Will And Confidence

Food for thought (as I really need it):

"The power to be what you want to be, to get what you desire, to accomplish whatever you are striving for, abides within you. It rests with you only to bring it forth and put it to work. You must learn how to do that, of course, but the first essential is to realize that you possess this power, your first objective to get acquainted with it."

- Robert Collier, The Secret of the Ages

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Poor Bruce for being the butt of racial remarks from Slovenia Big Brother, just because of his skin color. Brown to be exact. As for us Filipinos, we're proud to be brown (though honestly I am slightly lighter and whiter, but my brother is brown and I still love my race's color).

Shame on the two house mates who remarked unjustly at Bruce.

There is true strength in holding up one's head even if others see and treat you differently, just because you have a skin tone other than the revered "white" (yellow, black, brown, whatever).

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Next blog layout update - planning this Tuesday, May 1. Hopefully.

Afterthoughts... And Saying Prayers

I can't help but cut short my blog week vacation to post this one after the very tragic events that happened this week. One is the horrific event that occured in the campus of Virginia Tech, Virginia USA. The other, as Howie's blog pointed out, a journalist from the same state of Virginia turned Peace Corp volunteer back home in the Philippines who suddenly was reported missing and now found dead a few days later.

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I can't express enough condolences and shared sadness for the families and friends of those victims of last Monday's deadliest civilian shooting in US history (so far, but God no more of this). I can only say prayers at the moment.

I'd like to condemn and say hellish things to Cho for his psychotic motives in killing innocent lives but I know there's no point anymore now that he's gone too. All I could see from this kid (based from the videos and plays I've read in the Internet) was confusion, seething anger, and bitter outrage to those he deemed "privileged" and "rich" individuals of his school. Which makes me think, since during my college years, my university has a lot of very affluent students. I came from an average middle-income family who can (sometimes) barely pay for my tuition fees and that my parents had to work hard, even to the point of incurring huge debts just to ensure their son is educated. So yes, I'm not a rich person. And yet a lot of these affluent students were friends of mine. Some of them I still communicate and enjoy their company after graduation. While Cho's bitterness towards these "rich" kids caused his supposed hatred and rage, I never let the fact that my college friends are "richer and more comfortable" affect my perspective in making friends and enjoying their company. I never let myself be isolated and locked up in one's world. Cho made up that decision to do so. It's his choice. He paid for it with his life. The bad thing is he has left innocent people dead in his wake.

I don't know if the fact about Cho's life in Wikipedia is true or not, but from what was written, his early life was full of isolation and discrimination. Sadly, there will always be discrimination any where, no matter how hard developed countries want to get rid of it.

Let's not dwell anymore to this personified nightmare.

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Interesting read on how Cho lived and died as an American in 8Asians.com.

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I'm also saddened about the news that the missing Peace Corp volunteer Julia Campbell was found dead in Banaue, Ifugao.

Thanks to Howie's post, I visited Julia's blog and read her last post. It was poignant and truly moving. She wanted to offer any help that she could provide to the poor people like those in Padang, as she stated. In her last entry, she has full of hopes, as she indicated that a new relief group from America would be coming to lend volunteer work here. In the midst of disaster, she knew the risk of her calling, and yet she brushed those risks aside, as she became fond of the local phrase Buhay pa tayo (We're still alive) to keep her spirits up and look at things positively. That phrase keeps warmth and sanity to anyone who loses everything in life except themselves and their families - at least we are still alive and kicking. I remember Mom would also say that to us children, whenever she thinks that catastrophic events would happen like losing our house to a fire. What's important is we are alive. Alive to fight for another day.

Such hopes from a truly kind soul.

For This Week

First, let me congratulate Pacquiao for winning his bout against Solis. Mom sent me again an SMS from the Philippines telling me how Manny won the fight. I have no idea Manny's fight was today, since I barely receive any news from my country here in Singapore. Good thing there is mobile technology (chuckle).

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I'll blog this time short ala Twitter. Here goes: This week, I'll attend to some (more) important matters and avoid blogging for a week. I'll return next weekend.

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Yeah, I've signed up an account with Twitter (really, the name is funny and sounds stupid like Tweety Bird). I jumped again on a bandwagaon (yoohoo). But I have to say this is not much of a new and brilliant idea in blogging at all. Looks to me like text / SMS messenging or online messaging to family and friends but with a twist of blogging (telling specifically to others of your current activities or plans). Well, let's see how Twitter will fare in the next few months.

Rivermaya, Deux

As promised, here are some of the pictures taken from the marvelous concert by Rivermaya at D' Marquee Downtown East, Pasir Ris, Singapore, sponsored by Western Union (umm... do I need to say that - that's free advertisement).

Gritty performance by Rico, along with bassist Japs. Grrrr... grrrr....

Japs decided to celebrate an early New Year with sparklers ablaze in both hands.

Rico gives his all, and Japs swings his arm in delight. Nice split-second shot there.

Mike has his moments during the concert. I dig the hair, man.

I dedicate this song to all of youuuu! A deep moment here.

Are the people delighted to watch Rivermaya live in concert, or are they jubilant playing with their balloons? Spike that flying white capsule-like balloon!

Before Rivermaya performed, there were four other bands featured as guest performers at the start of the concert. Three of them are Singapore bands (John Molina and Krueger [???], The Great Spy Experiment, and Flybar) but alone is composed of Filipino talents - both gentlemen and babes, as shown in the picture above. They called themselves "Addiction".


So where is Mark at the drums? Well, we save the last for one of his best performance with this video:

Rivermaya Video (A Teaser)

Here's a teaser for you. A short video of Rivermaya singing Liwanag Sa Dilim during their concert here in Downtown East, Pasir Ris, Singapore.

More to come. Ciao.

Easter Egg For You

Happy Easter everyone! A glorious Sunday to all! I know things have been dry around here. But lately things have been busy, and the past few days I had to rejuvenate myself from the rat race and ponder things spiritual.

This new layout is like an experiment to me. But I guess this will be staying for a long time for now, especially that I now learned how to create web sites without any tables. Purely CSS techniques. A little style here, a little style there.

Later I'll be joining with a friend to watch a concert of Rivermaya here somewhere North of Singapore. I will be posting pictures and videos of their gig.