switching to blogger

I don't want to pay the domain and hosting anymore so here I am in Blogger!  Cheaper, less pressure to write, much better.  There are still a LOT of things to fix.

work wisdoms: rice stalk

There's a Filipino saying that sort of goes this way:
A young rice stalk stands tall and proud,
when it's grown and ready for harvest it bows down

One of my posts on work wisdoms talks about pruning.  It's the painful process one has to go through to grow up-- and as we grow up, we learn how important it is to bow down.

As I become older, the more I realize that I don't know everything about anything at all. You think you know a person, then they do something out of character. You think you got your plans all mapped out then something unexpected happens. You think you got your basic Science down pat, then they say Pluto's not a planet. So what do you do? You accept, you learn, you stay open and humble.

It feels so good to be so superior and smart and all-knowing, but I think once we lose our humility we lose something far more important. When we say we're the ultimate expert on something, you can expect that from that point on, learning will be limited-- because, well you're already an expert! Nobody will dare correct you now and that will be the beginning of the end.

But there will always something new to learn, something to improve.  I guess humility is more important than knowing it all.

unbreakable

A few weeks ago, I attended a Life in the Spirit seminar. It's a two-day event at our church where we listen to talks about faith, share our beliefs and experiences. I had been meaning to attend it ever since College so when I heard the announcement that there's going to be one on our church, I signed up.

The thing that really had an impact on me were the incredible stories shared by two of the speakers. Both of them lost their mothers at a young age and as a result, their lives went off course. Ate Jhute lost her mom at a young age, the breadwinner of their family. Her happy-go-lucky father transformed into an angry stranger and she and her sister weren't able to continue their education. She spent 10 years bumming around and running with the bad crowd.

Another speaker (I forgot his name sorry!), became an orphan at a young age and spent his childhood in the streets. He worked to support his schooling. He became a newspaper boy, a balut vendor and a kitchen helper.

They both had nobody to hold on to. Yet somehow they were able to keep it together and to survive-- because of their faith. Both of them found God, or maybe it's more correct to say that God found them.

After 10 years of being a bum, Ate Jhute got some help from the Church and went to College at the age of 26. Now, she's a teacher and she was able to summon enough humility and patience to make peace with her father before he died. The other speaker became a radio actor, a writer and a speaker. When he had enough money he finally bought a house-- and opened it to street children. Today, he has three houses for his "adopted" children. He's paying it forward.

I admire these people, they're unbreakable! The strength they possess and the infinite well of their faith, they believe in something bigger than themselves and whatever happens they will somehow be okay. Nothing can shake them and they will always remain humble-- and happy. They've been through so much and was able to overcome it all and even became better because of it.

I wish I can be like that but I just can't seem to get rid of my inner cynic. I've experienced miracles in my life, enough to believe, but sometimes I still find myself struggling. I don't know maybe I need to go through something like that too, but God I hope not. Please.

Sources:
http://my.opera.com/Muffin's%20Place/blog/

work wisdoms: lenten break

It certainly is.  Today is the last of my 6-day break from work.  Here in the Philippines, lenten break usually means going out of town and heading to the beaches.  I watched the news last Thursday and Friday and sure enough, Bora and Puerto Galera were overflowing with local tourists. Someone said that Manila was like a ghost town.  Well, It was really nice because there was no traffic when we did our Visita Iglesia last Friday.  We were able to visit 8 churches and we even swung by my Grandma's house for a visit.  I had a lot of fun. We do this every year and for each church we visit, we would buy some sort of snack or eat a meal.  We call it Station of the Foods haha.  We ate Puto from Laguna, puto bumbong, corn, drank buko juice, and then ate lunch at Aristocrat's (first for me).

There was a tv show that called it "staycation" which means, staying at home for the vacation.  A lot of people, instead of going to the beach and spending money for travel and accomodation, just bought inflatable pools and filled it with water.  Then they cooked barbeques and had fun with their family.  Happiness, in whatever form, will always be grand.

It felt good to do something different everyday and accomplish a lot of things.  I dragged my family to the hospital to get their first shot of the anti-HPV vaccine, cleaned my shoes and clothes and fixed my closet, went to confession and visited churches, visited my grandma, went swimming, went to a hydrotherapy spa, visited a friend who gave birth last week, got a pedicure, a haircut and a hot oil treatment, wrote the script for the comic book project I've started with one of my friends, submitted a short scene and gave a critique to the internet writing workshop, added some more scenes on the short story I'm writing, wrote this blog entry, exercised everyday and took care of my dogs, tried out the new restaurant here in our village and watched four great movies! (Sooner or later, Flipped, Mozart and the Whale, Kiss of the Spiderwoman).

It felt rewarding to finish a lot of things that are not related to work.  These last few days were quite fruitful.  I didn't feel tired at all. It was one of the best vacations I had in my life.

"Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction." - Anne Frank

garbage electricity

The world produces so much garbage. The Environmental Protection Agency states that in the US, 220 million tons of garbage are produced each year. This is equal to 6-feet deep 82,000 football fields full of compacted garbage. One thing's for sure, trash is the one thing we'll never run out of.

So it's really great that people are putting this unlimited resource to good use. Aside from recycling, some companies are using garbage as an alternative power source. When trash decays, there's a bacteria that breaks down the trash and produces methane gas. This methane gas is harmful when released in the atmosphere, but when controlled, it could power the world.

Today, there are some cities that harness this gas for electricity. Landfills in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are already being harvested for methane. The Brookhaven Town landfill on Long Island has been supplying around 350,000 megawatt-hours of electricity into the power grid for the past 30 years. In Guatemala, they created a electric turbine that runs on methane gas extracted from the city dump. The same thing is happening on our country. Last year, a landfill gas power plant was opened in Laguna. It will utilize the methane from the San Pedro landfill to power gas engines. The new plant is expected to generate 4 megawatts of electricity and it will be for sale to the local grid.

Garbage are those things that are useless to us-- but if we put in a little thought, a little creativity and resourcefulness, all the trash in the world could possibly be a treasure.

Sources:
http://www.genewscenter.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://wiki.answers.com/
http://www.usaid.gov/

zumba

My sister found a fun aerobic exercise to add to our workout. It's called Zumba, a series of latin american dances. I love the music; the beats are fun and catchy. I like this better than hip hop type aerobics.

I looked it up in the net to see more feedback, turns out it has an interesting story behind it:
"As a fitness instructor in his native Cali, Colombia, the life of Zumba program's founder, Alberto "Beto" Perez, took an unexpected turn one fateful day in the mid-'90s. He darted off to teach an aerobics class and forgot his traditional aerobics music, so he improvised using his own mix of music from tapes he had in his backpack (the salsa and merengue music he grew up with). Spontaneously, he created a new kind of dance-fitness, one that focused on letting the music move you (instead of counting reps over the music). Energy electrified the room; people couldn't stop smiling. His class loved it! And on that day, a revolutionary new fitness concept was born--the Zumba Fitness-Party."
- Amazon.com, product description

Hurray for improv! Here's my favorite song from the workout:



ZUMBA!

Help Japan

Red Cross
donate here or text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 from your phone

International Medical Corps
http://www.internationalmedicalcorps.org/

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief/

Google Crisis Response
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html


For those that need to get information about a person in Japan, you can use Google's Person Finder: 2011 Japan Earthquake.


Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/11/how-to-help-japan-earthquake-relief_n_834484.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20110311/wl_yblog_newsroom/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-how-to-help

revolution

Years ago, I didn't think anything would happen when I joined some outreach activities. I just wanted to get out there and help. Then, I told some friends about it and sent them an email with the details. They weren't really into it. So I thought, well that's that. But I didn't know that the word had spread. Now, I see posts in facebook from co-workers that I didn't really know that well, inviting people to the same outreach I joined years ago.

Another friend thanked me when I invited her to join a training seminar I attended for special kids. She said she was planning to do that full-time in the future and the seminar will be her starting point. I'm so happy to know that others are also getting involved.

You may think that what you're doing doesn't influence anyone but it does. Last Friday, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution. It was also last Friday when angry protests calling for change swept Middle East. Both of these revolutions started from small seeds, and it grew and grew and grew, until it became a revolution. From one simple act, like Rosa Parks saying "I ain't movin" and refusing to give up her seat for a white passenger, you can make change happen. Even if it's small, it will ripple out. It's a start.

work wisdoms: pruning

I'm not a person who likes to meddle with other people's business. As long as I'm doing my job and I'm not hurting anyone, then everything's fine. Live and let live. However, there are times when life puts us on the spot. Sometimes, we have to call out someone when they're doing something wrong. I have a real problem with that. I hate confrontations.

Someone told me about an orchid she once had. She took good care of it, gave it enough sunlight and water but when it grew, it was crooked. It wasn't as perfect as the ones she saw on the shop. Her dad told her that she should've pruned it while it was growing.

"Pruning is a horticultural practice involving the selective removal of parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots. Reasons to prune plants include deadwood removal, shaping (by controlling or directing growth), improving or maintaining health, reducing risk from falling branches, preparing nursery specimens for transplanting, and both harvesting and increasing the yield or quality of flowers and fruits. The practice entails targeted removal of diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue from crop and landscape plants." ~wikipedia.com

She told me, we have to prune people to make them better. We may look like the bad guys but in reality, we're shaping their character for their own good. When you look at it that way, the job's not so bad after all. We're an instrument to help others become their best selves.

After a while, I realized I still need some pruning myself. Well, I guess I don't need to worry, because life always makes sure that I get all the pruning I need. I don't think it stops as long as we're alive. We're all enrolled in that school. It hurts (my pride mostly) and oftentimes it's embarrassing. But you know what? I'm still here and I'm still standing-- only now my head is bowed down. I think that's the best way to handle pruning-- but I'm saving that for another post :).


Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.com
http://www.partylightsite.com

how to be alone

A video by filmmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis.

~Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it...

Happy ♥ Day everyone!

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs
http://www.tanyadavis.ca
http://www.andreadorfman.com

Treasure Trove: Honus Wagner Baseball Card

the Find
A rare Honus Wagner Baseball Card, printed around 1909 to 1911.  Honus Wagner was known as "The Flying Dutchman" because of his speed.  He played in the National League for 20 years, most them as a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates .  Inducted in 1936, he was one of the first five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Baseball cards back then, were printed and distributed along with tobacco packs to appeal to young boys.  Honus didn't like the idea and put a stop to the production of his card. Today, there are only 57 known copies of the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card. It is one of the rarest and most expensive in the world.  A near-mint copy sold for $2.8 million last 2007.

the Lucky
The nuns from School Sisters of Notre Dame in Baltimore

the Place and the Time
The card was found in a safe-deposit box, with a note that said, "Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!". Heritage Auction Galleries sold it last year, November 2010.

How in the world!?
One of the nuns' brother left all his possessions to the convent when he died in 1999. His lawyer found the card in his safety deposit box and informed the nuns about it. It sold for $262,000, even though the card was in poor condition-- it had creases, had been laminated and one of the borders had been cut. The money will be used to help the order's ministries in more than 30 countries.

"It just boggles your mind," one of the nuns, Sister Virginia Muller told AP. "I can't remember a time when we have received anything like this."


Sources:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honus_Wagner
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5732365
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T206_Honus_Wagner

rescuing art

When World War II ended, a group of men and women began hunting for works of art inside salt mines, caves and castles. They found more than 6,500 pieces in a salt mine near Salzburg, including Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine”. In another German mine, they uncovered a Rembrandt self-portrait, along with others hidden there by the museums. The atmosphere in these caves, cool temperatures and moisture in the air, helped in preserving the paintings. It also protected them against the war, the bombs, the Nazis and the looting.

Who are these people so committed to saving our art?

They.. are the Monuments Men..   (superhero entrance music plays)

Kidding aside, these people are real life heroes that played a crucial role during WWII. They hid art, sometimes even moved it to different places, and risked their lives in doing so. Here's an excerpt from monumentsmen.com:


The “Monuments Men”, were a group of approximately 345 men and women from thirteen nations who comprised the MFAA section during World War II. Many were museum directors, curators, art historians, artists, architects, and educators. Together they worked to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the destruction of World War II. In the last year of the war, they tracked, located, and in the years that followed returned more than five million artistic and cultural items stolen by Hitler and the Nazis. Their role in preserving cultural treasures was without precedent.

Today, like the art they protected and found, there is an ongoing quest for the stories of their lives.  The Monuments Men Foundation is now in its fifth year of research for their bios.  Some are already complete, some only with pictures, while others are still just a name.  Click here to help out.  Who knows, maybe you'll find you knew one of them all along.

Sources:
http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/little-known-monuments-men-hunted-art-treasures-stolen-by-nazis/
http://www.wikipedia.com