Praise God!

Praise God
when you feel happy

Praise God
when you feel excited

Praise God
when you feel loved

Praise God
when someone cares

Praise God
when you find hope

Also

Praise God
when you feel lonely

Praise God
when you feel down

Praise God
when in sorrow

Praise God
when you feel terrified

Praise God
when you feel angry

Praise God
in moments of distress

Praise GOD!
Believe me. It works.

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Cheer

I am what you need
Allow me to refresh you
Now, get up and win!

Lackadaisical Me

I’ve posted this here before on my first week of blogging — when I didn’t have a lot of friends yet. So, I’m featuring it again. Let me know what you think.

Today’s one of those days when I just can’t be bothered to do things that I’m supposed to be working on and accomplish urgently. I have piles and piles of work to be done — marking students’ papers, writing reports, and all the other gazillion things required of a teacher. Sometimes I question myself as to whether I was right or not in choosing this profession. Well, everybody says it’s a noble job, and it is indeed! But the demands and pressures in it are just but overwhelming. Every teacher on this planet will probably agree with me on that. These demands and pressures — they sometimes scare the hell out of you and make you think: Boy, is this ever going to end?

I’ve always envied most of my friends who come home from work without having to worry about what to do for tomorrow. I see them enjoying themselves doing things they want to do — watching films, reading their favorite books, or socialize with other friends. And then there I am in my room, busy planning lessons for the following day — how unfair is that?

It’s just funny though because at the end of the school holidays when I’ve had my share of rest and enjoyment already, I would miss my students and would suddenly grow a feeling of excitement and urge to start planning lessons again. Don’t get me wrong though. I know that I love teaching, and I really do. I’m just cold feet sometimes, and whenever I start feeling the cold, I tend to be lackadaisical. 😉

Have you ever felt being incompetent at work before? You feel guilty because you think you could have done better? I’ve realized I still have some insecurities in me that I need to battle and put an end with. Over the years, I’ve tried to deal with each one of them but I guess they don’t go away that easily. It’s not my fault though, I would say. These things I’ve acquired over the years from my surroundings, and from how I was raised as a kid, and even from the school where I spent most of my life. I was raised in a very competitive environment, where I’m supposed to have known, and read, and studied everything way ahead of time. An environment where I learned to be prepared all the time otherwise I’d look dum, stupid, silly.

I think that pressures and expectations in this world — they do take their toll, and the effects are but devastating as ever. I’ve had sleepless nights, nightmares, and sudden ‘cannot be explained depressing moments’. I wake up shocked to see myself crying from a bad dream that’s usually to do with past humiliating memories.

I think it’s time that we truly love one another. Let’s be concerned and truly caring. For what really matters most in the long run is that we’ve loved (and therefore HAPPY) at all. 🙂

*Photo not mine. Thanks to whoever the owner is.

Someday Somewhere

This bad habit of looking at you
Stealing glances
Itching to say something

But what to say?
My lips can’t seem
To form words of endearment
Too shy
Too afraid
Too frail
To be rejected

From a far,
You’re a flower
Gleaming with beauty

From a far,
I look at you
You are bliss
Yet also sadness

Looking at me
Your eyes don’t seem
To glow nor give out
Any clues or signs
But your smile,
The smile you give is wanting
Deep inside we know
All this is just a show

If only the world was just but ours,
We would write our own rules
If only the world understands,
We wouldn’t have to hide our feelings
If loving you was as easy as holding a flower,
I wouldn’t have to look at you from a far

Perhaps not now
When ‘you and me’ seems so wrong
Maybe some other time,
Some other place
Where love
Is also for ‘me and you’

Someday, somewhere
I will break this habit
Of looking at you from a far
Someday, somewhere
I will love you eternally

This WordPress Community

*Written in response to Internet take me away, let virtual reality be my lover! from the blog TheWhyAboutThis.

Dear Penny,

Yes, I agree. It is truly a blessing to have such an avenue to mingle and make friends, to be entertained and to entertain, to appreciate and be appreciated.

And I so love the culture being nurtured here — there’s that culture of appreciation, caring for one another, and most of all that culture of respect.

In this community, I don’t feel discriminated nor do I feel that there is some kind of a status or class. No one is above or below anyone as everyone is within reach.

I exchange ideas with lawyers, doctors, scientists, educators, businessmen, mothers, fathers, students, builders, artists, musicians, and that lists goes on. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t matter that we all wear different hats. These hats are just but added features or shall we say characteristics we give to a character to spice up the story.

We are all lost in the charisma and hypnotic beauty of this live drama that we are all participating in. But what’s more beautiful about this is that unlike fiction, this is not a make believe story. This is a story that is ongoing and happening in actuality. And we are not just sitting to be entertained for we are the very characters actively involved in this huge story we are all ‘complexly’ writing.

This is really happening, Penny. We’re all affecting one another, exchanging views and opinions, and learning for the better. On one page, someone wrote about pain and how it transforms people. On another, someone wrote about metaphorical punches that surprise us and knock us down. Uplifting posts here and there, reminders, lists, poems and stories that make us smile, angry, sad, laugh, and cry.

Indeed, this world is beautiful. I’m so glad I’m part of this!

*Also written for Daily Prompt: Simply the Best

Weekly Photo Challenge: Horizon

Glorious earth and sky
Surround me as I await
Your loving embrace

Then You Found Me

I don’t consider myself expert at this, but here’s a song I’d like to share to you. I wrote it for a friend who got married a month ago, and it was sang during her wedding. This is actually the third time I wrote a wedding song for a friend. I would usually interview them and ask them a gazillion questions about their love story. And then I craft the song.

This recording is one that I did. It’s a rough copy which I sent back home (Philippines) for the wedding singer to learn. You will notice that the chorus is just a repetition of the line, “Then you found me.” I purposely did that for emphasis sake. The line actually says it all. It’s more than enough to communicate the message. Hope you will like it.

I’ve been looking at the sky
As the clouds pass me by
I marvel at its beauty and wonder
Would someone ever look at it with me one day?

The sun is waving good-bye
Leaving me with a lullaby
Echoing, it’ll be alright
Helping me make it through the night

Then you found me…
Found me…
Then you found me…
Found me…

Oh! There’s this other sky
I’ve longed to see
All I ever wanted is someone
Who would want to see it with me

Who’d help me see this world
I’ve never seen before
A world so full of magic
A world where I can soar

Then you found me…
Found me…
Then you found me…
Found me…

Since the day you’ve found me
My world has changed completely
My heart has taken wings
With you, I’m free

Cause you found me…
Found me…
Cause you found me…
Found me…

What Matters Most

And the best thing to do is to let go
Even if it hurts
If only to teach the other a lesson
And make him ponder

But at the end of the day
What really matters is
You extended yourself
And chose to love

*Written in response to His Crocodile Tears.

*Thanks to Simple Marriage for the photo.

Liebster Award

Many thanks to Ms Debby for this award! She’s got a beautiful site. Please visit her at dgkayewriter.com

Thank you WordPress friends! I’ve been really learning a lot from you!

Debby has requested me to answer ten questions:

1. Who Inspires your writing?
I write for God and his people. I also write for myself.

2. What are you reading now?
Stories by Patricia Grace

3. What is your favourite pastime?
singing, baking cakes (just recently), and blogging

4. What is your favourite line from a movie?
“With great power, comes great responsibility” — Spiderman

5. If you could be anybody else for one day, who would that be?
No one.

6. What kind of music do you like to listen to when you write?
My gift is in MUSIC and I tend to focus on it when it is noticeable, so I’d rather have the sound of nature when
I’m writing.

7. Where is your favourite place to travel.
I’ve seen the US and I loved it there. One day, I’d like to see Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

8. What is your favourite season and why?
I’m from a tropical country actually, but I’d really love to experience autumn — it’s just dramatic.

9. What do you regret never having done?
None

10. Name your favourite song title
Oh my! This is difficult.

The following blogs also deserve to be appreciated:
1. http://aspienights.wordpress.com/
2. http://rosetintedrambles.wordpress.com/about/
3. http://cametofind.wordpress.com/about/
4. http://areeshakhuwajablog.wordpress.com/about/
5. http://purpledcompass.wordpress.com/about/

Here’s a simple request for the nominees:

Put up the award’s logo on your blog and nominate 5 – 10 bloggers who you think deserves to be appreciated. Inform them by leaving a comment on their blog post. Congratulations and thank you! 🙂

Thank you also for my 200th LIKE! Yay!

Paraiso

I’d like to feature a favorite song written and composed by a Filipino musician — Ryan Cayabyab. The song received an overwhelming response from my students when we used it in class for close reading. It sort of immersed the students to a kind of life they don’t normally see around them. They realized that they are lucky after all — they’ve got free education, free transportation to school, free notebooks, a decent house to live in, a simple yet ‘closely-knit’ community, free access to water, free hospitalization, and many others.

I remember having to be exposed to poverty in slum areas of the Philippines when I was in high school. The school had a Social Action Program that encouraged us to show compassion and think of some really good ways we could help the people around us. I tell you, those were truly humbling moments, and they taught me a lot of valuable lessons giving me a sense of purpose and meaning in life. I learned to value simplicity, justice and fairness, humility, cura personalis, preservation and care for nature, among others.

The song tries to describe what a child sees while he roams around a dump site in the Philippines called Payatas where poor families wrestle over mountains of garbage in the hope to find food and reusable things. Below, you will find some photos of children in Payatas which I’ve gathered from the net. The kids in these photos show you smiles of happiness and joy. They show you laughter despite poverty and hardship — an irony of life. However, you also get to see the weight of the world on their shoulders. They stare back with eyes not of innocence but of questions and dismay. Ironically, the song talks about paradise (paraiso) that is totally the opposite of what we all know paradise is. There is good play of language here, and perhaps you can talk about them as you respond to this post.

Here’s the song:

Paraiso
Written and Composed by: Ryan Cayabyab

Return to a land called Paraiso,
a place where a dying river ends.
No birds dare fly over Paraiso,
no space allows them to endure.
The smoke that screens the air,
the grass that’s never there.

And if I could see a single bird, what a joy.
I try to write some words
and create a simple song to be heard
by the rest of the world.

I live in this land called Paraiso,
in a house made of cardboard floors and walls.
I learned to be free in Paraiso,
free to claim anything I see.
Matching rags for my clothes,
plastic bags for the cold.

And if empty cans were all I have, what a joy.
I never fight to take someone else’s coins
and live with fear like the rest of the boys.

Paraiso, help me make a stand.
Paraiso, take me by the hand
Paraiso, make the world understand
that if I could see a single bird, what a joy.
This tired and hungry land
could expect some truth and hope and respect
from the rest of the world.