank you. This is such a nice gift.” no matter what, is it right? Or is it a form of white lies? Is it better to say exactly what you think of the gift for the essence of being true?

I don’t know what you think. But for me, I just say thank you and smile for any gift given to me even if I don’t really like it. I look at the intention and the thoughts and I appreciate.

I’m a shopaholic no more!

2009-06-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the movie “Confessions of a Shopaholic”? Oh, I can so relate to this movie. I used to be a shopaholic. I used to be on the time when nothing mattered much to me but getting a new dress, some new shoes, a pair of new jeans, and new bags. And take note, they all had to be branded, A labeled. Well, I wasn’t speaking Prada, Gucci, Armani, Fendi or other high-end designers because during the time, when I was still in college and within the first two years of working, those brands were simply beyond reach. However, I was speaking of brands like Lee, Adidas, Levi's and some top local brands such as Sara lee, Avon, Natasha and others. That line of Rebecca Bloomwood “underwears are human rights” was very true to me. I collected not just a few but quite a number of fancy and expensive underwears – panties and bras, and they were an obsession. Every morning, after I do my bed, I would sit in front of my closet looking at my expensive clothes hanging neatly in my closet and all my underwears piled neatly in a drawer, admiring them.

When I was in the university, I was survived by a scholarship. I was lucky to receive quite an amount of stipend allowance every semester and to have my tuitions free. However, there were several times when the stipend came delayed. During those times, things were very tight. I would need to stretch the money dad sent me to finance for food, fare, some computer printings and researches. Yet, when I and my best friend would walk passed a boutique, my eyes would swiftly scan the inside through the glasses, then would gasp in awe, then would hurriedly go inside tagging my best friend behind. It could be a dress on a mannequin, a sporty t-shirt, or the latest trend of jeans that caught my interest but all the same, my heart would pump hard, my eyes would grow wide, my hands sweating and my head just spinning. A voice in my head would keep saying “I need to get this! I need to get this!” And no matter what, I would go home with that item in a fancy paper bag. The consequence? A week of only one meal a day.

When I was working, money was plenty at the end of the month. It gave me even more power to shop. I was able to acquire more of fancy things. But still, every time I brought home new items, the craving for more turned bigger. I lived like one day millionaire. Twenty seven days of meager food on the table in exchanged to three days shopping.

There was this very strong power inside that controlled me. The urged to shop and to get what my eyes wanted defeated my will to do what was right – to prioritize what was important.

But just like Rebecca Bloomwood from the movie, it was my childhood cravings that caused my being shopaholic. When I was younger, especially in my teenage life, things went bad for my dad’s business. He started losing money when I entered high school. And shortly, there was nothing left. During my transition period from late childhood to teenage life, I needed things that would help me define my personality. But such things were not my mom’s priority. She had to prioritize her house and her obsessions with appliances. There weren’t much money so in order to acquire stuff to beautify the house meant to ignore her teenage daughter’s desire to wear some good clothes. While I walked in the corridors of the academy, my new school for my second year high school, the boys were shouting at me “The Sabbath is still far!” because while everyone was sporting some cool jeans and t-shirt, I was wearing my mom’s blouse and skirt from the 80’s.

So how did I become a reformed shopaholic? I went abroad exactly when I turned twenty-two. I went to a place where I did not know anyone. I wanted to explore and to get a job at the same time. But after a month of living abroad, my appendix erupted that I needed an emergency surgery [Read the story Living abroad with God]. Then shortly after five months, I had to have a dangerous cyst removed. I was completely indebted to my new employer. Thus, I was forced to be tight with money.

While working to pay all my debts for several months, I came across the book “Rich dad: poor dad” [Read the story The book that made me rich]. The timing was dramatically perfect. I realized that I sank in debt just for a couple of surgeries because I did not have a reliable health insurance and no savings. I was like hit my head hard on the wall.

Right now, I am a certified reformed shopaholic.

The day I learned how much my dad loves me

2009-06-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

I was feeling something weird on my face one day. It must have started slow without me noticing, or it could have come over night – I did not know. The left side of my face was stiff. I could not eat properly, I could not speak clearly, and when I laughed or smiled, only the right side of my face was moving. I looked so ugly. I was twelve years old.

The doctor said it was mild stroke. So many “whys” and “hows” were unanswered. The only possible cure was a therapy. The big word was “possible”. There was no guarantee that my face would come back to normal.

I decided to sit quietly inside the classroom when I was at school. I stopped raising my hand to participate in class discussions. Nobody would understand me anyway. One teacher found it very unusual for me to sit so quietly and not participate in class. He was asking quite a tough question one time and a number of classmates had given answers already but the teacher still wanted more. The question was part of the homework he gave on the other day. Then he called my name. I was very anxious to stand and speak. But the teacher was waiting. The entire class was waiting. I gathered all courage to stand and give my answer. I knew that what I had in mind would suffice to satisfy the teacher. But halfway of my speaking the entire class was laughing furiously including the teacher. Some classmates were mimicking the way I spoke. I wanted to vanish from the place.

I stopped going to school. I refused to talk to people other than my family. I stuck myself inside our house. My dad was very sad. He told me that there must be a very big reason why God allowed it to happen to me. I knew the reason why. My mom, my dad, and I knew why.

Two days before I noticed something unusual on face, there was a big fight between my mom and dad. It was Friday evening. The Sabbath has started. But instead of preparing to go to church for a divine worship, I and my mom were preparing to go to a coronation night at school where I was asked to deliver my winning declamation piece “I am an Addict”. My dad refused to allow me to go to the coronation because it was already Sabbath but my mom was supporting me with my decision to go. Despite my dad’s opposition, I and my mom went to school.

The school was extremely isolated from the village. It was a big compound with new buildings. It was positioned at the feet of the mountains on the other side of a very big river. It was the huge bridge that was connecting the school to the village. There were no residences around.

I delivered my declamation piece around midnight, after which, my mom and I immediately went home.

On the Sabbath day, Saturday, my parents and my siblings were all ready to go to church but I was still in bed. I couldn’t get up because I was feeling so weak. Both my eyes were very swollen and I could not open them. My dad said that it was the result of my prioritizing to go to the coronation instead of observing the Sabbath. I had to stay at home that Sabbath day.

On the second day after I delivered my declamation, my eyes were healed and I felt strong again. However, in replacement to the swollen eyes, my face started to feel stiff. I tried to keep it to myself because I was scared that my parents would worry so much. Yet shortly, I could not hide the stiffness of my face anymore. I had to use more body language to communicate.

My parents were very disturbed. Several of their friends advised them to find a quack doctor because they believed that my face was a work of some evil spirits. My parents simply explained to them that we don’t seek help from quack doctors. We only seek help from God. My dad believed that only God could cure my face.

When I went to bed at night, my dad was making sure that there were bibles placed on both my sides. At midnight, my mom and dad would wake me up for a midnight prayer. It was a practice that took for about a week. But unknowingly, my dad was painfully seeking help from God. He was on his knees for how many times everyday begging God to tell him what to do to cure his eldest daughter. Then one night, he had a dream. He saw a flash of light on a very dark room. The light revealed a bottle of water. In his dream my dad asked what should he do with the water? The answer was, use the water to massage the face. My dad woke up after the dream and was unable to sleep until morning.

When I woke up, my dad gave me an empty bottle and asked me to clean it and fill it with water. When I was done, I gave the bottle to him. My dad then said that we had to go inside the room. We knelt and prayed. My dad was praying. He was asking for the forgiveness of our sins. He was asking God to bless the water so that through it, my face will be back to normal. My dad’s voice went crack, then he was crying. I opened my eyes. I saw my dad with his eyes close, still praying, but the tears were just coming down his cheeks so rapidly. I never saw my dad cry. He is a very gentle but a tough guy. I was unable to close my eyes back. I was just staring at my dad in awe. At that very moment, I realized how much my dad loves me.

After the prayer, my dad massaged my face using the water from the bottle.

Later in the afternoon, when my siblings were already back from school, we were playing in our backyard. I was on top of a guava tree and was laughing to my brother’s story when I realized something has changed. I hurriedly climbed down the guava tree and ran back to the house. I took a mirror and smiled in front of it. I saw a pretty smile. Then I was laughing. Then I was shouting calling my dad. I ran to my dad’s shop which was just in front of our house announcing the good news “my face is healed!”

Right now, as I sit in front of my computer writing down this testimony, I cannot help but cry and smile while I see that girl running to her papa announcing the good news that her face was again pretty. Her dad simply hugged her and said “Thank God”.

The amazing part of blogging

2009-06-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

I am very much thankful to rare*Jonrez, a friend whom I met through friendster, for introducing me to the world of blogging. Through her, I was encouraged to put up my own blog where I can publish all my work collectively. I had several articles published online but they were scattered in different big publishing websites which unfortunately, failed to give me enough satisfaction. But now, here in my blogs, I feel so much at home. I have something tangible I can call my own.

It was with a lot of difficulties that I started putting up my two blog sites, mostly, because of technical issues. For how many times it had caused fights between me and my hubby because of so much time I had to spend for it. But with careful explanation, I was able to earn his support and understanding. Blogging is so much fulfilling. To be able to write and express what I think and what I want without some editors declining it or telling me to revise or edit something is what I call “freedom”. It feels like writing on a diary but with an amazing number of readers out there. And every time I get some comments on my posts, I sit giggling in front of my computer checking who the one behind that comment is so I could return his time and effort. It also feels good to earn a set of loyal visitors who visit me without fail and leave some good words on my shout box. Some people can be just so nice.

Until the past two weeks, when I fell very ill, blogging has become something more than just a diary to me. The nice words that were left on my page wishing me to get well and be back were so inspiring and had helped me to recover. I don’t know much about the blogger behind the pen name that leaves me some smiles, but believe me; they can be so powerful they can touch someone at the end of the line. As Dorothy L puts it, “never underestimate the power of a kind word and a smile”. Indeed, don’t.

So to all the friends who keep visiting me on here, I thank you for your time that even on my absence, you are still dropping by. There are just so many good things and so many good people to be thank for in this world. Cheers!

Thank God I’m swine flu negative

2009-06-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, I thank God that I’m swine flu negative; however, I’m reaping what I sowed. As you noticed, it has been six days that my site seemed to be too quiet, no new entries, no new updates. It was because I fell very sick this week. My body just couldn’t stay quiet anymore after how many months of abuse that it finally spoke before it was too late. I had a very bad cough that refused to listen to some over the counter drugs and it became so painful and stopped me from getting sleep. The cough was much subdued at day time but was coming at night like a nightmare it was completely horrible. Simultaneously, I had my period non-stop for four weeks and I was just losing a lot of blood the reason that I was feeling so weak. They all came like full blow. I had no choice but to listen and seek some medications.

I was worried when I went to the hospital – worried that I might have been infected with the Influenza virus called the swine flu. I received a false alarm that the student that I am tutoring who was ill last week was diagnosed with a swine flu. The boy was indeed having a fever and some coughing the last time I had a one-hour class with him but I did not mind it because I myself was having some cough. When I got to the hospital, the doctor sent me for a swine flu test. Some samples of saliva from the throat were taken using a long tube-like thing. I was asked to open my mouth and say “Aaarrrrrghhhhh…” to enable the nurse to scoop some saliva from inside the throat. Because the nurse was taking quite a lot of saliva, I ended up coughing and it was a little bit painful. I felt too relieve after about forty minutes of waiting, the result turned out negative.

My doctor then sent me to have a chest X-ray to see what was causing my bad coughing. I had to have an X-ray because two days earlier, I already had a doctor from the same hospital checked me and gave me medications that were not working. When I felt that the medicines were not helping and I was getting worse, I decided to book to another doctor, this time, an American. The doctor then found out through the x-ray that the veins from my heart connecting to my lungs were inflamed. He said it was “acute bronchitis”. He told me that it was a good idea that I came back immediately because shortly, the bronchitis would turn to pneumonia.

The good news was, as my doctor put it, acute bronchitis is curable. By that, I was glad. After giving me some prescriptions, he then sent me to see a gynecologist to check what was causing my prolonged menstrual period. The gynecologist sent me back to the x-ray room but this time, to have an ultra sound. The ultra sound would enable him to identify if there was anything not normal inside my uterus and ovary. I was extremely anxious to know what was wrong inside me; however, the gynecologist was unable to see the results on that day because he was scheduled to do a surgery. He asked me to instead leave my phone number so he could give me a call when he has the results. Thus, my anxiousness was extended.

Two days later, groggy with all the medicines given to arrest the bronchitis, I received a call from my gynecologist informing me that everything is normal inside, there is nothing to worry. The bleeding was caused by some hormonal change that was possibly contributed by too much stress and lack of sleep. He had some prescriptions for me to stop the bleeding and get my period back to normal.

The sad part of the story? I had to be absent from work for few days in such a very wrong timing now that we are having our final examinations. Also, a couple of doctor visits, a number of testing, x-ray, ultrasound and medicines just has gotten my whole month of tutorial income even. I lost weight and I lost my appetite.

Now, that is something worth a lesson. The phrase “Health is wealth” has been so overheard for long but came ringing back to my ears when I was confronted with illness. Too much work and lack of sleep resulting to sickness was actually not part of my “working on getting out from the rat race”.

The book that made me rich

2009-06-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

I was brought up by parents who taught me how to live an honest and productive life. They taught me the value of hard work, the necessity of integrity, and the importance of setting God as the center of my life. They taught me to be ambitious; to set high goals and work hard to reach them and not to give in to obstacles despite how heart breaking they could be. My parents taught me how to combine goodness and intelligence to succeed in life; and they did not prove wrong. As early as nineteen years old I earned my Bachelors degree with flying colors. Two months after graduation I got my first job with a competitive salary which made me totally independent for two years before I went abroad. All those were because of what my parents taught me. But there was one thing my parents failed to teach me, something very important, and that’s how to save my money.

I used to live in a check to check basis. I lived with my salary for a month and was always looking forward to the next end of the month. I shopped here and there and was carefree with my expenses because I was thinking, I worked hard for it and I was simply giving what was due to me; until one day, when I stumbled upon the book which completely changed my perspective towards money and taught me how to be rich, the Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki.

Some of the topics discussed in the book include: 1) the value of financial intelligence, 2) the corporations spend first, then pay taxes, while individuals must pay taxes first, 3) that corporations are special entities that anyone can use, but the poor don’t know how.

Kiyosaki used both the terms “rich” and “poor” to refer to a mind set. He discusses the difference of perspective between the rich and the poor people. His book tells about his own father [a well-educated with a very competitive job but poor] and his friend’s multi-millionaire dad [a non-educated but wise in terms of money managing]. These two men provided Kiyosaki a comparison that enabled him to figure out how to break free from a rat race [refers to an imaginary cage that a simple employee with a poor mind set is trapped].

Kiyosaki mostly used the real estate business to provide examples on the points that he was making even providing some advices that I would say, are not all for everyone to understand without fully understanding how corporations, taxes and real estate business works, but he provided key points that are worth taking and applying to real life for simple people like me.

1.The difference of how the poor and the rich think.

For example, at the end of the month I will receive a 30,000baht salary from my full-time job. Having a poor mind set, I would go to the mall to check for the latest gadget that would fancy me thinking “I worked hard my *** for this money for a whole month so I must get a gift for myself.” However, someone with a rich mind set would think “I worked hard my *** for this money for a whole month so I should not spend this. I must invest and make profit out of this.” The poor spends his 30,000baht money but the rich will only spend the profit of his 30,000baht.

Another good example for this is the housing. A poor mind set would use all his income to buy a house even resolving to credits but a rich mind would content himself with a small and not fancy house and instead, use his money to put up a grocery store or any income generating investment.

2.The poor works for money but the rich makes money work for him.

The book has a little more analogy for this but I would simplify it based on how it applies to me. This concept must refer to how the poor is so afraid to lose his job because he lives in a check to check basis while a rich man is confident that he has some source of income other than his full-time job. In other words, the rich man is not in a rat race and has money working for him.

There are still many things discussed in the book but these two things are the most significant learning that made a powerful impact on me. It changed me from a financial carefree into a thrifty and investment adept person. I would say that I am working to break free from the rat race.

Would you want to live at old age?

2009-06-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

How to spend my old age did sometimes come into my mind. I thought of writing books. Perhaps I would write something about Mathematics since it is my field of expertise; but most probably, I would write more about fiction. I am blessed with abundant imagination and if there is such a thing as mind recorder, I must have had an abundant number of books published by now. Thus, when time comes that I would no longer have to go to work; it would be perfect for writing. But I was wrong. What I thought as old age was actually not “old age” but “retirement age”. I realized this yesterday when our school visited the country’s first ‘home for the aged’ founded as early as 1953, the Social Welfare Development Center for Older Persons. Visiting such a place exposed me to the reality of old age. The beauty and harshness of life were both painted on those extremely wrinkled and some hollowed faces that I saw, mingled and smiled with for half a day. Each had story to tell.

But what really hit me, was the thought of how futile everything would be when old age comes. When you are no longer able to walk, when you are not capable of eating by yourself, or when you have to wear some huge diapers for you to pee and poo-poo. When you harvest the cruelty of Alzheimer’s disease, or when you seem to be mentally ill because you woefully keep replaying that most terrible pain from the past, or when you just have to lay on the bed for the rest of the day looking at the ceiling, or when you just have to sit in a tiny cubicle-like room [if not cage-like] wishing that you have somebody to talk to other than the same old people like you, would you still want to live such an age?

I realized that whatever possessions you would gain, whatever honor or status you would earn through hard work, when old age comes, nothing will matter. How much more when you die? So why not just live and enjoy life?

Lonely woman in the cell photo was captured by Michael Braun.

Where to go when you ran out of topics to blog?

2009-06-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

Writers are always expected to produce unique and original contents. However, in the world of blogging where you are expected to publish multiple contents on a daily basis, there are times that you ran out of ideas. Do you rock your head too hard to force it to come up with a useful material? What if your mind is too tired? Well, you don’t have to worry because there are so many sources on the net where you can pick up materials worthy of discussion without plagiarizing. Yahoo question and answer is one of them. There are so many questions raised in there that could be quality materials. Choose questions that interest you and try to answer them. Also, read what other yahoo users are saying about that particular question that you picked, compare their opinions to what you think and from there, you can form your article. There are still many other websites with question and answer forums that you can visit. The best thing about picking up topics from such forums is that you are always sure that the material is of beneficial to a set of people, thus, beneficial to the real world.

Why do some bloggers ask for link exchange but after you added them they don’t add you back?

2009-06-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

I found it disappointing that a number of blogs on my blogroll that were added for quite a time already failed to add me on their list. Why do they ask for link exchange if they are not capable of linking back? I really feel disgusted. Now, I am checking carefully one by one if any of the blog listed on my blogroll is worth taking the space on my page. I am reminding them to add me back but some are just quiet. Perhaps they are busy but for whatever reason, if they could not add me back, then I believe they have to be deleted from my list. Why, they just crowd my blogroll for nothing.

So for any visitors who wish to exchange link with me, please be responsible to add me back. I always make sure that I link properly to both my blogs those who ask me to and I hope that they must do the same.

Alexis and Pooh

2009-06-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what is enigmatic with Pooh that it is so well loved by babies [and even by some adults]. Maybe it’s the big tummy that make it so cuddly, or its big pout that makes it so kissable, or its color – a very striking yellow that highlights anything black in its body, or simply its being Pooh itself.

Alexis Jade turned one year old last month, 26th May. She loves Pooh a lot. When she is crying, Pooh can smooth her and make her smile. She will kiss pooh on the mouth, hug it tightly, rock it in her small arms and burry her face on its tummy [funny thing is, Pooh is as big as her]. If I would carry her and she is in bad mood, she knows how to refuse with sharpness that is so funny to see from a baby. Then, I would take Pooh instead and hug and dance with it around. That would make Alexis jealous. Not that she would want to be carried but that she would want her Pooh back. If here mom takes her to the store and she would see even just a tiny Pooh hanging somewhere, she would point it out excitedly saying “Pooh, pooh…!”

When here birthday came, her mom made an invitation card for her party and the card was made up of her photos with Pooh in her arms. It was very pretty. And she even got a Pooh birthday cake. That said enough how Pooh can make a baby’s life.

Do teachers only go into teaching because they’re a big kid inside?

2009-06-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting question that I came across tonight. Is it because teachers do not want to leave school and hang out with older people out in the real world that they go into teaching? Is it because they can woo younger people while at the same time get paid? Is it because that teachers do not have lives and they would rather kill their time doing all the mountains of school work even bringing them at home while their pay check reflects a not so impressive salary? Is it because these teachers are just lame they could not apply the theories they learned so they would rather teach? Or is it that teachers are simply retards they got their jobs so they can boss kids around?

An answer to these questions could be that teachers chose their profession because they are attracted to it. They have a love of learning and an even greater love of sharing it with others. It is a very unselfish profession.

Teaching in general is a poorly paid and mostly a thankless profession. Teachers are not appreciated for their commitment and for their effort to do their best to give what they have and to teach what they learnt to their students.

If everyone decides to hang out with the older people in the real world, could you imagine how the real world would be like?

What makes students hold on to extra-curricular activities or organizations?

2009-06-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Students who are members of any organization or who actively participate in extra-curricular activities are mainly driven by their interests. Nobody wants to be in a group that is not in line with his interests. Being involved in an organization that caters one’s needs and skills makes a person productive and well satisfied. Some students hold on to some associations because they look forward for the experiences that they would gain such as exposure, appreciation, or even monetary profit from the group's earnings. Extra curricular activities or associations can also be a means to earn social status and symbol. While some students join a group simply to find a sense of belonging.

Why you shouldn’t date someone with a girlfriend?

2009-06-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

In a strict ethics wise, there is no need to discuss why you should not date someone with a girlfriend [or boyfriend; it works both ways]. Definitely, it is not acceptable. However, even to those very people who seem to be on top of everything, situations may come that would test their ability to choose what is right and what is wrong. Such situations could be a way to understand how it feels to be on the other side of the line.

There are reasons why you should not date someone with a girlfriend.

1. You would have to stay in the shadow.

No matter what the situation may be; whether the guy’s relationship with his partner is extremely weak and is close to breaking, or even if he is already breaking up with his partner but the partner is not accepting, still, he could not expose you to everyone. He is still in the circle where people hope and pray that they would patch up.

2. He says something but he means something else.

Even if the guy says that he wants to break free from the relationship and just want to be with you, but that the girl is using emotional black mail such as jumping over the building to commit suicide to trap him in the relationship, what he really wants to say is that he cannot break free. For whatever reasons, the fact that the girlfriend still has a hold on him means that he is not sure if he really wants to be with you.

3. He meets up with you only during spare time.

If he dates or meets up with you only if his schedule allows him to, that means, that his so called “trapped relationship” is still his priority.

4. You would have to live with the comparison.

He tells you that he is falling in love with you because you have the qualities that he longs to find in a partner that his current partner does not possess. It could be the intellectual satisfaction or commonness and similarity of interests that drew him to you, however, there are also qualities that his partner possesses that you don’t. At the end, the comparison goes vice-versa.

5. You would have to live with the guilt.

Even if you win him at the end, the guilt will always come back to you. You will always be haunted by the thought that you built your happiness on someone else’s misery.

6. There would always be mistrust.

Even if the guy ultimately chooses you over his partner, you will have difficulty trusting him. There will always be issues of mistrust in your relationship. You will always be threatened by the thoughts of ‘what if he does it back to you’?

7. There would always be people who would label you as the “stealer”.

This scenario is inevitable and should be expected. It would require toughness on you to face the world and not get affected. You would have to think of the people who stood their ground, survived and are happy such as Angelina Jolie.

How to get ahead at work

2009-06-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

You surf the net and u would see tons of articles written on how to excel at work, how to recession proof your job or how to attain a six figure salary. I have read almost all of these type of articles actually and I picked up some tips here and there that apply for me. Honestly, they did work. However, as I walk through my career for eight years now, there are some techniques that I discovered on my own which may not be new to others, but I learned and harnessed the hard way and proved effective. I believe they're worth sharing.

So how do you get ahead at work?

1. Make a way for a promising career starting from college/university.

Four or five years in the university are the best years to prepare and define a competitive and promising career. Good grades in your transcript of record are more than enough to tell how hard you work, your level of commitment and your IQ. The number and type of extra-curricular activities that you joined in the university also tells how good you are at multi-tasking and how well your sense of responsibility and initiative is. Exposure through quality extra-curricula’s will allow you to gain connections that you might need in the future when you look for a job. It will also improve your skills in public relation as well as other valuable skills such as persistence, perseverance and problem-solving, etc.

2. Keep learning.

You might be thinking that I am literally referring to Post-graduate studies? Yes I am. You know that it's a very key advantage. Of today's stiff competition at work, advance studies are strong weapons. But if situations don't allow you to earn a Masteral Degree, PhD, or even a diploma; still, keep learning. There are so many self-taught experts out there that get ahead at work because they've learned a lot of skills which others do not. Discover and learn more skills. Strengthen your key strengths and keep learning.

3. Be friendly.

A good public relation is very crucial in getting ahead at work. Be friendly to everyone and to anyone even to the lower profiles. You would not know who can give you a lift or who can destroy you later at work. Always carry a smile and try to be polite and fair to everybody. [It ain't easy, but just try.]

4. Know whom you can trust.

Not all friends at work can be trusted. Some institutions use a “divide and rule” policy to get a complete control of their employees. Some employees use a “crab mentality” to get ahead and trusting friends are the easiest preys. If you have any negative feedback against your superior or employers or to anybody, think first for how many times if you could trust the person next to you or if the issue is even worth discussing with him/her. Do not be a victim.

5. Plant some investments.

Sometimes, you have to work hard for a year or two for a useful project or activity that would benefit your institution but you are not compensated. It can be frustrating, yes, but just think that it will pay off later. When your project bears fruit, it will make you indispensable and expensive. Then, you can demand a good price.

6. Know your boss and play his game.

I’m sure you have heard of the saying “know your enemy and you can win the battle”? It also works at work. You have to know your boss and learn his game. For instance, if you have a gullible not so smart boss [don’t laugh because there certainly are some], then learn how to be angel to gullible. If you have a boss who exhausts you a lot and squeeze all your talents, don’t show all your talents at once. Show and top one talent at a time. Why? Because it might be that when all of your aces are laid today, you will be a hero just for today and is dispensed by tomorrow. But you see, it's all case to case bases. The bottom line is that you have to know how to play well in each particular environment.

7. See if it is worth getting ahead at your present work.

Sometimes, no matter what you do and how hard you try, some institutions are just not worthy of you. If you tried hard in at most two years and there are still no signs that you would get ahead, then perhaps you should start evaluating if it is better to try somewhere else. Do not be afraid to change your job.

8. Pray hard.

I’m sure you heard this proverb since you were very young? “Do your best and God will do the rest.” That’s right. Of all your hard work, don't forget to couple it with prayers. God is a very fair God.

Cool layout for my short story “Informer”

2009-05-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

I received an email last Thursday evening from Michael, a co-teacher, asking if he could include any of my work to the school’s yearbook. Mike is an English teacher, a self-taught Computer expert, a photographer and a good friend. I said I don’t mind publishing my work in the year book; however, I’m not certain which is appropriate to publish. Most my poems are too matured for high schoolers. Came Friday and he emailed me back informing me which work he chose and attached the layout for the work. I really like how it looks and I felt proud for the short story after I saw how it was enhanced through an awesome layout.

My shared Award

2009-05-22T00:51:00.000-07:00

This award was shared to me by Ifran Melodic

I would like to share this award to my favorite blogsites listed below:

Women's Selfesteem.com

My Written Expressions

My Poem

Homeopathy

The best baby burp…

2009-05-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe it’s just my background or my homeland environment that makes me see things differently, but I just found it odd in this little planet where I am now – the best way to burp a baby.
In my country, mothers take the baby by their arms; carry it in a standing-like position making its head rest upon the shoulder every after feeding. This will make the baby burp naturally while it enjoys a protective caring hug. It is effortless. But just recently, my good friend Eunice delivered her third bay, Jaasiel Knowle, a very handsome boy who unfortunately, faced his first big plight in this world within his first few days – burping.
The proud parents noticed something extraordinary in their third bundle of joy. He has keen eyes with an expressive face, he is very sensitive and observant of his surroundings, and above all, he has trouble with and seems to dislike what his nurses claim to be “the best way to burp a baby’. Take a look and guess what baby Jaasiel thinks.

Lightning at noon time is claiming life …

2009-05-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

I was entering the Physics laboratory yesterday on the fourth period for my IGCSE Mathematics class with the year 10 when I noticed some commotions among my students. They looked like something very disturbing has occurred. I asked them what was the problem and when they told me, I was totally disturbed by the news.

A good friend of my students was struck by an unexpected lightning on Wednesday at 3 o’clock in the afternoon while playing football in the field just within his school’s compound. The boy is fifteen years old, one of the tallest in the team and the best soccer player in their school. Just like every normal day, he picked his sports gear after school and headed to the soccer field along with his pals. There was no rain, no sign of any coming storm and the weather was perfectly fine.
The game was very stiff. A mate gave a good pass and the boy jumped high to do a head bat; simultaneously, the goalie of the opponent team jumped as high extending his arm to block the ball. Just then, the treacherous lightning struck furiously hitting both of them at once. The boy’s ear drums burst out; his eye balls came out while his head exploded splashing brain and blood in the field. The goalie was struck in the hand down to his arm. The lightning, seemed content by its damage, left as quick as it came leaving the grasses burned black.

The goalie was unable to move for two days but is now recovering. The boy however is still fighting for life. Report says he was already dead but his heart fought back bringing him back to life. He is supported by machines. There is one deep hole under his right ear and a big hole at the crown of his head. He has as small as two percentage of surviving.

The boy is an Indian Sikh and he wears a turban-like cloth on his head. Since hair are all pulled up and stocked under the turban, the boy uses a “salai”, a metal stick usually about fifteen centimeters long to fix any falling lock of hair. It is inserted inside the hair if not in use. When the lightning struck, the metal caught the current which caused the explosion of his head.

I felt bad after I heard the news. I don’t know anything about the boy but the information was enough for me to imagine the pain that this kid and his parents are suffering right now. Anger and sorrow are inevitable in this situation. But who to blame? Even nature can be hostile at times and that’s a fact in this world of life.

Update: 02/06/09

Eventually, the kid died on the fifth day. It must be very sad to the family and to all friends but almost everyone agreed that it was the best for him. If he did make it, he would be totally paralyzed, no memory, no vision, no hearing and no nothing. That would even be worst than dying.

Excerpt from my novel "Encounter with the Devil": Chapter 2

2009-05-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Corridor

It was a cold breezy night around seven o’clock in the evening. Dressed in her favorite gray sweat shirt that she bought from a charity sale a couple of months ago, paired with a dirty-white cargo pants, with books in her arm pressed about her chests, Jane Loreto went out her room; the room that she occupied for more than a week now. Just like other faculty members, she decided to stay in the staff house. Her reason mainly was that, she needed to save her money for food and allowance for an entire month away from salary, and that it provides her an opportunity to make friends with co-workers and students not to mention an easy access to school facilities. The staff house was a nipa hut with tiny rooms, a small kitchen, and a limited-spaced-living room. “A concrete house is still under construction”, the school director explained as if reading her thoughts, or perhaps, it was the unguarded look on her face when she first saw it. The staff house stood South-West of the great building adjacent to the rear fence of the campus. If observed from the gate, the great building appeared to be planted at the very center of the campus; although by reality, it was much closer to the back fence than to the center, while the humble house was hidden behind the concrete building under construction. The life-style was completely modest. Jane’s room was positioned facing the mountains. The sights available for her were thick bamboos, tall trees, wild grasses, and a long and narrow river with a wonderful spring that formed a deep well which provides an abundant supply of water for laundry. The sun rays could hardly enter her room. An early morning would depict a late evening surrounding. She was very near to nature but she hardly appreciated; yet she dared not complain. She went to the guard post to borrow the key for the computer room. She needed to complete eight syllabi, four advanced mathematics and four basics, before the deadline, which will be in two days. Overloaded, everyone would say, but when she tried to bring up her concern with the director, she was told that her extra loads would be listed under the type of services that are converted to cash when accumulated in a matter of five years or so. That, needless to say, if she would be around in five years.

There were two student guards on duty that night. They hesitated when Jane asked for the key.
“Please don’t stay late in that building Ma’am”, Raden, the seventeen-year old working student advised her. She easily identified him as one from the education department, in his third year majoring Mathematics, since there were only five of them. She was always impressed by the perseverance and determination of working students.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She cheerfully assured him.
“Or you better get company Ma’am.” Bernie, also a third year from Business Administration department, suggested. “It isn’t safe staying in that building alone”.
“Okay. I’ll try.” She said to dismiss their worries. “Thank you.” She smiled and turned away.

The night was quiet but the busy sound of the keyboard. Several mathematics books lay open on the table beside the computer Jane was using. The cold breeze blew her short thick hair through the open windows but she hardly noticed. She was concentrating on the syllabus she was making. She was determined to finish three syllabi that night. Suddenly, she heard approaching footsteps from the corridor. She was glad somebody was coming to accompany her. She suspected it was Mervin, an English teacher who was also staying in the staff house. He had mentioned earlier that day that he also wanted to work late for his syllabus. But then the footsteps vanished but no one appeared at the door. Curious, she rose to check outside. Not anyone was in the long corridor. She went back to work.

Her mind was busy choosing appropriate words for her specific objectives which would be measurable, deciding the proper arrangement of the objectives to coincide with the progress of her lessons, mentally calculating the number of hours to allot for each lesson that would sum up to the total number of hours required for the course, and listing the classroom activities necessary for every skill taught and learned. Her fingers were actively kicking in every direction on the keyboard when an odd feeling interrupted her. Her heart pumped hard, real hard, like it was scared of something. Her feet felt strange as if she was riding in a ferris wheel. The hair on her arms and neck stood. Her hands were wet and cold. She was scared of something she didn’t understand. She checked the time, twelve o’clock midnight. She stopped from what she was doing and prayed. She asked God to guide her and be with her in that suddenly, strange place. The odd feeling lessened after the prayer but the room continued to be indifferent. She started singing songs of praise as she carried on in her work, until her mind was completely engrossed back in the syllabus.

About an hour later, a tick-tick-tick sound from the door was getting louder. The noise was destructive that she went out to see what was going on. She didn’t see anything. She then noticed that the sky started pouring raindrops and decided that it was the cause of the noise - the impact of the rain water as it hit the pavement.

The rain grew heavy. The cold soothing breeze turned into an angry wind attacking all the trees in the campus trying to knock them down. The heaven was totally dark and was scolding the earth through its furious lightning and bizarre thunder. She went back to the room and resolved herself to stay for another hour or two until the storm subside.

Barely twenty minutes after she returned to work, the monitor of the computer flashed in a snap and all the lights turned off. Everything around her stopped in an instant saved that shadowy light from the monitor that would last for five minutes. “Oh my God!” She muttered. “An electrical blackout! “ She swiftly gathered her things suspecting that any unseen creatures occupying the room would ruin them if left behind. Securing her stuff by the right arm, her left hand reached for the computer’s switch under the table to secure safety whenever the electricity would come back. Blindly searching for the switch button of the AVR, her fingers stumbled on something electrifying. She debated in herself if she should waste time switching the computer off or instead use the remaining light to locate the door. She chose the first. She made a quick prayer to God requesting to guide her fingers to the switch button and whew! She hit it.

Now the room was in total darkness. She struggled to find the door and when at last her hand found the door knob; she shut the door behind, locked.

The wrestling sound of trees against the wind was deafening. She leaned against the closed door for support when a blast came leaving her with trembling knees. She couldn’t find her way. She felt weak against the storm. Fear started growing inside her. Her mind screamed to God for help. Just then lightning struck successively giving her ample time to run. But the lightning simply waited for her to get to the end of the corridor. Left with no choice, she sat on the cold floor, waiting for the rain to subside. She heard the rushing of water from the drainage. The roods were flooding.

Chapter 1 The Town

Chapter 3 The Rain

Outgrowing barbie dolls...

2009-05-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

They said that girls outgrow Barbie too early nowadays. Some reasons given were because Barbie dolls today are too pink, or because Barbie roles now are so predefined such as a ballerina or a singer thus leave no room for imagination.

I came across an article that discusses “Why do girls outgrow Barbie too early today” and it points out one biggest reason is culture. Culture nowadays forces young girls to grow quick shortening their being children. I’m kind of agreeing to that.

But I’m not going to talk about young girls outgrowing Barbie dolls too early; rather, I’ll talk about the other way around – grown up girls’ not outgrowing Barbie dolls.

I met several ladies, in their twenties or as young as fifties who still love to collect dolls and that include Barbie dolls. I myself am an avid doll collector. I have a collection of several types of dolls but my most precious collection is Barbie dolls. I don’t play with them, lol, but I collect and display them beautifully in my room. I just love to look at them.

Now, the question for me is why am I not – including some other girls out there – not outgrowing Barbie dolls as well as other dolls? I looked back into my younger years and tried to use some psychology to figure out why is this so. The only thing that I can point out as reason is, when I was young, my mom gave me some few cheap dolls to play with but forbade me to play with the expensive and more beautiful dolls. The expensive pretty dolls were only for displays and for my eyes to see. This type of practice actually has an effect on the child’s mind that will be inhibited on the latter years of life. For me, that’s not outgrowing dolls.

For the question of “why Barbie dolls then?” I guess the only answer is, because Barbie is a pretty ladylike doll. That’s all.

Oprah can make or break a career…

2009-05-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

Oprah can make or break a career? Now, that’s a wower. Why not? A great icon in the American media industry and the richest African-American, Oprah is considered the most influential woman in the world.

Did you notice? That anyone invited to guest in the “Oprah Winfrey Show” gets instant fame? [especially if they’re not yet celebrity!]Oprah’s search for the most talented kids in the planet for example was really admiring because she did not only invite them to guest in her show and display their talents, but she also lobbied for them to meet people who can actually help them land a career. One of the world’s most talented kids and the world’s singing sensation, Filipina named Charice Pempengco, now has a clear direction in becoming the next Whitney Houston. Charice is now handled by David Foster, Whitney’s ex music producer. She has sang with Celine Dion, she has met and worked with several world renown singers, she has delivered a song for Obama’s inauguration party, and just very recently, she was invited to sing a number of songs in Sanremo Italy during the country’s biggest singing competition. These all were because of Oprah’s lobbying for Charice.

Oprah has also featured and interviewed several other people from different fields and one particular person that grabbed my attention is author James Frey. Acccording to a yahoo article, Winfrey had been one of Frey’s most vocal boosters, naming his 2003 drugs-and-alcohol memoir “A million Little Pieces” one of her “book club” choices in 2005 making it a bestseller. “However, after it was revealed that Frey had invented some details in the supposedly non-fiction memoir and written that he once spent three months behind bars when in reality it was a few hours, Winfrey lambasted him as a guest in her show.” 1 During that instant debate in the show, Frey did admit the fabrications that he made. This lead to the readers doubt on Frey and eventually, his literary manager, Kassie Evashevski, dropped him over matters of mistrust. 2

I have my personal views regarding the slamming of the author and his publisher live on tv after they were invited for an interview by making them believe that the topic to be discussed would be about something else[or Frey and the publisher wouldn’t have come, who would?]. I found it quite harsh; however, by looking upon Oprah’s side, she felt betrayed and cheated thus prompted her to lambaste the author in her show.

There’s a good news though, Oprah, despite her being a big icon, knows how to apologize. She publicly apologized to Frey for that live confrontation. Frey accepted the apology and both were reconciled.

I just thought, it’s great for Oprah to be able to make or break a career. What are your thoughts about this?

Making enemies is easy, making friends is hard…

2009-05-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Helping a teenage girl with a social interrelationship problem is a challenge. It is much more complicated than it appears on the surface. It requires gentleness, patience, love and knowledge of psychology.

I am a homeroom teacher of year 7 section A in our school. There are only seventeen students in the class and it is easy to manage. The only problem that occurs repeatedly in my class is the fight between two students, a boy and a girl, with a history back from their early primary years. Additional to that problem is the bullying thrown back and forth between this girl and the rest of her classmates [although I was able to address this problem, it is not fully eliminated].

The girl, I will name her Tricia, was very ill when she was a baby and was dying. The only way that the doctors found to save her life was to use steroids in her body. Eventually, the girl lived and grew normally except that she became obese. She lives in a country where petite figure is the norm and is beautiful. Expectedly, she is being bullied because of her size despite her pretty face. Because of excessive bullying that she endures ever since she was young, she developed a defense mechanism in herself. Before she gets bullied, she bullies other kids first. This bullying will then result to violent fights and at the end of the fight, at least one of the involved is bleeding. This pattern occurs repeatedly in spite of the school counselor’s assistance.

Tricia had made a permanent enemy out of her classmate named Jake [not a real name]. I observed that Jake appears to be nice and he portrays himself as blameless whenever there were fights but he is a good instigator of others in hating Tricia. The fight between them started as early as year 3 and the fight was even extended to their parents. Now they are in year 7 and the hatred between them is already cemented. On the first month of the school year, I wondered if I would be able to help them. As the school year progressed, there were times that I just felt like giving up and just stopping to care but a sense of motherhood in me refuses to give up. It does not help that the rest of the class had already established their prejudice towards her even before they came to my class. Nobody would want to sit beside her. Nobody would want to be in a group with her because they said she does not participate and that she becomes a problem in the group. Tricia herself does not want to belong in a group for any group activity; she just stays in her seat and resolves herself by doing anything that entertains her such as drawing or coloring. She also tends to do things that would get her attention such as ruining the classroom’s décor or someone else’s projects. When she gets scolded, she felts satisfied. Her classmates are always watching what next move she will do and so that they will immediately tell to the teacher. Everyone has nothing in their mouth but “Tricia did this, Tricia did that…”

I realized that Tricia will never be able to move out from this isolation unless her environment is changed. So what I did was, I made her sit beside the very people who hated most to sit beside her. Also, I made it a rule that who ever say the words “Tricia did this, or Tricia did that” will have to repeat the name “Tricia” one hundred times in front of the class. If Tricia is not around, I talk to the class and explain to them how they contribute to Tricia’s behavior and how they are liable to her actions.

I found this approach actually working. I saw Tricia slowly building connections with her girl classmates and the girls were more welcoming to her. Because I observed that Tricia wants to be needed by others, I always make her run errands for me. This makes her happy. It helps boast her self esteem.

One day however, just very recently, I was absent because I had to process some papers, there was a fight between Tricia and Jake once again. There were exchanges of abusive words and physical attacks [which is normal for their fights, actually]. The principal broke this news to me early morning on the next when I came to school in front of my students. I felt very upset. For the first time, these two teenagers received a lengthy sermon from me. I made them realize the consequences of their actions. Jake is a topper in class. He has outstanding grades because he works hard for it. Tricia is also a bright girl and heard good feedbacks from her teachers saying that there are times that even the brightest students in class could not answer some difficult questions but Tricia will be the only one to give the right answers. But I said, these good feedbacks, these all achievements which they got through hard work will simply be overshadowed by the negative feedbacks about their fights and violence they inflict on each other. I also explained to them how they both are slaves of their hatred. They are being controlled by their anger and they can never be fully happy no matter what they do. Unless they learn to forgive and be friends, they will continue to be prisoners of hatred. I made those words sink in to them.

While everyone was in their group doing some class activity, I called Jake to come over my table at the back of the class room. I took a paper and a pencil and talked with Jake through writing.

Me: Did you understand what I meant?
Jake: Yes.
Me; Do you agree?
Jake: Yes.
Me: Which part?
Jake: That we have to forgive and be friends or else we will never be fully happy throughout our lives.
Me: Do you think that’s possible?
Jake: Yes. But teacher, even if I don’t respond to her when she bullies me, she still hit me first. Or even if it’s someone else who bullies her, it’s me that she hits.
Me: Therefore, if you see or hear others bully her, you have to stop them and not encourage them to do it. That’s the best step you can do in making friends with her. Can you do that?
Jake: Yes teacher.

Then I called Tricia and did the same thing with her, talked with her through writing. I used this approach because that she does not respond through verbal conversation. I found it effective.

Me: Did you understand what I meant?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Do you agree?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Which part?
Tricia: About our marks.
Me: What else?
Tricia: Nothing else.
Me: What about the forgiveness part? What do you think with it?
Tricia: That we have to forgive each other and be friends.
Me: Do you think you can do it? Do you think it’s easy?
Tricia: No.
Me: Why?
Tricia: Because it’s hard to make friends. It’s easy to make enemies.
Me: But the result of making enemies is even harder for you. Yes or No?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Do you want people to hate or love you?
Tricia: Love.
Me: Do you think people are willing to love you?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Are you willing to love them back?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Do you know that I like you a lot?
Tricia: Yes.
Me; Do you know that it makes me happy to hear good thing about you and it hurts me to hear bad things about you?
Tricia: Yes.
Me: Do you want to hurt that’s why you are giving me bad news about you?
Tricia: No.
Me: So can you promise me to give me only good news and be good girl as you are?
Tricia: Yes.

So it’s settled. Both teenagers promised to try their best to be friends with each other. But it hit me, that Tricia found it easy to make enemies and hard to make friends. I found it almost hard to address this issue. How to help the girl deal with this personality issue remains a puzzle to me.

If you are the teacher, how would you help the girl recover from her interpersonal problem?

Yesterday was a big day, 'twas my birthday

2009-05-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it was my birthday. Wow, you guys don’t have any idea how happy I was yesterday. I thought it would be a very quiet day. Birthdays stopped to matter a lot to me since I moved out from home and stood on my own at the age of twenty. Oftentimes I celebrated my birthdays quietly and alone. Sometimes, I even tend to forget, lol. But yesterday, I went to school thinking that nobody would know that it was my day. Big mistake… A lot of students were actually waiting for me to greet me “a happy birthday”. How did they know? Hmmm, thanks to all the social networks and they knew my birthday through face book. My own class, year 7a, were all smiling and greeting me well for my birthday. Even my students from Key stage 4, year 10, which students I teach IGCSE Mathematics were all excited to greet a happy birthday. It really feel so good to be remembered on my day especially if I don’t expect people to remember it.

Early yesterday morning, I and Joy [a co-teacher and a close friend] were walking together to school. She said she noticed something on me which she opted not to mention, she says I looked fresh and well dressed [well, just a little more than the everyday look, lol]. She didn’t know it was my birthday and I intended not to remind it to anyone even to close friends [simply because I didn’t want to buy a cake, lol]. Later at school, I passed on the corridors of Key Stage 2 where Joy teaches grade 6. She pulled me inside her room because she got some tiny gossips to tell. When I got into the room, the year 6 students stopped on whatever they were doing and sang a happy birthday for me. I was very surprised because I don’t teach elementary and I don’t know much of the students. But Joy was more than surprised. With wide eyes she inquired the class what was the song for. The class chorused “it’s teacher Glee’s birthday.” Joy hugged me and was giggling despite her embarrassment. That was really touching. Later in the afternoon, I went to year 7b for the last period and when I entered the classroom, the students were already standing singing the happy birthday song while their homeroom teacher Michael was smiling at the back. Again, I was touched.

I received a couple of gifts from my some of my students and the thoughts were simply overwhelming.

One boy from year 4 was in the language room where I was tutoring one student from key stage 3 after school. This boy is the son of my co-teacher who teaches Urdu language. He was hearing all the greetings and best wishes for me during the time that I was tutoring but he was just sitting quietly in the corner. When he’s mom called him because it was time to go home, he came to me and handed me a note [the greetings photo above], said “happy birthday” and ran out the room. It was the sweetest thing I received from the school that day.

After a one hour tutorial at school, hurriedly I head to the next tutorial outside school. I easily got an air-conditioned but and it surprised me that even the traffic was bad; it was not as bad as the other day. I got to my tutee’s house smoothly. The mom heard from her daughter that it was birthday; she prepared some meal for me as treat. After one hour, I then went to the third and the last tutorial. I had to take a bus and a ferry to get to the next tutee’s house. And again, the travel was smooth and I reached the house on time.

On my way home late at eight o’clock at night, sitted in the bus, I was reflecting on how my day went and how life was in the past year. It gave me so many smiles. I got a great life. God is so good to me.

When I reached the apartment, Joy and her baby, baby Alexis, were waiting for me outside and revealed the news that the packages from my boyfriend has come. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I knew that he sent me some love stuff but we were expecting it to come late. It couldn’t be much better. I was very excited, I took the baby from Joy and we swiftly went upstairs to the fifth floor.

I was opening the packages [both packets came together even if they were sent several days apart] while Joy was ordering some pizzas. I was filled with so much joy when I saw what my hubby has got for me. He’s the most thoughtful and loving guy I ever met [not to mention with the most expensive taste for stuff]. He’s mom sent me a card too wishing me well and happiness for life. We live far apart but he never fails to show his love.

I couldn’t ask more for a birthday. It was completely awesome.

Aside from technical skills, blogging teach me one thing ...

2009-05-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

If there’s anything that blogging teaches me aside from technical skills, that’s improving my writing speed. It’s not an issue of encoding speed [got no problem with that I’m quite quick] but I’m referring to processing and organization of ideas and the continuous flow of them from the head down to the arms and to the fingertips straight to the keyboard while sharp eyes scan for errors before transporting them to the cyber world shortly thereafter.

Yes, writing speed and its value. I don’t need much time to figure out that in order for my blog to thrive, stand and blossom is for me to be consistent and reliable in publishing. I must be able to produce at least one article in a day, at least one. But blogging can also be a time waster. If I sit in front of my computer and start working, I lost count of hours because I simply get drawn to the fun it gives to me. But even if it became an additional time consuming task, I don’t get additional hours in a day. I still get only 24 hours day and night combined. So how would I manage to post materials everyday without fail? I figured out, writing speed.

Blogging is different from the way I was used to in writing. I was writing short stories, poems, novel [still undone anyway] and essays in the past and I did them whenever I had the drive. It wasn’t regular for me [even though I knew that writers should always keep a daily journal, a must]. I just pulled out my materials if I had spare time and if I was really into it. But spare time is hard to find. It has to be made.

Yet, there’s one writing tip that I recalled which I believe will really work in blogging. It’s writing anything that comes to mind and just keep writing anything that comes. I found that doing this actually harnessed my speed in writing. Delivering anything in mind actually does work because one way or another, when I see the blank document being filled with fonts, I realize that something is in there actually worth reading. Then I read it the second time and identify the theme, from there, I make some reorganization or quick editing and whew, it’s done.

George Carlin made my day ...

2009-05-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

He died almost a year ago at age 71, but I never heard about American standup comedian George Carlin until today.
A co-teacher [she’s like a mother to me] asked me to spare her some five minutes time out from my busy day because she wanted me to hear an audio recording of George Carlin. The title is “Love and regards”. In this performance, he made some sense out of what we people are so used to do – sending regards, love, kisses, hugs and even blow jobs to our special someone through a friend giving that person a burden of carrying some bundle around.
I really found it funny. This audio made me laugh some good laugh and it completely made my day. I did some quick research about George Carlin and I found his life quite challenging and extra-ordinary. His complete name was George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937-June 22, 2008). He was also an actor and an author, and he won five Grammy awards for his comedy albums.
Anyway, hear for yourself this audio and see what I’m talking about. Hope you’ll find this amusing too.

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they? George Carlin

a tribute to mothers...

2009-05-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

I bet I’m the worst daughter in terms of thoughtfulness. I feel ashamed in myself that I did not remember that today, the world is celebrating the day for mothers. Thanks to my hubby he reminded me when he texted me informing that he’s on his way to the flower shop to get his mom a big bunch of flowers. Oh boy …

So I hurriedly sent my mom an sms greeting her a happy mother’s day. But unlike my boyfriend, I couldn’t go to the flower shop to get my mom some bouquets this late, she lives a pacific away. Hmmm, that’s quite a thousands of miles, I guess.

But thanks to my blog site, I have a way to express my gratitude to my mom and to all the moms of the world. Needless to say, I thank her for carrying me inside her for nine months and giving me the chance to see the world by risking her life when she gave birth to me. And all the tears she shed in giving me life and raising me well and proper, I would never be able to repay.

I had not seen my mom for four years now. So I’m looking forward to seeing her in July. I’m going to see her at last. There’s a story that I will tell her.

All the while I knew that I’m close to my mom. But that I’m closer to my dad given that I’m the oldest of six and the first girl. It’s a general knowledge that eldest girls are typically, daddy’s girls. But a difficult experience revealed something else to me.

When I first came to Bangkok, my appendix erupted that I had to have an emergency surgery. I went to a hospital and had the surgery all alone [the story is in the article “Living abroad with God]. When I woke up, still lying on the operating table, a terrible pain hit me. I was calling for help, weakly whispering, “Mama, mama!” It was her name and not my dad’s that automatically came out my mouth. It stuck in my head ever since.

Why not? Mothers, regardless of any situation and circumstance, endured so much just to bring you and me in this world. No one can remove that fact.

So today, the world is paying hats off to all mothers of the world. hApPy mOtHeRs dAy to all moms.

[I don't have any good photo of my mom. I just got this one from my brother's site in friendster. In this photo, my mom and dad were having a picnic in one of the beautiful water falls in the island of Palawan, Philippines.]

[My hubby and his mom. A perfect picture of a mother and son. .: Photo used with permision from the owner, Nilda Josko]

What my birth month means...

2009-05-09T22:19:00.001-07:00

I was killing time surfing the net one day when I stumbled upon the article that says, “What your birth month means?” I’m not actually a person who believes in horoscope or astrology both by personal point of view and religious principle; but the article struck a good curiosity on me that I click the file and read it. Expectedly, I bothered not to look at other months but simply scrolled down to the very month that I was born, the month of May.

MAY
* Stubborn and hard-headed
* Strong-willed and highly motivated
* Sharp thoughts
* Easily angered
* Attracts others and loves attention
* Deep feelings
* Beautiful physically and mentally
* Firm standpoint
* Easily influenced
* Needs no motivation
* Easily consoled
* Systematic (left brain)
* Loves to dream
* Strong clairvoyance
* Understanding
* Sickness usually in the ear and neck
* Good imagination
* Good debating skills
* Good physical
* Loves literature and the arts
* ! Loves traveling
* Restless
* Hardworking
* High spirited
* Spendthrift
It struck me that all descriptions told about the characteristics of those born in May are true to me. Indeed, they are.

As I walk Through Life I learned ...

2009-05-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

That No matter how good your intentions may be, you don't always get a pat on your back.

That in order to survive a chaotic world, you need to learn to be rude at times.

That no matter how much good friends you gained, the oldest best friend will remain the best.

That even if you're tired and you just wanna be free, you can never turn your back on your family.

That no matter how painful frustrations may be, they should be faced head on or they'll remain your monsters your whole life.

That it's not learning how to avoid getting hurt, but it's learning how to let go.

That no matter how much you love a person, if he is not meant for you, he will never be yours.

That no matter how discouraging things may be, just look back and see how much you've done.

That you shouldn't be looking hard for love, it will come if it is meant to come.

That you should keep singing even if you're down.

That there is nothing to be scared in the future, unless you forget how God had protected you in the past.

That Life is simply all about HAPPINESS.