Vocation

The bird is standing by to eat this starving child. This picture was voted as the best journalistic photography many years ago. And the photographer later committed suicide because of his emotional breakdown attaching to his own work.
(The pictures and texts are courtesy of Suwan Victor Juntiwasarakij's blog ~ click picture to visit his blog)

The other day, while on board the multicab (our local mode of trasporation) on my way home, I feel so tired because I just finished my shift which was graveyard shift, just like everyday. I was so sleepy as well. Nonetheless, the mother and her el niño (little boy) didn't fail to catch my attention. The little boy has an unusual body swelling. The mother was trying to remove the morning glory in her child's eyes and the child was trying to push away her hand. It was a very nice picture of them two. The little boy's face especially was swollen, and his eye bugs drooping down because of the swelling. He seems to be having some breathing difficulty as well. Such an innocent child. He was too young to know pain, nor to define it and worse, to experience it. Children like him seems to melt my heart out of pity for them, that I hate looking out of the window of the bus when going home at night when I was still in Manila. You will see homeless street children sleeping in line on the side street pavements, with carton boxes as their bunks. We're not rich ourselves but I can't help to think myself as very fortunate and feel great pity for them.

Long before, I have felt in my heart the need to help them in the future. Maybe join an organization which has a genuine intention of helping children like that little boy. Or even put up one myself. Thinking about the little boy made me teary eyed. I have still little siblings and I always cry thinking about them experiencing the same. I just can't imagine it, and I will never permit it. Only if I can do the same to all suffering children.

Even pictures of suffering children or those children in war pictures would always crush my heart. I always have these questions in my head and heart every time I am seeing these sufferings:
Why are these things permitted?
Who's the cause of all of these?
Why is our governments doing nothing?
Why do most of us become selfish and uncaring?
What can we do to end them all?
When will all of these end?
Et cetera, et cetera.

So many questions, but so few are the answers. So many dreams, but so few have the courage to make those dreams a reality. Including me. When will I answer the call that I do so often hear, I don't know.

Still so many crossroads. A lot of roads still untraveled. The path to my vocation seems too far but already, within sight.



I have posted Michael Jackson's song, Heal The World because this is the most appropriate song for this post and a personal favorite of mine. This song never fails to move me and as well as mist my eyes. This is for me the most inspirational song that I have ever heard.

This is as well a tribute for MJ, forever the King of Pop, in spite of the controversies that surrounded him. Rest in Peace MJ. You will forever be remembered through your Music.

Praying for Emma Rose

As I was browsing for other pages here in Blogger, I accidentally stumble upon this attractive blog about an innocent and little angel who doesn't fully understand pain to suffer it. Upon opening the page, the header is that of the picture of that little girl angel and her name, Emma Rose, and the description of what she's going through right now, that says:

"Emma Rose was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (now known as Polyarticular Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis) in September, 2008 at 18 months. Follow our journey as we live the ups and downs of JIA)."

The one who created the blog is her very courageous mother. I admire her mother so much because in spite of it all, she remains strong, along with her family. Though I cannot speak for her about the pain she might be going through with her daughter's ordeal. Emma Rose is taking more medicine than I ever took in my 21 years so far, one to prevent the inflammation from becoming worse. Now, since I can't really give her a material donation, I am helping out in my little way, which is posting her picture button in the four blogs that I am managing. So if you want to know more and get details, just click on button in my page or the one above. That's one little way of ours to help her out.

If only we can help all children. They're too young to understand pain, much more to suffer them.

Joe Jonas doing Beyonce's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)

Well, this was kind of hilarious and as they put it, awesome. Yeah, for me, Joe Jonas' masculinity was never compromised. He was sport to their fans' requests and he did great. Well, watch the video, salivate for his muscular thighs and prominent butt, yeah, watch out for his butt people :-D... This is awesome, and I love you Joe Jonas!!!

A Child's Mute Cry for Peace

I just finished watching Discover Channel's Indochine: A People's War in Colour II. I really was dumbstruck by the presentation. I believe the first part was during the French colonialism and war against the Japanese while the second part, the one I was able to watch, was under the Americans. It (2nd part) retold the Vietnamese peoples' struggle, anguish, patriotism and hate against foreign interventions, sharpened by past experiences with the French and Japanese. The Vietnamese people were primarily led by the VietCom thru influence from the North. While the pictures and the footage were rolling, on the background, you will hear the explanations and accounts of first-hand witnesses along with the narrator. Very disturbing pictures were shown, of slain VietCom (though it was emphasized in the documentary that the Americans along with Australians, New Zealanders, and South Koreans, have branded all South Vietnamese as VietComs even before arriving), people forced to leave their houses, villagers living underground, children laughing, learning and anguishing, and a lot more, mostly disturbing and outrageous pictures and videos.

One of my favorite part was when a first-hand medical person was narrating how they moved underground just to be able to operate. They'd never leave their patients and let them die alone.

One witness recalls how the South Koreans and some Vietnamese (those who have waged war against their own people) raped their women and did "more outrageous things." Depicted as well were how captured VietComs were tortured and forced to confessions (eventually killed we could guess).

Furthermore shown were slow motion videos of jets as they dropped bombs on all houses that lay on it's path. These air raids were authorized by then U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. A witness recalled how one of their shelters with five women in it was bombed. Only one woman was recognizable. There was that one woman who was hugging her dead child very hard that that they were unable to separate them.

It was really morale boosting how the Vietnamese retaliated against the U.S. and foreign forces, of women fighting, especially those women on the North whose husbands were fighting in the South. The Vietnamese had their share of violence of course, when they have these American pilot captives, whom they as well punished, before their authorities, though the citizens wanted to kill them right there and then, fueled by anger, by anguish of their loved ones lost. How they as well tortured those pilots through solitary confinement, physical torture and hunger. I however, don't know who did the worse evil when it came to torturing their captives.

One man witness even recalled how she got his wife's letter only after 2 years, and all he can do by then is kiss it because the writings were unreadable. It was so because the letters have to be hand carried by soldiers from the South through Cambodia and Laos before they reach their destinations in the North. That means going through rivers and everything.

But even after the Americans and all its allies left beaten, the war continued in the South, this time preventing the Communist North from taking over totally, which eventually the North was able to do later on.

What really touched me most was the crying child at the end of the documentary, with bombs exploding in the not so far background behind him literally. It was the most silent yet loudest and hardest message, or more of an appeal to all people. Stop this selfish fights. END WARS!

PEACE!!!

Itinerary

Whether we accept it or not, but it is a bitter truth that we just can't go to all places in the whole world, even in our whole lifetime. I don't know, but I've never heard of someone who was able to visit all countries, cities and towns in the whole world. The truth is, we might have never even visited the town next to ours, or the state, or city or province, whichever applies to you. However, I am putting here the places where I'd want to go to (really would want to go to) in my lifetime. The main reasons for such choices are:

• the history they hold and preserve
• the beauty of them that life will not be life if we will not see them, literally
• the friends whom I met and loved (people with whom I interacted in person, those whom I met in the internet, etc.)

Without further adieu, here are the places I'd like to visit, or should visit I should say:

1. Seattle, Washington
2. California
3. Rome, Italy
4. Jerusalem
5. Mexico
6. Belgium
7. Lourdes, France
8. Spain
9. New York
10. England
11. the Netherlands
12. Australia
13. China
14. Hong Kong
15. Taiwan
16. Indonesia
17. Malaysia
18. Thailand
19. South America
20. Every Province in the Philippines

Well, that's the initial list... And I haven't fulfilled even a single one of them yet. That's understandable Al, because you just made the list you know :-)...

The list is lengthening, so better get going Al!

$1.00 Elephant Behind The Back

While rummaging through my wallet, I found all sort of stuffs which are so important to me that throwing them away would mean slicing off a part of me, a very important part of my past which defines me as I am now, and who knows, will define the future me as well. There was the small plastic pouch with the tissue papers neatly folded, with my friends' signatures. We scribbled our signatures on those tissue papers when we were together in our favorite place in Legazpi City. It is a small and cozy Chinese restaurant where the foods are great and as well as cheap. Such memory.

But the thing that brings back a lot of happy memories is the $1 USD neatly folded so it looked like an elephant. It was so perfectly folded so that the "Illuminati" symbol accidentally became the eyes of the elephant. Nice right? And the other interesting thing about that is that, it was folded by a very good friend behind his back, without looking at it, just feeling it while he folded it to that perfect elephant dollar.


In Summer of 2007, students from Garfield High School in Seattle, WA went to our University as part of their mission to impart technology. The organization's name is Global Technology Academy. Well, it was a very memorable experience. I volunteered to be an exchange student, to body up with one of their students as well. My brother's name is Conor McBride, a tall guy with curly golden hair and deep eyes. He's so techy and kind, and really have a lot of stories to tell. The 1$ bill was his. While the one who did the folding is his colleague, Sam Levine. Ah, the most intelligent and full of humor guy. We communicate with each other through Facebook and Email as well.

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Rain

It's already Summer here in the Philippines. But one lazy and usual afternoon, while waiting for our service in the park, an everyday routine, the rain suddenly pour down. Even when were on our way to the site in the company bus, the rain was till pouring down. I don't know how many times I said this, but I love the rain.

That rain the other day in particular made me think of something memorable. It has a distinct smell. I opened the window on my side, and I did smell the rain. It's like the odor of a freshly cut tree. I can vividly see in my mind our small property in one of the forest in my hometown, where we would usually spend time with our father, bonding with him, as he's the one taking care of it from time to time. I could see the trees with their sap flowing freely whenever the Bolo hits their trunk, flowing to the ground. As we let them down to dry under the sun.


I can see as well in my mind the dry rivers snaking through our parcel of land, all the way from the perfect coned Mayon Volcano. The stones, small and big alike looked ancient. They're still on the state of unbecoming. Mosses all over some of them. Ferns protruding from the banks. Their hairy young shoots looks very much attractive and inviting. The dry sands are so good to lie on, warmed by the day's sunshine. But one thing I do not dare do is wander and look under stones, fearing that snakes might be lurking from somewhere.



Looking around you will see the sun's rays piercing through the overgrowth, through the trees, golden sunset rays. Owls and other birds are singing in chorus, as if challenging the other. (Sigh..)


Ah, childhood memories.. How I wish they're within grasp all the time...