I Have A Say

You females talk about equal rights, but it’s not what you actually want.

Men are ordained the role of pastors, providers, and protectors. Equal rights? You aren’t wanting those responsibilities. You’re wanting to be freed of responsibility, of accountability for your actions, of “consequences.”

Why aren’t men after “equal rights for men”?

And you say - but they’re already shirking their duty. They aren’t being pastors, providers, or protectors. They aren’t taking those responsibilities, they’re not being accountable, they don’t have consequences.

And you’re surprised?

Boys will be boys, you say. But I say - men will be men, when women hold them to the right standards. And girls will be girls, but women will be women when men hold them to the right standards.

But look – here you are, advocating contraception and abortion. What are you advertising yourself as by freeing yourself of responsibility? If there are no consequences for you, what consequences are there for him?

Congratulations – you’ve just advertised yourself as a toy. And if you are making yourself accessible to him as a toy, you are letting him be a boy. And if you’re letting him – essentially giving him permission – to be a boy, what incentive does he have to try and be more? What incentive does he have to expect more of you? What incentive does he have to respect you as a woman when you have clearly shown him that you do not expect him to be a man?

Pregnancy is not a punishment, and by your very nature the denial of life should give you pain. These are your strengths! These are what give you value! He should value your ability to give to the world another Mozart, another Einstein, another Mother Teresa, another voice who has a right to be heard.

I refuse to be turned into a toy. I refuse to be accessible for use without consequences. Without thought to not only my physical health, but my mental and emotional health as well.

I choose to be a woman. A woman with a heart that can be broken. A woman with a heart waiting for the man who will cherish that heart and all that comes with it. A woman with the ability to bring into being through her heart another life, another soul, another voice, another being for whom you do not speak, and who I will never allow you to silence.

I choose to be a woman, and I have a say.

Pre-Spring Cleaning

Trying to empty my drafts folder on here of its DRAFTS! (big d-u-h?), but some of them, I think, are still worth posting unfinished (and I’m only doing these for the ones that I really don’t foresee having the time or motivation to actually finish). From 21 down to… 6! =) yayayyyyayayayayyy! lol

11/11/08 – Keeping the Faith

I was hashing things out with Devin this one night in the car on our way home from… something. Lol. I forget. But anyway…

I’ve talked to graduates of “Catholic” colleges, and I’ve been uneasy inside… but I couldn’t really figure out why till Dev and I talked it over. What’s been bothering me off is the failure to give credit where credit is due.

Basically, the way these graduates are selling these colleges to kids, you’d think that if they hadn’t gone to that college, they would have ended up completely lost, in terms of Faith and morals. But I am utterly convinced that if these people had not come from the families that they did indeed come from, it wouldn’t have mattered if they went to a “Catholic” [or a Catholic] college or not.

I have no doubt that college can have a positive effect on one’s Faith. But that goes for anything, doesn’t it? If we view something correctly, unite whatever it is, whether joy or suffering or something in-between, to Christ, then really, anything can have a positive effect on our Faith. I’m not saying their college experience did absolutely nothing for these people.

11/14/08 – The Silver Lining?

My assigned reading for this week was Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. Talk about scary.

“… Zealously understand also that the Devil has led this nation astray too much now for too many years and that there has been too little loyalty among the people — though they speak well! And too many injustices have ruled in the land, and there have not always been many people who have thought about the remedy as eagerly as they should, but daily one evil has been increased after another and unrighteousness has been exalted and many laws broken all too widely throughout this nation… we have earned these miseries that now weigh us down…
“… what is due to God has faded away too long within this nation in every region. And the laws of the people have worsened all too much… And widows have been wrongfully forced to take a man, and too many have been much impoverished and humiliated. And the poor have been sorely betrayed and cruelly deceived…. And infants have been enslaved through savage legal abuses far and wide throughout this nation… God’s law is hated and his teaching scorned…
“… And also in this country there are all too many lapsed apostates and hostile church-haters and savage people-haters and far and wide despisers of just divine laws and of Christ’s servants, and derisive fools everywhere in teh nation, who hasten into those things that God’s commandments have forbidden and for the most part into those things that always belong by right to God’s law…
“… Here there are manslaughters and kin-slaughters and priest-slayers and monk-haters. And here there are perjurers and murderers. And here there are harlots and child-killers and many foul adulterous fornicators… And we are by no means ashamed of this, but we are greatly ashamed to begin atonement as the book teaches.”

That could have been written today. Yes, rather harsh, but if we are honest with ourselves, totally true.

I’ve been having this conversation with my mom, and I’ve been musing over things when I’m alone in my room. Too little too late. The Faith didn’t become what it is overnight. It wasn’t watered down and dumbed down and neglected only recently. What we have become is a result of years and years and years of what they call ‘relevance’.

1/12/09 – 4th Annual YFC Cinci Youth Camp

Perhaps a more appropriate title would be The Confessions of a Crazy Camp Co-Leader.

I think the parents all agree that these past few months have killed me. In all honesty, I’ve thrived on it all. Yes, I’ve been stressed and moody. I’ll have to work on thriving on something without being stressed and moody. Not trying to make excuses for myself, but I actually didn’t realize I was so moody… I mean, I knew I was stressed, but I didn’t realize that it showed so much besides the fact that I’m finally dealing with teenage acne (oh, yeah, before November, I didn’t know what getting acne from stress was like). Apparently there was more to it than that. I was on the phone with Paolo after Camp… Monday night/Tuesday morning, and I started the conversation explaining how Mum had held me hostage for some time gaming before finally letting me use the phone, hilarious… Anyway — “You know, Ais, you’re very obviously not stressed about Camp anymore.” “… What do you mean?” “You haven’t laughed like that in a while.” I told Mum what he’d said the next morning. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Ais.” “I thought I was hiding it pretty well, Mum?” “No, Ais… you wear your heart on your sleeve.”

*sigh* I’ve heard the mommies were telling the kids that they’d been wearing me out. Bless their hearts. It was tiring. And I’m not 100% satisfied with this past weekend. Haha, yes, yes, perfectionist me, there were parts of it that simply didn’t suit me the way they turned out… but whatever, it’s over now, and I don’t look to be doing it again anytime soon, by heaven. Let the younger ones have their chance, I shall enjoy watching them all the more for what I’ve witnessed.

We’ll put it this way. There was a lot of what Kuya Vin called ‘legwork’ for me.

I left Facebook halfway through August.

Let’s see… 1289 emails since I was asked to deal with all of this. That was… September 13th.

God is amazing. I began the course on Anglo-Saxon literature on September 14th and completed the course four days before Youth Camp. Who knew that English courses would be a source of strength and counsel for someone attempting to co-lead a Youth Camp? It was wow. We addressed the virtues of Faith, Trust, Hope, Righteous Pride, Prudence, and Generosity in the lives of great Anglo-Saxon warriors. I learned again the need to have a correct understanding of suffering, the importance of remaining detached from the world, the reality of the Spiritual Battle that is entwined with the physical.

We didn’t have any prep meetings in September because the CLS was going on every Friday night. Looking back, I think God was trying to form me through that English course. Throughout the month, the hot topic between me and my closer friends was the upcoming election. I’m thankful that we didn’t know how it would turn out… we had so much hope… September 20, we had a ToB session. September 21, I was able to organize a Sisters’ HH at Gabe’s house at the same time as the Fraternal. September 24, I established the YFC Cinci Yahoo Group. September 25, I sent out my first invitation to Youth Camp; that was to Erin. September 26, FOCA first came to my attention. September 27, we had another Sisters’ HH at Matt’s house right before the ToB session. September 29, we had choir practice with Tita Chato. (Wow, I didn’t realize my month was so full…)

October… 2. The Debate. Between Palin and Obama. Oh geeze. And the CLS continued on Friday nights. October 4, I sent out an invitation to the homeschoolers, and attended Sycamore Homecoming. I left for AZ on Wednesday, October 8, spent a week there (which I have a very long blog post on), and came back October 15th, an experienced traveler :D with very tired feet. October 17, we had the CLS graduation.

2/04/09 – The Ladies get to wave their swords around, too, you know.

There’s a song, Someday You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie… and it seems to me a rather sad mix… of truths… but also of you-wish-es.

I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth
In the morning I fled
Left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved.

I cannot pretend
That I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart
Will eventually mend
As the blood runs red
Down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You’ll be loved you’ll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may feel alone
When you’re falling asleep
And everytime tears
Roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs
To someone you’ve yet to meet
Someday you will be loved

Oh geeze, the guy vs. girl wiring. It’s written all over the deliciously satisfying repeats of chorus. Yell ‘em out, why don’t you!!! or why don’t I =) while marching around, cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry and whatnot, looking pathetic and morose.

But I digress. Uhm… and I shall continue to, depending on how you look at it.

Hey, I applaud the dude. “I know your heart belongs to someone you’ve yet to meet.” Yes, yes, recognizing that is the first wonderful step, good for you.

I’m sure all ladies at some age or another dream of their knight in shining armour, the one who will ride in and defend them from all manner of evil, etc. etc.

I, for one, haven’t given that dream up for a fairy tale… but, ladies, we’ve our own battles to fight, too, on behalf of our handsome princes.

We, as Brothers and Sisters in Christ, have an obligation to each other to guard and protect both our own hearts, and each others’… which, mental note, could mean guarding and protecting someone from yourself.

Brian Butler, in the ToB for Teens, shares of his friendship with a girl, a girl whom he describes as having loved him more than any girlfriend he’d ever had. But they were never together, and they’re happily married to other people, and are still the best of friends. Did he never have feelings for her? Sounds like he did, the way he put it, fairly straight-up. So what happened?

Let’s take a look at guy vs. girl wiring.

Say a person is called to marriage, either to another human being, or to the Church. Whichever — or rather, whomever — it is, his or her heart belongs to someone. The question is, would you like to marry someone whose heart has not been entirely yours? who has only half a heart to give, or pieces of one broken from past relationships?

It’s totally natural and normal to have feelings for people that you probably won’t end up with. But is that any call to abuse them? If your future spouse is out there, don’t you want to be guarding your heart for them? and don’t you hope that wherever they are, the people around them are guarding their heart for you? Don’t you  hope that you’ll both have as whole hearts as possible to give each other when you finally meet up? Sounds like a pretty crazy dream, a pretty crazy hope. But it’s totally possible, if we just take the initiative to live out our obligations.

Guys and girls, being wired differently, have different battles to fight, and different things that they need to be protected from.

Mary Beth Bonnaci, in  Real Love, tells of a survey repeated several times with many different people — guys and girls are asked to make two lists; qualities to look for in someone to date, and qualities to look for in someone to marry. The results, she says, hardly ever vary. With women, the two lists are more or less identical. But with guys, it’s a whole different story. Their date-quality list doesn’t match their wife-quality list.

So heads-up, this is entirely normal. It’s the way guys are wired. But what that implies, then, is that the way girls are wired tends to make them much more serious much earlier on.

Maybe girls today sow their wild oats? because of how much the culture has changed, I wouldn’t be surprised — but I’ve only ever heard of the phrase used in regards to men.

If girls even consider dating ‘casually,’ then how much more casual is it normally for the guy? at least up until a certain age, assuming they get tired of the fling lifestyle, if they ever really indulged in it in the first place. But go back to that song; “I cannot pretend that I felt any regret, ’cause each broken heart will eventually mend.” Are the guy and the girl on the same page? That would be ideal. But science says that, more often than not, at least in the teen/early-twenties years, a girl is more likely to be unconsciously giving her heart away [or consciously] prematurely, and the guy is… well, not.

I suppose that’s why girl’s crushes get so extreme. It’s almost as if her emotions are invested in a situation always on a level higher than it ought to be… like… oh, what did Elinor say?  “You think I did not feel so very much? … I’ve suffered all the punishment of an attachment without enjoying any of the advantages.”

2/08/09 – *smiles*

Some things that made me smile recently:

• grapefruit + salt ~ a love for which I inherited from Papa :D
• thumb :: hand; hand :: arm ratio ~ Nino was holding my thumb while sleeping, and I found it funny that his four fingers around my thumb span the length from my knuckle to my fingernail; similarly, while he’s got his fingers wrapped around my thumb, I have my fingers wrapped around his arm, and my four fingers span the length from his elbow to his wrist. xD
• a teaspoon of amaretto in my hot chocolate
• watching/listening to Daddy play play with Nino

6/02/09 – I don’t want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can’t escape is even worse.

Complete with Scottish accent, mind you.

But I digress.

I could almost wish that it were a physical one, rather than what it is — an emotional one. It would be nice to rip a pillow apart and have a bag to throw myself against just now. I really don’t want to be here. I didn’t want to come back. I walked into my room and yelled silently inside, “WHOA, I hate my room.” Living minimalist across the street from the Adriatic for three months taught me the true definition of ‘purge.’ I thought I knew before I left, but what a wake-up call, coming back. Nate says I’m having a culture shock. Maybe I am. Eggs here are dead. Balsamic vinegar and mozzarella di bufala cost an arm and a leg compared to home — yes, I’ve gotten comfortably used to calling Pescara that. I got comfortably used to many things. Among them were: no microwave; limited internet; snail-mail; limited communication with friends and family; tile floors; no rice cooker; no english TV (not that I ever watched it to begin with); … I’ve missed people, but I haven’t missed the place. And I haven’t missed anyone enough to want to come home — except Mama and Papa

It’s always easier to leave than to be left behind.

9/06/09 – Eating with your hands is an art.

In Bento Box in the Heartland, Linda Furiya tells of the way her father ate, which she [at an elementary-school-girl age] found very embarrassing (and was actually one of the reasons she never invited friends over from school). She describes how he would put the whole bone of whatever meat they were having in his mouth and work it with his tongue and teeth until it was completely clean before he spit it out onto his plate. It was apparently a skill that she would not have been proud to mimic.

All of my Pinoy elders possess this skill. All my life, I have been told to simot/said (that is sa-ED, two syllables). To leave not a single piece of meat or a single grain of rice. To think of the people who are starving and must dig through the garbage for their food, and not take the food on my plate for granted.

While I have a harder time with this at restaurants where I cannot choose my serving size, I am proud to say that at home, my family sometimes tease me, asking if I’ve licked my plate, too, because it looks as clean as it did when it came out of the cupboard — they exaggerate, and I do not! lol. But if there’s no sabaw (broth) with my kanin (rice) and ulam (whatever-goes-with-my-rice [that would be my translation, because my ulam is anything that isn't rice, and that could mean meat, fish, veggies, soup, broth {oh, yes. Sometimes I simply decide to have rice and broth, nothing else}]), I am proud to say that I am capable of leaving a very clean plate.

So here we are at the park having a picnic with lots of family on a Saturday, and I’m proud to say my tilapia bones are clean and shiny on my plate, but the KFC bones need some work… I’ll thank you random park people not to stare as you walk past with distaste plainly written on your faces. If you can look at us like that for how clean we leave our plates, then you clearly have no concept of poverty. Maybe I don’t, either — my life has been an easy one — but I’ve seen enough cardboard houses stacked under the highways back home to be properly ashamed of throwing my plate into the trash half-full.

Well, I think that was a sufficient intro to my weekend… let me see…

Let’s go back to Friday, August 21st. Mother made super yummy yummy chocolate zucchini muffins. I wrapped yummy yummy avocado and brown rice sushi. Nagsaing ako, and mother made bistik. Oh, and she made smoothies!!! We left the house in record time — less than half an hour after the time Daddy had originally set!!! Very proud of ourselves.

Nino slept, we feasted on Doritos and smoothies, dinner was.. well, everything else I listed above =) the kids watched Treasure Planet and I alternated between watching, sleeping, eating, and listening to my iPod in no particular order. We all had dinner at the same time, but I slept almost immediately after we left, and started my snacktime later than everyone else when the Doritos were more than half gone, I only watched a third or less of the movie due to playing Point of Extinction and King of Wishful Thinking and other delightfully upbeat *down* songs and wallowing in the beautiful blue sky, oh, and yes, I was appreciating the strength of my new glasses which surprisingly did not make my head hurt at all — I’m quite used to them now — and staring happily at the outlines of the individual leaves that I could now make out on the trees rushing by.

We got to Mama’s at around… well, before midnight? I’m pretty sure. OH, we passed this one church, I think it was Presbyterian, celebrating its 140th anniversary. I was half-awake, I think. At first, I thought, oh, that’s nice, that’s a long time. And then I woke up and thought. Wait, what? Only 140 years? That’s so… sad… I can name a Church that has 2000 years and then some to its credit, didn’t you know? =) Nino had just woken up when we arrived, pero sumama agad kay Mama. We feasted on arroz caldo and sushi, of course, before going to bed. I went to sleep at around 1AM Cinci time. Ninong was still on his laptop when I fell asleep.

do you embrace your faith or are you a cafeteria catholic who picks and chooses

catholicism requires a more radical committment than we may like

catholicism is hard fair hting to think

more important ot be part of the minority who has jesus or the majority of compromises

that in the eucharist we receive the body and blood soul and divinity of our lord … that abortion is always a sin… that living together comes after marriage not before… the contraception in marriage is an evil…

4/28/10 – the hit be double

Wow… well, today, I caught up on eight posts on Courtney’s blog, and am currently working on the 128 posts that I’m behind on at American Papist (I’ve brought it down to 97 ), and I don’t know what God’s trying to tell me, but there’s just too many posts hitting way too close to home. It’s starting to get to me.

And of course, as those of you who know me well have sometimes remarked on, Aisa’s mind goes off in tangents that sometimes take a while to follow, and Aisa in face-to-face conversation often switches from one topic to another at an alarming speed, which wouldn’t matter so much if the topics were related, but they’re usually not…

At any rate, bear with me. This is just Aisa…. brain dumping.

I found this article on Courtney’s blog, and then again on American Papist.

Besides the very obvious issue at hand — that of the conscience clause not being upheld — there’s a line here that refuses to leave me alone:

“I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred,” Cenzon-DeCarlo said.

My debates with Kuya Jhun from three and a half years ago came back to me.

4/29/10 – Samson

So. There’s, like, these guys that I know.

Mom: I just realized I have a thing for guys with long blonde hair.
Dad: Too late.

5/05/10

My morning began with pit bulls.

5/24/10

1348 ~ As I begin this post, I haven’t decided on a title yet.

I woke up feeling not too great today. So here I am at home, sniffling and trying to drink lots of water and stay active and wondering if I’m only imagining this whole feeling warm thing. There’s that saying that if you act sick, you’ll feel sicker. It’s so true. I’ve got a long list of things to take care of before the day is over. Yes, rest is on there, but after getting up, taking a shower, and more or less being ready to step out the door, I ended up sleeping in until lunchtime.

Nino greeted me with a hug =) Lunch was delicious, and I’ve had at least three cups of veggies already. I’ve gotten a load of laundry going. It’s nice to rediscover how therapeutic laundry is. And now I shall continue cleaning my room… currently listening to Jeremy Camp’s Let It Fade =) On my list for today is to blog a list of things I am thankful for, something I have not done in a while and that I feel would be both spiritually and physically beneficial.

• #1 ~ My family =) I love being the oldest of five. I love having parents who are open to Life. I am thankful for my Mama and Papa. I still sleep with my grandparents when we visit them. I have chosen to retain that privilege. I woke up at around 3AM Saturday morning and turned to see Mama hugging Papa. I lay awake for a bit meditating on what Deacon Madz said about how the greatest vocation crisis today is not to the priesthood, but to marriage. Mama and Papa just spent their 44th wedding anniversary in the Holy Land. I praise God for the example and testimony of Mama and Papa and Mom and Dad in the Sacrament of Matrimony.

1428 ~

• #2 ~ Devin =) I’m staring at a certain framed sheet of blue paper hanging right in front of me, above my desk. Our friendship has been one of God’s biggest blessings to me, one that He has allowed me to keep for very nearly nine years now, and still going! I praise God for Dev, and for her whole family.

1642 ~ I remember reading today’s meditation from In Conversation with God while we were in Italy last year. I remember focusing on the paragraph that reads,

“The filial disposition of the gift of piety is seen also in our readiness to ask again and again like needy children until we are granted what we want. In prayer, our will is identified with the Will of our Father, who always wants what is best for his children. This trust in prayer makes us feel secure, unwavering, daring; it dissipates anxiety and the unease that comes from depending solely on our own strength, and helps us to be serene in the face of difficulties.”

This passage has a new meaning for me, now. The difficulties I face now are nothing like I would have supposed they would be a year ago. That is such an interesting thought. But today, in this year, the lines that catch my eye are,

“Piety towards others leads us to judge them always with kindness which walks hand in hand with a filial affection for God our common Father. It disposes us to forgive easily any offences received, even very painful ones.”

Pray for me, please. Forgiveness is something I am struggling with at the moment. It is not so much a constant anger or disquiet, but rather, I am led to think for significant lengths of time that I have forgiven and am at peace, and then a little thing will spring up quite unexpectedly, a reminder in some unanticipated form, that will awaken whatever it was I thought I had put aside. I keep hearing… I wonder if you ever loved me just for who I was / when the pain came back again like a bitter friend / it was all that I could do to keep myself from blaming you. It’s also strange to not know who I have not forgiven for what sometimes.

~ seven days later ~

2050 ~ I was off for a considerably longer period of time than I’d anticipated. I suppose I ought to be preparing that prep sheet for tomorrow, but it shouldn’t take me that long, and I’m procrastinating.

My three days off were a wake up call, I was telling Mom and Jana… they were a reminder of why I have no ambitions to be a career woman. I spent my three days resting, but also cleaning, doing my old chores like laundry, playing with Nino, and overall just having a good time with the family. I know it won’t all be unicorns and rainbows, but

7/21/10 – I’m trying to ignore the pastries.

I’m sitting here at Bakery Hill at these new tables that are actually near an outlet and that have their back to the Bakery. Hence the title.

Expect a ton of randomness right about now.

I haven’t blogged in AGES.

I have also grown considerably more and more skilled in stating the obvious.

It’s only the fourth week of the term, but I am totally ready for this summer to be over. Basically, I’m taking a bunch of ‘easy A’ classes, and all they’re doing is trying my patience – with the exception of Cooking 5.

I enjoy my Kung Fu class. But every week, I like the technique less and less. Nate says that I should look on the bright side; at least I’m training. But this isn’t my old stubbornness over staying true to one school. Ok, maybe it’s partly that, but not all. It’s also the plain logic behind the techniques. A perfect example – in I guess what would be the equivalent to front stance, my front foot is to be turned in, such that my knee follows, thus supposedly protecting the groin. Unfortunately, I argue that it is ten times more important for my foot to be in a position which ensures stability, aka foot pointing forward, because it’s the easiest thing in the world to take a six-inch step sideways and completely nullify the supposed effectiveness of my front knee. And I’m in no position to keep my stance no matter where I get hit; turning my foot inwards throws me completely off balance. If someone tries to shove me, down I’ll go. I also do not like being told that the stance which I have originally been trained to take in sparring is stupid. I argue that you cannot maintain a cat stance 100% of the time in a fight, and you will have to, at some point, take up my ‘stupid’ fighting stance in order to transfer your weight from one foot to the other, which I do believe is actually very necessary when sparring. So… how about I just stick to my normal fighting stance and constantly shift my weight from one foot to another so that I’m always ready, like I was originally taught to? Ok, ok, end sarcasm. Nate’s right. It is good to be training again. And I guess I need a class to continue to train me in the art of biting my tongue. Last term’s was, of course, Cooking 4.

8/24/10 – I fell in love with NorCal.

With the weather, to be more specific.

Paco, Daddy and I left for the airport on Thursday morning, after roughly four hours of sleep on my part. I had on a sweater and jeans for the plane, but I had no idea I’d be needing either in NorCal. No huge issues getting through security and to the gate; waiting was the most trying time, naturally. We ended up playing ungguyan and pekwa and splitting a breakfast sandwich. I slept pretty much the whole of that first leg.

I thought we’d have a two hour stopover, but it ended up being tight, and we made it to our next gate with only six minutes to spare. As it turned out, the flight was full, and several people were having ticket issues… there was a long line of people who didn’t have seat numbers or something? so we ended up having time to grab something to eat really quick, and we were in the fourth loading zone, into the bargain. Whatever place it was we grabbed food from was apparently one of those everything-organic places, and I know that doesn’t mean much these days with government regulations, but it was a small margin of comfort… compared to where we’d gotten breakfast that morning… Oh. my. gosh. I suppose it’s a good thing, but also somewhat annoying… being a culinary student and shuddering as you watch the line, wondering how long the lids have been left off of the cheese, even if they’ve deli papers in between and on top. Blah. But our lunch place was nice. Very nice. And our lunch was delicious. I had a grilled chicken and spinach panini, and Paco had a ham, egg, and cheese croissant. Paco’s came with hash browns and mine came with a salad. I didn’t have time to take pictures. I slept most of our second leg, too.

When we’d checked in, the kiosk had informed us that the current temperature at our final destination was 57. YIKES. When we landed, it was 66. There was a light breeze, and the sun was shining, and the heat was nicely dry and not in the least bit humid.

We took the bus to the light rail station. All I had were $20s, and when we got my ticket first, I had a slight scare… I thought it had paid me back in tokens when I saw the coins coming out. What the heck was I going to do with $18 worth of tokens?! but upon closer inspection, it turns out they were dollar coins. Paco was THRILLED. I was less so, particularly because I had never heard of the person on the front of the first five that I turned over. Yes, I am that bad at history. But c’mon, do YOU remember Millard Fillmore and anything significant that he did when were learning about the *important* US presidents? (Please say no? because I don’t…) We bought Paco’s ticket and inspected the fine print and looked around the station for a map and didn’t find one. As it was, we ended up getting on the wrong one. I was having too much fun to be really concerned, but I had Paco check the map above and across from us. We got off two stops later and waited for the one that went the other way… which was about three seconds after we’d gotten off the first.

We had a good fifteenish, twenty minute ride. Gorgeous weather, my goodness. Forgive me, but I was so insanely thrilled at how many Pinoys there were everywhere. And I saw a Filipino restaurant that I wanted to go back to – goodness knows we had time – but we didn’t.

God had provided thus far, and I was praying that the Hyatt would not be hard to find… We got off at Great America and, lo and behold, there was the Hyatt right across the street from the station. Praise God.

I had foreseen possible complications with the front desk… Our instructions concerning the reservations were very vague. I suppose I ought to have had the… maturity? to panic slightly, but I was walking on air the second we stepped off the plane, so I didn’t even have the sense to call Mum and Dad while things were being sorted out. As it turned out, we did not have reservations at the Hyatt for Thursday night, and the person who had told me I would was not answering their phone. I called Ate Mary, but she was in a meeting, as I found out later. I did get a hold of Tito Leo, but that was not going to help me much, since they weren’t there yet, anyway. The front desk was extremely helpful and got me the number of the CFC contact they’d been working with. They even offered to call her for me, but I said it was alright. By this time, we’d been sitting around in the lobby of the Hyatt for almost an hour, and they’d been so terribly accommodating, asking if we’d like snacks or water, both of which we declined as we had almost two boxes worth of granola bars in my backpack. I called the number they’d given and had things sorted out within ten minutes. We did have reservations for that night, but at a hotel two stoplights down on Great America.

I called the Avatar hotel and found out that the shuttle had just left for SJC. They said it would be along for us in about half an hour. It ended up being closer to an hour, but that was ok… because we bumped into people from New Jersey who were in the same predicament, and they knew Vince, into the bargain. I texted Vince to let him know I’d met his friends.

The Avatar is COOL! Hahaha. Nope, no blue humanoids… just nice Pinays at the front desk… anyway… The first thing you see when you walk in is a glass case of old toy robots. Intense. As Michelle observed, the place looked a little sketchy from the outside, but the rooms were, in a word, fun. You know how modern can be totally overdone? This place had it just right. The furniture was brightly colored - neon pinks and blues and greens – and the sheets were

Before we share, let us all keep in mind that this is moreso a prayer than a song. Each line was truly voiced from the Holy Spirit. It was a blessing to be led by Him through music. As the lyrics fell into place, we envisioned the many faces of sisters around the nation. Though all our stories are different, this song represents what brought us together as a Sisterhood in the first place. It represents that special longing for Christ that is within our hearts as women of God. Let this be your prayer to Him. <3

ps. if you want the actual file of the lyrics/chords just message me your email. :)
pss. tag/share this with other sisters!

————————————————–

“A Sister’s Prayer”

Amaj7: x09999 or x02120
Emaj7: 079897 or 022100
E7: x76770 or 020100
A: x02220
Am: x02210

Intro (x2): Amaj7 – Emaj7

Amaj7 Emaj7
|—————-9———-7———|
|—————-9———-9———|
|———–9—-9———-8———|
|–9h11———-9———-9———|
|—————-0———-7———|
|————————————-|

Verse 1:
Amaj7 Emaj7
IT STARTS WITH ME TODAY
Amaj7 Emaj7
WHEN YOUR GRACE FELL LIKE THE RAIN
Amaj7 Emaj7
I’M GIVING UP, I’M POWERLESS
Amaj7 Emaj7
BUT LOVING YOU MAKES ME THE BEST

Verse 2:
Amaj7 Emaj7
YOUR TIME CAN ONLY TELL
Amaj7 Emaj7
YOUR WILL FOR YEARNING HEARTS
Amaj7 Emaj7
MY SPIRIT LONGS FOR MORE
C#m B C#m-B-A
GOD YOUR LOVE GIVES ME REST

Chorus:
Emaj7 E7
THIS IS MY PRAYER
A Am
TO BE HUMBLE, TO BE PATIENT, AND KIND
Emaj7 E7
OH LORD, YOU KNOW MY HEART’S DESIRE
A
SO TRANSFORM ME, LORD GOD MOLD ME
Am Amaj7
TO BE HOLY, A TRUE WOMAN OF GOD

9/14/10 – seven minutes before class…

Brad: Oh you kids. You make me so angry. ANGRY. I will destroy all of you. ALL of you.
Joe: *takes red pen out of Brad’s front pocket and throws it on floor at Brad’s feet*
Brad: *curses* *grabs highlighter from pen jar and draws it across

long have I waited for your coming / home to Me and living / deeply our new life

Ash Wednesday:

Reading 1 ~ Jl 2:12-18

Reading 2 ~ 2 Cor 5:20-6:2

Gospel ~ Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

Homily ~ Fr. Geoff reminded us that what we give up for Lent is supposed to make us a better person. If we give up something for 40 days but then go back to our old life come Easter, if Lent doesn’t change us and make us a better person, we’ve wasted Lent. Lent, he said, is a season for Giving: giving IN to God’s will, strengthening our relationship with Him through prayer; giving UP the things that hinder us in our relationship with God; giving TO other people of ourselves, denying ourselves and putting others first; and FORgiving others as God forgives us. He challenged us to choose one to focus on for the whole of Lent.

~ notes ~

Wilmington on Sunday… What stuck with me from Fr. Jim’s homily was how we’re not called to do everything. In the same way that Jesus did not always preach to the same group of people, that sometimes the message was for everyone, and at other times it was only for one person. That each of us have been blessed with unique talents to be used in different ways.

I was on Mother’s bed earlier this week and I picked up the Bible and opened it… to Sirach 3: 22-23. I needed that.

Loved loved LOVED Fr. Geoff’s homily.

God is so amazing. I was called in to work on Thursday, and I wasn’t feeling all that hyper about it… But as soon as I got there, I saw Karen and joined her for breakfast. And then who should show up but Joe. Karen and I hug-attacked him and took some 25 pics. And then they left for class. Around 8:20ish, the fire alarm went off. I was lazy that morning and hadn’t gone to my locker to drop off my coat. I’d gone straight to the Overlook. When the alarm went off my first thought was, “So THAT’S why I was feeling lazy! Praise God!” and then of course I went to stand outside, all the while praising God that I had my coat. Then I started to get bored… and then I realized that the whole ATLC had just been evacuated and that meant all my Culinary friends were probably standing right outside the exit nearest the kitchens. I walked around to the other side of the ATLC and got to hang out with Karen and Bender and Kuya Steve and Jenni and Steph and Jena and everybody! and I discovered that Nathan is in Culinary. Why did I not know that before??? Clocked in at around 8:40ish. I’d forgotten that I’d given up the Honors Room for Lent, so I went there on my lunch break… and then no one was there and I remembered that I’d given it up. Backtracking a bit… When this term started, I was somewhat upset that I wouldn’t be in the Honors Room every day like last term… and then I realized that the Honors Room was turning into a sort of live facebook. Aside from nurturing my unhealthy tendency to be cliquish with everyone in it, I found that the thought of not keeping up with all those people bothers me. That is not good. So I’m giving it up for Lent in an attempt to refocus. The point is, upon finding the Honors Room empty on Thursday, I remembered that I was supposed to be giving it up and made an effort to go back to work cheerfully. Not easy. And then who should God throw in my way to help me keep smiling but my favorite Valento refugees… Jeff and Joe and Adam and Bender… and Miguel, whom I thought I wouldn’t see ever again after Baking 1 because I didn’t take Baking 2 this term… and if seeing them and being able to catch up with them a bit wasn’t enough, I got multiple hugs from everybody into the bargain. Miguel got a haircut! and Joe’s back to looking like he’s 12 again. Hilarious. Later, Brad and I were washing dishes in 033. I gave up non-Christian music, too, and I was running out of songs to sing… and then Fuzz put on a CD. Amazing. Casting Crowns!!!! and Jeremy Camp and Third Day and… everything! God was helping me keep my fast.

And then today… meatballs went up to the Overlook and I realized I couldn’t have any because it’s Friday. Salmon was not on the menu… but they had it anyway! =) and I got to help my Kuya Chef clean 004, and we were singing worship songs the whole time.

*happy*

Oh oh oh! and THIS is finally a poster!!!!!!!!! I am so getting that for myself, maybe after I get back from Disney or something. LOL at Wednesday’s XKCD, so appropriate. I have to post it on the Honors facebook on Sunday.

Post-goodbyes [Non-zombie version] a music vid of EF, by me =)

I got owned by a cucumber.

Yeah… yeah. Uhm… yeah.

So I have an hour and a half before my next class and absolutely no homework to speak of. I should be proud of myself for staying on top of things, but honestly, I’m… bored. And I’ve finished all my food. Hahaha.

My first week of college was awesome. I’m having so much fun starting with a clean slate… no one knows me! Hahaha. It’s great. And my plans continue… Kim was laughing at me… Yes, I am known as Aurora at college. No one knows Aisa here. I’ve worn a skirt every single day except for the day I had Cooking 1 and had to be in uniform for the whole day. Aurora is very ladylike. Oh! and apparently very quiet. (Since when?!?!) One of my teachers actually had to ask me to speak up. It wasn’t on purpose, honest!!! I couldn’t believe that she couldn’t hear me. What else did I tell Kim I’d do… oh, yes, no one knows I’m on Facebook. It’s hilarious, really; if you search my college name, you get my cousin over in London. Lol. So yes, I’m having so much fun building a whole ‘nother person. With the same beliefs and morals and standards, etc. etc. of course.

I guess that also means I can say whatever I like here. Haha. I’ve already begun to dislike people, I’m afraid. And my Honors textbook is anti-Catholic, isn’t that great? I have an Honors blog, it’s limangdipangtao324 DOT blogspot DOT com. No, I’m not going to link to it, or it will show up on there and my Honors teacher and classmates will find this blog, which I’ve no intention of allowing them to do.

So yes! I got owned by a cucumber. We were practicing batonnet and julienne and whatever them little cubes out of those two are called. The former wasn’t terrible, but the latter was… well, let’s just say I destroyed my cucumber with no particularly nice julienne to show for it. I can work at that size, but one end is square and the other end is rectangular. GRRRRRR. Oh and I was practicing on carrots that Mother needed for pansit! and I… got owned by a carrot, as well. Terrible experience xD

Xtreme Dayz Youth Ministry Youth Night went well, I met Catholic homeschoolers!!!! which was super. And a bunch of other very interesting people, too; I’m really looking forward to getting to know them all as the year goes on. And DUDE there’s gonna be a laser tag lock-in!!! or so it says on the calendar. LADEEDA that should be AWESOMEEEE. But it looks like it’s the same weekend that the CFC Christmas Partayy is usually on… =(

Speaking of which, I miss my YFC!! especially the Music Min. When I was playing guitar for worship at XD, I could hear the lead and drums… I could see everyone jumping up and down at Youth Camp and Conference. Oh, yeah. I tried to get the kids to jump.. Hahaha. That was something to see. We gotta work on that. But I hope one day they’ll be as comfortable as dem Bros in Feb last year, jumping up and down and side to side with their hands up and looking crazayy… ehh, we’ll get there.

Wow, it’s only 10:46. I’ve only been blogging for ten minutes? Seriously? I can’t do this till 12, honestly…

My first day of school was fine, worst thing that happened was that I got lost on the way to Honors Orientation and was late. It’s my fault, but it also wasn’t… lol. They’d originally listed it as being in one room, and I wrote it down in my schedule, and I’m sure I didn’t get it wrong, because one other girl was also waiting with me, she’d also written it down. Well, we waited, but no one was coming. Apparently they don’t notify you of room changes, sooo… when I checked the site after class, they had indeed put up a new room. My fault for not checking the day before just in case, but not my fault for not knowing I was supposed to? Haha. Whatev. So I was late for Honors by fifteen minutes which means I missed everyone’s introductions except the last one. Anyway, I haven’t gotten lost for anything else.

So, my classes… Math. Not hard. And nothing to tell.

Food Sanitation… I’m stressing that one. No homework to be turned in. Review, review, and more review, but no way to tell how I’m doing until the actual final. Rote memorization. Bleck.

Honors, I think I’m going to enjoy, despite my anti-Catholic textbook and clearly one very anti-Catholic classmate. The teacher… I’ve been getting a vibe… she doesn’t dismiss anything and is very interested in everything you say, so that’s good, but I have a feeling there’ll be plenty that I’ll be disagreeing with her on. I do think discussions with her will be as non-threatening as discussions with Nate or Eric, so I’m not too worried.

Computer is good, I’m actually learning something. I’m required to take Computer Elective, and my other two choices were Intro to PC and Intro to Internet, neither of which I really… need… ahem, so I landed in Spreadsheeting, and I’m enjoying it. Luckily, you can work ahead if you’re comfortable, and in class, too, while she’s giving the lecture, so that’s been fun.

English! Oh this is great. I gravitate towards teachers who talk about their kids, and my English teacher’s one of them =) A great blessing. I like my classmates, one of them being a Catholic mom who lives quite near to us. Our English course’s theme is ‘Identity.’ I haven’t had any English homework; we spent the whole of last class watching YouTube videos. No idea where our teacher’s going with that, but sure. We watched… Killer Queen ~ Queen, Finding My Way ~ Rush, Year of the Cat ~ Al Stewart, Carry On Wayward Son ~ Kansas, Go Your Own Way ~ Fleetwood Mac, Standing In The Rain ~ Electric Light Orchestra, and Rock And Roll All Night ~ KISS. The first two were… strange… the following four were awesome, and when I saw KISS I was like DUDE!!! IT’S THOSE PEOPLE NINONG AND UNCLE LISTENED TO AND HAD ALL THOSE POSTERS OF!!!! Shame that they look so terribly diabolical; I liked the song. Bleh. I think my favs were.. ELO and Kansas. So, yep. No idea where he’s going with that, but it’s supposed to help us with our essay… which he hasn’t told us what that’s supposed to be about…

And finally, Cooking 1. It started at 10, and we had a lecture that lasted till… 1:30… with two ten-minute breaks, but that was it. And then came the lab part, but wow, that was a long lecture. No, not at all uninteresting, just long. I don’t mind listening, I just can’t sit that long without feeling ready to jump up at any moment and go crazy after the first hour and a half… I learned to tie my green neckerchief… we’ll work on that… and I love love love my uniform, of course… but the best part is the knife set, naturally =)

Ahh… I really can’t be neglecting this blog. I have so much more to tell about my week… and a bunch of drafts I meant to finish up before I started college, but those didn’t happen, I need to finish them up. It’s currently 11:12… but it won’t hurt for me to go to the room early and write to Asher. Haha, way behind on that. Matt’s went in the mail today, and I have to finish Sean’s…

See yas.

The Highs of December

How the blessings do pile up if we take the time to count them. I haven’t hands enough to count them all in one round. See me tick off my fingers as I count the things that have taken place in the course of 31 short days and start over when I run out –

• three Music Ministry Practices (so that would be three fingers)
• two Speakers Practices (and two more fingers)
• the completion of my Anglo-Saxon Literature course which resulted in an A+ on my term paper and my overall class grade
• the SHS Variety Show and re-connecting with old friends
• SHS Battle of the Bands
• Pacquiao vs. de la Hoya at the Almarios’ house
• Youth Camp
• Christmas
• St. Nicholas Day (OUR STOCKINGS WERE FULL!!!!)
• the CFC Christmas Party
• Daddy’s birthday
• Yena’s birthday
• Mama’s birthday
• NINO’s birth
• Mum and Dad’s 19th Anniversary
• Yena’s Nutcracker performance
• Yena’s birthday tea party
• relatives coming over (some of which I hadn’t seen in nearly three years)
• super awesome jamm session with Unc and Ninong and Kuya Vin and sometimes Mummy singing
• hanging out with the Nadermans
• driving all over the place on errands or para lang magpasyal with family
• date with Yenyenners
• lunch with the kiddies
• the re-appearance of the Caramel Apple Spice at Starbucks (I had at least three)
• long and lovely phone calls with two wonderful best friends named Devin and Paolo (four fingers? five? can’t remember)
• I’m sure we had a household/fraternal or two somewhere in there (go ahead and put out three fingers)
• Michael’s monthly Faith Unplugged
• a bunch of talks with Mum and Dad about important life-changing stuff (a whole hand, please)
• going through the pantry and laughing a lot
• bonding with CFC Titos and Titas

… and I’m sure there are more and more and more if I really take the time to think back day-to-day, but that’s all I can remember off the top of my head.

Yes, I’ve been stressed. Yes, there were times when it seemed like I hadn’t the energy to laugh, or even smile… but I want the world to know that when I look back now on all the things that happened last month, EVERYTHING makes me smile, even the stress. After all, the stress in particular, or rather the cause of the stress, was character building.

Hmm… I simply cannot decide whether to go forwards or backwards? OH WELL. How about I start in the middle? seeing as my list isn’t in chronological order, anyway.

I Believe in High Stakes

Heck, you bet I do. I think I’ve hit on the highest stakes ever. (*Maybe I should go edit my CREDO post…*)

I am loving this post, which, among other things, tackles defining the term ‘Cafeteria Catholic.’

Catholicism has to be taken and lived out as a whole, or not. In one of his homilies this past month, Fr. Tom reminded us that when we approach the altar, we receive all of Christ. All of Him. Not just bits and pieces. When we receive the Eucharist, we receive Christ in His fullness. And if we come to receive all of Him, then we are expected to live out all that He Is. Not just bits and pieces. How can we be truly One with Him if we deliberately fail to uphold all that He stands for?

But I wanted to hash this out even further. If we’ve settled the fact that Catholicism can’t be taken in bits and pieces, then let’s go further. Why not? IOW, why Catholicism? What does Catholicism offer that is so… profound, for lack of a better word… that we cannot afford to not take it as a whole?

Slowly, now. A bit at a time.

God created Man. Yes?

So then it follows that… as God created Man, He knows how we are meant to function? that He knows our full potential? that He knows all that Man was created to be? I think that makes sense, doesn’t it? He created us with purpose. God alone knows why we’re made the way we are. So let us say that we do not know everything we need to know about how to be human. We’re not like other creatures. We have free will. To use extreme examples, by our free will, we could choose to live like birds? but that would not be what we were created to be, yes? So that would be silly, because we would be failing to be… human?

God created the universe as a hierarchy; some things are “higher”, more valuable, and more important than others. Each human being may be equal in value in the sight of God, since all are made in his image; but irrational animals are not equal to human beings. They do not have rational souls, free choice, or the knowledge of God. If animals were equal to humans, eating meat would be cannibalism. ~ Peter J. Kreeft, Catholic Christianity

So, having established that, having free will, man could choose to act in ways that man was not created to act, to do things that man was not created to do, that if we act certain ways, do certain things, we could, if you will, fail to be human? let us move on.

We believe that Jesus Christ was [is] both fully God and fully Man, that He possessed two complete and whole Natures in one Person.

If we believe this, then what we, as Catholics, are saying is that we believe that the Catholic Church was founded by God Himself. We believe that Mother Church was not founded by men claiming to be inspired by God, or visited by an angel, etc. etc., but that God Himself, our Creator, entered Time in the Person of Jesus Christ and founded the Roman Catholic Church.

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what is to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. ~ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Yes, that is Christianity. But I want to take this further.

I do not view Catholicism as a ‘religion’ the way Protestantism is a ‘religion’ or any other denomination is a ‘religion’. What the Catholic Church teaches is not merely a set of rules. It’s not merely a ‘how-to-get-to-heaven’ deal. At its core, the knowledge that the Catholic Church possesses is, quite simply, how to be human.

If God created Man, and if He knows how man is supposed to be human, and if Jesus Christ is God and founded the Church, then the knowledge that God Himself gave to the Catholic Church is how to be human. So Catholicism — forgive the crudeness — could be viewed as a hand-book on how to be human.

If you want to take it even further, God intended for Man to be perfect. If God intended for man to be perfect, then Catholicism is a hand-book on how to be the perfect human, because that is what we were created to be: We were created to be perfect. To be without sin, without error, without blemish! To be  pure and whole and holy and beautiful in every way, in all that we experience, in all our actions and our words and our thoughts, that our very being was meant to be perfect, perfect. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that beautiful?

In one of our discussions in ToB, I told my Sisters that I didn’t agree with the phrase, “Errare est humanum,” because really, to err is to not be human. Now, we are imperfect by nature, but we were not created to be. Our fallen natures are not a part of the original creation. Adam and Eve could have chosen to stay perfect, and then we might be all that we were created to be… but because of the Fall, we don’t know all that we need to know about how to live the way we were created to live. We need help. What better source than our Creator?

What more could we ask for than a hand-book on how to be everything He intended us to be?

Wow.

And that is why we cannot take Catholicism in bits and pieces. It’s not about Someone up there punishing us every time we make a mistake, it’s not a “do this/don’t do this or you’ll go to hell” thing, it’s so much deeper — It’s all there, everything that we need to become human, everything that we need to become perfect. It follows, then, that in failing to make correct use of that knowledge that God has given us so fully and so freely, we would be failing to be human?

Ouch.

Those are some pretty high stakes, eh?

On a side note, as I was hashing this out (with the help of my two best friends ever, much thanks to them =), one point that I want to clarify is the misconception that the Catholic Church is all for bashing all other denominations and denounce them as utterly and completely wrong.

Not exactly.

To use an analogy similar to the one Fr. Riccardo used in Common Ground (I changed it a bit, and sort of made it… more… colorful? lol, I hope no one minds), say there’s a box. That box contains all the pieces you need to build the perfect human. What the Church claims, then, is that She has that box, She has all the pieces, and that God Himself, in Person, gave Her that box.

I don’t doubt that various persons might very well have been inspired by Christ to do this and do that, to come to realize so-and-so. By our nature, we long for Truth, and Christ is Truth. In seeking Him, I don’t doubt that Protestants may very well have hit on truths that led them to disagree with whoever founded the denomination they initially belonged to and found those 3000 + other denominations.

But what Mother Church claims is that She has all the pieces. Not that other denominations are wrong, so much as that they do not have the fullness of the knowledge given to the Church, because the Church’s knowledge comes directly from God and is completely uninfluenced by the opinions of imperfect humans. IOW, they don’t have all the pieces. All other denominations are still influenced by the imperfect fallen human nature. The reason there are over 3000 Protestant denominations is because of the difference in human opinion. They cannot agree amongst themselves, they are not united.

Perhaps my next post should be on the four marks of the Church…

Blurb!!!!!!!! A Review

xD Yup, my photobook came!!!! *super insanely happy*

A few tips to people who are new to blurb, tho.

1) If you originally designed it as a hardcover with a dust jacket, do not be disappointed when you decide to order the photo-wrap instead and find that the author’s blurb thingy on the flaps of the dust jacket are… not there. Because there is no dust jacket. Duhhh. Hn, I didn’t think of that… ah well. Anyway…

2) Do not be mislead by the preview. There is a barcode on the bottom right of the back cover that does now show in the preview, so don’t put anything there that you would prefer not be covered up. Heh… I did. So now, three lines of my poem are… not there. Hem, moving on…

3) Dark photos are definitely a no-no. The resolution goes weird. It ends up looking like paintings of paper dolls. Or something. Ah, and that includes photos on sunny days that were taken in the shadow of a tree or something. Using flash at night is iffy. Some nighttime shots w/flash turned out beautifully. As in, plain gorgeous. Seriously. Very very clear, etc. Others just didn’t. Weird. I guess I really can’t give an opinion on that point. You’ll just have to decide if you want to risk it or not. But definitely the brightest shots came out clearest.

4) There are two blank pages, one after the front cover and one before the back cover, that aren’t included in the preview on the Booksmart software, so just a note, you don’t have to worry about putting in those filler pages (unless you want more?) yourself.

So, yeah, I’m incredibly pleased with how it turned out. 7″ x 7″, I’d say about an inch or so deep, 1412 pics in 320 pages. I did count how many photos turned out less-than-satisfactory. 79. Eh, not a big deal if you do the math. What, 5.6ish? % bleh. But for the price and the other 1333 pics that turned out just fine (or even better than I had hoped), it’s totally worth the time I put in. Oh, one last tip, though –

5) If you’re making a photobook of your high school years, and you happen to be from a homeschooling family that does a lot of traveling and takes a LOT of pictures, I really would not advise attempting to fit it all into 320 pages of a 7×7 book, unless they’re headshots and you can fit 16 to a page and still see everything you want to see. On the other hand, if you’ve got shots at the Grand Canyon, say, and you want people to see the majesty of it all, and thus you really have no choice but to let one photo take up a whole page… yeah. 320 pages goes pretty quick. :D

~~~~~ UPDATE 091608 ~~~~~

*super sad face*

We had my grad party on Saturday. Wahhh my book is falling apart. Heh. It might also be because so many people looked at it/signed it. But I can’t help feeling that the binding is rather weak… I mean, c’mon, books that we’ve had for years and years, that all of us kids have grown up with, haven’t fallen apart yet. Bleh.

Well, I’m not saying I’ll never do it again… It could be due to the thickness or the dimensions or something. Who knows. The book that I saw at the Almarios was thinner and of a different size, and the binding on that one seemed perfectly fine.

But for the record… :( Here’s what I discovered was left of my dear little book, after everyone had left the party:

:( my favorite page came out!!

One More Week!!

Hehe, yepp. One more week of high school. *whew*

And then we’ll be going to St. Louis for a family reunion. *hyper*

My photobook is supposed to come tomorrow. *so happy*

We got a bunch of my senior pics printed, along with some of the group shots from the GA with Tito Frank. *yay*

We went to the Taste of Blue Ash on Saturday night, because Kenny Loggins was up at 9. *super awesome good time = sleepy*

So, yeah. This week is crunch week. The reason I’m on the computer blogging and not schooling is because everyone’s still in bed and thus I cannot watch either my a) Pre-Calc b) Physics or c) Chem DVDs and that would be everything I need to get done this week. Ah well. I wanted to finish this post last night, but I decided to sleep early and wake up early, and yay! that worked out. So here I am.

Friday night, we had a household at the Almarios, our first with this new HH. We got the Nadermans, Suchoskis, Almarios, and Kraimers. Fifteen kids altogether!!! not counting Buji. Insane. It was pretty rowdy… not at first, but nearer the middle, especially when the boys were allowed to run around as they pleased. Hmmm… lol. Well, let me see. We had a good worship, I think. We sang Now That You’re Near :D and that brought back good times. Once we got all the kids upstairs, we played a get-to-know-you game, which was amusing. We then attempted to play Animal Master, but I don’t think that works with too many people. Lol. And then things went all over the place. We played different versions of Rigmarole-type games. And then Matt decided to ‘translate’ tagalog. He’d make up the funniest stuff and then all of a sudden translate a particular sentence correctly, which would always be unexpected on my part. I think Jojo and Aya had fun. They’re sooooo adorable. We celebrated Jacob’s birthday xD So cute!! I’ve got a video of him blowing out his candles.

So yeah, that was a good household… I was sleeeeeepyyyyy when we got home…

And then Saturday was super insanely awesome!!! I think I already said that. Whoops. Hem.

We had the Fraternal and the ToB at the same time at Mariel’s house. Wheeeee so many birthdays!!! Mariel’s and Jon’s and Candisse’s and Gloria’s and Ate Candice’s and Kuya Vin’s! We celebrated Mariel and Ate Candice’s. ToB went well, half of the video was separate for the guys and girls. I think that was definitely one of our deepest discussions yet. Second would come the one from the session at Kuya Vin’s house.

After ToB, a bunch of us left for the Taste of Blue Ash, and the San Miguels offered, I believe, that we park at their house. We, along with the Almarios and I believe the De Velas, took that offer :D and we got there right as Tito Ver and Tita Flor were walking past. We had quite a time finding everyone and everyone finding each other and blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda… xD In the end, we crowded into the space that Tito Leo had reserved with four chairs. We turned those four chairs into six chairs, plus a blanket and a banig, and squeezed seventeen people into our area — the seventeen being us (6 [or 7, if you want to count Buji]), the Almarios (4), the De Velas (4), Tita Cynthia, Lola, and Paolo. Basically, the Moms and Kuya Mico all in chairs, and the Dads and kids on the ground. Oh, but I think Tita Fides was with us kids because Tito Don was in a chair and Matt sat on his lap some of the time. Ahaha.

Bah, it was much too dark to take decent pics of the group, but was funnyyyy. And actually, I think I enjoyed it better that we, all squeezed together, than if we’d actually managed to save 17 seats. We would’ve taken a whole row, but I think it was definitely nicer the way it was. Hmm… I’d estimate less-than-3 x 7 or 8ish? ft space. I didn’t make it all the way to the other end of the space, so I could be wrong. Maybe a little longer than that. Anyway, it was pretty hot, but no one complained, and while waiting for the concert to start (and some of our group hadn’t arrived yet), Kuya Gabe and Juli played Animal Master with us :D I think later, some of the kids played Watermelon, too.

YAYYYYY for Kenny Loggins!!! The VERY FIRST SONG was Danny’s Song *squealing insanely* followed by Return to Pooh Corner. Ahhhh!!!!!! And then the last three songs were Danger Zone, Footloose, and Forever.

We came back to Taste of Blue Ash yesterday for lunch after Mass, and I had a good look at the spot we’d occupied. Boy, did it look small in the sun, completely devoid of chairs and whatnot. (Ahaha and now that I think about it, there was a pile of shoes/bags/etc. in the middle of our area that took up enough space for another person to sit. But it was SO much more comfortable without shoes on.)

Hmm… to wrap up… some interesting quotes from dinner last night –

“Tomorrow, I rule Japan!!!” – Paco

“In one of my death matches…” – Yena

I suppose a little explanation would be welcome, eh? Haha it’s all from Age of Empires. Death Match is a mode. So Yeni was explaining that in one of the games in which she chose the Death Match mode, she built a maze of ballistas so that enemies would have to go through the maze and get destroyed in the process. Very cool strategy. *thumbs up* I am so trying that next time. And as for Paco’s, well, one more level and he ‘rules Japan,’ apparently, so good luck to him, but I think he was trying to get around to ‘ruling’ it last night, and it wasn’t… going… well…

Oh, we saw the Nadermans at Mass yesterday, and Aunt Bethany was telling us that she wanted to have a Princess and Knights tea party type thing, and I believe it was Harry Steve who said something along the lines of that he didn’t want princesses at the party, and, “I punt all da printhetheth.” (I punch all the princesses.) “I don’t think he quite gets it…” — Aunt Bethany. Rotflwtime. So adorable.

AHHH and now it’s time for me to go do schoolwork so that I can help Mum cook the rest of the day. Byeeee.

:) A Blessed Weekend

Thursday night, we went out to dinner with Tita Cecile and the De Velas, minus Kuya Gabe =( Mum and Dad chose the Korean restaurant where they’d eaten with Mama while I was at BD’s with Nate and Paolo. I ordered the Boston Roll, and Fried Banana for dessert (our turon is still so much better; but of course, as Mum says, NOTHING beats Pinoy turon), and it happened that my order was the first to arrive, so that by the time everyone else’s came, I was already on dessert. (I heard Mother over at the other end of the table saying something like, “… tingnan mo naman ang anak ko, nag d-dessert na…”) Hem, I didn’t mean to be rude… lol.

The seating arrangement landed me on what I guess was the guys’ side of the table, which I enjoyed immensely, for Daddy and Tito Leo started talking about the rumbles at college. Hmm… I think it would not do for me to put their adventures here. xD It’s in my journal, though. Well, there was that, among other things, but that was the main topic that caught my ear.

I’d been done eating for a while, and they were done talking about the rumbles and had turned to work matters, which wasn’t at all uninteresting, but I was curious as to what was going on at the other end of the table, so I asked if I might sit with the girls :) Tito Leo ended up coming over also, and the seating arrangement was the Dad, Kuya Mico, Tita Doris, me, Tito Leo, Tita Cecile, Mum, and the kids running around. Hmm… the things we talked about on that end of the table are most definitely not going here :) ROTFLWTIME. It’s been a while since I’ve been teased so much by a bunch of adults. No, wait, come to think of it, it’s never happened before. Mhm definitely a new experience. I suppose I ought to get used to it; it’ll only get worse as the years go by, eh? Hayyy nako.

Tito Leo had brought some of Gabe’s senior pics, so we got to see those, and he also showed me older pics of Gabe, Tita Doris, and his first car. Very cool :)

ANG INGAY NAMIN. Sinamahan ko si Yeni sa CR, and when I came back, I said to Mum and Tita Cecile and Tita Doris, “Just an FYI… naririnig kayo sa banyo.” Ahahahahaha. Well, nag k-kwentuhan pa kami, and I think we were getting a bit loud for the place, plus we’d been done eating for ages, and so we ended up going to DQ to continue the conversation. Yayy! More ice cream!!! (There was ice cream on top of the fried banana which did not do anything to improve the texture of the batter, but certainly made up for the taste of the fried bananas which could not possibly hold a candle to our turon [aren't I redundant, can't really help it].) And more fun talk xD and lots more teasing. Oh boy.

Well, we eventually said goodnight, dropped Tita Cecile off at the hotel, and then made our way home… Oh, she gave us pasalubong!!! Polvoron and Mangorind, and necklaces for me and Yena. Heh, I thought back to what Julie said at CREDO when I got mine… it was one of those strings of chips with magnetic beads at intervals, so that you can wear it different ways. I’ve been wanting one since I was… what, 13? and I’ve always put it off as a want and not a need. :) Thank You, Lord. It was much prettier than any that I’d seen at FMG.

Friday was the feast of the Assumption (and also one of Mommy’s and Tita Fides’ Name Days xD), and we attended the 7:30 Mass at All Saints. The Nadermans, Suchoskis, Kraimers, Gabe and Tito Leo, and our family all sat together in the last four rows, and then we saw the Franciscos up front, and the Almarios were over to the right of the altar, I believe. I later heard Gabe say to Matt (who had not been with his family, because he’d already attended Mass earlier that day), “It was like a CFC party at Mass.” Lol.

After Mass, Gabe and Tito Leo headed home; they were hosting a household. The Franciscos had left before we could say hi. Poor Therese, she has to stay calm for the next few weeks, and so the Suchoskis went home, because she would only have been running around at the mall… We — the Nadermans, Kraimers, Almarios, and ourselves — proceeded to Kenwood Mall Food Court, and just in time, too! They started cleaning up before we were halfway done with our meal. Juli got free chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a (doesn’t that look so weird when you type it somewhere, and yet one is so used to the sign; that doesn’t look weird at all) because they were closing, and so they gave away all the chicken nuggets they had left, and I think she also got lots of free fries. Haha.

The kids started building towers with those triangular ads that they have sitting on each table. Such fun!! At first, they built two, and Aunt Bethany and I started making jokes about them being Barad-dur and Orthanc, and she said they needed to build a third. Haha. Well, the teens over at the other table decided to build a tower also, and it became a contest. Eventually, they, being sore losers, knocked ours over by throwing something. Ah well. They went in to watch a movie, and we re-built it higher than ever. Ahahaha! False alarms! I saw an old man approach the kids, and I immediately went, “Mum! I think nasasabihan na yung mga bata…” Mum looked over. Guess what. Turns out this guy was giving my bros tips on how to make it even higher. Geez, I thought we were gonna get kicked out! It was hilarious.

So the staff were busy cleaning up the food court, right? Well, when the tower got knocked over, rather than come over and tell the kids to quit, one of them stopped working and came over to tell them to build it up again, and when they had quite finished, he stopped again to take a picture with his cell phone. Lolzers so many people stopped to take pics with their cells. It was cute. The kids had a lot of fun, and they were very good and cleaned up after themselves, putting back all the ads they’d gathered from the various tables.

We had a lot of good conversation while we were eating. We counted how many kids we have in our household. There’s FIFTEEN of us!!! Sixteen, come January. Rotfl! I think Mum and Tita Mariko and Aunt Bethany were joking about competing? Well, look, the Kraimers have five, we have four soon-to-be-five, and Aunt Bethany has three and is certainly far from done. Haha! “We’re the most Pro-Life household in the CFC!” xD So funny. And they went into the whole, “Oh no, the kids outnumber the adults!!” etc. etc. something something about us kids getting the big area now, and the adults getting the small room during households… lol. Matt and I certainly have our hands full.

On that note, Matt and I had a good conversation. Let me see… We talked about summer homework, particularly summer reading, ToB homework, the previous weekend, Gabe’s concert, the panel they’d had Thursday the week before at Tita Doris’ house, the Pinedas coming over, the ToB session the next day… plenty =)

We got home at around 10:30ish, and I continued my essay for ToB. Within two minutes of having read it over, the doorbell rang. It was about 1ish. What a shock I had! Vince is taller than me!!! and Kuya Max is now the shortest of the three. After catching up for a few minutes and getting everything upstairs, we all went to bed, exactly 1:12 AM.

I got up at 7 and baked three batches of scones, two with chocolate chips. :D The guys got up at 9ish. Ahh! and then I was like blehhh they’re cold now, and Kuya Max goes, “Well you should’ve woken us up!!!” Muaha. At any rate, they liked the scones :D

We left for Jungle Jim’s after breakfast. Tita Nati and I switched vans. We talked about school and college and Italy and Brazil and the baby… Lots of stuff. Hayy nako, my Godsiblings…

“Is there a jungle gym?”
“Erm… no.”
“What?! Then why is it Jungle Jim’s???”
“Just wait! You’ll see!”
“What IS it??”
“It’s foodie world. It’s a food store.”
“What??? Why are we going to a food store?!”
“Basta you’ll see!”
And when we pulled into the parking lot…
“Omigosh. This place is huge!!!”
“Exactly!”

We took some pics outside, and then the kids and the adults went their separate ways. Seven kids in one group and four adults in another, one cart for us, two carts for them. So cute. Migi and Yena attached themselves firmly to Kuya Max. So adorable. First stop for the kids were the restrooms. When we got there, Ben was like, “You have got to be kidding me..” and then someone came and opened the door and he was like, “What?!!??!?!” Hilarious. Well, all the guys went in, and Yeni went in with Mum, and I waited outside. (We kids hadn’t bothered getting a cart at this point.)

When everyone came out again, we proceeded straight to the Candy section. We probably spent about 20 minutes there. From there, we went through Produce to the Fish Market (“Can we get on the boat?” “No… sorry…”) where they checked out the tanks, and then we went through the souvenir section (where is that? isn’t the whole place a souvenir store? xD) and on to Sherwood Forest, where we looked over the wall of tea, and then proceeded to the bigger fish tanks. From there, we went through Europe, and stopped to watch The Evolution of the Jungle.

It said 5 minutes till the next show, and we all made a huge show of impatience (all in good fun, of course) and went “boooooooo” every time the “__ minutes” screen came up. When it got to 1, we counted down from 60. So funny; Ben and Max messed up twice and we kept on speeding up and then slowing down again. We were roughly three seconds off by the end of it. Lolzers. Anyway, we finished that up, and then we went towards the freezers, and temporarily lost Kuya Max and the little ones. Turns out they’d stopped to ask Einstein something. Ahahahahaha.

At the freezer section, we got vanilla ice cream and popsicles, then we stopped by the candy section AGAIN, and then went to find chocolate chip cookies to go with the vanilla ice cream for moon pies. Ok, THAT was funny. Kuya Max was asking me what he should get and I said I had no idea, so then he started comparing the weights and the prices. Hayy nako. Oh, and on that note, my Godbrothers kept on throwing out random phrases in tagalog. … They would say stuff like (and these are mostly Ben, sometimes Vince, and occasionally Kuya),
“Ano ka ba, ___?” (sooo funny; Yena would get in front of the cart and Ben, who was pushing it, would say ano ka ba, yena… lol. and he asked for translation, and I’m like what??? You don’t know what you’re saying?? “All I know is that when I say it to my dog, he stays.”)
“Sino ang tatay mo.” (that started at home)
“Mahal kita.” (that would have been from Vince to Ben)
“Dali!!” (Ben)
and “Mabuhay!”
Hmm… I forget what else… lol so there was that. So, yeah, we checked out after we got the cookies. Ahhh indulgence… when we got home, we pooled the candy on Paco’s bedroom floor and took a picture. And then we sat there and ate and ate and shared and ate and shared and shared and didn’t share and ate and ate and… yeah. Hmm… I have the receipt upstairs. I’ll have to edit this post sometime. Ahahaha. (I took care of it cuz I had an unbroken 100 from Ninong and said they could all fix it later.)

We went down and and helped prepare lunch. Team effort! Ninong Renan and Kuya Max and I peeled corn, Daddy manned the grill, Paco and Kuya Max set the table, Ben and Vince kept the little ones occupied, and Tita Nati and Mum took care of everything else. We ate lunch outside. Boiled and grilled corn, hot dogs, kanin, and grilled chicken. Oh, and popsicles!!

Muaha. Since my Godbrothers can’t understand tagalog, I switched from conversation to conversation; the dominantly tagalog one going on between the parents, and the completely english one going on between the kids. So funny. Tita Nati was telling us about Kuya Max’s gf and about how he’d come to her asking permission, and about Ate Amanda’s reaction to Max’s being allowed in high school while she had to wait till college, and Max was just sitting there and I was laughing with the parents, and I didn’t realize that he didn’t know what we were talking about until he asked what was so funny. Lolzers.

Then the games began. I’d gone over to the swing in our backyard, when Kuya Max yelled, “Aisa, come play with us…” and for the rest of the weekend, we played the same games over and over and over again, and never tired of them. First, the boys taught us Animal Master, and then we taught them Watermelon. We helped clean up some of the table, and then gathered in Paco’s room and played some more, and the boys taught us the Hands game. After a few rounds of each game, Kuya Max wanted to teach us yet another, Animal Beater.

We moved the coffee table in the sala and played there for a bit, but then Kuya Max said there should be more space between people, so we took the game outside. Ben had said something already, I think Platypus, but Migi still went for him and bashed him in the face… and Ben collapsed. I got my due for laughing, though; Once, my mind went blank and I just yelled, and Kuya bashed me with the pillow and got my eye xP lol so I had to stand there for a bit and blink before taking my turn in the middle. And every time anyone yelled Hawk and Kuya Max was in the middle, Migi would run for it when he couldn’t think of anything to yell out. My sides ached from laughing watching Kuya chase Migi around the driveway with a pillow. We came inside after a bit and Daddy passed me on my way in and asked, “O. Bakit linabas yung pillow?” “Ah… hehe.. ask Kuya Max?” Hem, we dropped it a few times… and it had a light green pillowcase, too. For the rest of their stay, Animal Master, Hands, and Watermelon became the games of the weekend. And anytime I say “we played games” later in this post, I mean those three games. Haha.

Kuya and Ben and Vince and I all changed our shirts and then we left for ToB. Oh, Vince decided to stay behind with the kids. So it was just me and Ben and Kuya Max and Dad. Ben and Kuya Max commented on how clear the sky was. It really was a lovely day. Ang ganda ng panahon! Perfect. We talked about YFC and BLD and stuff.

Kuya Vin, Gabe, Gloria, Miguel, and Tita Doris were waiting at All Saints. We all went to Confession, and then we went outside to wait and see if anyone else would show up. Meanwhile, we taught Gabe and Gloria and Miguel Animal Master, and played Watermelon also. We left at 4, and the Therapiawans and Matt joined us at Miggy’s house.

ToB went well. Kuya Gabe and I played Freedom for Worship. Ahaha, Kuya Vin said, “Ok, guys, I guess we can start and Matt will just catch up when he gets here,” and Miggy went straight to the TV and started to turn the volume up, and Kuya Vin goes, “Oh… Miguel… heh, we’ll start with the prayer…” We teased him for being so eager to watch :D Lol, we were hyped. Discussion went well, and then we had our closing prayer before going upstairs for dinner.

We ate outside on the deck. Tita Fama served us pasta, barbecue, kanin, and watermelon :D We’d brought corn and the rest of the scones to share with everyone. We had a really great time. There isn’t much to tell… lots of pics, funny conversation, a bit of jamming… etc. The usual.

Everyone had come to pick us up, and we went straight to the Ohio river. We went first to one side, and then to the other side in KY. On the OH side, we saw coons! Four of ‘em, right next to the wall! I was trying to get a picture, but it was so dark, I needed to use the flash, and I didn’t want to scare them… but Migi was bolder and got several good pics of them. It was a full moon. So beautiful!

We proceeded to the other side of the river, and sat on the bank. We took lots of pics and played our games again, and then Ben pushed Max for some reason I don’t know and neither does he? but Kuya slipped on the sand and we all yelled, and he was lying on his back laughing. It took us a bit to realize that his foot and hand were bleeding. Out came the First Aid kit. The little ones took to torturing their Kuya Ben for having pushed Kuya Max. Poor Ben :) I think that the time we spent on the KY side of the river was my favorite part of the whole weekend.

Kuya Max rode in our van for the rest of the night after ToB, and so I spent those hours with Ben and Vince. Ben and Vince told me all about the Steubenville Conferences, and we talked about the worship songs that we knew. We had so much fun singing all the stuff with hand motions! Ahahahaha Vince said, “Days of Elijah,” and I was like, “OMIGOSH!!!!!” and then we started singing the chorus and hand-motioning our hearts out. It was hilarious. I asked them if they knew Lord I Lift Your Name On High, and Ben was like, “Sing it,” so I did, and it seemed for a bit like he didn’t, but at about the last two lines of the verse, Ben suddenly burst into the chorus and started going through the motions. Muaha. We sang bits of Shout to the Lord, Here I Am to Worship, How Great Is Our God… and so manyyyy more.

Actually, it started when I was staring out the window. Things were pretty quiet, and I started humming and then singing Everything. About halfway through the second verse, I looked away from the window and stopped abruptly and stared at the boys. Rotfl. They had been bouncing their heads in time to the song. And I stared at them until Ben said, “What?? We like that song…” and then I laughed, and then I asked him to think of a song for me to sing because I couldn’t think of one. Bahhh he told me to sing Before He Cheats. And then when I was done, he said, “That was too easy. Sing *singing*Jesus Take the Wheel*/singing*.” And then later he wanted me to sing Dare You to Move. But first we went through the worship songs.

On our way to Eton(?) Park, we passed by several deer. That was amazing. But wah, it was way too dark to get a decent picture. Ah, and on our way downtown, we were playing Watermelon, and Ben motioned upwards to skip and banged his hand on the roof. My sympathy was short-lived, for soon after he said, “Ow!” he added, “My nails!” which… made… me… crack… up. Hem, my stomach hurt so from laughing. I suppose I should have apologized to Ben, but that was just… *sigh* I guess you had to be there. Anyway. Let me see… ah, we were also talking about family trees. It began… oh, no, wait, I forget how it began. But we were talking about something that eventually led to Ben saying how his friends were the same age as their nieces and nephews, which led to us talking about our family trees, and either his grandma or Tita Nati is from a family of 14 kids, and he goes, “Why is it that Filipinos have so many kids?” “Because Pinoys have a better understanding of the gift of Life than Americans do.” “Dude, she’s deep.” Totoo naman, eh. :)

We got home at around 11ish. Ahhhh so sleeeeepy!!!!!!!!!! but we played games again. When Kuya and Yena both got out, rather than sitting there and watching the rest of the game, Kuya started a new game with Yena. Yeni has been just plain spoilt this weekend :D :D :D or rather, all of us have been. The boys are just totally amazing Kuyas. They’re so patient with Yena and Migi, and so inclusive. Like, while most teens, including myself, would wait until the little ones ask to be included in a game, and sometimes ignore them, the boys were always like, “Hey c’mon, let’s play a game!” and encourage the little ones throughout. Vince had Yena sitting on his shoulders while we were on the OH side of the river. Ben was giving Yena horsey rides (although I think she sat on his back and then made him be a horse and then a lion etc. etc. but he was nice enough not to push her off, lol) and at Mass, she sat between Ben and Vince and I saw her whispering to them, and she asked Ben for help with her sleeve, and he fixed it for her, and when we were all kneeling, she got behind her Kuya Ben and gave him a hug. Haha. Ah, and I heard that while Ben and Kuya and I were at ToB, the kids had a water fight with Vince. Lolzers.

We made our moon pies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with the vanilla ice cream and the chocolate chip cookies. Delicioussssss. Paco and Migi wanted to have an archery contest downstairs, but Ben stayed upstairs with Yena and played Animal Master with her, and they gave it all kinds of twists and stuff. It was so amusing watching them. You know how little kids never seem to tire of the same game? I would’ve gotten sooooo tired by the time Yena stood up and made Kuya Ben go downstairs with her, but he was so patient and kept playing with her, Animal Master and Watermelon, over and over again. I was amazed at my sister. One of the twists they gave it was that they would alternate between animals, so you had to remember what the other person was supposed to be next or you’d mess up. And so Ben was alternating between fish and shark, and Yeni was alternating between bunny and unicorn, and she said to Ben, “Ok, so when you do shark, then I do unicorn, but when you do fish, I do bunny,” and I had to pause and think to myself, “Wait, wha? …” Haha I learned a lot about Yena this weekend…

I bade them all goodnight at about 12… and then I understand the boys followed at around 1. I woke up at about 7 so as to beat all the guys to the shower, and promptly went back to bed afterwards. Daddy woke me again at around 8:30, and I allowed myself another half hour before getting up and finding that the boys were just waking. We had a good breakfast, and left around 9:30ish for the 10 o’clock Mass at St. Max. It is a very fun thing to fill up a whole row :D The adults were all at one end, and then we children were all mixed up. We saw the Nadermans after Mass, and I went to say hi to Tita Georgette and I met her sister, Tita Jemma. Samuel Wade didn’t cry when I took him :) *happy*

On our way home –
Ben: Do you know why the sky is blue?
me: The angle of the sun–
Ben: Thank you! Everytime I ask anyone that, they’re always like, “Why?” No one knows but me!
Vince: Wait, why is the sky blue?
Lol. Tag-teaming, we explained. And then I asked Ben if he knew that when you see a rainbow and point it out to a friend, your friend is seeing a totally different rainbow from the one you’re seeing. :) Yay physics! Yay I’m learning! Ahahaha.

We played games when we got home, and then the boys loaded up the car, and we had lunch, and then they left at around 1, and I was sad. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. The rest of the day passed rather slowly… the boys and Yeni went with Daddy to St. John’s and I stayed home with Mum and we talked and stuff, and then she was sleepy, so I took a nap also. I called Dev at some point, and Paolo called before I fell asleep.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and now it’s Monday and I’m down to my last two weeks of school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xD I’ve got to upload pics to multiply.. I’ll do that when I have time… but here’s a few pics from this weekend :)

Back row: Ben, Yeni, and Paco/ Sitting down: me, Kuya Max, Migi, and Vince

The result of our Jungle Jim's trip

ToB session #5

JUMP!!! -- Kuya Max

Kuya Vince giving Yeni a ride

ANIMAL MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~~~EDIT~~~~~

Pics: http://gukkhser.multiply.com/photos/album/170

Senior Pics

HEM, last night, I unloaded exactly 1,580 pictures from Tito Leo’s memory cards. Mhm.

Fortunately, after having run through them once very quickly, I was able to eliminate (that is, move to other folders) all pics that were taken either a) at the General Assembly yesterday, b) at the ToB session on Saturday, or c) at Gabe’s concert on Friday night. Which left me with 1,224 pictures.

Oooooooooooooh.

So, now, I am slowly going through the remaining 1,224 pictures.

There are currently 371 sitting in the recycle bin.

ANYWAY. I’m taking a little break to share my three favs so far. Yay! :D So click away. Funnnn. lol.

Whoooooops. I have my eyes closed in that last one. Darn xD Oh well. Maybe I have yet to discover one where I kept my eyes open. Lolz.

Isn’t Tito Leo totally insanely amazingly awesomeeee? :)

~~~~~EDIT~~~~~

No, wait!!! I found a better kick!!! lol.

Amor Omnia Vincit

Last Sunday, Deacon Madz and Tita Odette celebrated their 40th Anniversary.

Wouldn’t have missed that Mass for the world. The homily was so beautiful. The priest (here I go again…) told of the Lims’ background, of how they came from the Pinas, and that after Tito Madz retired, he ‘went back to the classroom’ :) to be ordained a Deacon. He spoke of how Tito Madz and Tita Odette were a contradiction to the world, that their 40 years was a statement so counter-cultural and so needed (so true). This world has cheapened love, twisted its definition, forgotten its true value, and yet, the world still longs from true love, because it is a part of our human nature to long for it… God put it there. He reminded us that Love is a choice, a decision, not merely a feeling, and that Tito Madz and Tita Odette, he was sure, had gone through tough times, but they’d stuck it out and chosen to hold together, and that was what real love was. He addressed their kids and told them that, more than any present they could buy, what their parents wanted most was for them to stay true to their Catholic Faith, because that was what Deacon Madz and Tita Odette had given them.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Cor 13: 4 – 7

And truly, Love conquers all.

Stuff Catholics Like

Muaha. Love the description on the Facebook Fan Page for this site.

Mission: This blog is about stuff Catholics like. Some of the stuff, like felt banners, Catholics shouldn’t like but do for reasons they will have to explain to God.

The purpose of this blog is to take a light-hearted look at Catholic things in a way that can be educational to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. If you tend to be easily “hurt” or “offended”, this is a good place to get over it.

Lol. This is so going on the blogroll *nods* Here’s what I read today — http://stuffcatholicslike.com/2008/05/08/viii-laypeople/

Enjoy!

…

[and P.S. DON'T GET OFFENDED. It's against the rules if you visit that site.]

Pentecost & Mothers’ Day

I would like to announce to the world that… I AM GOING TO BE AN ATE FOR THE FOURTH TIME OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *squealing in freakish super hyper happiness*

Seriously, I have been jumping up and down all over the place. It’s insane. It’s crazy. It’s like WOW. God is good. God is AMAZING!

I’ve been on the phone with Michelle and Nate and Paolo and Sarah and Sean and Kim and I’ve just been squealing my heart out. I’d call Dev, but I think it’s past 9 at her house, so… I will just have to wait till tomorrow to call her. *squirming with impatience*

Now, I’m off to announce it to the facebook world xD

Random Reflections

Two things said during the Homily last Sunday hit me.

First was that doubt is a holy invitation to a deeper Faith.

Second that we are Jesus Christ’s I.D. Card. 

This post is entitled ‘Random Reflections’ and so this next part is not directly connected… or rather, it is, and thus I am putting them in the same post because they compliment each other, but thinking of one did not lead to thinking of the other or something like that, they simply occurred to me on two different days on which I allowed myself to be lazy and not blog them. :D Anyway…

One of the sins I struggle with the most is expecting too much of people. I tend to overlook/ignore the fact that we are all on our own journey, that we are not all at the same level at the same time, etc. I tend to expect a great deal of the people I am closest to, forgetting that I would not be where I am today — especially in terms of my Faith journey — if we had not moved to PA, if I had not been homeschooled, if I had not joined the 4real teen forum, if I did not have Devin or Kate or Clare… the list goes on and on. If we had stayed here in Ohio, if I had continued public school, and thus never met all those people that challenged me to have a deeper love for, and understanding of, my Faith, I doubt I’d be having the kind of talks that I am blessed to have with my Mom today! Mommy and Daddy probably would have had a much harder time with me than they have had, I think, and I would probably be the typical cafeteria Catholic. As it is, I have been blessed with the grace of thirsting for the knowledge, but I am still woefully ignorant of a great many things.

I chided someone on Black Saturday for a) being online, and b) calling me, on Good Friday. They asked me what age a person was told these things.

I’ve never really thought about it before. I guess I’ve always taken it for granted, and especially these past few years, that everyone knew those things… no music, no computer, no phone convos, try not to have too much fun, etc., on Good Friday. I mean, c’mon. It’s the day God died. And we killed him.

What?

Yeah. We killed him. Well, didn’t we? It was our sins that nailed him to the cross. It was the sins of all mankind, all sins committed in past, all sins being committed in that moment, and all sins that had yet to be committed between that day and the end of the world that killed God. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. How could we be liberated from slavery to sin if He did not die for all sins, past, present, and future?

I’ve always thought that it was just general knowledge… Good Friday being the day we remember the death of God, and it being quite truly our fault, I figured everyone else would figure it wasn’t a day to have fun.

But then I had a talk with Mum and she enlightened me :D For some people in the Philippines, Lent is like vacation. IOW, I really oughtn’t be shocked or surprised or disappointed. And bottom line is, I have no right to expect so much of people when just five years ago, I could’ve cared less for all this stuff.

*sigh* I really have to work on this humiliation thing. I mean, I keep reading the Litany of Humility, and I get the concept behind the whole thing, you know? That’s the easy part. But then how does one apply?

Pray for me, please.