Day 06 A book that makes you sad

Day 06 A book that makes you sad: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

If you won't be affected by this book, you have a big problem.

I've had an ebook copy of this since 2010, but I was able to read this through a borrowed hard copy from one of my students just last year, 2013. I was randomly asking them about good reads and she recommended this, and even lent it to me the next day. So I gladly obliged. After all, it's not everyday that I get to read actual books that are sold at a price I can't afford.

When I got home that day, I was excited to read it. After dinner, I plopped on the bed and began to read.

And I regretted reading it during nighttime.

It was about a story of a girl who committed suicide and enumerated thirteen (13) reasons why she did it and recorded them on seven (7) cassette tapes. She was already dead when the tapes started circulating, and if one of them didn't pass it on, something bad would happen.

The book would really dampen your mood, but you just can't stop reading it. Because in a way, at some point, we were a part of someone's sorrow too. We caused pain to someone out there. Deep or superficial, still, it's painful for them. We may have did it intentionally or not, but the bottomline is, we hurt someone.

The setting of the whole book was all through one night, when the tapes landed on her love interest's front door. (or was passed on to him, I don't remember exactly)

So like the story, which happened during the night, I read it for two nights.

Later on in the book, the reasons she cited were not why she committed suicide; those were the reasons behind her desire to be free.

The book was about doing things while we still have the chance. and to say things while we have all the time and opportunity to do so. If we'd let passivity get the best of us, all the things we want to say and do would remain thoughts hidden at the back of our heads. They would remain as thoughts, when they should've been transformed into actions and experiences.

So get up and do the things you ought to, and say the things the people around you need to hear.

Be the person God designed you to be.

Days 1-5 of the Book Challenge

Day 01 Best book you read last year: I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris

This book can really mislead you. You'd think it's about relationships, and relationships per se. But it's not. It's about the more important things than being in a relationship. It's about the responsibilities you have to your family, to your friends, to those around you, to yourself, and more importantly to God. It's about realizing that timing really is everything. Not just plain timing, but God's timing. It's about learning to trust him with this very crucial aspect of our lives, and not to try and take control of it, like we always do. We want to do things our way, not realizing that it's not about us, it's not about our partners, but it's about what God wants us to do --- both as singles and as couples.

Day 02 A book that you've read more than three times: Sunday's at Tiffany's

Recommended by a friend who's a fellow bookworm, this book has topped my list of 'most-sought' books for quite some time. Since January of last year, I've been sweeping bookstores selling low-priced books for a copy of this. It's available on other bookstores, but on a very pricey amount (which I don't bite, anyway. Life's too expensive nowadays to spend too much on a single copy) so I've been investing time and effort searching booksales for this. And voila, one day I finally laid my hands on a copy and I went straight to the counter.

It's about a girl whose first love is her imaginary friend. When children reach eight years old, their imaginary friends stop existing and they get on with their lives. But Jane saw her imaginary friend once more when she was grown up. Which was everything but normal. So Jane and her imaginary friend Michael discover why she sees him again --- which leads to her own healing and eventually, Michael's too.

Day 03 Your favorite series: Harry Potter series and Hush Hush Series

No need of an explanation. This is not only a part of my childhood, this is my childhood.

Vampires are out (they've never been in for me, anyway); fallen angels are in!

Day 04 Favorite book of your favorite series: HP's 3rd and 7th books; Hush hush's 4th and final book

For the HP series, there's a tie for my favorite book. The first is the 3rd book, since it's still amazing how Harry could have mistaken his patronus for his dad. :D sometimes you gotta be your own hero.

The 7th is well, very informative... and just so worth it.

If you haven't noticed yet, I have this knack for the final books. Well. Closure is a big thing for me. And the revelations are oh so enticing (and unexpected too).

Day 05 A book that makes you happy: Bible

Yes, I know it's cheesy and so corny (for some, that is) but it's true. This book right here really makes me happy. It reminds me of how loved I am, and always will be. It's the only book where the author is in love with the reader, and not the other way around. :D

30 day challenge

Since I have spare time this summer, I thought I should be productive with it. But I think it's a little late for this since I have 9 days left before May ends. But still, I want to do this. I will compress challenges; I won't do them day by day. I'll answer challenges as long as I have spare time. So maybe in a day, I'd write about five challenges (maximum) if I'm really not that busy here at work.

Answering these kinds of stuff can really help stimulate the mind, and it helps me relax too. I know it sounds VERY nerdy, that writing is relaxing for me, but it really is. I don't know. It's just a form of therapy for me.

Here are the sets of challenges that I'll do for the following days. I'll post the picture of the challenge that I'm answering, to avoid confusion.

I know, I know. It's really ambitious of me to try to do this with only a few days left with my (working) vacation. But I JUST NEED TO WRITE. It's been a difficult to just even write simple compositions lately and I feel that it's a burden. So, to stimulate my mind and writing skills, I've decided to do this. 

Or I just want to write again. Either way, it's still a win-win situation. :D

I'll start in a bit! Me is eggzoited. :D

BACK TO BLOGGING!

So obviously I've been out of the blogging world for quite some time now. No, for YEARS now. I've been busy with getting myself out of school (graduating, that is. haha) and feeding myself (getting a job). Blogging's been out of my priorities for the past two or three years, and I REALLY MISS IT. I didn't realize how much I missed it until now, actually.

I was randomly browsing my social media accounts and I bumped into my old Tumblr accounts (which are on the links above, should you want to browse my random ramblings there) and I realized how much time and effort I've always invested on both those accounts. I would literally pore over those for hours, and I would always get the question: "what do you get out of maintaining a blog, anyway?" Honestly, I get NOTHING out of it. No monetary value, no popularity boost, no recognition, no nothing. But I still do it. I dress it up, I make entries, I search for things to post. Speaking of dressing up, here's the new look of my recent blog in Tumblr:

It looks really plain, but I like it that way. Minimalist much, isn't it? Less is more! :D

Well, I can say that this is the start of my coming back to writing. Hope I could sustain this though, coz I have a jampacked schedule for the next months. But, God-willing, I could sustain this again. :D

Today's May 21, 2014, and I welcome myself back to writing. Back to blogging. :D

It's been a while

This post really isn't a short story or any work of fiction. It's personal. XD

My plate's been really full lately: work and school. So my muse hasn't exactly been giving me the usual frequent visits as it has been before. In short, inspiration is a bit elusive. Just the tinny-tiniest bit. :)

But lately an idea's been knocking at the door. And I've decided I'd give it a try. Again. :)

I'm planning to write another mini-novel. It's still on the process. Chapter one is finished but I just can't bring myself to post it because I still might change just a few parts. Because it doesn't seem like a good opener for a story. I kind of blocked the supposedly flourishing plot. Haha. Fail. XD

I wrote this post just to have something new on my blog. :))

Geriatric love ♥

Geriatrics or geriatric medicine is a sub-specialty of internal medicine and family medicine that focuses on health care of elderly people. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geriatrics)


Since I was a former Nursing student, I came across this term and started using it to refer to the elderly. But my fascination with the elderly started way back during High School, when we visited a Home for the Aged during a religious activity. 


The facility was located near a hospital here in General Santos City. Prior the activity, I didn't know that it existed at all. When we went there, all I wanted was to get it over with. I wasn't really expecting anything unusual or emotionally moving since we would be there only for a short period of time. BOY WAS I WRONG.


When we arrived, there was a program already going on inside. The in-charge informed us that there was a group of students who were scheduled that day too, but they were a little behind schedule that's why they weren't finished with their program yet. So she encouraged us to just join their activity, since we didn't exactly have a program of our own anyway. And so we did.


When I took a peek inside what seemed to be their living room where the program was held, I saw that the 'geria' (shorter term for geriatric) were already on their feet, being ushered to the center of the room. Music was blaring from the stereo just beside whom I assumed the emcee, and suddenly the partners of each geria were starting to dance, encouraging the geria beside them to do so too. I was still enjoying the scene when suddenly the emcee saw me and started to pull my hand, towing me to the direction of the only geria left on the sofa. An elderly man, not wearing even an iota of a smile on his face. All the other geria were almost laughing out loud, enjoying the music and their dance, but he seemed to be unmoved. So I invited him to dance and reluctantly, he joined me.


While we were dancing, I tried to talk to him and fortunately, he cooperated. I learned that he was on the Home because his children already have families of their own and there was no one left to take care of him. While he was relaying this, the sadness on his eyes was almost tangible that he even had to look away when a shadow of a tear appeared. 


The dance was over before we knew it. When it was time to go, there were three or four elderly women who cried and said bargained if we could stay longer, especially those in wheelchairs and couldn't walk. The sight was so moving I tried to think of other things except the sadness and loneliness they've been enduring all this time to keep the tears on my own eyes at bay. 


Since then, I swore that I'd someday help a specific Home so that the geria would feel less lonely and sad. Because of that experience, my heart goes out to almost every geria I see. 


Today, while in a bookstore, my private reading was cut short when I heard an elderly man's voice enter the bookstore and ask something I didn't quite catch to the guy at the counter. When I turned to have a better look, I smiled despite my bad mood. There standing on the doorway was an elderly couple, probably on their 70's, animatedly chatting with the guy at the counter. 

This paparazzi shot was the best one I could take, since I was afraid someone might see me secretly taking a photo of the couple. Haha. I was even more amused when I observed that they were Ilonggo. 


"BISAN ISA LANG KA BESTSELLER, AH." I heard the elderly man say to his presumable wife. 


I was just fascinated with the couple. Moments later, a woman handed them a bag of food. "Balon namon? Salamat gid," said the elderly woman. 


I just hope that young people would treat gerias better, not with evident impatience. Old age doesn't equate to uselessness. They can be a handful sometimes, but they deserve to be treated with patience. After all, they didn't grow impatient with us when all we could do is cry and throw tantrums not long ago.




MVJLO 05.27.12

Coffee~

I wasn't really a coffee drinker since my mom would always say that it'd only make my palpitations worse. *I had congenital heart disease*

When I entered college, still I wasn't able to appreciate it. My classmates would even call themselves coffee addicts and every time we would spend nights over a classmate's house for a school project, they would look forward to cups of coffee every two hours. And I was like "okay. I'd settle for hot chocolate."

The "no coffee" mentality only intensified when I got hospitalized for three times last year (march, june and august) due to gastritis. Coffee was one of the no no's since it increases the stomach's acidity. It was fine with me since I really didn't crave for it anyway.

This summer, I tried to convince my mom to let me have my first cup of coffee ever. She agreed, but I only had half of the cup. Then I started looking forward to it.

Today, I went to a food taste session for a magazine. And I didn't expect that I'd enjoy one of their servings. I thought I'd enjoy the chocolate moist cake, but I was surprised that I enjoyed this instead.

Yum. I'd definitely come back for more. ♥

*disclaimer: I am not, in any way, affiliated to the above brand. I just love this*

Samurai X...a live action movie?

Okay, so I'm not really a big fan of Anime's but I grew up with them (so much for having an older brother who never lets you have the remote) especially Samurai X. He never lets me change the channel every dinnertime since that was the time slot of the said series for several years back then. I had no choice but to watch it with him, and I eventually came to like it as time passed.

I came across an article about it and was a bit excited to inform my bro about the new development---it's hitting the big screen this year. What I'm not really confident about is that it's done in live action. And as of what I've seen in Anime's-turned-live-action-films is that...the series are better. I just hope that the producers will be able to live up to the expectations of the fans of the series all over the world.

A Nightmare-ish Incident in my "dream land"

*yey for my update :D*

I was downloading a file from the oh-so-fast internet connection of our school and I decided to browse online news (if not for the restriction of the computer lab for social networking sites and even the sites I use to read ebooks, I wouldn't be stuck reading the news. Oh look. It's been an hour and the download's at....61%. :|)

One of the news articles I've bumped into was something about Korea. And since I'm an avid fan of Kpop and K-Dramas and movies, I excitedly gave it a click and was a bit shocked with what I discovered.

The article was entitled "An Asian Tragedy called Cathy" and it was about a woman who was found hanging in a wooden bar several meters from her home in Gongju, South Korea. Authorities concluded suicide, and so no further investigation was made. What made my eyebrows rise was that she was a Filipino, and even from my hometown, GenSan.

Because of the proximity with the victim (she being a General and was living in my dream land---Korea) I was saddened with what happened to her. It was very unfortunate that she wasn't even given justice. Her body was not even given an autopsy since suicide cases in Korea were frequent and that they no longer find it necessary to do autopsies to such cases. Which is really saddening since Filipinos (more specifically Catholics like her) don't really resort to suicide.

I really hope and pray that she'll be given justice.

[Gang] short love story

Nice love story. It might get a bit cheesy at some point coz it's said the Pinoy way, but just look at the thought. It'll fill your daily dose of awwwwwwwwww. 

Places and the Pinwheel.

Original video made by WongFu Productions, specifically Wesley Chan and his brother during one of their trips.

THESE FOUR WALLS.

I've been so accustomed to these four walls that I almost forgot that I have that dream to go out and see the world.

Oftentimes, we are not only confined to four walls of our homes, our classrooms, our offices but also by walls we've consciously and unconsciously built to keep out certain people in our lives. Some were built out of automatic response to pain. Some aren't even aware they've put up those high walls to lock some people out. But whatever category you belong to, you just have to learn to dismantle them slowly but surely. You'll never know how beautiful the scene is unless you get those walls down. Now. It's never too late if you start now.

See the world. The pinwheel did.

There's Us

Just something I thought my blog should have. This somehow reminds me how I write my stories. :) Enjoy!

 *Translations in bold.

그날에 우리 (Geunare uri)
There's us 

Baby my love 그날에 우리 
Baby my love geunare uri
Baby my love there's us 
아픈 기억 그대에겐 그렇게 
Apeun kiok geudae egen geureoke
Remember our painful moment
바래지고 바래지는 
Barae jigo barae jineun
I hope it has gone now
또 다른 이별의 흔적이겠죠
Tto dareun ibyeore heunjeok igetjyo
Also I guess the other is the trace of our separation
남겨진 우리 아픈 상처 
Namgyeojin uri apeun sangcheo
That left us hurt so much 
내 세상엔 너무도 
Nae sesangen neomudo
Our world too
소중하고 소중했던 
Sojunghago sojunghaetdeon
Used to be dear and precious 
단 하나뿐인 그대의 흔적
Dan hanappunin geudaeui heunjeok
You are one and only that remind me of it 

다 잊었다 했죠 
Da itjeotda haetjyo
I forget what it was all about
아니 잊은척하려 했겠죠 
Ani ijeun cheokharyeo haegetjyo
No, I guess I just pretend I have already forgotten 
오랜 기억 속에 그댈 담아 두고서 
Noraen kiok sokge geudael dama dugoseo
Remember it has been long time since the last time we put it to end 

참아왔던 이 시간들 
Chamawatdeon i sigandeul
There's times I had to endure 
더는 그러지 못해 놓아보려 했지만 
Deoneun geureoji mothae noaboryeo haejiman
You don't want to but really have to let it go
추억이란 말 속에 아직도 난 서성이고 있었죠 
Chuokiran mal sokge ajikdo nan seoseong igo isseojyo
It's only a memory to tell, still I keep wondering 

Baby my love 그날에 우리 
Baby my love geunarae uri
Baby my love there's us
아픈 기억 그대에겐 그렇게 
Apeun kiok geude egen geureoke
Remember our painful moment 
바래지고 바래지는 
Barae jigo barae jineun
I hope it has gone now
또 다른 이별의 흔적이겠죠
Tto dareun ibyeorui heunjeok igetjyo
Also I guess the other is the trace of our seperation
남겨진 우리 아픈 상처
Namgyeojin uri apeun sangcheo
That left us hurt so much 
내 세상엔 너무도 
Nae sesangen neomudo
Our world, too 
소중하고 소중했던
Sojunghago sojunghaetdeon 
Used to be dear and precious 
단 하나뿐인 그대의 흔적 
Dan hanappunin geudaeui heujeok
You are one and only that remind me of it

그렇게 그대 손 놓지 않고 
Geureoke geudae son noji anko
So why don't you let it go?
내 마음 그대에게 말했다면
Nae maeum geudae ege malhaedamyeon
If I can tell you my feeling
still need you want you stay by my side 
우리 함께였을걸
Uri hamke yeosseulgeol
We should be together 

그리움 그 마음속에 
Geurium geu maumsokge
That yearning feeling
그대는 먼곳에 보여도 
Geudeneun meonggose boyeodo
You may see in future
다른 사랑으로 미워해도 
Dareun sarangeuro miwohaedo
I don't like to, there's no other love but you
결국 그대죠 
Gyeolguk geudaejyo
I guess eventually 

Baby my love 그날에 우리 
Baby my love geunarae uri
Baby my love there's us
아픈 기억 그대에겐 그렇게
Apeun kiok geudae ege geureoke 
So remember our painful moment 
바래지고 바래지는 
Barae jigo barae jineun
I hope it has gone now
또 다른 이별의 흔적이겠죠
Tto dareun ibyeorui heunjeok igetjyo
Also I guess the other is the trace of our separation
남겨진 우리 아픈 상처 
Namgyeojin uri apeun sangchyeo
That left us hurt so much 
내 세상엔 너무도 
Nae sesangen neomudo
Our world, too
소중하고 소중했던 
Sojunghago sojunghaetdeon
Used to be dear and precious 
단 하나뿐인 그대의 흔적
Dan hanappunin geudaeui heunjeok
You are one and only that remind me of it