I love you too, Jason
Jason Mraz, that is.
“Love is a dark night. Dark nights are largely about love. Once you give up the bright light of consciousness and understanding, you may discover that you can be in this world in a darker way, living by love and desire rather than by rationality and control. You don’t give up your intellect, but you allow love its natural dominance.” - From Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore
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Keona as Dora the Explorer |
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Keona and her backpack |
"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."On spirituality, she says:
"Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises, in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles in the way and a host of illusions round about it, my poor little mind soon grows weary, I close the learned book, which leaves my head splitting and my heart parched, and I take the Holy Scriptures. Then all seems luminous, a single word opens up infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy; I see that it is enough to realize one's nothingness, and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God. Leaving to great souls, great minds, the fine books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet'."On prayer, she says:
"For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy; in a word, something noble, supernatural, which enlarges my soul and unites it to God.... I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers.... I do as a child who has not learned to read, I just tell our Lord all that I want and He understands."Simple. :-)
Good day fellow travelers!
As the rainy season pours, we invite you to join us in our famous Pampanga Food Tour called Viajeng Cusinang Matua or Old Kitchen Tours. This will be on July 26, 2008, Saturday, from breakfast to dinner, we will just enjoy the company of food trippers and learn more about why Filipinos love to eat.
Bring your family and friends or if you have guests from abroad, just bring them in and prepare for a one of a kind and fun-filled gastronomical experience!
For reservations, you may reach us at 09209235615 or email us at alquimistatrails@ yahoo.com.
See you!
Tracey Santiago
Alquimista Trails
VIAJENG CUSINANG MATUA
The Kapampangan cuisine is highly regarded as one of the most delicious variety in the Philippines. Discover the secrets of the locals and explore the rich culture of Pampanga through this one of a kind cultural culinary experience. We will bring you to an extra special tour...we bring YOU to some of the old kitchens of Pampanga...because the best Kapampangan dishes are made at home.
Itinerary and Sample Menu
Breakfast - Cucina ng Atching Lillian Borromeo - Mexico
Native tsokolate, dinuguan, galantina, sinangag, etc. There will also be a baking demonstration of the famous San Nicolas cookies and a tour lecture of the cooking heirloom pieces of the family.
Merienda - Alviz Farm - Sta. Rita
This farm is owned by ArtiSta Rita's Artistic Director and one of Pampanga's cultural pillars today, Andy Alviz. During this time, experience the Rice Planting Festival of Pampanga with music, dances, and food. Tamales, pandan tea, empanaditas, and other native kakanin will be served during the festivities.
Lunch - Cucina ni Kong Willie Carpio - Sta. Rita
Willie Carpio is known for its authentic preparation of the famous sisig. A Pampanga food tour will never be complete without tasting this delectable recipe without the sizzling plate. Taste it hot or cold and you'll know the difference! Other included viands are sinigang na bangus sa bayabas and humba.
Side Trip - Betis Church - Betis
Pampanga is also known for its beautiful old churches. We will have a glimpse of one of the most famous baroque churches in the Philippines. Betis church is named as one of the most significant cultural landmarks by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Merienda - Betis Crafts - Betis
Kapampangans are also known as excellent woodcarvers. Betis crafts showcases this craft through their fine world class furniture pieces. Taste the famous La Moderna ensaymada of Guagua after taking the factory tour of Betis Crafts.
Pasalubong Shopping - Susie's Cuisine - San Fernando
Susie's is famous for the "tibok-tibok," mochi, empanadas, and other Kapampangan delicacies.
Dinner - Everybody's Cafe - San Fernando
This restaurant is most famous for its camaro, morcon, and paksiw na bangus. A must try if you want to taste what the Jorolan Family has been serving their customers for more than 50 years.
Fee: Php2,500.00 per person
Inclusions: lectures, chartered vans, set and buffet dishes (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Meriendas)
Pick-up points:
a. Makati - Mc Donalds Greenbelt along Paseo de Roxas - 5:45am
b. Ortigas - Mc Donalds El Pueblo - 6:00am
c. Quezon City - Mc Donalds MRT-Quezon Ave - 6:15am
Grass roots. The term "grass roots" refers to the ordinary people who form the main body of an organization.Him: For example, my secretary is a grass root.
The Childlike Empress: Bastian. Why don't you do what you dream, Bastian?3. Never My Love by the Association - I love the lyrics; used to imagine singing it for someone.
Bastian: But I can't, I have to keep my feet on the ground!
The Childlike Empress: Call my name. Bastian, please! Save us!
Bastian: All right! I'll do it! I'll save you! I will do what I dream!
[Climbs to the window and yells out in the storm]
Bastian: MOON CHILD!
There's only us.
There's only this.
Forget regret.
Or life is yours to miss.
I have a dream, a song to singAnd my dream has always been to marry someone like Pierce Brosnan! Loyal, dapper, funny, artistic, sexy... I know he paints, he acts, and now I know he sings!
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream.
Mudita is a Buddhist (Pali and Sanskrit) word meaning rejoicing in others' good fortune. Mudita is sometimes considered to be the opposite of schadenfreude.
The term mudita is usually translated as "sympathetic" or "altruistic" joy, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being rather than begrudging it. Many Buddhist teachers interpret mudita more broadly as referring to an inner spring of infinite joy that is available to everyone at all times, regardless of circumstances. The more deeply one drinks of this spring, the more secure one becomes in one's own abundant happiness, and the easier it then becomes to relish the joy of other people as well.
As for my twilight years, it’s still a toss-up whether I will wake up to the chuckling of chickens or the honking of cars!
English ship: "Mayday, mayday! We are sinking! We are sinking!"I've noticed that many of my students don't know the word "sink," and I've heard this action described/depicted in so many ways. Today's was the best ever.
New guy: "Hello! This is the German coastguard. What are you sinking about?"
When we let go of attitudes, beliefs and ways that don’t work, there appear newer ones that take their place. This will happen repeatedly until we find the right ones that apply to this new stage in our lives. We are like a house in renovation except that the dust has not settled and so we are not sure what we really look like inside. But be assured that there is a lot of activity happening there.It doesn't seem so clear to me now where I am at this point in my life, at least where my personal life is concerned. Some things that I thought I had already figured out, like love and friendship, have come undone again.
We can also compare ourselves to snakes in the sense that we must shed off old skin periodically to continue living in a supple, energetic new body.
Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.You can read the complete chapter here. But it wasn't something I fully understood. I am, after all, a hands-on learner.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"
And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."
But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much,
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night
And the ill counsel of a desert place
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA
Your virtue is my privilege: for that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you in my respect are all the world:
Then how can it be said I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS
I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
DEMETRIUS
I will not stay thy questions; let me go:
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be wood and were not made to woo.
Exit DEMETRIUS
I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Stay Out of PerfectionRead the rest here.
Perfecting everything slows down success. Stop organizing and perfecting everything, just allow things to flow their course. If you must correct, organize, and perfect; allow the natural successful flow first. Get things out first, then optimize.
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This area leads to the movie theaters. |
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Sherwil, me, Ruth, Emily. We all lack sleep. |
"In order to change height one must dump ballast."The words of Bertrand Piccard, a ballonist who circumnavigated the world and set a record. My learner attended his talk, and she said she thought of me. :)
"Getting over means simply to understand there is nothing more because one side says so."The Brit said, referring to a friend.
The best barbecue on campus, however, is found in Beach House beside the Main Library. Unfortunately they’re open only for lunch. But there’s Kha’s place in the arcade near the swimming pool. It serves Middle Eastern food. Their specialties are rice biryani and ox brain soup and they have lassi.Sadly, though, it doesn't mention this hole-in-the-wall Thai eatery I discovered through my orgmate Vincent Coscolluela. I suppose that one's long gone, because when my MFA classmates and I went there a couple of years ago, upon the insistence of Allan Popa, the place was nowhere to be found.
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I don't know what they're called, but they sure look pretty. |
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This makes me think of my childhood. And reminds me of UP. |
There is a tradition that women may make a proposal of marriage to men only in leap years, further restricted in some cases to only February 29. There is a tradition that in 1288 the Scottish parliament under Queen Margaret legislated that any woman could propose in Leap Year; few parliament records of that time exist, and none concern February 29.If the answer's no, you can only soften the blow with (a.) one pound currency, (b.) a silk gown.
Another component of this tradition was that if the man rejects the proposal, he should soften the blow by providing a kiss, one pound currency, and a pair of gloves (some later sources say a silk gown). There were similar notions in France and Switzerland.
Sam: There's this big concert at the end of term, and Joanna's in it. And I thought, maybe if I was in the band, and played absolutely superbly, there's a chance that she might actually fall in love with me. What do you think?Unfortunately, I can't find a clip of this scene.
Daniel: I think it's brilliant! I think it's stellar! Uh, apart from the one, obvious, tiny, little baby little hiccup...
Sam: That I don't play a musical instrument.
Daniel: Yessir.
Sam: A tiny, insignificant detail.
The Sacrament of Waiting
by Fr. James Donelan, S.J.
The English poet John Milton once wrote that those who serve stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakeable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts than all the great deeds of derring-do that go by the name of action.
Waiting is a mystery—a natural sacrament of life. There is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.
Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting—testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in our self-control—pasensya na lang. We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations, and bus depots are temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one—or wait in sadness to say goodbye and to give that last wave of hand. We wait for birthdays and vacations; we wait for Christmas. We wait for spring to come or autumn—for the rains to begin or stop.
And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next step. We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success, and recognition. We wait to grow up—to reach the stage where we make our own decision.
We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is part of the tapestry of living—the fabric in which the threads are woven that tell the story of our lives.
Yet the current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait. “Grab all the gusto you can get.” So reads one of America’s great beer advertisements—Get it now. Instant pleasure—instant transcendence. Don’t wait for anything. Life is short—eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you’ll die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom—premarital sex and extramarital affairs—they warn against attachment and commitment, against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us, against vows and promises, against duty and responsibility, against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and to wait.
This may be the correct prescription for pleasure—but even that is fleeting and doubtful. What was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure? “Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated.” Now if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, souls as well as heart, we have to learn to love someone else other than ourselves.
For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery brushing by our face everyday like stray wind or a leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has ever loved knows how much waiting goes into it, how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.
Why is this so? Why can’t we have love right now—two years, three years, five years—and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit, the seed to flower, carbon to change into a diamond.
There is no simple answer, no more than there is to life’s demands: having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have already made other commitments, or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives, having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your path. Goodbyes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.
All we know is that growth—the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we love them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting—of being present without making demands or asking rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.
So lovers wait for each other until they can see things the same way, or let each other freely see things in quite different ways. What do we lose when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance and intimacy of the way they were? They have to wait—in silence—but still be present to each other until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory, and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.
What do we lose when we refuse to wait? When we try to find short cuts through life, when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of ever truly loving or being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature. Isn’t it of their very essence that they are filled with the strange but common mystery—that waiting is part of the substance, the basic fabric—against which the story of that true love is written?
How can we ever find either life of love if we are too impatient to wait for it?
A violent samurai warrior with a reputation for provoking fights for no reason arrived at the gates of a Zen monastery and asked to speak to the master.
Without hesitating, Ryokan went to meet him.
"They say that intelligence is more powerful than brute force," said the samurai. "Can you explain to me what heaven and hell are?"
Ryokan said nothing.
"You see?" bellowed the samurai. "I could explain quite easily: to show someone what hell is, you just have to punch them. To show them what heaven is, you just have threaten them with terrible violence and then let them go."
"I don’t talk to stupid people like you," said the Zen master.
The blood rushed to the samurai’s head. His brain became thick with hatred.
"That is hell," said Ryokan, smiling. "Allowing yourself to be upset by silly remarks."
Taken aback by the monk’s courage, the samurai warrior softened.
"And that is heaven," said Ryokan, inviting him in. "Not reacting to foolish provocations."
“I stressed out a little too much,” Mr. Ledger said.From The New York Times.
He tends to do that. He is here in London filming the latest episode of the “Batman” franchise, “The Dark Knight.” (Mr. Bale, as it happens, plays Batman; Mr. Ledger plays the Joker.) It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much.
“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.
Even as he spoke, Mr. Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat, put the hood back up. He went outside and had another cigarette. Polite and charming, he nonetheless gave off the sense that the last thing he wanted to do was delve deep into himself for public consumption. “It can be a little distressing to have to overintellectualize yourself,” is how he put it, a little apologetically.