Captain of the Ship

Disclaimer: I'll be gone for a week or so. I'm taking one of the biggest exam of my life this coming June 30 and July 1. Please read this. I'm asking everyone a big favor. I may not be super religious but I do believe in a Supreme Being. Please include me in your prayers. I love you all!

 

There are things that we must keep in mind:

1. We choose our fate. 

Circumstances may direct  us to some 

unknown railroads but we have the ability 

to decide if we should stay or walk on another

uncharted road.

2. Possibilities are being limited by fear,

not by money, power or fame. 

Courage, the kind rooted in your heart,

can steer your destiny COMPLETELY.

3. Every now and then, 

we need people's advices.

But never decide to do something, 

or in similar case, 

NOT do something just because 

someone said so.

Learn to understand your heart

but don't let it rule without your

brain working.

4. It's a pretty amazing life, sure,

there are pains, tragedy and evil

but  

I see beauty and miracles too.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it.

That is why you must read, that is why

you must look at the skies,

that is why you must sing and dance,

and write poems and suffer and understand,

for all that is life.

-- Jiddu Krishnamurti

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. 

You're on your own.
And you know what you know. 

You are the guy who'll decide where to go.”

 

Getting Out of the Circle

You know what's coming? It's the board examination  baby, 

12 more days to go!

12 more days before I can finally clear my room from all those books.

12 more days before I can finally read a Sophie Kinsella novel.

12 more days before I can finally use the internet without any random guilt popping from my chest.

12 more days before I can finally look at my books with a look of

"what's your problem dude? I'm totally over you! 

Go to the basement now and swallow dust."

12 more days before I can finally start my life again.

So dramatic.

But you'll feel the pain when you'll need to memorize things like 

ulcerative colitis, Disulfram, Flagyl, 

how old does a freaking baby start to do peek a boos, 

painful I know.

And we even have to master this, by heart:

Folks, there is SCIENCE behind these things. 

It's written on books. 

I was eagerly searching tips on how to correctly wash my undies but it was a total fail.

Maybe I should write a book about that?

What do you think?

PS. Please read my post here. I am in need of your kindness. 

Refer to the right corner of my blog :)

Thank you!

Take Me Away

As some of you may already know, I really want to travel so badly.

I like the feel of running away, of living in a different place and you know, just for a few months, leave my oh-dearest hometown.

I've considered au pair programs as inspired by my friend Orla who is 

now living the dream in Canada. 

As of this moment, 2 families sent me their interests. 

I should be jumping up and down for joy.

But there's what we call Visa my friends. 

The families are both from Spain and I have to get a student Visa. 

I have to enroll in some sort of Spanish language class. Plus au pairs are the ones who 

should pay for their own airfare, too bad I'm not earning a single centavo right now.

So, I googled for other ways to go abroad. And yes, I'm that desperate.

I found out about CouchSurfing which is really nice for my backpacking plans. 

That would save me and my friend some extra money and will surely save us from the possibility of sleeping in McDonald's or the bus stop.

But apparently, I'm not contented with backpacking. 

So again, I googled for volunteer/teaching programs abroad.

And these are the facts that nearly broke my heart:

1. Most of what I found require volunteer teachers to be 

native English speakers, which I am not.

2. They call it volunteering, but bloody Merlin, you still need to pay them!

For now, I'm sticking with my backpacking goal.

 I'm taking desperate measures here for as you may all know, since I blurted it out somewhere in this post, 

I'm broke and jobless. 

So my friends, 

here's the tricky/funny part:

if you are kind enough to donate any amount to fund my backpacking trip,

 I would be really, really and forever grateful and you will be included in my list of 

shower-them-with-good-karma.

I know I'm not in the best position to ask this, 

but oh please, 

even 5 dollars would be greatly appreciated! 

Haha. Okay, you don't really need to give me anything, but just in case.
Please click this.

P.S. Do you know other ways in which I can go abroad 

for free or in a minimal cost? 

Thanks in advance!

The Fourth Kind

When I was a kid, I remember a teacher telling us, "Life is too complicated, if you think about it too much, you will surely go crazy." And she's not talking about paying bills, meeting deadlines and crazy boyfriends. She's talking about life beyond the blue and the green that we see everyday.

source

Men thought back then that they are the center of everything. Then they discovered the universe. I watched the movie The Fourth Kind and thought for several weeks that everything there was true. Then my friend showed me an internet article of how unrealistic the movie was. But really, how about the idea of aliens? And news about UFOs flooding the local TV can be really confusing and scary. 

Then we have Religion. Science versus God. Faith versus will power. Jesus versus Allah.  I can go on and on and I feel sick. I've read somewhere that what we believe in greatly depends with our culture. You might have been born in Europe and grew up believing about Jesus or raised in Middle East praising Allah. Or you can even come from the farthest corner of the Earth believing only in yourself for survival and without the idea of any of these beliefs. 

My friend told me it's worldly knowledge that made me doubt the reality behind me, being a Roman Catholic. I call it rational insight. My mother would seriously cringe hearing these words from me. Philippines is 90%  Roman Catholics, 99% of the people I know belong in that percentage. I'm not an atheist. I know that there is something/someone out there greater than anything we know that made it possible for everything to happen. But I refuse to frame it/him into a specific doctrine set by people. I believe in goodness, in loving and miracles. And that's enough.

source

Have you also wondered about reincarnation? The goosebumps of deja vus? Or of lucid dreaming? The possibility of leaving our tangible bodies and joining the nothingness, the other souls and the other dimensions? Those alone create goosebumps and are pretty good head crackers.

Then we also have mysteries behind friendships, love and Zen. 

It's a pretty amazing life, isn't it?