or check this link: http://www.catholic.org/saints/fun_facts_arch.php?image=/saints/ff_images/31.jpg&si=311&s=St.%20Padre%20Pio

I got it from a friend. Katuwa lang.  What a great and fun way of telling some truth

Friendster Horoscope for February 15, 2007

The Bottom Line

Even if you don’t achieve your goals, you’re better for trying. Applaud yourself.

In Detail

Has it ever occurred to you that even if you don’t achieve all your goals, you’re still better for trying? Compare yourself with people who admit defeat before they even get out of bed in the morning — you have a lot to be proud of. Your past efforts might not have taken you exactly where you wanted to be today, but they took you in the right direction. The rest of the journey might be laborious, but it will eventually lead to its proper conclusion.

As I was browsing the net , surfing around, checking the usual sites I would normally visited, I came accross the horoscope today from friendster.com.  Heheheh. I dont normally believe in horoscopes and predictions but somehow it amazes me for there are times na it seems to be the "prediction" is correct. Tugma ba with your mood, your thoughts and possibly things done in a day.

Today I went to University and presented my thesis proposal to my host professor and some of her colleagues working under Artificial Intelligence. I know there’s still a lot of work I need to do in my thesis, but I am glad for the feedback I got from my audience. It definitely helps to put some perspective in my thesis and in what direction I should go into.

The horoscope I got today somehow gave me comforting words  :-)  It feels good and hopeful in what I am doing 

…sympre, all things are possible because of Him.  Thank you!!

Note: A friend sent this document to me .. perhaps you might pick a lesson or two.. a realization or two. 

Advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not available, single and available, no love life.

Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo Manila University, Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols, at that time was the Philosophy department head.

Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo. Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and enriching classes but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them every day (if only they could do something about the grades…)

Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems, the highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for flunk), Fr. Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn’t teach at all…Calasanz got his A+.  Read the paper below to find out why.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— —–

Partners and Marriage
Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn’t want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn’t fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other’s presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other’s foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other’s habits?  What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other’s laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter.  Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other’s company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect.  When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can’t accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful . If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesnt become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by ourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation.

Transformation is one of the most common events of nature.

The seed becomes the flower.

The cocoon becomes the butterfly.

Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child.

We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.  Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. 

Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.  It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well.   Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love.

Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains. But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.

If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait.  The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom… endlessly.

Note: I have posted this one in my tlimoanco.multiply.com blog.. thought of posting it here as well

** Secret Agenda **

I received an email from my chairperson that she needs to talk to me regarding my teaching performance last term & at the same time she would like to get my feedback about the students I handled this schoolyear. I was touched by her email because I see this as an oppurtunity for me to grow both in my profession and personal growth and at the same time to give my feedback in handling the subject. 

When that day came (24 January 2007), I was preoccupied with preparations for my upcoming trip that i was worried that I will be late in my meeting with her. I even texted a colleague of mine to tell our chairperson that I might arrive in the University late and that if her schedule fits, I will meet her after the freshmen specialization talk. With God’s grace, I was in the University 1 minute before our scheduled meeting and little did I know that the "supposed to be meeting" is simply a front to a surprised despedida prepared by the CCS faculty. Grabe! na-touch ako. Really. It feels so good to know that you are being appreciated and that a sense of family feeling is present in your working environment.

Thank you guys, my dear CCS family for the wonderful lunch despedida. Sarap ng food! ..wala pa akong isang linggo dito sa Melb e naho-homesick na ako. I miss the people, my family, pamangkins, my "usual life" … ..oh well, i need to focus and aim to meet the objective/purpose of my trip here  and embrace the "changes" with open arms

** Funny Blooper or the Joke is on Me? **

Few days before the "surprise despedida", there were several emails being exchanged by some faculty verifying the correct email addresses of the entire CCS family. For what purpose? for my despedida.  I was surprised in reading those emails. The first thing that comes into my mind was — april fool’s day na ba at mukhang i-a-april fools day ako ah

** A Wonderful Message Received last 31 January — My Last Day in Manila at may Bonus pa **

I had lunch at Cafe Bola with a dear friend of mine last 31st January.  It was a good lunch, good talk and great quality time with her. Hay miss ko na ang lunch date namin ..because of busy schedules and work, during lunch time lang kami nagkakausap and help each other’s worries and stress. Before we separate, she gave me a card. I read it, cried about it, touched by it. Even until now, naiiyak pa rin ako sa message ng card na inabot nya sa akin.  I am posting it here para electronically I have a copy (souvenier ika nga )

Card’s cover message: "Change is never easy,  and this may be the hardest journey you’ve ever undertaken… There may be times when you want to turn back.  There may be times when you feel alone .. But when the road becomes difficult, draw strength from knowing how much you’re cared about, and how often you’re thought of with love. You have friends who believe in you, who never doubt your success… friends who trust in you, who support your decisions, who wish the best for you and want all your dreams to come true..

Card’s inside message:  " dearest friendship, I hope that you know I am one of those friends.. who believes in you, who trusts in you, who wishes for you the fulfillment of all your dreams… Well, the card says most of what I want to say just want to add that you are also my source of strength (even if you wont believe it). Thank you for your patience, love, support and concern. I admire you for your desire to grow and overcome, I admire you for your courage to go on and fight your battles.  So relax, dont worry, just keep on (living, loving & learning)! "

I may be out for only a short while, but my friend and other closest friends of mine know what i have been going through, so they know how big/great & complex fears i have both in mind and in heart. How i wish makita ko sa sarili ko ang nakikita ng mga closest friends and  dear ones — ang kakayahang lumaban.. I never see myself to have courage, nor being confident in many things…. all i know in the end, i wish to have hope..

Thank you friendship.. thank you girlfriends for your friendship, patience and love ..for all these years… you are true friends (great blessings from the Lord) indeed regardless of the state I will be in.

That afternoon, my nephew Bryan accompanied me and sent me to the airport. Hay, at that moment, parang ayaw kong umalis I wil definitely miss my pamangkins.

For the last 5 years, during Christmas, my sister and I would watch at least 1 tagalog film being featured in the Manila Filmfest. There are no other options to watch during Christmas except tagalog films but of course I don’t mind watching tagalog films with my sister. In fact, it was only this kind of movie date that my sister and I have the chance to spend quality time with one another and talk about anything as how you would talk with your closest friends.

This year, we watched 2 films — Mano Po 5 (Gua Ai Di) and Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo. And given these 2 movies, my personal choice is (with regards to actors/actresses and the story), is Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo.

Here’s the synopsis of Mano Po 5 (Gua Ai Di) taken from clickthecity.com: Charity is pure Chinese while Nathan has no drop of Chinese blood in him. This is not a problem between them, but it is for Charity’s mother Yolanda, who is strongly against the relationship. When her childhood friend Timothy–who’s now big in Asia as the singer Felix Yan–comes home to visit, Charity’s world gets especially hard. Charity must prove to everyone, from Nathan to her family, where her loyalties lie even as her mother does everything in her power to tear the two young lovers apart. How strong is their love against years-old tradition?

My thoughts about the movie: I will not deny the fact that Chinese families prefer (in some sense: a requirement, a must) their children to get betrothed to a fellow Chinese – maintain the tradition and customs being followed, and it will not be seen as a disgrace in the family especially if the relationship is involving a Chinese woman and a non-Chinese man (but then again I don’t know why here in the Philippines, if a Chinese woman marries a non-Chinese specifically not a Filipino, it would be acceptable …hmmm). The unrealistic part in the movie is that Charity’s relationship with Nathan is acceptable by Charity’s grandmother (mother’s side)! It was Charity’s grandmother insistence to Charity to follow her heart. Well, of course, I could be wrong, na posibleng mangyari din ito sa totoong buhay but I find that uncommon :p The moment a relationship is not approved by the parents, the entire clan (grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunties etc) will not approve as well. Sympre, I would love to be in Charity’s shoes when it comes to the ending part of the movie – Charity’s mom was the one who fetch Nathan for their family activity and accepted Nathan’s relationship with Charity.

Few people I know (or at least heard about their adventures in their lovelife) would do what Charity did – despite of her mom’s disapproval for Nathan, she still let Nathan join their family activities, and fights her love for Nathan to her mom and would do things to let Nathan know of her love for him. It would take a lot of courage on the woman’s part to fight for her love and at the same time not lose her respect towards her parents. Also, to find a guy like Nathan who would do anything just to get the approval of Charity’s mom (i.e. learning Chinese/fookien language; willing to adjust himself for Charity’s family, knowing the traditions and customs and etc).. Naku, kung may makilala akong ganoon, hay that person is “too good to be true” :p

Their Fookien? Requires more practice. Peke ang dating.. but of course, in fairness naman e hindi sila talagang Chinese sa totoong buhay. But I guess with the assumptions that actors will do a lot of practice to make themselves realistic in any movies they will make. For this film, they failed. Slang ang kanilang fookien :p

For the movie Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo, here’s the synopsis from clickthecity.com: When they meet, Angie and Jed are immediately drawn to each other. But his mother is urging him to join the family in the States, and she is frustrated that he still can’t make his own decisions. So he does-and it leads them both to the altar. Things are only about to get more interesting as they start a life together and try to build a family, all while dealing with his elitist mother and her own more humble, if not less tactless, mother. It is a funny movie but with a story and lessons to learn from. Actually no new things can be learned from this movie, but more on reminding us on some realities in life. For instance, in Angie’s talk with her dad, her dad mentioned something like (not in actual words but same thought) “kilalanin mo muna bago pakasalan” and also after Jed’s and Angie’s wedding, jed’s commented na (something to that effect) “you will get to know the person once you are married to him/her” – I guess even we are sure of our emotions to the person we love, we cant really tell if we know the person very well. Kahit may mga ups and downs sa relationships, still may not be enough. It will always be an exploration of knowing more of the person we love in or not-yet in the marriage. Sympre nanduon din ang constant adjustments as we are “getting to know one another” in fact sa friendship pa lang, we do a lot of adjustments na, what more if we are committed? What struck me also in the movie was “pakakasalan ang isang tao dahil sya, at hindi para baguhin”. Very well said.

….love a person, marry a person because of who he/she is, how he/she was packaged.. loving him/her despite of weaknesses, indifference and faults.. but simply you love the person.

Hay, what a life :p