A Note of Thankfulness To God

I have always been expressive of my gripes.  Though some might not be in agreement with my feisty demeanor as expressed in the words and tone of my writing, I feel it's helped me not to develop hypertension, hehehe.  I don't hold back feelings and emotions. I let it explode and am not ashamed to let the world know I am being childish, LOL! But then again, it's the way I deal with stress and when I let everything out into the open, I feel so much better.



But for tonight, let me be good, hehehe.  This doesn't come naturally to me - meaning, I am even feeling a bit strange for being a well-behaved person today.   But well, I am naturally well-behaved based on my own standards.  Those who disagree, you can keep your mouth shut, hehehe!



I simply am feeling joyful and jovial and cheerful and light-hearted --- have I missed some adjectives?  Well then, supply them for me.  The comment box is not closed and can contain even a thousand comments (hopefully not, though!).  After the stressed- out past weeks when I had to juggle family, work and masteral classes, I have finally reaped the fruits --- some of the fruits, that is --- of my labor.  I am halfway through with my class' Form 9 (there's still a problem to be solved, though. One student did not go through second year --- TRUE!), I have submitted the Introduction, Theoretical Background and the beginning pages of the Related Literature of my study (draft returned this morning and Prof's comment made me go over the moon with happiness --- I am giddy, let me just be!). It's not perfect yet, but I have been inspired to have it completed. Family-wise, it's going great.  Problems are always present, but we always manage to hurdle through every obstacle, thanks God.



And so tonight,  I want to express my gratitude to my Maker who haven't ceased to be faithful to me despite my human frailties and shortcomings.  My heart just overflows with joy and gratitude that I couldn't contain it within me.  It needs to be let out into the open --- as I have been open with the way I am feeling.



My writings are not meant to entertain others anyway.  It's meant to be  personal mementos of my daily struggles, losses and victories as I go through the motions of living each day. Reading back on posts written a few years back makes me feel glad I did them.  And definitely, looking ahead into the future, I know I shall be looking back to this day with the same feeling of thankfulness because the positive feeling is reflected in the writing.



I have to edit my returned papers, and so I must stop...for tonight.



Thank you for never giving up on me, My lord.  And thank you for the countless blessings.  Thank you most of all for the unconditional love even when for most of the time, I don't deserve it.  It feels that just when I stray from Your grace, you stretch your loving arms farther and so much wider so you could still enclose me in Your embrace at moments when I feel so down and bothered and alone.

Points Pondered

Caught within the entanglements of work, school and family --- not to mention the demands of self --- I get to think most of the time how much better life would have been --- or would be if I were doing some other work and performing someone else's job.  To look for a greener pasture, so they say.  But if I were some people and working on some office other than the teaching field I have had the fortune (or misfortune?) of having worked on, they'd be apt to say that I am luckier not because I am a teacher, but because I have work.  There are some who do not really know the pressure of a teacher's life who would rather trade places with me, definitely, because if there were satisfaction for everyone regardless of where God has placed him, this saying wouldn't have been coined: "The grass is always greener when looked at at the other side of the fence."

If I were given the chance to work in another agency for a week --- or a month at it, would it still be the same?  Of course, it wouldn't be because it would be entirely a different job specification definitely that I would be working on.  If I were to remain in a government agency with its meager income yet taxing job, I'd still be struggling  to make ends meet because I'd still be earning the same meager income.  The challenge then is how to make the meager income last for the whole month.  Oh well, a teacher's salary couldn't make him materially rich, definitely.  This could be a reason why I get to think sometimes of the injustice in the situation I am in.  I most often invest more than what I receive.  It's a job that requires one to not count the rewards and yet demands one to invest of himself --- and his resources for most of the time.

BUt if I were not the teacher that I am now, what would I have been? Certainly, God would have planted me somewhere else, but would it have been a place where I could become better as a person?  Or bitter at the world and all the hypocrites around?  Nonetheless, in the academe, there are a lot of hypocrites... seems like this kind is fast growing in number, me included. To justify my hypocrisy, I am a hypocrite for some colleagues, but I am not a hypocrite to my students.  Weighing both --- the colleagues and the students --- the latter is heavier because without them, I wouldn't be enjoying a somewhat misplaced respect in society  just because of the fact that I am a teacher regardless of the fact that at some points I did not behave in the manner that a teacher is required to behave at all times ...

I could choose to stay and make my poor students victims of my own inaccuracies and inconsistencies and live to deal with my sometimes impossible demands to cover up for the reality that I really am not giving this job that has fed me and my family for years the priority that it deserves.  Or I could choose to give up ... and make someone else happy for the vacancy that I will be leaving behind.  Who knows, he/she will be a far cry from the picture of mediocrity that I ever was?

But well, am I really that willing to sacrifice? No ... I would rather have my cake and eat it too.

Oh well... just me and my nuisance of a mind.

If you happened to be here and enjoyed the entry, thank you...

But if you were here to spy on me and was hurt with what I am writing, well... "Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magalit." --- because it's my intention in the first place. Kung hindi man panggising, panggalit.

Lessons

Lessons are everywhere.  They are taught from the smallest to the most gigantic situation that we come to face as we go through our life's journey.  We almost always think we have learned it all but just as always, we are proven wrong.  We realize our stupidity and vow to keep track of the changes--- even the most subtle, so we can brace ourselves for the onslaught of yet another crippling lesson, but all attemps remain in vain for these lessons are thrown at us in moments when we lie basking in glorious celebration of something profound.

We think we  learned it all. We think there are no more lessons to be learned.  But in truth, just as it is always said that life is a series of twists and turns, something comes about at some corner to surprise us and we can't even let out an astonished shriek to show our surprise.  Well, that's life.  We learn to deal with these constant surprises because they are lurking at some intersections and ready to lunge at us in our most unguarded moment.  And in the process, we learn to guard ourselves and protect ourselvs to the point of keeping ourselves enclosed in the safe shell of indifference so that when the drizzles of learnings fall, we are shielded and kept safe inside... BUt will hiding be worth it? No. Hiding would only make us more so not in tune with what goes on within ourselves.  There is only one way to deal with these lessons then: to face them as squarely as we ought to and never run away.  We might end up scathed and bruised, but what matters is that, we learned.

What matters is that we learned...

Midweek Reflection

Nobody's life is perfect, that's true.  My life is far from being so itself.


But I am real, that I can assure people.  I am real to the point of pointing out things that others may not like to hear. But there are people who wouldn't want to hear any kind of truth.  As a matter of fact, no one lends an ear to truth because it's always taken as criticism. They want flattery instead.  I couldn't do that because I don't believe in boosting someone else's ego with lies.  If I hurt people, I might as well hurt them with the truth than feed them with countless lies.  We are all unique in our selfish ways and sometimes, our unique selfishness gets in the way with how we relate with people because whether these same people are amenable or not, they, too are experiencing their own episodes of unique selfishness.


And what a trouble it becomes when these selfish egos get entangled with one another --- when no one gives in, when each one believes he holds the torch of truth.  What a hot situation it becomes when the pretense escalates into something unreal. it's pretense in the first place, eh. It becomes even more fiery than a furnace when everyone gets to think he's right and everyone is wrong. The fun sure starts to set in.  I almost always fall into this trap --- that of imprisoning myself  to my own mindset.  But I am sure, everyone else falls under this categorical stereotype no matter how much one believes himself different from the pretentious majority.  We are all snakes in one way or another --- wearing different geometrical shapes, colors and designs but still snakes slithering among the bushes of vanity and pretense.  Though one may choose to believe he is different from everyone else, he is proven wrong again and again because EVERYONE IS VAIN, JUST AS EVERYTHING ON EARTH IS VANITY.


So, some people thrive on the folly that people feed them.  They'd rather believe and always take as truth the flattery and the lies because it's the very words they want to hear and the very same words that their ego is anchored on. They'd rather hibernate than wake up.  It's safe and snug in there --- in that safe hole they created, I mean.



So, if people would rather be left basking in the afterglow of the idyllic tryst ....

I Need Time

Yeah, I need time... real bad.

Not time to find myself and know just what it is that makes my life meaningful because I love my life as it is, frustrations, pitfalls and all. I don't need time to think of this marriage I am in because despite the imperfection that makes this union perfect in its own way, I am more than glad to have been the gift of a husband like the man I have in my life. I don't need time to think of the course I am treading where motherhood is concerned because I walk through my role as a mother one day at a time... because I ask the Lord each day to guide me on how I deal with my growing kids because I couldn't rely solely on my own judgment and decide I had been right all along. Neither do I need time to contemplate on whether I am happy with my profession because despite having started this teaching journey at the wrong foot (not my choice, that is), I have realized that God had known all along that I needed to be planted in this garden where my love could freely grow because He looked forward into my future to have known I'd be happiest in this kind of career.


So, just what sort of "TIME" do I need if I don't need the space that everyone seems to be looking for... to find themselves, to realize their full potentials, to be alone with the world?

Why does it sound that I am quite in a frustrated mood and mode that I want out? Or want to be in?

I shouldn't make your head go around in circles thinking what this silly mind of mine has concocted once again. I should go straight to the point and pour it all out, I know, but I want to beat around the bushes a little bit more if only to annoy you and make you scream with the sheer irritability of the nonsense that is my note, hehehe....


OKey, here goes...I need time.


More time to accomplish all my requirements so I don't have to worry about not being able to submit them on time, but since two priorities are overlapping, I finally know how it feels to be like a sandwich spread and get wedged between the yummy slices. I could choose to be a rotten spread and contaminate both slices, but if I do, I couldn't be doing it without spreading myself on both, right????

Now, I am making this all so confusing... because I am also confused myself.


It's better to be in a crossroads because I can choose to go back where I started when the road turns out to be the wrong one. But when you are right in between and there's a dead end at both ends, well, you can still choose to edge inch by inch sideways, upwards or downwards to get away. There's still a way.... it just takes time.


Okey, okey... don't get mad at me for this senseless ramblings that are running loose in my head and spewed through the keypad to this page. It's not my fault I couldn't make sense of what I really wanted to write in the first place.


Maybe, this is the very reason why...


I need time!

Why About Emotions and not Anout Other Topics?

Long before I planned on pursuing a masters degree, I have always thought of delving deeper into this topic when the right time came. Not because I wanted to condemn and /' or condone my colleagues or something of the sort, but because I wanted to really understand just how much an impact emotional abuse can have on the academic performance of high school students --- specifically in the school where I am teaching at. The topic is very close to my heart --- too close for comfort if I were to be honest. I lived with it for almost all of my young life. I had too much emotional trauma to last me a lifetime. I grew up believing I was worthless, that I was nobody, that no one would take me seriously because of the simple fact that I was what I had been. I lost my self respect. I lost faith and trust in people. I never believed anyone who told me I had potential. I never even believed that I could draw people when I sing.


I was born in this province a little more than 37 years ago and its ironic that this condescending culture of ours led me to almost deal with myself self-destructively. In the quiet a supposedly reserved probinsiyano culture lies hidden a destructive sense of "pangmamaliit". Makapilo, in straight Visayan term... The sad truth is that, most often, people whom we look up to to protect us and to provide us with much needed emotional support and anchor are the ones to also emotionally destroy us... which also proves the popular saying that states. " WE ALWAYS HURT THE MOST THOSE WHOM WE LOVE AND VALUE THE MOST." Family, friends, teachers, friends even ---- they hurt us in ways we never thought possible. And these same people have the power to hurt us because our feelings toward them makes us vulnerable to them.



To quote Mam Maria Juamawan's favorite line --- to make the long story short_--- I never found the acceptance I craved while growing up in this beloved island province of ours. My innate brilliance shone through in the city which accepted me when I did not even accept myself for who I was --- Ozamiz City. My fifteen years in Ozamiz led me to really know my potentials as a person. Ozamiz City National High School became cocoon through which I metamorphosed into my full potential. I wasn't a nobody in there because in a place teeming with people, you have no time to watch and backbite people. You try to rise and hone whatever potential you have so you don't find yourself carried away by the current.



It took me a long time to really understand that everything had to happen so I can be shaped according to how God wanted me to be shaped. I needed to go through being in the fire, doused with water, put into a furnace and doused again so I could be a "FEELING" person --- something so many people choose to forget. The emotional abuses made me more grounded and careful of what I say to my students because I know that at that age, a single word, a hurtful comment and I could break a life --- I know because I was broken far too many times in my young life.


I am not a saint, mind you. I am crass with older people. I say what I mean and most often mean what I say because they are already too old to not have sense within their heads. But with students I am like treading on glass ... because their trust and and views on people are very much fragile and could break and shatter with even a single word.


In the thirteen years that I have been teaching, I am aware that I might have offended some of my students, might have been judgmental and harsh on them. I might have unknowingly destroyed their self-esteem. I might have made them lose faith in themselves... there's no excuse for being reckless sometimes, that is why I want to know how emotional abuse affects them --- my students. The study will not limit only to the school setting but to their emotionally trying experiences in the home and in the community as well.


Personally, the effect of emotional abuse on me had been quite positive, achievement wise. I was emotionally shattered, but I chose to pick up the broken pieces and mend my tattered self worth. I chose to draw inspiration from within myself ---- from my family --- even when at the onset, I blamed God for all the pain. My will to brave it all was because I never wanted to go through the same abuse all throughout my waking hours. And I never wanted my children to face the same abuse I faced while growing up ---- but who knows, I might have unknowingly hurt my children even when I never intended to....


It's really nothing personal. It would simply be a sort of a clinical experiment of something that lies beneath the surface --- something intangible and yet one that affects people in so many ways.


And it wouldn't be done soon.... it would take two years in the least for me to really complete it.

Feeling Fat?

Garfield has an explanation:

My, but this cat is a GENIUS!  Hehehe!

When I feel really fat, I will just think that I am really just intelligent.  My head couldn't hold the information and so they started filling up the rest of me, hehe!