One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. - Maya Angelou quotes (American Poet, b.1928)

I am depressed… angry, and a bit insulted.

See, Ive been working on this institution diligently for years, and it’s a shame that some people I had to deal with, for administrative reasons, dont seem to know what they’re supposed to do, and i find it *.

I find it difficult to understand why some people could say one thing to you, and then say something else to another. It’s a matter of conviction and consistency, and a matter of honoring your word. If you say you’re going to do this, that there’s an agreement like this, then fine. Okay. Im all for it, all amenable, no complaints. But break your word, and you’ll be part of my most irresponsible person list.

I can’t take this. I’ve talked with some people and they had good advice. I’ll have this fixed.

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One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. ‘Really?’ she heard whispered. ‘I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!’ and, ‘I didn’t know others liked me so much,’ were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed inVietNam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. ‘Were you Mark’s math teacher?’ he asked. She nodded: ‘yes.’ Then he said: ‘Mark talked about you a lot.’

After the funeral, most of Mark’s former cl assmates went together to a luncheon. Mark’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

‘We want to show you something,’ his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket ‘They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.’

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him.

‘Thank you so much for doing that,’ Mark’s mother said. ‘As you can see, Mark treasured it.’

All of Mark’s former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, ‘I still have my list. It’s in the top drawer of my desk at home.’

Chuck’s wife said, ‘Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.’

‘I have mine too,’ Marilyn said. ‘It’s in my diary’

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. ‘I carry this with me at all times,’ Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: ‘I think we all saved our lists’

That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

And One Way To Accomplish This Is: Forward this message on. If you do not send it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful.

If you’ve received this, it is because someone cares for you and it means there is probably at least someone for whom you care.

If you’re ‘too busy’ to take those few minutes right now to forward this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn’t do that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships?

The more people that you send this to, the better you’ll be at reaching out to those you care about.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

Am bored now, maybe drained with this presentation ive been doing for the past few days… took an online personality test i read from another blog (forgot which cause i visited so many, lol) and the result said I have an INTP personality.

Here’s more insight on what an INTP is.

So, am weird pala.. lol.

Always nice to see family members, you know, catching up.. talking about each other’s lives.. funny cause we havent seen each other for like nearing ten years (not really that close to my relatives, father’s side) so when they saw me (my titas and cousin), they thought i really “grew up” lol, just as i thought they grew older.. nyahaha.

And another funny thing’s that my cousin kept on apologising for not being able to give me anything. lol. I thought it’s cute and sweet the way she did that cause frankly, wasnt expecting at all. was even shocked, and embarassed when she started apologising. It’s like for me, there’s no need for that.

Maybe if i go and marry someone from abroad, Id go back and bring them pasalubong so they’d all be happy. Like the Department of Tourism’s then campaign, “Bring Home a Friend”… only, it’s “bring home something”… hehehe.. I guess it’s part of the culture.

Went to this one school, Earist, with some colleagues.. was invited (my boss actually, but she asked me to represent her) to observe the “lecture” that the students would be conducting — part of the UNDP project that ended late last year.

Id say it was a great experience, kinda enlightening cause I got to see “our usual lectures” done on the perspective of the students, plus, the system they implemented in the school’s impressive. So kudos to them.

Lunch was also great, had one at Bacolod Inasal (the home of Judy Anne’s chicken inasal, lol), where I saw Tito Jerry and Tito Sol eating as well.

Afternoon, attended the MOA signing for the GREAT Women Project, and redundant as this may seem, it’s “great” that the “livelihood” project our office has been intending for some poor women are now finally funded, and’s gonna push through.

Then, went to create a few layouts (on the side). Hopefully, id get to do more.

PS: My friend’s this month’s Fun Fearless Female (Cosmopolitan mag)! Grab a copy now!

Anyways, im pretty loaded with work lately, been preparing presentations for people, as well as for myself. tomorrow, am gonna be out with some office peeps and some folks at unilever for this environment project with some select schools. will not be a lecturer, just be there to observe. hehehe. well, it’s a welcome break, atleast id get to rest my eyes even atleast for a while.

Hmmn, what else. Ahh, I got reconnected with this person I used to be with when I was younger. It’s weird cause I cant seem to remember the face (haha!) but i remember everything else. Things are different now, as expected since it’s been years. Anyway, maybe sometime we’d be able to catch up more, and get to know each other again. Maybe a reunion of sorts, including the others! That sounds fun!

The Caleruega lecture got moved to end of August, which is good, so Id have more time to prepare. Lately, my attention’s on tfw, it’s eating my time, but hopefully, it would get more “established”.. and things will turn positive… Been thinking on ways for people to visit more, good thing Kuya Nerbie’s helpful, as always.. our latest “lesson” lol’s how to post “codes”.. we’re done with the lesson (atleast, that’s what i think), and now, am looking forward to designing templates (the coding’s hard stuff especially for non-techies like me).

Exciting.

PS: A friend of mine’s gonna get married 080808. Neat!

A friend of mine, Kuya Roy, posted a few beautiful one-liners on his blog, and this one’s my favorite.

Cause it’s true. I know am guilty, and am totally not qualified to talk about stuff like this - -cause you know, i have my own faults (many, for that matter)… but i just wanna share the quote with you, my dear reader, and hopefully it would hit you too.

Sometimes, we’re so busy with so many things… preoccupied with thoughts like we should be famous, we should be rich.. that we gotta earn more, more, more… so we could give everything to the people we love… but, what about God. Have we done enough, have we exerted ourselves enough to give everything to God.

Cause He gave everything to us.

So maybe, in our own little ways, let us all try to return back the favor…

… with love.