I loved the movie because it was so beautifully told and the lessons about life and learning are really great and so easy to relate to. Maybe it has touched me more because I have been both a student and an educator myself.

“Life is a race”
At an early age, so much has been expected from me as a student. Especially when I entered a high school full of “supposedly nerds” – I mean, really gifted kids – the “creme of the crop”, as they say. At first I was really scared because I thought I had to “compete” with all the other students to prove that I was good enough to belong. Luckily, a wise person told me that you really don’t have to compete with anyone, you only have to keep on striving to become a better you, to continuously improve, to outdo yourself, and seek your maximum potential. And while you’re at it, just have FUN, break some rules, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. “Life is NOT a race.”

“Suicide”
I really had goosebumps when I saw one of the students, “Joy Lobo” hanging inside his dorm room. I remembered an incident when I was still on my second year of teaching, I was busy computing grades because it was time to submit the final grades of the students when I felt there was some commotion in the neighborhood. My brother went out to investigate and came back with a very disturbing news. An engineering student who was supposed to graduate in a few weeks hanged himself in his room. Apparently, he didn’t pass his project defense and he can’t tell his parents that he can’t graduate because his family are already so excited for his graduation and are coming over in a few days. Instead of seeing him get his diploma on stage, they saw him lifeless, hanging inside his room.

“Be what you want to be, follow your heart”
Don’t try to be what other people (not even your parents/family) want you to be. Do what you want to do with your life. As what one of the characters said, “you may earn less, live in a simpler house, drive a smaller car…, but you will be happy.” Maybe I am fortunate enough to have been given the chance to live my dream, to follow my heart and do what I love to do. Once upon a time, fear kept me from doing what I wanted to do with my life. Good thing, before it was too late, I had the courage to step out of my comfort zone and try to follow my heart, to be in the industry and be a software engineer. I may not be good enough or an expert in this field yet but I am happily learning… and right now, this is all that matters.

• I joined (and left) Active Rail Web Technology Solutions as a Web developer. A team of wonderful people (Ate Dulce, James, Ate Joie)
• I got reunited with my tres marias girlfriends Ems and Laiza
• we celebrated my niece Nycah’s first birthday
• we said goodbye to Tatay
• I celebrated my birthday with Namang/Tair family at Rizal
• I started working at Accenture
• I met and lived with my housemates at 423 (Carlo, Aldrin, Jo, Ate Lyn and Matel)
• I worked with OSM and Portal Team

For all the changes, achievements, trials surpassed, people met, triumphs, ups and downs… thank you dear Lord!

Three years ago, I wrote about how much I missed my three grandparents but I still felt happy because I still had Tatay Primo. Now I feel sadder because I lost him early this year.

He died on the day I was supposed to leave for Manila. I cancelled my trip and went home with a heavy heart. But I’m thankful that I was still given a chance to see him for the last time. I miss him a lot and it would feel strange when I’d go home and he’s no longer around.

Oh, I miss my grandparents. I miss being an “apo”. But I know that they are happy now. And I’m glad that I was able to spend precious moments with them while they were still with me here on earth. We really have to make the most out of our short time here with our loved ones coz life is too short.

When we were first year high school students, my batchmates (dormmates) and I used to gather in one of the rooms and “play” spirit of the coin. We would post “Don’t Disturb: Recording going on” on our doors so that nobody would disturb our session.

At first it was just out of boredom and we would ask silly teenager questions like “Does X has a crush on Y?” and the coin would move to “Yes” or “No”. I honestly thought my friends were just playing jokes and they were the ones who were moving the coin. About twenty of us would gather in one room and huddle around the tiny piece of paper with the coin on it. Sometimes, although I’m no longer interested, I won’t leave the room because I’m too scared to go back to my room.

We soon got tired of the easy and boring questions and started asking harder and scarier ones. Like “how did you die?”. And the coin would start spelling “r-a-p-e” and “h-e-l-p” A few of us got scared and others were just skeptical. We also got more scary question-and-answer sessions and soon decided that it was time to stop.

A few years later, when we were already juniors, the movie “The Craft” became popular and some of our batchmates even bought books on witch craft. We “practiced” levitation and chanting on each other in the dorm during the weekends. “Light as a feather, stiff as a board…” It wasn’t really serious, we were just having fun and experimenting.

While we were having our Dorm Halloween party in the canteen, I went to the open field (between the girls and boys dormitories) with three of my friends. There we started to “invoke” the spirits the way the four girls in the movie “The Craft” did. It was almost midnight.

Of course, nothing weird happened during that time and we just laughed at ourselves and went inside the canteen to dance with our friends.  However, weird things did start to happen the night after our little “joke”.

One of our friends started screaming and acting strange. Friends prayed with her until she started acting normal again. However on Monday morning, while we were having our flag ceremony,  she got “possessed” again. The teachers came to her rescue and brought her in the prayer room. But things just got weirder. Students from other year levels were getting “possessed” too.

There were lots of screaming and people passing out. One of the girls from the sophies was saying things in a different language. She was really strong, a number of people were holding her but she still managed to push them away. I got goosebumps all over my body.

Classes were suspended on that day. Those who lived in the city were asked to go home while the dormers stayed behind and were asked to gather in the hall. The teachers started to investigate about what happened. They inspected our rooms in the dorm and anything related to black magic or witch craft were confiscated – including Archie (comic books – because of Sabrina, the teenage witch) and magic cards. They were all burnt. And we were prohibited from using or buying any of them again.

The atmosphere in the whole school was eerie and scary. Others were just happy that classes were canceled, a few were nonchalant but a number of us (including me) got really, really scared.

Obviously we have all moved on since that day in our high school life. Maybe many of us already forgot about those incidents but I have never forgotten – especially the lesson I learned: “Never, ever disturb and play with spirits. Unless you want them to disturb you.”

This movie caught my attention when I turned on the  TV. I forgot about my dance exercise and cooking lessons altogether. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet were a strange couple. The movie was very intriguing and it would keep you thinking and guessing. Clementine (Kate Winslet)  brought color and excitement to Joel (Jim CarreyUntil)’s dark and boring life. Until one day, Clementine didn’t seem to recognize Joel anymore – which left Joel broken and hurt.

Apparently,  Clementine has erased Joel from her memory through a medical procedure. She requested that the procedure be done to her because she was no longer happy with her relationship with Joel and she wanted to move on. I instantly remembered the time when I so wanted for someone to invent a “memory pill” so that I could forget everything about my past, delete them all from my memory and just stop hurting. It’s like that when we experience so much pain, we could make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings.

Back to the movie.. Joel decided to have the same operation so he could also forget all about Clementine and just move on with his life. Meanwhile, an interesting twist happened in the story. The doctor’s wife caught him and his secretary making out. The younger girl asked for forgiveness and admitted that it was her mistake for having a silly crush on the doctor and told the wife that there was really nothing going on with the two of them. Surprisingly, the wife pitied the young girl and told the doctor to tell the truth to her.

The doctor’s secretary (Kirsten Dunst) discovered that the doctor performed the procedure on her because they had an affair and they both agreed that it would be best if she’d forget about the two of them because the doctor was married and had kids. Later, the secretary discovered that she was happier before the operation and now she was miserable. She wanted all the other patients who had the procedure performed on them to remember their past and she sent all the recorded tapes to them – including Clementine and Joel – who were, at the meantime, getting to know each other again (without knowing that they had a past).

Both Clementine and Joel (who were starting to get romantically involved with each other again) were shocked to receive their respective recordings with the doctor – detailing why they wanted the procedure to be done on them. They realized that they were already a couple before and they wanted to erase each other from their lives.

Did they end up together – again? Hmmm..maybe. Sometimes in our lives, we could come to a point when we just want to delete people from our lives. Deleting them from our contact list on our phones or friends list on Friendster/Facebook can be really therapeutic and can help us in our process of healing. But that doesn’t mean that we are able to completely delete them from our lives – and the reality is, we really CAN’T.

We all have our own ways of healing and moving forward. And later, when the pain is gone, we will be able to see how and why that person became a part of our lives.

No Other Woman

Why did I relate this movie with the previous one? Because the former also had an interesting story of how a married man wanted to correct his mistakes by erasing himself from the memory of his mistress.

With No Other Woman, if you are a wife, you’d feel triumphant and proud. And if you are a mistress, it makes you realize that you are fighting a losing battle – except if the married man is really in love with you and is willing to leave his family for you. Tough luck.

It’s really a nice movie – really worth my time and money. Aside from being a huge fan of Anne Curtis and Derek Ramsay is like, my super crush, the movie was well written. Thumbs up to Philippine Cinema.

Now women have an idea on how to be a cool, “palaban”, and smart wife – you have to fight for your right, for your love, and for your man! And keep them away from hot, seductive, temptations a.k.a. mistresses. Haha.

I signed up for my company’s volunteer program for teaching street children, partnering with ChildHope Asia Philippines and now I have a wonderful chance to reach out to these often neglected and misunderstood members of our society.

Prior to our immersion in the field, the staff of ChildHope Asia Philippines oriented us about the organization, their advocacy, and their activities.

Christian, one of CHAP’s staff, is asking the children to illustrate their “pangarap” (dreams) on a piece of paper.

One of the children shares that he wants to be a football player or a policeman someday so that he can help his family. He said that he will only be able to achieve his dreams if he can finish his studies.Kuya Christian tells them a story of a man who was able to achieve his dream because he had confidence in himself. And he shared to them inspiring stories of Henry Sy, Isko Moreno, and Manny Pacquiao. Simple, poor men who believed in their dreams, worked hard, and are now successful. He encouraged them that someday, they can also be like them.

We also went to another site, a park in Manila to observe another group of street children. When we arrived, kuya PeeWee, one of CHAP’s teachers, introduced as to the children and they all flocked to us para mag mano. On the picture below, the children are watching a short film on the mobile classroom of CHAP – a part of their values formation.

I really admire the people behind ChildHope Asia Philippines. Its organizers, staff, and volunteers are all working together to help make a difference in these children’s lives. Some of us may get easily irritated by these kids begging on the streets or in jeepneys and consider them as eye sores but if you really try to see beyond what your eyes could see, you’d discover that these are just children, hungry for the society’s love and acceptance. As the song goes, “I believe that the children are our future, teach them well, and let them lead the way… Show them all the beauty they possess inside, give them a sense of pride…”

It turned out that it’s the only sem that I would be using it because I “temporarily” left my teaching career. However I have been getting some comments from former students that they have been continuously visiting the site and it has been very helpful to them. Thanks Google!

You see, I never really dreamed of becoming a teacher. For me, it was just a coincidence that I needed a job and (luckily) MSU gave it to me. I was even reluctant but I grabbed it anyway because at that time, I needed money – which is not a very nice motivation to do something.

I wasn’t really equipped with the proper tools for me to become an effective teacher. I didn’t have any Education background (although I come from a family of teachers). I only had an idea of how to teach based on how my former teachers taught me. From being a college student, I became an instant college instructor – who had to pretend that I knew what I was talking about. Maybe I was a slightly good actress, an impostor, because some of my students believed in me. But I knew, deep down inside, that I wasn’t who I pretend to be. I was a bit insecure, not so sure about myself, I knew I had to get more training and experience to qualify as an “IT Professor” in a state university.

I knew that my good grades in college wasn’t enough. My students deserved more. But at that time, I had to teach – in the best way I knew how. I could say I did my best to give to my students what I had. Through the years, I learned that it was better to “inspire” my students to explore more and discover their potential. It was crucial for me to motivate them, at least push them in the right direction. I knew I could not give them everything they needed, a little inspiration could do more.

I am glad that I think I did that. Somehow, I made a difference in the lives of a few of my students. Not all of them may be great in the IT field, but they are still doing well in their own chosen careers. My heart beams with pride for their success. I am the “motherly” type of teacher. I feel good when I know that some of my students are better than me. And most of the time, I really encourage them to do better and excel. Unlike other instructors who get insulted by questions from smart kids or “compete” with their students, I like making my students feel that I appreciate and believe in their potential.

To all my former students, thank you for teaching me a lot of things in and out of the classroom. Thank you for making me a part of your life and for making me proud to be your mentor.

Letting go has never been easy. May it be with material possessions that we are so attached to, dreams and ambitions that we are so focused on, and most especially, people whom we love but are not good for us. Sometimes we lose people to death – which, I think is much easier because we know we can never bring the dead back so at some point, we just give up and let go, naturally. But it is much more difficult to let go of people who are alive and are so much in our lives.

When the relationship is so bad – it destroys the people in it – and there’s simply no more way to make the relationship work, there’s no other choice but to say goodbye and let go. Yup, easier said than done. This wasn’t taught in school. We are left helpless and unable to cope with the stress and emotional turmoil this crisis brings us.

I was in this situation for the longest time. It was more than hard to let go, it was killing me. It was crazy. I held on because I was so attached and it seemed like my life revolved around him. My happiness depended on his time and attention. I had nothing else more exciting going on with my life. And the worst thing was, I was ready to give my dreams up just to be with him – which he never really asked or wanted. I was so convinced that he was the only one who could make me happy that I was willing to take risks.

Until he hurt me so bad that it was so hard to take anymore. I had to give up and let go. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. There were times when I’d go back to my old self again and just “be happy” with the kind of treatment I got from him, just as long as he was in my life. But I knew there was something wrong with what I was doing to myself. I read books and blogs and just connected with people in similar situations. Sometimes, it’s all you need to know. That you are not alone.

It was hard and painful but I knew I just had to let go and move on with my life. I knew I deserved to be treated with more respect and love and that I didn’t have to “work” for that. And you know what’s funny in this world. It can be really ironic. Just when you’ve made your mind up and are letting go, the other party steps up and the whole process could be confusing. You just want to succumb to the temptation of having him back. But it needs a lot of self-love and self-respect to move on and really let go.

For me, you don’t really have to push someone away or go somewhere as an escape. It’s more of going inside and working on yourself. Because in the first place, you don’t have to let go of a person if he’s treating you right. So how come you are in this situation anyway? Would you believe that you are somehow responsible for the way he’s treating you? Somehow, we teach people how to treat us. So, if you feel that he’s not treating you right – threatening you, blaming you (for no reason at all), and intentionally doing things to hurt you – you have to speak up and let that person know how you feel. And if that doesn’t work, if you feel it’s really going nowhere.. then, let go!

So, when it’s really time to let go, what do you do? How do you go about it? It’s tough. But one thing that worked for me is loving myself more (and more) and focusing on my dreams and my vision of the future. Somehow, it got me busy and took my mind off him. I had more important and interesting things going on with my life. I got excited about life again. I realized that I am OK with myself. I don’t have to be with someone to be happy. I can go out and enjoy the company of so many people. And just knowing how I want to be treated and not tolerating bad behavior was almost enough.

It also helps that I have a lot of things going on with my life now. I can focus on my dreams and ambitions and there are lots of interesting people that I’ve met along the way.

Thanks Ems for the nudge to write about this. I don’t know if this is applicable to you though. Haha. And Laiza (and myself for the inspiration)… I’ve been wanting to write this for the 2 of us.

Almost everyone is rejoicing coz it’s a holiday today. But do you know why? Most people don’t give a damn to find out why (including me), as long as it means an additional day off from work, more sleeping time or maybe more FB or shopping time. But maybe we ought to know why the folks declared this day as a national holiday.

Yesterday while I was strolling at SM Megamall, a nice display at the Atrium caught my attention. It was all about our national hero, Ninoy. Here are some photos displayed:

Ninoy’s story is very inspiring. We can be heroes. There are simple things we can do to help our country. Simple things like segregating our wastes or not throwing trash anywhere. Like performing at our best in our jobs. Or following traffic rules. Together, we can make Philippines a very desirable place to live in.