September Heroes

Before September ends (reminds me of the song Wake Me Up When September Ends), I'd like to congratulate some of my fellow Filipinos for giving a good name to the country in various fields:

• Manny Pacquio - Who else to top the list by this inspiring Filipino boxer and current hero of the country. Who doesn't know this guy? He's even in the list of fighters of the featherweight division in the EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 Playstation 2 game (never mind his awful yet funny dance routine in the game).


• Boxers Brian Viloria and Rey "Boom Boom" Bautista for knocking out their respective opponents, on the same night hours before the Pacquiao-Velazquez fight. Were these signs of the impending victory for Pacman Manny? Joyous night indeed.


• While lamenting over the influx of too meztiza-looking and foreign blooded types of Filipina beauties, it's refreshing to note that a Filipina came victorious after being crowned Miss International 2005 in Tokyo. Our country sure has more supplies of beautiful women (inner and outer beauty).


• And hear this (or rather read this), the news reported of a little known victory of a Filipino winning an international essay contest. I downloaded his essay and shall read it later. He might have written something controversial yet creatively to catch the attention of the judges.

Speaking of Pacquiao, he is one of the finalists listed in Time's Asia Heroes. As of this writing, he is in a neck-to-neck battle with Korean superstar Rain (Justin of Full House, a Korean tele-series of... ehem, silly pa-cuteness with a female companion in a single house; seems that many young Filipinos go gaga over cutesy antics than substance). I'm not familiar with this guy so I could not draw any inspiring conclusions from this individual.

So you could already guess to whom my vote goes to (no, not with the two feuding female political figures Aquino and Arroyo - they're more of the country's headaches than inspiring Asians).

On the other hand...

I can't help but post my sentiments of the hitting incident that happened yesterday during the first game of the UAAP 2005 Basketball Finals between DLSU and FEU. The game was won by FEU. Losing is quite hard to swallow, but it is an unacceptable act to hit a player out of flared up emotions just for a game. I share the sentiments in the last paragraph of Tin Gamboa's news report.

This is a game where it is expected that someone would win and another would lose. This is a game between schools forged in a pact of sportsmanship and friendly competition in which everyone is expected to act chivalrous and accept whatever the outcome of the game with dignity. A friendly game that should never be mistaken as a do-or-die situation or winning is all that matters only.

We expect this from older individuals whose experiences with life make them think and act maturely unlike the younger ones. But no, this time someone did the mistake to act immaturely and let his heightened emotions control him.

Whatever apology was stated, the deed was done. The name of the school has been tarnished, with the media unstoppable in magnifying the issue (even if he is, as the forum stated, is totally independent from the school). For the moment, let's keep our mouth shut, relax a bit, loosen some muscle, cool some heads, and pick up the broken pieces.

Let this be a lesson in responsibility for any individual, a member or not, who represents the name of an honored institution.

Charcoal For You and Me

"My momma always told me to use charcoal to deodorize a stinking smell"

Or so all mothers would say practically to remove the stink from the refrigerator especially the fishy odor.

That's what I found out upon entering the office room. Sprawled behind me is a pile of charcoal on an old newspaper sheet. Apparently, this was placed to suck in the nauseating scent of some paint product like turpentine.

And some playful individual decided to draw on a scratch paper using one of the blocks of charcoal (not me, I insist; that's not how I draw). A pig. With a moustache. With human ears.

Ah, the things you do to relieve stress.

Class, this should have been a photoblog. Bah.

43 Goals and Counting

A friend recommended me this site - 43 Things - and already, I have to say, I am quite hooked. This site is simply a list of goals in life per individual who registered with the site. Yes, we can make a list of our own by writing them down on a piece of paper (ala Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill where she list down the people whom she would kill. Uh, but that is a violent comparison), but this old idea was made practically new by letting your list be shown to others across the globe. Each list of things or goals you want to accomplish in life can be also included in another one's list of goals through linking (ala Friendster). And each goal can have an entry of its own (ala blog entries) in which any individual can pour his or her ideas or steps on how to achieve this goal. Even the craziest goal can be written down in your list.

Two of the most linked up goals that I've seen so far (and shared some of my ideas) are to lose belly fat and to be a better blogger. The former can have a post later on. The latter can be summed up as what I have shared in the site:

"Don’t blog if you feel not like sharing something. Blog only if it matters to you and you are really interested to share it. Don’t worry much if readers would not like what you have posted, as long as it matters to you."

Enough said.