Out of Inspiration

When writing, I always look for an inspiration to write..

As of now, there is none. I don't know when one may come.. till then

soy un escritor de pluma-menos...

Tasty as Mom?!

I love bread. It's one of my favorite breakfast ever. Here in the Philippines, we have this habit of dipping our bread on hot coffee. We also have a very special brewed coffee locally made in Batangas, one of our provinces here and we call it Kapeng Barako (Barako Coffee). Barako is the Filipino term for the male stud of an animal, and has become associated with the image of a tough man. The most famous bread in the Philippines is pan de sal.

Well, going back, I just bought a loaf of bread from a bread station in one of the malls here in Naga City. And look what I found, and look closely in the pictures below and guess what might be wrong:



Did you find it? It's right there! The phrase that says "So good... like mom"! I was like, what the heck?! Do they really mean what I was thinking? I really thought about it a long time. Presenting different angles on how one will understand and take the phrase.

This is just one of the tragic results of the misusage of the English language. Maybe what they mean is this: "So good... just like Mom's homemade bread." At least they could have added the apostrophe s ('s) after the word mom: "So good... like mom's". At least with that, we can speculate that it is something that mom makes, which in this case, could be home baked bread. Or the best thing to be done here is complete the phrase. With the phrase "So good... like mom," the only meaning I can think of is this: The bread is as tasteful as my mom. What a very dirty phrase, right? I was trying to find a way to at least point that out to them. I just remember this when I was browsing through my phone and found these pictures. Maybe I am just wrong with my analyzation here. Here is the manufacturer of the bread being supplied to that mall:

Disclaimer: This is just my inquisitive mind inquiring. No intentions of destroying someone's reputation :-).

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!