Inspirational Videos

Surfing the web for some inspirational ideas, I've encountered these videos which put me on the verge of crying (ok, I did cry). Some of you might have watched it already but I suggest watching it again, it's never tiresome in fact, heart-warming.

"Free Hugs in Amsterdam" is really cute it makes you smile. I even thought of making my own documented "Free Hugs in General Santos City".

This video is entitled "Are you going to finish strong?” It's a little funny at first but as you laugh, prepare yourself to cry. It's a story of never giving up.

In doing what you really, really want, Enthusiasm is just your key same as Jason McElwain, the autistic basketball player.

The video itself tell the inspirations to enlighten our day.


And of course, the story of true friendship and love...

Back Home: A Childhood Recollection

“So when are you going home?” my mother asked me, and I’d respond, “Soon”. Pausing for a while and I would look around the house and I’ll say, “Am I not home yet?”

Holy Week (actually, it’s just Holy Days – Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) is just one of those rare times – when the date on the calendar is red - that I am able to set foot on the place where I grow up as a kid. It’s one of the seven municipalities of Sarangani Province which is just an hour away from the city stretching along the pretty beaches of Sarangani Bay. The name, which ironically describes the place, is called “Maasim” – an unfortunately funny term occasionally asked as a humour by the “city people” if it is of reference to its constituent’s faces - because when translated to English, it would mean “Sour”.

I’ve always admired the simple beauty of this town. This was the place that brought witness to my sweet childhood experiences that moulded me for being what I am now.

It was in the year 1992, I was barely six years old, when my pregnant Mey (a lazy, shortened name we call for my mommy) and my two year old reticent brother finally decided to settle in this town after moving from three places. In this town also lives a local who, my mother never seen for more than half a decade – my grandmother. “Luningning” (light) was her name; she figuratively gave us light in times of darkness. She gave us shelter, food and livelihood. She has this big “carenderia” – a local restaurant near the supermarket frequently visited by travellers where you get to choose your orders by opening the lid of every cauldron displayed on the counter. Also near the carenderia is the open sea where we immediately took a dip and my first taste of seawater - actually it’s a drink of seawater because I’ve drowned that time. The “carenderia” became our first “house”.

On my first few days as a stranger of this town, I never gained friends right away; other kids didn’t want to talk to me because I speak so much Tagalog that they don’t understand me at all. It was only me and my cuddly, little brother Janjan whom I can play with till dusk. Sometimes my cousin Hogan would join us since he understands the dialect we’re using. However, I still yearned playing with the girls outside the “carenderia”; my cousin and my brother played too much of robots talking with each other. I started to wonder about the baby inside my Mey’s womb. Would it be a girl or a boy? I wished it’s a girl.

I don’t remember how long it took for me to befriend those girls but pretty soon enough, I was at last invited to join Hide and Seek. We played on a place we called “Landing Fish” (which made me question the validity of the phrase when I was able to learn English) where ropes from the fishing vessel were tightly tied up towards the column of the building to hold it in place. Months past and that place became my playground for Chinese Garter, text cards, rubber bands, tin cans, holed slippers, toys, and boys whom one of them I remember I hit below his belt. Mey would sometimes, if not every day of the week, shout from afar to catch my attention to go home for supper. There was a time when I became so stubborn I just ignored her calls that she herself angrily picked me up and my boxful of text cards which I’ve won for days – and brought it to the blazing fire in the kitchen. Since then, I never played with text cards again.

My grandmother, I don’t know if it’s out of generosity or annoyance for having new mouths to feed – gave us a small shop four stores away from the “carenderia”. This shop became our new house where we sell fresh bananas and other fruits for a living.

Christmas came and then three days later, in the middle of a cold night; the dogs were howling and the Neem Tree leaves violently rustling, Mey suddenly woke up. Seeing her getting up that late was odd, so I followed her. I saw her holding her very round belly while struggling to knock on our grandmother’s “carenderia”. I overheard she was asking for “Nang Germa”, our cook’s mother who knows a traditional massage. I thought she was about to give birth, an hour later and yes she did. It was a baby girl – my wish granted.

When my sister was born, I felt like I have a new baby doll. I was always excited that Mey would let me babysit for Sarah so I can also play with her. Finally after a year, she allowed me to carry her and it felt so wonderful that I forgot holding a baby was a responsibility. One day, Mey left me with Sarah and I took the chance of pretending to be like Mey; I was feeding my sister with - I can’t remember what – when the glass of water fell under the table...followed by her. Four years later, on our way home from school, she also chased our lunch box that fell from the tricycle we rode. If babysitting was a subject in my grade school class, I might have failed it.

On the other hand, if I failed with babysitting my sister, I know exactly how I succeeded with my brother, though not in babysitting but through modelling – literally. It was me who taught him how to pose in front of our under-the-daylight-only-to-get-good-pictures film camera. I taught him to simply place his hand on his waist and smile, which he made him hate me today by the way. But I was so proud about that as much as I am proud of his talent in creating robots and transformers out of laundry clips.

Back home, Mey never told us stories before bed, we made our own stories through blankets strung on the wall to become a tent or a camp. Back home, we don’t have much toys, we made our own toys from the ladles and pots in the kitchen to the clips and soap bubbles in the laundry. Back home, we don’t have the pool where we learned our swimming lessons, we have the very wide sea. Back home, we don’t have the fruit basket on the table, we sold it. Back home, it was only my sister, my brother, Mey and me, but it was a complete happy family.

So, am I not home yet? Yes, I am home wherever in the world my family is.

My brother, my sister and me. The picture was taken after my kindergarten Recognition Day. 

"Home- where the wheels are turning 

Home- why I keep returning 

Home- where my world is breaking in two 

Home- with the neighbors fighting 

Home- always so exciting 

Home- were my parents telling the truth? 

Home- such a funny feeling 

Home- no-one ever speaking 

Home- with our bodies touching 

Home- and the cam'ras watching 

Home- will infect what ever you do 

We're Home- comes to life from outa the blue"

"Home" by David Byrne and Brian Eno

Scooping Out A Banker's Bag

Thanks God It's Friday!
Before going home from a good day's work, I took my camera and do some scavenging. Oh, not with garbage but with my office mates bags and what's inside it. It's really amusing how they were so interested that they immediately emptied their bags and show me what they got!


Here's my beautiful manager gracefully modelling what's inside her Burberry bag.

Her Burberry bag which can accommodate her room, I mean her things:

Two lotions all from Victoria's Secret, two mobile phones from Nokia and Iphone, two wallets and two pouches which made me wonder, is 2 her lucky number?

Yes, this is a hair straightener, a spoon and fork, two toothbrushes (maybe for breakfast and lunch, the 3rd brush for dinner was left at home), a toothpaste of course, and again, two pens.

Only a woman could understand what these containers are for, these things are not a luxury but now a need..a need to be more beautiful - a green Clinique pouch for her Clinique cream, foundation, eyeshadow,lipstick,lip balm, blush on, and some of alien like her Bobbi Brown eyeshadow and MAC blush on.

This is Clarisse making peace!

Inside her bag are surprising - a Maybelline face powder, Johnson's baby powder, round brush and comb, a Face-Off shimmer, a Nishido blush on, a wallet, an eyeglasses, an I.D., and uhm, a McDonalds value meal toys?

This is Ma'am Helen who enthusiastically laid down down her things on the table.

This headstrong woman is very organized with everthing and I've seen the proof inside her Nine West bag.

She's a little reluctant at having her bag displayed because she does not want to brag,but here they are:

Two pouches for her make-up kit, a Victoria Secret cologne and lotion, an umbrella, a notebook for her expenses and her phone.

A hair gloss, three face powder, Johnsons baby powder, a petroleum jelly, a Clinique lipstick.

The owner of the following refuses to pose for a picture because she was so busy, so I just nonchalantly scooped out her bag and found these:

A Kimbell bag found on sale.

Michaela wallet, Clorets mint, dark chocolate when she gets hungry before lunch break, ultra thin napkin, a payslip, and half empty bottles of isoprophyl alcohol, baby cologne, mouthwash, V.S.lotion, and Johnsons baby powder.

All the make-up you see are Avon products except for the Loreal eye shadow which she used to think 10times before purchasing.

These in turn are my things.

A purple Kimbel bag. I love it's 10 compartments!

My passbook, my notebook for note-taking of ideas that suddenly pops in head, my journal, and my purple pen with the price tag still attached.

Ethyl alcohol as a hand sanitizer, hair serum to protect my hair color, Victoria's Secret cologne, petroleum jelly before applying lipstick to avoid cracked lips, and a Pond's detox cream.

My make-up kit and still my purple hair brush.

I can't easiliy decide which make-up to put on so I do bring these 5 lipsticks, 4 eyeliners and 2 mascaras in the office.

Notice that small white sachet at the center? That's a ketchup from a fastfood, and I have that in me for 1year now.

For the Love of Wasting My Time

I am still starting this blog and I have a lot of things in mind, I just can't express it though. So the first thing that popped into my mind is how I waste my time and loving it. We all know that well-spent time is worth our time. We constantly google ourselves to find sites that teach us on how to manage our time wisely so that we could be more productive in our home, school, society, blah and blah. But only so few among us were successful enough, others died. Why bother ourselves thinking about how to properly consume something as precious as time when we can just enjoy it and let it pass? So, if you still have time to waste, here's more to update your time-wasting ideas. Enjoy!

• For the students, postpone your assignments and projects. They could be better if you'll just cram the day before it. Studies shows (it's my own studies, btw) that the more you're pressured of your time, the more ideas and answers your brain will yield.
• If you postpone something, do another thing like movie marathon. Perhaps, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Harry Potter series, The Twilight Saga, The Chronicles of Narnia, or if you want to go classic, Star Wars movies will do - you'll never regret watching them, just don't forget your meals.
• On weekend, try to wake up by 11am, have lunch, then go back to sleep. Oh, it feels so good being able to cope up with your 8-10hours of sleep!
• You may also try to wake up earlier at 6am but do nothing but stare on your ceiling - this is a good exercise for your brain if you match it with day-dreaming.
• Procrastinate, procrastinate and I'll just say it later.
• Open your book - your Facebook - then like everything you see on your news feed.
• For guys, shop with your girlfriend.
• YouTube!
• For my case, I eat breakfast with my siblings and we talk till lunch.
• Start to write on your blog.