Detoxify Now

My life is littered with a lot of junk - stuff that don't really matter.

Sometimes, I often wonder why it's like that. I did not set out to make it like this. I used to have plans for myself. However, I am wondering if those plans matter?

What matters in life? What counts? I think I should have settles this questions a long time ago. But, it seems I have never even unearthed a single mystery of it. 

If it's all about God, then, I am a sore looser. I have a love-hate relationship with a formal religion. I don't go to Church as often as a Christian should. My prayer time is sporadic at best. But, I do have a healthy conscience and it eats at me often.

If life is all about family - then, I don't know where I am headed. I have my siblings, my mother and father and my grandparents and some cousins but my anti-social attitude turns them off a lot. During family gatherings, I am often left alone, to my own devices, probably because I make them feel uncomfortable (who wouldn't, I often feel uncomfortable around myself).

If life is all about doing something significant for your neighbors (i.e. your work/profession) - well, I am at the bottom of the food chain. But at least, I love what I am doing. I love teaching. I just need to sort out my philosophy regarding my kind of teaching. I was able to find meaning and significance in my work. All other areas of my life are working out oddly.

So, what is life all about?

I know, theoretically, you would say life is about God, about family and about doing something significant for your neighbors. At this point, I think life is really ALL about God, and our relationship with him. And now, I am seeing how pointless my existence is because He is not in the center of my life.

My life is cluttered with sin, pain, vices, regrets, hurts and anger. Deep inside, a raging animal is screaming at me to GO and DO SOMETHING. But what am I supposed to do about it? What should I go out and do when I have to fight, tooth and nail, for my own survival?

Set your priorities straight. How easy for you to say when you dump most of your priorities upon me, right? 

I know my priority. It's God above all else. I am just not doing anything about it. Because once I did, I will leave this disturbingly technical, materials and senseless world I am inhabiting right now. I can't serve two masters at the same time. I know right now I am not serving God with all I am. I have set him aside for something else. Something pointless, meaningless. So, who am I serving?

That's why I need to detoxify myself of this material, selfish, worldly things that clutter my life. But how do I go about it?

Detoxify now. But how?

Revive the Verve to Serve

with Jiezl Umayao, Mobile Teacher from Tubungan
(of course, I occupied the bigger portion of the picture)

We are currently enjoying the brain damaging exercise of radio script writing in the Five-Day Training Workshop on the Technical Production of Radio Scripts for the Radio-Based Instruction (RBI) Program of the Alternative Learning System.

Of course we are very lucky since we have the very astounding presence of Mr. Salvador Royales of Mundo Man ay Magunaw....yeah, the writer in me is really rejoicing.

I feel blessed, grateful and happy. I am writing for a cause....and for a reason not just for relief and for expression.

Uncomplicated Me

I would like to believe that I am a very uncomplicated person. Just give me my laptop, an internet connection, kuryente (xempre), a book, and food and I'm set. I can sail to the ends of the world and back, just by myself (just make sure my laptop has its 9.9GB (newly downloaded) ebooks on it plus the movies and the song...and yes, I am totally a happy camper (or sailor or whatever).

I am fairly uncomplicated.I am single. I am a teacher earning the basic teacher's salary every month. I have simple tastes in life. I am not fond of brands and labels and all that. I am your typical provinciana when it comes to stuff like fashion and style and all that.

I am uncomplicated. I don't go out often. I don't have vices (well, except for food, especially "street" food and yeah, books, of course books. I even do the spicier ones).

I am uncomplicated. I am twenty six, a certified NBSB (and yes, I planned it) and I have no plans for the future whatsoever. Aside from the oft-dreamt of cottage on top of a hill overlooking the sea...

I am uncomplicated. Hurt me and I forget it. But be kind to me and you'll forever be remembered.

I am uncomplicated. I am simply uncomplicated.

But thinking about you complicates me and I don't like it especially when I have so many complicated things to do. But I do not want memories of you and those days to fade...because they make me smile. How do you do that? I don't smile a lot, except in irony or just to be polite...but you make me smile, a lot.

You complicate me.

However,  I think, I really think,that  you are very uncomplicated yourself. You and I just ...complicate things, that's all.

To Read (Definitely to Read)

Here are some books I intend to read before this moth ends.

I am definitely looking forward to reading this particular

piece from Teresa Medeiros.

And these, by the way, features not your usual heroines. Happy reading (to myself, that is).

The Freedom Writers' Touch

I have just finished watching the Freedom Writers last night and it has made a radical and definite impact upon me.

What the teacher of Room 203 has done is unparalleled. We, teachers, keep seeing our job as something to do to earn that salary we need to support the life we live. We keep everything clean, organized and within their little compartments.

I admire those teachers who have the guts and the courage to challenge the system. To make it face its own inadequacy in catering to the real needs of people.

Filipino students are not like the students of Room 203. Nope. Our students are still nice and good and neat and decent and well-behaved. Those who have issues never make it into the schoolroom. At the most, they would spend a month or two in school and drop out of the system to return again next year and the next and the next.

And what do we feel once they leave our classrooms? Well, sometimes, it’s good if we discover they are gone. Then, we go sympathetic and sorry or sometimes self righteous and angry – but after talking about it with a colleague or two, we conveniently forget them.

Watching Freedom Writers has reinforced my belief that every learner counts and every learner matters. The system wants mass education for the masses, not really taking into account that each individual is special and unique. In college, our professors kept hammering and yammering on about individual differences. But, once you leave college, the system makes sure you get the chance to take not of individual differences during trainings and seminars – which is not often.

I am glad there is a teacher like  Ms. Gruwell showed that teachers can truly make a difference.

That movie also convinced me that for a teacher to really focus all her energies in teaching, she must not have a family. Gruwell’s husband divorced her because he wanted to live a life he does not feel bad about…that he cannot be a wife to her…Funny. Husbands expect wives to do that. Why can’t they give wives the same courtesy. It simply means sharing in each other’s life.

I have met several successful men who do that. When their wives have to go on trips, activities and all those things, the husbands come and show their support.

But then, it will only happen if you are quite lucky to have a husband who shares the same sentiments and beliefs you have.

What the teacher did was cool. What she did was show us that if we care, we can make a difference. Do we? Care, that is.

Target: Tim Tebow

I am not an NFL fan nor am I a sports enthusiast. But I like stalking certain types of human beings.

For 15 years, I occasionally stalked Prince William, until he married Kate Middleton. Prince William was the embodiment of a childhood fantasy - becoming a princess and living happily every after. Reading his mum's biography discouraged me though. Along with Prince William were Jose Rizal, Mateo G. (before he became famous), Josh Groban, and  many others.Two years ago, I have been a Demi Lovato fanatic and still is even after her fall from grace. She was able to soar up, like a broken phoenix anyway. Last year, I discovered Joel Houston and Hillsong United.

And through him, I learned who Tim Tebow is. I don't care about NFL as I have said. I do not even know what it means, honest. National Football League? (fingers crossed). But, a young man who is into Jesus, is intelligent (no brain damage yet?, oh yes, I have heard the football=brain damage joke in movies) and has a great body too is fascinating and entertaining. Makes you want to go dig deeper. Why?

My reasoning is simple. I want to believe that God makes beautiful people not just from the inside but the outside too. I want to prove to myself that beauty is not only skin deep. I want to believe that persons in that kind of limelight are not shallow ponds but deepwells of wisdom too.

We will see won't we? For one so young (he's 24 right), he is prone to all sorts of beautiful experiences and temptations that may or may not rock his spiritual foundation.

Well, the crap above is from the point of view of the good girl. The bad girl in me wants to be fascinated, titillated, and shocked by the possibility of corruption. Oh well, wicked me.

If he is indeed not a phony but a true blue whatever he wants to present, good for him. If not, he will be just one of the many disappointments I have uncovered along the way. I can always go back to Joel Houston. I have not yet uncovered any dirty secrets online about him and I have been watching for 4 or 5 months now.

Demi Lovato has disappointed me in a way but she has earned my respect. She has tried to live a life in this broken world, a life without the pretensions of a goody-two-shoes image but a decent one anyway.

But these guys, we'll see.

The Kind of Books I Sometimes Read

Should I label this post, good girls gone bad? You can never really know someone as well as you thought you know them. And yes, on your regular intellectual point of view, I am a voracious reader. I read everything and anything under the sun.

I even write anything and everything under the sun too....but, one thing you do not know...I also do the same under the moon....

This year, I think I will be sharing some of the books and authors that affect me. My reading life has always been a big part of who I am. What you see, with me, is not always what there is....Usually there is more, but then, at times, there is less...

The above is just one of the books I read. This one is a most recent ebook I discovered. It's very intriguing, a concept over explored yet not as explored as one would think.

Anyway, I will be writing my thoughts regarding this book sometimes soon...sooner I hope....