COLLEGE

AHHHHHHHHHHCK.

Thinking about the future can really put me in a heart attack. O.O

College is still a year and how many months away, but I'm really starting to become more serious about it. Partly, because of school and partly, just because of my own anxiety complex. I'm excited about it too, but there's a lot of trepidation mixed in along with that.

I'm contemplating Pscychology, Philosophy, or Theology. To make things even more like chopseuy(is this how you spell it? :D), I'm thinking about taking taking up Sociology too. But my saving grace is they're all kind of interrelated so at least I can focus on one. But I still don't know what to focus on.

I need to have a lunch date with my cousin. HAHA. She'll really help sort out my thoughts, I'm sure.

School's still hectic. I still kinda hate/love it. AHHHHHHHHG. I just can't help but wonder, is all of this torture really necessary? I mean, why can't we just learn for the fun of it? Without the crammed schedules, full of projects, quizzes and stupid stuff like that. Maybe if they(the system?) made project and quiz schedules less hectic, then school could be more fun.

Genius is simplifying the complicated, people. :D

AHAHAHAHAH. I'm so mad about my Filipino exemptions. Just lost it in the FREAKIN FOURTH QUARTER. And I'm mad at this someone who had the nerve to laugh about it to my face...I can't believe someone I USED to highly respect would stoop as low as that.

Well, to leave this on a positive note, prom's next week, Saturday! And I'm excited now because of the dress! It's BEAUTIFUl. :D And, I'm gonna be leaving for our class pre-prom today at 1:30 soon.

My Epitaph—Should I Ask To Be Buried

Life is naught but the breath of Time
Blown upon the human shell.
The Lord did lend life not for crime,
But to complete a purpose to each He’ll tell.

While Time’s breath passes but once
The mortal cell, the soul is ever free.
While the corpse to elements is a slave,
The spirit transcends eternity.

Upon this rock He built His Church.1
Below this rock rots Kristina’s shell,
A decaying cell that will ne’er again lurch,
But feeds the ground to spread Time’s breath.

Filled with the breath of Time, she danced.
She danced for the Glory of God.
She danced for love of the pulse of life.
She danced. It was her simple joy.

Since Death has knocked Time’s wind out,
She owns only the self she has become through breathing,
And on her way upon the celestial route,
She left only mind imprints to the living.

Yet to them she’d whisper not to grieve,
For Time’s breath swiftly will pass them too.
Life is but a temporary gift to receive,
And Time, only an illusion.

Death is just a single lock in Time’s great mane,
A part of the whole but remains just a part.
Momentous but just a momentary state,
For in dying is the birth—to eternal life.2

---

---

(Lines with superscripts are paraphrases/altered quotations from the Gospel of Matthew and the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi.)
1(Mt 16:18) “And I say to you: That you are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
2(Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi) “…And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”


That's just a poem I made for English class that I really wanted to share. :) And at least now, it's forever immortalized, though probably overlooked, in one of the many recesses of the cyber world.

Trust is fragile.

Handle it with care.

It's really true. Once you give somebody your full trust, it becomes like a beautiful ice carving, or like a glass rose. So precious, but so easily broken. Once someone you gave that much trust just drops hold of it so carelessly...

there's no going back.

Unless, I guess, you have tons of mighty bond and some faerie dust up your sleeve. :)

Avatar-incited mind-wanderings

I'll start with the superficial stuff. I love AVATAR because of its wonderful special effects. I mean, just the colors sent me into an artistic ecstasy! O MEHN! The forest, their world, Pandora---it was just magnificent! The natives and their tattooed blue skin, the creatures, the plants, flowers and trees--everything was just full of life and color. AHHHHHHHH. A feast for the eyes. That's probably what made it a candidate for nomination for best picture too.

If it were a book, I'd say it was a very well-written and well-plotted one. It was just superb--enough for me to compare it with a book! It's story, characters and the world it dared to create had the depth of those that can be found in books.

And for its message...Avatar's message was what I wanted to reveal to the whole world through a book I would have loved to have written too. (I had planned to write a story with a similar message but a different plot to open the eyes of my "readers".)

Our world is dying. And why? Because of us. Because of our selfishness: greed, lust and gluttony. We just love to hoard and take and take and take---even those that were never ours to begin with. In Avatar, the natives were practiced a religion similar to paganism and Buddhism/Hinduism--even our very own, Catholicism. They believed in the beauty of all life. They respected it--which we still fail to do even now.

Their forest was one full of life and creatures. It was a vibrant, thriving, vast living thing. Notice the singular verb? Yes, they believed that everything was joined together too--much like

(I know it's a game card...or whatever you call it. But it was the only picture I can find with the swamp! :) )
the swamp in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Their message was about the interconnectedness of everything. We are all one. (Just like in the book,

The 5 people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom) This is a philosophy I truly believe in too. I believe that selflessness is the humility of and joy in finally realizing that we are all just one. I breathe and live for you. I am the tree, the flower, the ant, the sun, I AM THE DAY. I am you and you are me. "Love others as you love yourself."

And it kills me how we still continue on living as if this lesson isn't true. Is not the message of God and other religions enough---AND NOW EVEN SCIENCE--to stop people from destroying our very own home, planet Earth? Why do we waste so much on things we don;t need and buy happiness with material things when the only true happiness, peace and joy comes from nothing but unity with all that is OURS AND NOT OURS, with GOD and mother Earth.

True happiness is selflessness. True joy is finally realizing I am one with the soil I step on now.

Sometimes I just feel so hopeless because I look at the city we live in and think about the amount of trees killed just to erect these cold, hard buildings. I wonder how many lives were lost because of me. I consume so much too. These clothes I'm wearing were from trees, albeit in a very altered and impure form. This computer I'm using is using up energy through electricity produced by fossil fuels which might never be replaced again. PEOPLE, HUMANITY use up too much things that are not even vital for our survival. We don't need He-knows-how-many brands of candy and chocolate and clothes and whatever to survive.

Why have capitalism and consumerism taken root over everything? Why is it now a part of every human culture--though, admittedly, some still aren't subject to its evil...

This is sometimes just too much to bear. It is overwhelming. I feel as though through the mere occupation of living I am destroying the world which allowed me to live in the first place. Why must this be so?

This is something I would very much like to ask Bo Sanchez as well. What is his stand in regards to the environment (and our Filipino government)?


I just love Aang and Avatar (the Nickelodeon series) :D

AVATAR

Fantastic movie. One of the greatest I've seen. It definitely is one of my absolute favorites.

This movie just delivered what I want out of any form of entertainment--life lessons. Or even simple mind-boggling things. It made me think. It made me remember...

It rekindled the passive fire inside my heart. It opened Pandora's box--My emotions--the sorrow, the worry, the fears, the hopelessness, the hopefulness, the tears, the torment...everything just came back out and my love for mother nature and the conflict in my soul about what we're doing to her, whom God lovingly gifted to us, reared their ugly head. Everything burst free.

(This post will be continued. The muse is currently out of town.)

Radical Changes

The past month has bred radical changes. Not just that one month, I guess. It's the summation of everything that has happened preceding it too--isn't it always like that in life? Every small thing we do always sums up to something greater.

My faith has changed--or its strength, ferocity, to be exact. My goals, my own perception of life, my mind-set--these have all been altered. Seriously altered--forever altered? As of now, I'm not yet sure.

But let's get down to it. OR them.

First, my faith. AHH! Bo Sanchez is now one of my idols too, together with the Jabbawockeez. :)

He's just a model of everything I can become. He's a great speaker, he's a great leader, he's a great Catholic. He is just GREAT. He writes, he preaches, he leads--he does everything for God. He's such a busy man and in spite of that, find time for his own family.

Actually, just knowing everything that he does makes me exhausted. He writed at least 3 books a year, he makes daily videos for his site, preacherinbluejeans.com, he writes in various magazines AND is the founder of one. He's a founder of a lot of things. I'm sure I can learn a lot from him.

I'm supposed to say here that I hope my faith becomes as strong as his one day--BUT I'm almost afraid to become just like him. I mean, I can't give up everything for God just yet. And that's the bare truth. I can't sacrifice all thing material for all things immaterial--or maybe I just don't want to.

Weird thing is, it's not hard to admit that to myself. I'm not even afraid to say it. Maybe because it is the truth--and it sets you free, right?

Second, ahh. I am officially a Jabbawockeez fan. HAHAHA. and that's a big deal.

Thrid, I am finally sure what I want to be when I grow up--to be a preacher slash dancer. :D Different, I know.

And being a dancer changes a lot of things for me. I get sky high grades, have a lot of things going for me--just your typical overachiever and being that, people expect a lot from me. When they think about my future, the words, Scientist, Doctor, Lawyer, President, ETCETERA, ETCETERA, pop out. But never ever a dancer.

But I fully realized just recently that what I really want to be in life is just supposed to be what I, I, I and GOD wants for me. I think this is it. I'm almost sure it is.

The major, and probably the most superficial, hindrance to my realizing this was my desire to be rich in the future. But I realized, it didn't really matter if I become rich, only if I am helping others in the way God had planned for me--doing what I love most. :)

And if it's to dance. THEN IT IS. And no one else can stop me from doing so.

Thank the Lord, for my ability, for his blessings, for his love. :D

Humility

PT week just finished. Glad the exams are done. :D

This thought has been pervading my mind ever since it first stumbled its way into my head.

Studying is a proof of humility. You bow down your head, admitting that what you are reading, you do not know yet--or at least do not master yet.

It requires enough courage
to embark on a seemingly impossible quest.
(50 pages worth of studying for each day
for five consecutive days.)

It needs perseverance
to continue trekking trough the thick mud full of words.
(50 pages worth of studying for each day
for five consecutive days.)

It demands concentration
to keep all those information inside the mind,
And self-mastery to shy away from any distractions.

Nevertheless, above all that,
it seems to never be without its twin sister, Humility,
For the cause of studying is admitting ineptness.

HHAHAHAHAHAHA. Please understand that this is just a little half baked poem. :D