Month: March 2011

Unfriended and unfollowed

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I have just started to enjoy Twitter lately. Just like this blog, I’ve had my Twitter account for two to three years now, but it has always been privately tucked away until recently. I have noticed that some of the news items aired on TV and even those written on the Net and newspapers were actually tweets of some famous personalities and renowned institutions, so I have revived my own account and allowed my tweeps to inform me of the latest news and amuse me as well. While I think of tweeting and FB-ing as harmless activities, my stand on this was challenged when the pastor talked about selfishness yesterday and mentioned Twitter and Facebook. Indeed, how egoistic can a person be that he would want to be followed? It also reminded me of various tweets that I have read from different tweepers a few days ago: I have unfollowed you because you did not follow me back. Follow me… I do follow back. You are free to unfollow me anytime (after an unpleasant exchange of ideas with another follower). And …

Crossing the Bridge of Now and Then

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This is probably one of those days when I couldn’t help feeling helpless. My husband‘s in a foreign country, alone and very sick. His skin asthma has recurred (it normally does every three years) and so far, this year’s the worst breakout he’s ever had. More, his medical supplies have already run out. I have tried flying to him, but since my passport’s within six months of its expiration now, online ticketing sites would no longer accommodate me. I have also tried sending him medicines through FedEx, but they require a medical certificate and a doctor’s prescription, which we no longer have. He has already seen a doctor in his area, but he was only given some herbal medicine that did not help much to alleviate his condition. He has tried buying the same type of medicines he has been using, but they are not readily available where he is now, unlike here in the Philippines. A friend has already agreed to bring him his medicines, but he won’t be receiving them until Thursday or …

Goodbye, Teacher?

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Today’s the last day of school for my eldest daughter. Another chapter in her student life has ended; by June, she’ll be a second grader. She came home this afternoon a little sad though. Apparently, her teacher had announced that she would no longer be around, and my daughter admitted to crying along with her classmates, especially after she apologized to them. Despite their class adviser’s “grumpy” demeanor, she said that they would still miss her. Yesterday, this same person was fired before me. I was quite uncomfortable with it, even if the school directress/part-owner assured me that the decision was made long before I came to see her, and the person already knew of the decision. Somehow, I couldn’t help feeling partly responsible for her loss of income. Of course, I had made it clear that I had no intention of putting her in the bad light, worse, having her lose her job. I was there as a concerned parent to a hurting child, whose cause for dejection was her own class adviser’s careless …

Happy eighth: celebrating marriage

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My husband and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary the other day, 21 March 2011. Very early in the morning, before heading home from an overnight stay at my parents’ house, my daughters and I dropped by Red Ribbon to buy a cake. My eldest daughter even insisted that I had a message inscribed on it, and so I did. Written beautifully in white icing were the words “Happy 8th Anniversary.” By seven in the evening, the girls and I could no longer contain our excitement. We were also already hungry and couldn’t wait anymore for my husband to get online at Skype. When he finally did, the girls started singing, “Happy eighth, eighth anniversary…” to the usual tune of “happy birthday.” They even danced and took pictures of their father and me as I held the cake for my husband to see through the laptop’s web cam. I also placed a delicate pink and white candle on top of the cake, which I had to light a couple of times as my daughters took …

Charity in my child’s eyes

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“Charity is giving away the things we don’t need to the people who need them… It means helping mom take care of my younger sister and doing house chores… Charity is about loving God and showing love to others.” These were some of the lines that I remember reading from my daughter’s entry to their school’s essay writing contest this afternoon. All along, I thought that she would only be joining the drawing contest although she told me that she wished she could be part of the writing contest as well. I assured her that there would be a time that she would become part of that too, before I meticulously prepared the materials she would need like crayons, new and freshly sharpened pencils, sharpener, and kneaded eraser for the drawing contest this morning. And as I bade her goodbye, I remember telling her this: Enjoy the contest, baby. God bless you! In the afternoon, I decided to come to her school  to see her drawing since parents were not invited to watch their children …

Friday night mayhem

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It’s ‘this’ time again when I feel torn by so many things. Clock’s ticking and the week’s almost over for me. I still have editing tasks to finish and submit early tomorrow morning, a research paper and academic essays to accomplish for my graduate class tomorrow noon, and lots of house chores to do. As usual, the house is a mess. And I hate leaving home early Saturday morning only to return to it in the evening in the same condition. My OC-ness seems to have been finally overpowered by my messy surroundings, and my decluttering attempts have not been very successful so far. My girls continue to do their ways, that is, watch a DVD movie on Friday night with a bowl of popcorn. They’ve finally come to understand that mommy has work to do and school assignments to finish, especially that it’s Friday night already… So why am I blogging now? Well, just taking some time off, I guess. Somehow, this activity helps me relieve stress. I write primarily to relieve stress. To …

Please reply A-S-A-P

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I don’t understand why some people find it very difficult to be honest and straightforward, especially when they are aware that their help or attention is very much needed. With the various–and advanced–communication tools available nowadays, one would think that there is no more excuse for someone not to be able to respond immediately to an urgent message sent via email or text message within a few hours, unless of course the other person is in some remote area where both Internet and mobile phones are uncommon, if not unheard of; too broke to get some prepaid load and everyone around him is his enemy that he could not ask anyone a favor to let him use his phone; all alone and very sick or lying in the hospital bed; or simply dead. I know I am guilty of not being able to respond to text messages immediately, especially if they’re sent by the time I am already asleep, when I am beating a deadline, or my surrounding simply requires me to turn off my …