For the Maker of FLTI :)

Before the year ends, I find it fitting to write an entry, despite the fact that I've not written for so long. My old blog posts remind me of my younger years -- more free-spirited with the theme song que cera cera ringing in my ears.

I've been blessed this year with work, friends, family, and love. Good choices and sacrifices truly lead persons to happiness. But happiness as a state in life is not merely the lack of sorrow. Because life is always filled with happy and sorrowful events. It wouldn't be life without the variation of those.

My family and I have lost a very important person this year. We have lost someone physically, yes, as how it is with death, but ultimately we've rekindled new relationships with one another. And now, within all of us, a new spirit thrives.

I begin 2011 with vigor and anticipation. When prayers are more than answered, I marvel at how great He is. His plan is always greater than all our wishes. And I let His plan unfold as I live immersed in a very happy YES. :)

Next year, before Christmas, I will gain a new name. I've often wondered about this phenomenon during my adolescence. The changes will be inevitable, but ironically, the binding will be liberating. And with all the certainty in the world in the greatest choice I've ever made, I am entering 2011 with a very grateful heart. Happy. Ecstatic. In love and choosing love forever. THIS IS IT. :)

Four Seasons for my silent readers

This post is for all those who visit my blog and feel a bit disappointed to see nothing new. Thank you for letting me know that you drop by and read! :)

Just in case it takes me another year (hopefully not) to write anything, here's a poem written by one of my students last year.

The author is a ten-year-old girl from Australia who transferred to my class mid-year. This is her seatwork in my Language Arts class. Take note that each one of her stanzas stands for a season, which I think is simply brilliant. :) Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!


Nature
By Dani Stephenson

The sun is shining in May
I feel so free because I stay
If I touch the sun I’ll grow
And when I do everything will flow

When the leaves fall down in the rain
They turn red and seem to sway
I watch as they fall to the ground
Then they stop there and make a mound

The snow is falling on my face
As it falls down my finger starts to trace
I see a light on top of me
It is the sun I can see

Everything is starting to grow
But because winter ended there’s still some snow
I see a flower and I glance
Then I start to be in a trance

Home is Where the Heart Is

The feeling of home can be found anywhere and everywhere, in little corners of the world. As long as you're with those you love, wherever you may be, you're home. :)


Welcome home, our darling Kris :)




Happy Birthday, beautiful Katie :)


And sometimes home is the perfect combination of persons and places.

PINO Resto's New Home - 35 Malingap Street, U.P. Village QC



Senju


:)

LIFE

When there's no time to write, it's better to take snapshots. This is what I've been up to for the past how many unblogged months of my life.

Poi silhouettes in Boracay


Adding sweets and spice to Wu Zhao's contemporary artwork at the Singapore Art Museum


Finding BREAD PITT


Pointing back home


My version of a coconut tree inside my classroom


With Ms. Universe, Gloria Diaz, in Ateneo's 150th Homecoming Night


The happiest feet in Bohol


The tower of the Tagbilaran Cathedral


As a guest speaker for the 4th grade girls of my grade school and high school alma mater


Celebrating my good friends' birthdays in a Waldorf preschool in Quezon


A bake sale in school for the Haiti earthquake victims


Spending time with old and new friends


A corner discovered

THE ART OF KEEPING STILL

It is a lost art in this fast-paced world but just like anything lost, it can be found. :)

After working very hard for something we badly want, we also need to learn to just wait. Things cannot always be given now. Some things are meant for later. And if in case things don't go the way we want them, we learn that we can't have everything we want. Sometimes we can't have some things yet. Sometimes we can't have them ever. It takes time to find out which is which. Not knowing the answer is a humbling experience.

We all have our own questions in life and we often search for answers outwardly. For some reason as human beings, we have the tendency to wander off to far and unknown places to gain new experiences with the assumption that answers could be found there. Then, after experiencing everything there is to experience, we declare when enough is enough. In the end, we realize that answers actually come from within us and answers come to us when we keep still.

This, however, must not be misconstrued as ignoring the importance of experience. There's a good point in having to go through experience. New experiences validate and strengthen our core values and beliefs. And they help form new values, new beliefs, giving us -- in a word -- learning. At times, as sad as it may be, it takes a certain form of absence and breaking away to find answers that have always been there. These answers were perhaps once taken for granted, ignored, or blinded by emotions. And it takes time for us to discover all these. And this is why the wise ones do not decide in a rush nor do they decide in the middle of heightened emotions. Rather, they give time time.

Time is constantly on the move, which ironically makes keeping still the key to perfect timing. After everything has been said and done, there comes a point wherein nothing else is left in our finite power. At that point, keeping still is one of the most beautiful and liberating decisions. It is allowing a Greater Hand to let things flow into where they should be.

If in case things do go the way we want them to, then we must have done our part well. More importantly, when this happens, we need to continuously appreciate what we have received.

Right now, I am waiting and I am humbled. It feels like correcting my own mistakes from being too hasty and hoping that all these would be enough. The real art of keeping still is about letting go of worries. It is about believing in the purpose of events in our lives. Yes, everything happens for a reason.

Since I’ve been waiting, I've learned to appreciate every little gesture of kindness. I've learned to appreciate the basic essentials in life. I’ve learned about personal priorities. I've learned about choices and decisions that are made not out of whim but out of discernment. I've witnessed goodness and small acts of miracles. And all these make me hopeful and faithful as I keep still.

Speechless

His movements defied gravity. His music moved people. His lyrics stirred spirits. And at one point or another, he left us at a loss for words.

While it is true that I barely knew the real him, he has been a big part of my growing up years. I only realized this a few days after his death, when his songs awoken memories sleeping inside me. His old records, cassette tapes, and videos had their corresponding tugs at my heart.

We've seen the Icon through the years. The black shoes with white socks, tailored fit pants, that sequined glove, a little shape-shifting nose, and his fading from black to white were all under the spotlight for decades. If we look beyond all these, we would see a human being deeper and greater than the physical strangeness.

We've heard the Humanitarian embedded in melody. His lyrics asked us to move, to change, to begin with ourselves, and to heal. In between those distinct high cries of ooow and shamone, he asked us to stop wars and fend for ourselves. If we listen very well, we would hear him calling us to live with love, passion, and compassion with one another.

We've enjoyed the Entertainer who has always been one beyond his years. When men wrote songs of hurt, he sang them as a child. When music videos came out, his were like short films. When man first walked on the moon, he moonwalked on earth. When nobody flew in concerts, he flew over his audience and went back on stage. He gave us everything we wanted to see and entertained us with all he had.

He shared with us his incredible talent and taught us the most important thing we need to know in this lifetime. To LOVE and to GIVE unconditionally. And now that he's no longer physically with us, his songs and memories are kept eternal. He lives on forever. He will always be the King of Pop, the greatest entertainer.

While watching his memorial last night, I was touched by all the beautiful words and music dedicated to him. I felt like I knew parts of him from the stories of those who were close to him -- his family and friends. But it was when his daughter, Paris, spoke that I found myself in tears. Her quivering voice said it all in "...I love him so much."

Instead of posting his famous videos and photos here, I'd like to share some of his words from a song that isn't as popular as the rest but I find most fitting at this time. A good friend of mine told me this was about God's love, of which I agree. I guess the extraordinary man who made us all speechless with his talents and compassion was also that -- a man.

And the Greatest Love there ever is made him speechless like us.


Speechless by Michael Jackson



THANK YOU, MJJ.
Michael Joseph Jackson (1958-2009)

In between Cups of Coffee and Tea

I've been spending days in a particular coffee shop to finish work that I need to do. Luckily, I am surrounded by people who are working on their own goals, making this whole ordeal easier than it actually is. The baristas already know us by our names and we know them by theirs. It has turned into a sort of home.

In between my work and the failed attempts to keep myself off the internet, I find myself looking around me. I've memorized some of the posters and the artworks that envelope us. More than that, I've built relationships with these new friends who will soon become doctors and lawyers. We do share stories in between studying and working but more often than not, it's a quiet kind of camaraderie as every single one of us wants to hit a particular goal. Even if I sometimes feel all alone here, their mere presence calms me.

Yesterday, I spent time alone in a whole new area where I saw new sets of people. Some had their business meetings while others were spending time with family. But I remember two girls sitting right next to me, sharing stories in hushed voices while sipping their tea. I liked it.

It's good to just sit and talk with someone. I miss that the most. I know I'll go back to that kind of life soon. As of now, this is what I have -- quiet people buried in thick books or typing away on their laptops as screens glow on their serious faces. I'm one of them now.

It's just me, my laptop, my orange highlighter, and copies of my interviews with 45 women. They're all I have right now. And I'm making the most out of what I have.

"When you realize there's nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Lao Tzu