Masquerade

Firmin: Misseur Andre!
Andre:  Misseur Firmin!
Firmin: Dear Andre what a splendid party!
Andre:  The prolouge to a bright new year.
Firmin: Quite a night, I'm impressed.
Andre:  Well one does ones best.
ANDRE/FIRMIN: Here's to us!
Andre: A toast for the city.
Firmin: What a pity that the Phantom can't be here!

Chorus:
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade.
Masquerade!
Hide your face, so the world will never find you!
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade.
Masquerade!
Look around -
there's another
mask behind you!

Flash of mauve.
Splash of puce.
Fool and king.
Ghoul and goose.
Green and black.
Queen and priest.
Trace of rouge.
Face of beast.
Faces.

Take your turn.
Take a ride.
On a merry - go - round
In an inhuman race.

Eye of gold.
Thigh of blue.
True is false.
Who is who?
Curl of lip.
Swirl of gown.
Ace of hearts.
Face of clown.
Faces.
Drink it in
Drink it up
'til you drown in the light.
In the sound.

Raoul/Chistine: But who can name the face?

Masquerade!
Grinning yellows,
spinning reds.
Masquerade!
Take your fill -
let the spectacle
astound you!

Masquerade!
Burning glances,
turning heads.
Masquerade!
Stop and stare
at the sea of smiles
around you!

Masquerade!
Seething shadows
breathing lies.
Masquerade!
You can fool
any friend who
ever knew you!

Masquerade!
Leering satyrs,
peering eyes.
Masquerade!
Run and hide -
but a face will
still pursue you

Madam Giry: What a night
Meg: What a crowd!
Andre: Makes you glad!
Firmin: Makes you proud!
        All the creme
        de la creme!
Carlotta: Watching us watching them!
Meg/Madam Giry: And all our fears
                are in the past!
Andre: Three months!
Piangi: Of relief!
Carlotta: Of delight!
Andre/Firmin: Of Elysian peace!
Meg/Giry: And we can breathe at last!
Carlotta: No more notes!
Piangi: No more ghost!
Giry: Here's a health!
Andre: Here's a toast:
       to a prosperous year!
Firmin: To our friends who are here 

The Mirror of Erised

A scene from the movie "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone":



Albus Dumbledore: Back again, Harry? I see that you ,like so many before you, have discovered the delights of the mirror of Erised. I trust by now you realize what it does. Let me give you a clue. The happiest man on earth would look into the mirror and see only himself exactly as he is.

Harry: So then it shows us what we want, whatever we want.

Albus Dumbledore: Yes and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts. Now, you Harry will never know your family. You see them standing beside you. But remember this Harry: This mirror gives us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away in front of it, even gone mad. That is why tomorrow it will be moved to a new home. And I must ask you not to go looking for it again. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Theater of the Absurd

A month ago, when I searched the web for “News American Election 2008”, I got this as one of the search results: Oh, the Drama! McCain in the Theater of the Absurd. The last four words caught my attention.

The New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary defines theater of the absurd as “dramatic presentations that depict the absurdity of the human condition in an incomprehensible universe by abandoning realistic form and utilizing fantastic or other eccentric means”.

Jerome P. Crabb profoundly explained it and cited Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as the most famous and most controversial absurdist play.

The play was made into a film, a portion of which can be viewed in Youtube.

The Pi Song

Double E's(www.amIright.com) parody of Don McLean's American Pie.

A long, long time ago
I can still remember
When the Bible told that pi was three
There was no value at that time
Like 3.14159
And 3 worked as pi's value for a while
But Archimedes, he did shiver.
And with each new value he'd deliver
Much better precision
Than anyone before him
He did not know what pi would be,
But his value was better than 3
So, he was smarter, can't you see
The day our lives were pied
So

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385 (actually 46, but it rounds)
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi

In the year 150 AD
There came this guy named Ptolemy
Who learned pi as 3.1416
And then the year 1430 came
al-Kashi had 14 digits to his name
But so many more were still to come.
Well, then in 1593
Romanus brought the total to 15
And just three years from then
Van Cuelen added digits: 10 + 10
At the end of the seventeenth century
Sharp added 36 more digits to be
But they all still need to see
The day our lives were pied
I started singing

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi

And for six years pi hadn't grown
It was just sitting, like a stone
That's not the way it'd always be
When Machin came in 1706
This dormancy he sought out to fix
When he came with 100 numbers
Oh and the first one to make a mistake
Was de Lagny in 17-1-8
He had one hundred twelve
But 15 he had to shelve
To end this century with a roar
In 17 and 94
Von Vega added 24
Before our lives were pied
We were singing

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi

Rutherford came in 1824,
He came up with much more than before
But he messed the last 56
He tried again in '53
And had right digits, 440
And they all were correct on this attempt
Now the next hundred years showed little work
When Shanks had just a tiny quirk
He had to the 700th place
But he miscalculated one case
So has last 200 were all wrong
And a positive gain took way too long
We're halfway through this really long song
The day we all were pied
We started singing

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi

In 1946 Ferguson came and
Was the last man to calculate by hand
And computers entered in to play
Well, these computers, they worked quick
With Ferguson being to first to stick
Numbers in, and learn more of pi.
Well, that day he learned 710
Six months later he tried again
He got eight hundred eight
Cause people just can't wait
And in September 1999
The most digits that I could find
Were discovered by artificial mind
The day we all were pied
It was singing

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi

The digits they discovered then,
They'll discover them and more again,
Were more than would fit in this song
Two hundred six billion and more
158 million and then four
Hundred thirty thousand digits, they do know
And in math class the students know
That pi will never end although
People keep on learning
Until the world stops turning
I hope you all enjoyed my song,
Though I admit it's way too long
If you know the words sing along
The day we are were pied.
And we were singing

My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi
That we'll never learn all of pi.

We were singing
My, my that's one large piece of pi
Not just 3.1415926535...
897932385
Singing that we'll never learn all of pi.

A Joke Gone Wrong

I often receive text messages the content of which range from purely spiritual to downright obscene depending on the source. I, in turn, save the inspirational ones and forward the funny ones.

One time, I forwarded a nasty joke to someone who regularly sent me inspirational quotes. It went back to me seconds later with a sentence written in bold letters added: NEVER SEND ME A MESSAGE LIKE THIS NEXT TIME. 'Til now, I never have the chance of knowing whether she still reads my other messages because her number is always "out of coverage area". That was a case of a joke gone wrong.

James Ogilvy, in his book Living without a Goal: Finding the Freedom to Live a Creative and Innovative Life, profoundly explains what happens when humor gets out of hand and what is to be done about it.

Now for the bad news that follows from De Saussure's liberation of symbols from nonarbitrary tethers things. Evil is inevitable because its source is to be found among the most innocent. The origin of evil is to be found in the play of innocents, in the joke gone wrong. The origin of evil is to be found in play and teasing and joking around. Sometimes the naughty slides down toward decadence. The playful teasing that could be an act of love becomes instead a step toward depravity.

A joke, in order to be a joke, always requires duplicity, some sort of double entendre, some play on words or switch of context that places an entirely different significance on the punch line. In every piece of humor there is always some sort of doubling. To the extent that play involves or is like humor, like playing a joke on someone, then it is intrinsically the case that the joke can be misunderstood. Unless it is genuinely and successfully ambiguous to begin with, it cannot be a good joke. But the line between a good joke and a bad joke is often very fine.

This structure of humor and play predetermines the inevitability of play going wrong sooner or later. And as soon as the joke goes wrong, as soon as someone doesn't get the joke, doesn't take it in fun, then an injury has been committed, to which there may be a response in kind, then a further reaction, then reprisals, then revenge, then recriminations, then yet crueler revenge... and by then anything can happen, even evil. And it all started because of a joke. "I really didn't mean to hurt you," one protests. "It was only a joke...." But the seeds of evil have already been sown.

Finding the origin of evil in the play of innocents is bad news because it means we can never eradicate evil once and for all. The seeds of evil lie ready to sprout in every discourse, in every set of symbolic relationships that allows itself to reach outside the narrowly literal.

Literalism seemed appropriate in an industrial-material order of things rather than signs. Not all that glitters is gold, and it pays to determine the difference between 14-karat and 18-karat purity. In the symbolic order things are not always so definitive. But as soon as literalism allows an inch to allegory, metaphor, irony or any of the other rhetorical tropes, evil can arise when someone fails to appreciate the playfulness of a literary device. If you don't get the joke, if the second level of a double meaning never occurs to you and you go ahead blindly accepting the first as the entirety of my intention, then you fail to understand my true intentions. And the consequence of your failure to understand my true intention means that you will attribute to me some intention that changes the meaning of my acts in your eyes.

This entire dynamic can be laid at the doorstep of the Semiotic Gambler. It's his doing, it's his fault. The moment you enter the semiotic realm, the moment material things become signs and sprout another level of meanings that have nothing to do with their physical shapes as things, then you've given the Semiotic Gambler an opportunity to fiddle around with those meanings in ways that have little to do with the innocent ways of physical necessity.

What can we do to keep play from turning evil? Turn play into games with rules. Don't just challenge their gang to see whether your gang can get the coconut between the palm trees, no holds barred. Create some rules - like the rules of soccer and football - so that you don't kill each other in the course of having fun. That way we sublimate play into a more structured environment. In a game, the range of possible intentions is sufficiently circumscribed so that, even where duplicity remains crucial - the athlete's feint in one direction before going in another - the range of possible interpretations does not include defamation, torture, heartbreak or murder of the other competitor.

Tinkering with HTML Codes

It all started when unintentionally I saw online someone's elegantly designed web page. How did he do it? I wondered. When asked about this, a colleague told me that knowledge of HTML codes is so essential in creating one.

That's why I blog. To learn the use of HTML codes found in tutorials. At first it seemed difficult but lately I've realized that it's not after all. Tinkering with the various codes is an amusing way to master them.

Below, with the use of MARQUEE code, is Kipling's "IF", one of my favorite poems.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Clean Hands Save Lives

That's the theme of the first ever Global Handwashing Day, slated on October 15, 2008, exactly a month from now. The event for which at least 20 countries are expected to participate will bolster UN's call for better hygiene through practice of handwashing with soap.

A section of the Planner's Guide that has been issued is about the five facts about handwashing with soap. These fundamental five are as follows:

1. Washing hands with water alone is not enough.
   
2. Handwashing with soap can prevent diseases that kill millions of children every year.
   
3. The critical moments for handwashing with soap are after using the toilet or cleaning a child and before handling food.
   
4. Handwasing with soap is the single most cost-effective health intervention.
   
5. Social marketing approaches that center on the potential handwasher and his or her specific motivations are more effective than traditional diseased-focused approaches.

What My Playing Cards Tell about My Future

Blogthings.com offers various tests that anyone online may want to try. Questions asked range from extremely trivial, such as What number are you? to highly intriguing, such as What gender is your brain?.

This is the result of The Playing Card Test I answered.

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What Your Playing Cards Tell About Your Future

Right now you are focused on your internal emotions, including a bit of pain and suffering. Your emotions are currently tied to success. You've either had some unexpected success or an unexpected lack of success. Your closest friend always can cheer you up... whether it's through flattery, funny stories, or simply just being there. The near future will bring a new competitor or rival - in business or love. This person may seem like a friend at first. Beware of a cruel woman who will first befriend you and then betray you.

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Speaking of cards, I've read that the present deck of 52 playing cards originated in France in the 14th century. The suits depict the different classes of French society. Hearts represented the church; spades, the army; diamonds, the merchants; and clubs, the peasants and farmers.

Don't Read This

Don't you know that, in an online survey which asked "Are you aware of a coworker trying to make you look bad or sabotage your work in the last year?", almost 75 % of the respondents replied "yes"?

The complete article can be found here.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

From youtube:mewichigorocks1

Taking Time to Write

When I was still an undergrad, I abhorred writing. I never got excellent or superior marks on subjects where professors required term papers and assessed students through essays. Simply not being good at it, I thought I could dodge it at all times. But I was wrong. Last May, when I finally decided to start working on my thesis' manuscript for the preliminary defense, I was left with no other choice but do it. The problem with voracious readers is they can clearly distinguish good from bad writing. Being one, I tried my best that it would be something worth reading. The manuscript was finished after seven revisions. The result wasn't bad but it wasn't that good either. Last July, I was done with the preliminary defense and now hope that I could have the final defense before this academic year ends.

Having realized how important writing is and hoping that I'm not yet too old to learn its rudiments, I've bought and read books on it. The list includes Zinsser's On Writing Well, Landy's Seven Rules for Writers, Waddell's The Art of Styling Sentences, Levy's Rhethoric in Thought and Writing, and Carillo's English Plain and Simple.

Notebook

Before I bought a Toshiba notebook, I first checked its price online. From Asianic Distributors Inc., I got this info.


Toshiba Satellite L300-A512

Toshiba's great value, quality laptop serves all your basic computing needs and offers you great performance packed with some astonishing features. Intel Pentium Dual-Core proc T2390 (1.86GHz), 1GB, 120GB HDD, DVD Burner, 15.4"TFT, Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition

Price: P 35,990

Technical Specifications:
Part Number: PSLB0L-08802E
Processor: Intel® Dual Core M Processor T2390 (1.86GHz, 533MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache)
Chipset: Mobile Intel® GL960 Express Chipset
Memory: 1GB DDR2 (512MB x 2)
Display Screen: 15.4" WXGA (200NIT) CSV TFT display, resolution 1,280 x 800
Video Type: Intel X3100 Graphics
Video Memory: up to 251 MB of Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0 (8 MB of dedicated system memory, up to 250 MB of shared system memory)
Hard Disk: 120GB SATA HDD
Optical Drive: Integrated 8X DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive
Weight: 2.57kg
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition
Network Interface: Built in 56k Modem, Built in 10/100M LAN
Wireless LAN: Built-in 802.11b/g
Card Reader: 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD)
WebCam: Integrated webcam
Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion Battery Pack (3-hour battery life)
Speakers: Stereo Speakers, 16-bit Stereo with Intel® High def
I/O Ports: Three USB 2.0 ports, External display (VGA) port, Headphone/speaker/line-out jack, Microphone-in jack, Ethernet (RJ-45) port, Modem (RJ-11) port304

I expected that here in Bicol the product would be sold at a higher price. However, I was surprised to learn that its cost was just the same. So yesterday, I purchased one.

What Role Does Envy Play in Organizations?

I've come across a very interesting article on the Internet about envy. The paragraph below is excerpted from it.

"The role of envy as a catalytic emotion suggests that envy in organizations might more generally lead to sensemaking that reframes the situation, to positive action which elevates the envier, or to negative action which brings down the envied person. The latter two possibilities highlight the difference between two forms of envy that have been identified both in social constructionist research (Armon-Jones, 1986) and in more traditional psychology (Bedeian, 1995). First, action taken to achieve or obtain that which is envied would be associated with what has been referred to as ‘nonmalicious envy’ (Parrott, 1991). The focus of non-malicious envy is on rectifying the envier’s deficiency in some way (Neu, 1980). In contrast, action taken to diminish what the envied person enjoys, by depriving them rather than by improving the position of the envier, is rooted in ‘malicious envy’ (Parrott, 1991)."

Read the full article here.

The Third Jewel

The essay below is something I learned, memorized and delivered in class way back in high school. Fr. Rene, our teacher, gave each of us a copy and required each to recite this. Thus, I saw almost fifty versions of this piece. Since then, I have always remembered this.

The author, Fr. Horacio de la Costa S.J., speaks of two jewels: music and faith. If there is a third one, it could probably be literature of which this essay is an excellent example. I discovered online that this was written in 1943 by the author ,then a Jesuit seminarian, in a Japanese concentration camp for the intermission of a play entitled Fiesta (Mercado, 2003).

JEWELS OF THE PAUPER
by
Horacio V. De la Costa, S.J.
There is a thought that comes to me sometimes as I sit by my window in the evening, listening to the young men’s guitars, and watching the shadows deepen on the long hills, the hills of my native land.

You know, we are a remarkably poor people; poor not only in material goods, but even in the riches of the spirit. I doubt we can claim to possess a truly national literature. No Shakespeare, no Cervantes has yet been born among us to touch with immortality that which is in our landscape, in our customs, in our story, that which is most original, most ourselves. If we must give currency to our thoughts, we are forced to mint them in the coinage of a foreign tongue, for we do not even have a common language.

But poor as we are, we yet have something. This pauper among the nations of the earth hides two jewels in her rags. One of them is our music. We are sundered one from another by eighty-seven dialects; we are one people when we sing. The kundimans of Bulacan awaken an answering chord in the lutes of Leyte. Somewhere in the rugged north, a peasant woman croons her child to sleep; and the Visayan listening remembers the cane fields of his childhood, and his mother singing the self-same song.

We are again one people when we pray. This is our other treasure; our Faith. It gives somehow, to our little uneventful days, a kind of splendor; as though they had been touched by a king. And did you ever notice how they are always mingling, our religion and our music? All the basic rites of human life – the harvest and the seed time, the wedding, birth and death – are among us, drenched with the fragrance and the coolness of music.

These are the bonds that bind us together; these are the souls that make us one. And as long as there remains in these islands one mother to sing Nena’s lullaby, one boat to put out to sea with the immemorial rowing song, one priest to stand at the altar and offer God to God, the nation may be conquered, trampled upon, enslaved, but it cannot perish. Like the sun that dies every evening it will rise again from the dead.

Anagram Appeal

Logology, the term coined to refer to the study of words that underscores their letter patterns rather than their meaning, probably appeals to everyone. Three of its components are anagrams, palindromes, and isograms.

Few of the interesting anagrams I've encountered are as follows:

astronomers = moon starers
eleven plus two = twelve plus one
astuteness = taut senses
the meaning of life = the fine game of nil
the centenarians = i can hear ten 'tens'
a decimal point = i'm a dot in place
listen = silent
the detectives = detect thieves
indomitableness = endless ambition
the eyes = they see
a gentleman = elegant man
butterfly = flutter-by

Want some more? See here.

I searched the Internet for an anagram generator, found one and then tried my name. These are some of the results:

Are ye Solomon?
Someone royal
A moon so leery
A see-only room
Moose on relay

If you want to anagrammatize your name also, click here.

Murphy's Law and Its Corollaries

MURPHY'S LAW:If anything can go wrong, it will.

COROLLARIES:
1. Finagle's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will - at the worst possible moment.
2. Hanlon's Law: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
3. Callahan's Principle: You can't argue with stupid.
4. Zymurgy's Law: Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a bigger can.
5. Hoare's Law: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.
6. Dirac's Law: The speaker who knows least speaks the longest.
7. Sturgeon's Law: Nothing is always absolutely so.
8. Bye's Law: Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
10. Missett's Law: The further back from the traffic light you are, the sooner you will see it green.
11. Jensen's Law: You can never find what you're looking for, until you stop looking for it.
12. Muphry's Law: If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you've written.
13. Silverman's Paradox: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

MIT

In his Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT), Howard Gardner posits that there are 8 intelligence areas. These areas are as follows:

VERBAL-LINGUISTIC
A person in this category:
excels in reading, writing, telling stories, memorizing dates, thinking in words;
prefers to read, write, talk, memorize, work at puzzles; and
learns best through reading, hearing and seeing words, speaking, writing, discussing and debating.

MATH-LOGIC
An individual with this intelligence:
excels in math, reasoning, logic, problem-solving, patterns;
prefers to solve problems, question, work with numbers, experiment; and
learns best through working with patterns and relationships, classifying, categorizing, working with the abstract.

SPATIAL
A person with strong visual-spatial intelligence:
excels in reading, maps, charts, drawing, mazes, puzzles, imaging things, visualization;
prefers to design, draw, build, create, daydream, look at pictures; and
learns best through working with pictures and colors, visualizing, drawing.

BODILY-KINESTHETIC
A person in this category:
excels inathletics, dancing, acting, crafts, using tools;
prefers to move around, touch and talk, body language; and
learns best through touching, moving, processing knowledge through bodily sensations.

MUSICAL
An individual with a high level of musical intelligence:
excels in singing, picking up sounds, remembering melodies, rhythms;
prefers to sing, hum, play an instrument, listen to music; and
learns best through rhythm, melody, singing, listening to music and melodies.

INTERPERSONAL
A person in this category:
excels in understanding people, leading, organizing, communicating, resolving conflicts, selling;
prefers to have friends, talk to people, join groups; and
learns best through sharing, comparing, relating, interviewing, cooperating.

INTRAPERSONAL
A person who is strongest in this intelligence:
excels in understanding self, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, setting goals;
prefers to work alone, reflect, pursue interests; and
learns best through working alone, doing self-paced projects, having space, reflecting.

NATURALIST
An individual who:
excels in understanding nature, making distinctions, identifying flora and fauna;
prefers to be involved with nature, make distinctions; and
learns best through working in nature, exploring things, learning about plants and natural events.

The Internet teems with tests that determine which one of these eight intelligences is predominant to you. Determine your top three intelligences here.

Who Will Be the First Pinoy Idol?

One of the shows I watch on weekends is GMA 7's Pinoy Idol. Last Sunday, the three finalists were already revealed: Jayann, Gretchen and Ram. Two of my bets, Kid and Daryl, unfortunately did not make it. But, of the three remaining hopefuls, Jayann, in my opinion, deserves to win as the first Pinoy Idol.

Here is the list of songs she rendered in the show for the past weeks:

June 21 (TOP 12): Natural Woman
June 28 (TOP 11): Whine Up
July 5 (TOP 10): Better Days
July 12 (TOP 9): Pangarap Ko Ang Ibigin Ka
July 19 (TOP 8): Laging Naroon Ka
July 26 (TOP 7): Akin Ka na Lang
August 2 (TOP 6): You
August 9 (TOP 5): Finally

The Old Man and the Sea

Alexander Petrov's Oscar Award-winning animated film (1999) based on Ernest Hemingway's Nobel Prize-winning novella (1954) of the same title

A Winner's Blueprint for Achievement

by William Arthur Ward

BELIEVE while others are doubting.
PLAN while others are playing.
STUDY while others are sleeping.
DECIDE while others are delaying.
PREPARE while others are daydreaming.
BEGIN while others are procrastinating.
WORK while others are wishing.
SAVE while others are wasting.
LISTEN while others are talking.
SMILE while others are frowning.
COMMEND while others are criticizing.
PERSIST while others are quitting.

Haven

Noel Cabangon's "Kanlungan" always reminds of the place where I spent most of my childhood. These are some of the photos taken when I visited that place a few months ago.



Kanlungan by Noel Cabangon

Pana-panahon ang pagkakataon
Maibabalik ba ang kahapon?

Natatandaan mo pa ba
Nang tayong dal’wa ang unang nagkita?
Panahon ng kamusmusan
Sa piling ng mga bulaklak at halaman
Doon tayong nagsimulang
Mangarap at tumula

Natatandaan mo pa ba
Inukit kong puso sa punong mangga
At ang inalay kong gumamela
Magkahawak-kamay sa dalampasigan
Malayang tulad ng mga ibon
Ang gunita ng ating kahapon

Ang mga puno’t halaman
Ay kabiyak ng ating gunita
Sa paglipas ng panahon
Bakit kailangan ding lumisan?

Pana-panahon ang pagkakataon
Maibabalik ba ang kahapon?

Ngayon ikaw ay nagbalik
At tulad ko rin ang iyong pananabik
Makita ang dating kanlungan
Tahanan ng ating tula at pangarap
Ngayon ay naglaho na
Saan hahanapin pa?

Lumilipas ang panahon
Kabiyak ng ating gunita
Ang mga puno’t halaman
Bakit kailangang lumisan?

Pana-panahon ang pagkakataon
Maibabalik ba ang kahapon?

Lumilipas ang panahon
Kabiyak ng ating gunita
Ang mga puno’t halaman
Bakit kailangang lumisan?

Pana-panahon ang pagkakataon
Maibabalik ba ang kahapon?

Take It from Rocky

Rocky Balboa, the sixth in the Rocky movie series, is one of my favorite. I have a copy of the film which, though pirated, is clear. Never mind the subtitle. The video clip below is the scene I like most about it: Rocky’s conversation with his son Robert who tried but failed to convince him not to fight.

You ain’t gonna believe this but you used to fit right here. I’d hold you up and said to your mother, ”This kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody ever knew.” And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching, every day was like a privilege. And when the time for you to be your own man and take on the work. And you did. But somewhere along the line you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you: You’re no good. And when things got hard, you start looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and, I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. Now if you know what you’re worth. Go out and get what your worth. But you gonna be willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers, saying you ain’t what you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that. I’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son . You’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life. Don’t forget to visit your mother.

Text Message

I am about to delete all messages in my cell's inbox.
However, one of the messages I received is worth saving
so I am posting it here in its original form.

Stress Test:

der s a vry, vry tall
coconut tree, & der r
4 animals:

King Kong, Ape,
Orangutan,& monkey
pass by.

Dey hve a cmpettion
2c hu s d fastst 2
get d banana.

Hu do u gues wil win?

Ur answer wil reflect
ur personlity.

Try & ans.
w/n 30 secs.

Got ur answer?
Scroll down 2c
d anlyss.

If ur answer is:

Orangutan=
flippen s2pid

ape=
u fool

Monkey=
u r an idiot

Kingkong=s2pid

WHY?

COCONUT TREES
DON'T HAVE
BANANAS..

8s obyus ur
stresed.

Ten Simple Ways to Save Yourself from Messing Up with Life

Having gotten tired, finally, of watching funny videos on Youtube and of seeing exquisite pics on Friendster, I surf the net for articles worth reading. And this is what I've found: a list of ways on how not to mess up with life.

1. Stop taking so much notice of how you feel.
2. Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse.
3. Ease up on the internal life commentary.
4. Take no notice of your inner critic.
5. Give up on feeling guilty.
6. Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you.
7. Stop keeping score.
8. Don't be concerned that your life and career aren't working out
the way you planned.
9. Don't let others use you to avoid being responsible for their
own decisions.
10. Don't worry about your personality. You don't really have
one.

See the full article here.

Bad Service

I really do not know what’s wrong with my Internet connection. I thought the amount of P899 covers a month of good subscription. But, no, it does not. In most instances, I have to wait until 10 PM, just to get connected. Now I’m luckier because I just waited until 5 PM.

Last May 5, I informed the telephone company ( which at the same time is the ISP) about the problem. It did a quick action by sending a technician who identified the modem as the cause. He thus replaced it with a new one. Two days after, though, the problem recurred. It even went from bad to worse. Since then, it is easy to connect but it doesn’t last a minute. Clicking the refresh button is of no use. The modem has to be turned off for a few seconds then turned on. After that I wait for the DSL light to appear just to connect again. In a one-hour connection, I spend half of it, 30 minutes, staring not on the monitor but on the modem. This is so annoying, especially when I do blogs. Before I can finish the last sentence, a message appears below the screen: Cannot contact blogger.com. That means starting all over again.

When I went to the office of the telephone company to pay my May bill, I told the clerk about my dissatisfaction about their services and my plan to have my subscription canceled. She told me that I have to pay P3000 as termination fee. I thought she was just kidding but, she wasn’t, it was written clearly on the brochure she handed me. She was kind enough though to give me another option: To contact their hotline every time an inconvenience is encountered. It turned out however to be not an option but another problem. No one answers each time I dial the number.

Until now I cannot see the logic of anyone asking a fee for the termination of a bad service. Anyway, I am willing to pay only for a good one.

Ukay-Ukay

I usually shop at malls but yesterday I tried ukay-ukay, for a change. Nowadays, ukay-ukay stores sprout in Naga but I went to the one recommended by a colleague, who gave some advice too.

1. Ask for a discount 'coz the prices aren't fixed.
2. Scrutinize every part of the item you buy for anything that ain't
right. It's like finding a reason for additional discount.
3. Don't look too interested in what you like.

It worked. For P550, I now have three pairs of pants: a Rambo Culture (not so popular a brand yet still imported) denim for P200 and two slacks, a Gi0rdano and a Baleno, for P350. All fit me well and look good as new, except for the missing button of the last one. But, that's no big deal. My grandma is good at fixing things like that.

Now I realize why many people frequent those places: cheap prices and brand-name products. These two don't go together at malls. So next time I shop, I know where to go.

Best Songs

This is the list of my ten favorite songs.

1. Viva Forever by Spice Girls Video|Lyrics
   
2. Go the Distance by Michael Bolton Video|Lyrics
   
3. Reflection by Christina Aguilera Video|Lyrics
   
4. Against All Odds by Westlife and Mariah Carey Video|Lyrics
   
5. 100 Years by Five for fighting Video|Lyrics
   
6. Survivor by Destiny's Child Video|Lyrics
   
7. When You Believe by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston Video|Lyrics
   
8. Welcome to My Life by Simple Plan Video|Lyrics
   
9. I Will Come to You by Hanson Video|Lyrics
   
10. Believe by Cher Video|Lyrics
    

"Terminal" Joke

Yesterday afternoon, on my way back home, while I was seated in the jeep that was not yet filled up to capacity, my attention was caught by the conductor who seemed to loathe the spaces between the passengers. I just observed the way he moved his lips as he silently counted the number of passengers that would still fit in. He then spoke in a voice that was both a command and a request, "Isog isogi man po nindo".

Each of us then moved closer to the person seated next to us, except for a decent-looking young guy who was completely absorbed in composing a text message in his 3G cellphone. Somewhat annoyed, the conductor stared at him and spoke in a manner that was purely a command, "Noy, isog isogi man". The guy for the first time heard what he was told, complied, then resumed his texting.

The driver of the jeepney next in line who had sensed the irritation in the conductor's voice humorously said, "Ata na maboboot an pasahero mo, papairisogon mo".

That was the first time I heard that joke. And that was very funny.

Best Poems

Here is a list of some of the poems I like much.

• Silence by Edgar Lee Masters
  
• If by Rudyard Kipling
  
• A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde
  
• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
  
• Keep A-Goin by Frank Stanton
  
• One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
  
• Faith in Mind by Sengtsan
  
• Decalogue of the Artist by Gabriela Mistral
  
• Conceit by D.H. Lawrence
  

About The Title

Now that the summer class is finally over, it's high time I post a blog, I think. Since I created my blogger account seven months ago, I already changed title four times and wrote a number of posts I never published. It was a create-delete thing for me, which was just a waste time.

What I've done reminds me of Penelope, a character in Homer's The Odyssey. To serve her purpose, she unraveled at night what she had just woven during the day.

And so I have my fourth and hopefully final title Penelope's trick. This has nothing to do with trickery. And this has nothing to do with weaving either. It is best to leave trickery to those without natural talent and weaving to those with adroit hands. This is just a blog of someone who loves the written words.