Waking up early in the morning has always been a struggle. But since we need to get away from the heaviest traffic we need to get out earliest as we can.

Today it happened that i went out exactly that i believe i can reach my destination at the exact time, but it happened that i forgot to print something and bring it to school.

So i would need some extra minutes to do it in some internet cafes. I need to stop in the middle of the way to look for internet cafes and print that thing.

Now im an hour away for the time i need to get to school. And i am still infront of this silly computer writing this non-sense blog.

Tomorrow is Saturday, i am looking forward to go to church.

The best thing when it comes to celebrating birthdays is that you have friends and families who celebrate with you, give you gifts, offer prayers, utter wishes and etc. Most of all they are there to remind you how important you are to them, and to God.

Birthdays! Are they really significant in our lives? Birthdays are commemoration of the day when we were born. The day when we started to see what its like to live outside Mom's womb. the day when we first cried. Only that? Oh, birthdays are also reminders that God has been protecting us all our lives.

How do you feel when it's your birthday? You feel you are special right? Specially when all your friends and families are there? What about when you are celebrating your friend's birthday how do you feel? You enjoy the company of your other friends and of course the happenings you can not forget.

What about when all your friends celebrate your birthday and you yourself have almost forget it's your birthday? Maybe you are too busy with other stuffs like work and study and all other things around.

But the worst thing is when nobody remembers your birthday. It's so sad that your friends and families doesn't even remember it. You are waiting to receive birthday greetings and wishes. At least a greeting from any of them but none, oh no, they forgot.

Well, those are just non-sense things about birthdays. Whats important is that you are thanking God for all the blessings that He has given you.

Last week was a really hard week for me.  I had worked very hard and I was totally exhausted from doing so much reporting on the major quake that hit us here in China.  And on top of all the work, I was feeling ill.

 

For example, last Sunday I had to go back to the university and I had a stomach ache. I just wanted to sleep, but I knew my duties as a reporter during this critical time in my country required me to be report the news.  Many depended on me.

    One of my jobs last week was to help organize a relief effort and to collect donations that would go directly to help the hundreds of thousands of now homeless Chinese; the children; to bring a small measure of help to the many desperate and broken people and cities.

    I can clearly remember one evening, it was quite cold, I felt miserable, and here I met a boy who's family lived in the quake zone located in the Sichuan Province.  He told me how his grandmother was killed during the quake and that his dad was badly hurt, and that their enitre home was completely destroyed.  And there I was standing there talking to a boy who lost most of his loved ones and the home he had lived in before.  Who was I to complain that I was tired or sick?

    My mind was frantically thinking of what questions to ask him.  Yes, I am a reporter but I never had to before ask others how did they feel that everything important to them had been wiped off this planet in a matter of minutes?  How do you ask someone how do they feel that many of their family is dead?  I felt helpless as I grasped to ask him anything.  Instead, I stood there and cried with him.  Both of us human beings and feeling lost in the moment. 

    On Monday, my stomach was still hurting, it was rainy outside, another miserable day for me but I had to work as I had to complete many tasks. My mind still clouded, like millions of other Chinese, at the magnetude of destruction the quake and afterschocks had done to so many millions of people.  That afternoon, before I went out, I drank 3 cups of hot water.

 

Today we had 3 minutes of silence in memory for the dead and those injured in the quake.  Imagine if you could, hundreds of millions of Chinese everywhere stopped what they were doing to pay their respects, to pray, to remember carrying a hope inside them to move forward after all of the tears shed and wounded healed. 

    As a reporter, during May 19 through the 21st, 2008, All newspapers, magazines and web pages turned grey in color as a symbol of the tremendous loss of life and property, but filled with a bit of hope that we as a country will move on, rebuild and succeed.  Take note that all newspapers and magazines in China are always in color.  And to see everything in grey, it had a poignant reminder never to forget those who died the quake.

    As I looked around me that day of mourning, most students and teachers and workers wore clothing in black and white and as the sirens screamed, everyone stopped what they were doing; many stood in front of the flag with their heads down, eyes closed, and with tears falling off many faces.  I too had to wipe my face several times.
 

A friend of mine at Jinlin University, China, told me that in the library, the students stopped studying and stood up early at 2:25pm, when the loudspeaker said “it is 14:28, we will mourn for the victims of the quake." I could hear the announcer sobbing.

 

I was a reporter I was there to report the news each and every day.  But the events that took place, and that are still occurring, boggled my mind.  The pictures in my mind of the vast destruction, the lives taken and the many homeless, took control of my reporting abilities.  How does one deal with such devastation and to report a million different stories?  After the shock wear aways some, it still is difficult to report.  But I did my best.
 

The week was almost over.  Last night, I stayed in the editorial apartment working on another quake related story.  It was late and nobody was around except for the computers, printers and other things you would find in a newsroom.  While I knew the country would rebuild and start again, I realized that I'm a reporter and I was doing what I should have done, to report! 

    How I wished, like millions of others, that I could do more for the people in the Sichuan Province. It was indeed a gray week for me.  But tomorrow is another day that will be filled with hope and a better day is coming.


   

Prayer is the best way of having a one on one conversation with God. Just be yourself. You dont need to be anxious that God might not be pleased with your choice of words. Talk to Him as if He is your Bestfriend. And you will not be disappointed.

A lady in her early twenties has been faithful to God. She never failed to commit everything to Him. Everything as in all her life. Her plans, her problems, her worries. Whenever she starts her day she never failed to submit herself to God.

A problem came when she was told by her employer that her contract will not be renewed. It means she will stop working in that company. She started to worry, but she believed that all through her life, God had never left her. All she did was pray to God.

And to her surprise, 2 days before her job had ended, she had an interview with a new employer and she was hired and can start right after her first job.

See how powerful prayers are? God will never leave you. It says in Proverbs 16:3, commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed.

composed on February 21, 2002
by Gaga-Oly

for: Philosophy 1

I. My Definition of LOVE
II. My Loving Experiences
III. My Loving Encounters

Love claims several different definitions. Everyone has his own meaning of the word LOVE. To a parent, love is a sacrifice. To sacrifice his own for the sake of the children. To a child, giving to her what she always wanted is loving. When a child demands, "Mom, i want this", and the parent gave it, it is that love that she believe it is. To a friend, keeping secrets, always being there, and helping are what love is. Then, to lovers, it is that understanding, willingness to offer the thing that will make her be loved, and to care is to love. Comprise these different persons into one being and that is me. That parent would be me.

As a teenager, I'm going to stress emphasis on the part that suited my era. Love is a feeling you feel when you get a feeling you never felt before. That feeling would be some kinda crush, infatuation or something else. Because these are the prerequisites of love. Crush is the admiration you have for the first time you saw the person. It's you're attracted to that person. Then that infatuation is mistakenly defined as love although its not.

Infatuation is a desire. A desire to be with the person you like always, talk to, laugh with, share good times with. Infatuation is a selfish desire. But then, LOVE will be developed out of these. You started to feel worry for the person,   have already that care that you are willing to offer to that person. Then LOVE is there already.

I am going to define LOVE on my own. We call it experience. LOVE is never in a hurry. It knows how to wait. Not only to wait but to wait patiently. Love did not develop suddenly but gradually. Slowly through a sort of evaluation. But no matter what are the things I learned from that evaluation, I still have that love for the person special to me.I ' felt discouraged. Because love does not choose. It does not look after what he has but for what he is instead.

Love does not give up on circumstances. It does not allow outward force to attack. Love accepts each other's differences and knows how to adjust with them. It respects each other's views and ideas. Because love is guided by principles which make it strong and determined.Love is not always in happiness. Love is always willing to give. It does not know how to ask, it is not self-seeking, it involves logic and determination. When you love because you need the person, it is not love but lust. But out of despair it seeks a way to find comfort. It is not a fantasy. Love faces actualities in life.

True love ask God for guidance. True love is guided and inspired by the heavenly force that make it strong and unyielding. Love is long lasting, it is never ending, it is FOREVER.

gaga-oly

The sun was already high, people went rushing to catch a bus, the terminal was not covered, the sun was directed towards us and all other people around.

I was yet a kid, a little 6-year-old at that time. It was December and we were going to General Santos for a Vacation. We're going to see my Grannies, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins there. Twas a regular Xmas vacation to my Mama's family.

From Digos City we have to take a bus to reach General Santos. That was a whole family trip. In the terminal, we were waiting for a bus to come. While sitted there, i noticed that there were so any people roaming around. It was very hot, i can still picture out the crooked foreheads of the people while walking under the heat of Mr. Sun.

Finally, the next bus came. It was still full of passengers from GenSan. We have to wait for those passengers to come down out of the bus so that we can get inside and find our seats. But others people are already coming up, pushing themselves inside in order to get seats. Because there are lots of passengers that time, mmm,,peak season you know.

What my father did, in order for us to catch at least 2 seats (1 for him and another for Mother), he pushed my brother and 2 sisters inside the bus through the window because the entrance door was really congested with passengers coming up and down. So there inside the bus, my 3 siblings have already secured seats for my parents. And they were waiting for us to penetrate that crowd through the door.

With my parents were my other sister and me. We're heading to the bus entrance that time, we're about to go up when i saw right at the first step of the bus entrance was sitting a huge, white Dog facing us, mouth wide open, deep breathing due to the heat of the sun. I saw people coming up just passing by next to the dog.

I 'm not afraid of dogs. We have lots of dogs at home, in fact they are wild dogs compared to that tame-looking white dogs sitting at the entrance. But that white dog scared me. Pondering why I felt afraid of that dog was out of my little mind. All I did was refuse to come up to the bus because I know we will be stepping right next to that dog. My parent were wondering why I wont go up, I told them im afraid of that big dog, let that dog away first. I can still recall myself crying when they forced me to come up, I was pulling myself back.

That time, my parent did not tell me that they didnt see a dog there. What they did, after minutes of forcing me, when I really refused, they called the attention of my 3 siblings up there to come down instead. And we waited for another bus to come.

On the next bus, we seated at the seats in line with the driver, that means were in the danger side of the vehicle. Were at the middle portion of the bus. As we ascend to that scary, zigzag, hilly-cliff part of Baluyan, we saw the first bus there beside the road, empty of passengers, windows were broken. My father told me, look, if we were able to ride that bus, we could be one of those passengers hurt.

After that day, I havent have time recalling that dog thing. For me twas just a normal event in life. Mu poor mind did not have the ability yet to analyze things out. I never mind whats behind that event. I never care. Not until I reached high school. When i was fond of collecting ideas, events, people and places. I started to write stories and biographies. I started to recall things and events that happened to my life.

That time was my first time to ask my parents about that dog thing. That was my first time to seek meanings behind events. And that was the first time they told me that they didnt see any dog of any color and size there in the entrance of the bus. I immediately felt uneasy. I felt like my hairs were standing, sweat coming our, I felt a rush of blood through my veins. I ask them, does it mean that it was my angel making his way to keep us from the accident? EXACTLY!!!

From then on, i realized that God had been caring for me and my whole family. He brought us out of that bus accident. It could have been the while family but God made His way in order to keep us safe. He has HIs own miracle to save us. He used my innocent eyes to see a dog and executed a sign to my parents that danger might occur with that bus. I cant just imagine how my parents reacted that time when I told them I saw a dog and they saw nothing. Maybe they know the sign and right away summoned my siblings to come down.

In our every day travel, we should never forget to tell God that, Lord, im going to a trip, I don't know what might happen, only You who knows, so please be with me and to keep me safe. Because in travelling, there are really possible and unavoidable harms that might meet us along the way. Only God knows it. We must not forget that God is the source of everything. For God will lead us not to a smooth, glittering road, but to a thorny, little, narrow path that will lead us to the Heavenly Home.

(picture source: internet)