The Great Pandemic

Save the Arctic from Shell and its Russian friends

2013-07-05T16:05:00.001+08:00

A Way Out

2012-10-06T10:30:00.003+08:00

Disclaimer: This is my honest opinion regarding the article "Hello, new nurses" by Gerardale Balintec.

I think the goal of most RN's is to get out of the Philippines as soon as possible. To do that, you need (in order of importance):

a) MONEY - That "Poverty is not a hindrance" thing is dead. How can

you feed yourself by doing voluntary service? People who volunteer for experience and maintain good living standards get financial support from their family members who had also spent for their college fees.

B) CONNECTIONS - Those who have experienced this know this. Some were lucky enough to have relatives or friends working at target institutions. I've heard that some RN programs out there are plagued with nepotistic ideologies.

C) SCHOOL - Admit it, the University where one hails from is a big factor. Decent hospitals require applicants to have graced from "reputable institutions". No if's, no but's. But graduating from a good nursing school doesn't guarantee a happy ending.

D) CERTIFICATIONS / TRAINING / SEMINARS - And the list goes on, we call them many names, but they're all mostly beneficial for entrepreneurs. Oh, how businessmen prosper from conducting unusually expensive trainings, certifications just so you could add something to your resume...

E) MOTIVATION - The least relevant factor here. Motivation dies hard, but in a world full of demotivating factors, it's as lame as a candle light in the wind.

I consider myself lucky to have not fully experienced the harsh reality of post-graduate nursing life. As a person void of financial assets, I have immersed myself into the limelight of business process outsourcing. I passed the July 2010 examination, but I shrugged the thought of getting my license since I wouldn't be using it for a long time anyway. Call centers are where easy money is, for the time being. This is where thousands of board passers like me (and some RN's and undergrads) bet their fates on.

I miss nursing life though. College was the best and worst thing that happened to me. It would be thrilling to relive the experience.

How to Download via Torrent: Beginner's Guide

2012-09-09T08:37:00.001+08:00

If you are a movie fanatic, then most probably you'd shell out to get your own copy of the latest movies. If you fancy Justin Bieber, you'd most likely wanna devour his album collection. If you're a gamer, you'd surely love to download the latest software or so. But you'll love it more if you could get all these for free, right? Yes! All you need is a reliable Internet connection (which I believe you already have). Oh, and a little bit of patience, of course.

You wouldn't continue to read on if you already knew what I'm talking about. But for the uninitiated and the law abiding citizen, now's the perfect time!

So how about if I show you the steps so you could get started this very instant? Get those fingers prepped and let's start torrenting!

1. Download the uTorrent application/client here. Click "Get uTorrent."

2. Follow the instructions in the uTorrent installation.

3. After installing, you are now ready to download torrent files like movies, e-books, audio, etc! Just go to www.isohunt.com or www.fenopy.euand search for what you like to download.

4. Isohunt will display all related search results. Note that each item in the search result has corresponding category (Video/Movies, Audio, Books, etc), Seeds (S), Leeches (L) and comments. These data will help you decide which torrent would be the fastest to be downloaded. (See reminders and tips below for details).

5. Click the item that you wish to download. (e.g. The.Departed[2006]DvDrip[Eng]-HOLLA2007), then click "Download .torrent" (not the Download image links that usually lead to an advertised page). If you want to download only a single episode from a series, for example, Dexter Season 2 Episode 3, you have to key in “Dexter S02E04”.

6. You should now be able to download the torrent file (the green "myu" sign). Open the torrent file, and it will automatically launch the uTorrent client. Your download will begin as soon as you choose the destination path of your download (e.g. E:/Downloads).

See! It's that easy. It's A WHOLE LOT easier than purchasing at Amazon or Paypal or all the other money-making titans on the internet. For those who ask if this type of downloading is illegal, hell yeah! (at least in some countries). But laws about the internet is as vague as shadow, so don't bother thinking. Your only nemesis is your guilt feeling (which don't help your self-esteem at all), and of course, your restrictive Internet Service Provider!

Before you start torrenting, here are some helpful tips and reminders:

a. Most torrents finish downloading after more than 24 hours depending on the size of the file you're downloading and the speed of your internet connection. So you can always turn off your computer whenever you want. Once you turn it back on and open the uTorrent client, the download will resume.

b. In choosing what to download in a torrent search site, such as Isohunt.com, select the torrent that has a high number of SEEDERS (S) and a low number of LEECHERS (L). The higher the Seeder-Leecher ratio, the faster the download process would be. Isohunt.com is considered one of the best torrent search engines. Even though peer-to-peer sharing (torrenting) is illegal in some countries due to copyright, it is unlikely that this site will be shut down. Always check the Category, so you don't get disappointed after waiting hours of download. If you search for "Justin Bieber," Isohunt will usually first display the most downloaded torrent. It could be a music discography (audio album collection) or a movie file (Never Say Never). You get the point.

c. Don't ignore the Star ratings and comments.

d. Do not manipulate (move to another folder, change the file name or folder name) the file folder of the torrent download. This will cause the torrent to stop downloading or seeding.

e. Do not open a torrent file that hasn't finished downloading yet. It cannot be of any use, anyway. Wait till it's 100% done.

f. You can select priorities for the torrent files you are downloading. Do the right-click! You can also click the green up and down arrow on the torrent client.

g. After your torrent has finished download, please let the torrent stay in your uTorrent client for a few more days. After downloading, the torrent will start seeding. It means that the client will start uploading the torrent file to the Internet. You will now be called a Seeder for that specific torrent. Seeding (done by other people) is the reason why you are able to download torrents.

h. After a considerable amount of time has passed (for seeding), you can now delete the torrent file from your torrent client. Click the torrent and the X mark on top, and make sure to rate and comment!

i. For other questions, email me at renzagpasa+torrent@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

The Urantia Book

2012-09-08T10:43:00.003+08:00

The Urantia Book is a spiritual and religious book about God, the cosmos and human spiritual life. Its authorship is unknown, and I find it as an interesting insight into the world of New Age philosophy, with which I associate myself.

It's intriguing to note that the book did not have a specific author. However, the teachings in this book are said to have come from several higher celestial beings through different forms of psychic mediumship. It discusses the basics of religiosity as well as some contexts that are essentially unknown to humanity, such as the presence of multiple universes. I find the teachings similar to the contents of H.P. Blavatsky's magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine. It also parallels some teachings in the Gnostic books like The Apocryphon of John.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article discussing the teachings of The Urantia book:

Nature of God

According to The Urantia Book, God is the creator and upholder of all reality—an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal spirit personality. The most fundamental teaching about God in the book is that he is a Father. "The face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love."^[13] Even during the development of numerous other themes in The Urantia Book, God as a loving Father is emphasized as the central, unifying attitude of God toward the universe.

God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature's need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father's tender mercies and his saving grace. Since God knows all about his children, it is easy for him to forgive. The better man understands his neighbor, the easier it will be to forgive him, even to love him.^[14]

God is said to be a mystery though because of the infinite scope of his perfection and his attributes.

God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he "dwells in a light which no material creature can approach." The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals.^[15]

God, according to the book, is one Deity who functions on a range of different levels of reality, both personal and impersonal. God is taught to exist in a Trinity of three perfectly individualized persons who are co-equal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. These persons are referred to by additional titles in the book, primarily as the "Universal Father," "Eternal Son," and "Infinite Spirit." While stating that the concept of one God in three persons is difficult to fully understand, the book says that the idea "in no manner violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one."

The Father, Son, and Spirit are considered "existential" persons of Deity, those in existence from the eternal past to the eternal future. In addition, three persons of Deity are described who are "experiential," or incomplete and in the process of actualizing: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. Of these three, God the Supreme, or "the Supreme Being," is given the most explanation, as the person of Deity evolving in time and space to unify finite reality and the infinite. The persons of God the Ultimate and God the Absolute are considered to be remote from the possibility of comprehension and are covered on a limited basis.

Many types of celestial beings are enumerated in the book, and one of particular note is a joint "offspring" of the Universal Father and Eternal Son called a "Creator Son." A divine Creator Son is considered the full representation of the Universal Father and Eternal Son that is possible to people. Jesus of Nazareth is identified as a Creator Son who incarnated on Earth and whose life and teachings are portrayed as the fullest revelation of the personality and attitude of God ever given to humanity.

The final paper states:^[16]

To "follow Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.

[edit]God and the individual

God is described as the Father of each individual, and through the direct gift of a fragment of his eternal spirit, called a Thought Adjuster, is said to be able to guide the individual toward an increased understanding of him. The Thought Adjuster is also called a "Mystery Monitor," "inner voice," "divine spark," and "pilot light." The concept is in ways comparable to the Hindu atman, the ancient Egyptian ka, and the Quaker inner light. In relation to biblical traditions, the Thought Adjuster is described by the book as the meaning behind the phrases "being made in God's image" and the "kingdom of God is within you":

The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the presence of God. The "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes.^[17]

Each person is said to receive one such fragment at the time of his or her first independent moral decision, on average around the age of five years and ten months. The Adjuster then serves noncoercively as a divine partner in the mind of the individual for the rest of life, and to the extent that a person consents with their free will to want to find God, it leads the person toward more mature, spiritualized thinking. Through the practice of learning how to follow the inner leadings of the Adjuster—choose "God's will"—the individual progresses to greater God consciousness and spiritual growth.

A person's Thought Adjuster is described as distinct from either the soul or the conscience. In The Urantia Book's teachings, the degree to which a human mind chooses to accept its Adjuster's guidance becomes the degree to which a person's soul "grows" and becomes a reality that can then survive death. The soul is in essence an embryonic spiritual development, one parental factor being the divine Adjuster and the other being the human will.

The book many times links the biblical New Testament teachings of becoming like a little child in attitude of trust and sincerity as being the stance each person should have toward God. It says the attitude of open-minded teachability facilitates spiritual growth in liaison with the work of the Thought Adjuster and invariably leads a person to love and serve other people. It also says, "But you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster."

Persistently embracing sin is considered the same as rejecting the leadings of the Adjuster, rejecting the will of God. Constant selfishness and sinful choosing lead eventually to iniquity and full identification with unrighteousness, and since unrighteousness is unreal, it results in the eventual annihilation of the individual's identity. Personalities like this become "as if they never were." The book says that "in the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity." The concepts of Hell and reincarnationare not taught.

From Paper 5, "God's Relation to the Individual":^[18]

The great God makes direct contact with mortal man and gives a part of his infinite and eternal and incomprehensible self to live and dwell within him. God has embarked upon the eternal adventure with man. If you yield to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and around you, you cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving God as the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary worlds of space.

The book says that a person ultimately is destined to fuse with his or her divine fragment and become one inseparable entity with it, if the person chooses to accept the Adjuster's leadings and become self-identified with it. The act of fusion is the moment when a human personality has successfully and unalterably won eternal life, described as typically taking place in the afterlife, but also a possibility during earthly life. The result during human life is a "fusion flash," with the material body consumed in a fiery light and the soul "translated" to the afterlife. The Hebrew prophetElijah being taken to heaven without death in "chariots of fire" is said to be a rare example in recorded history of a person who attained fusion.

Once fused with his or her fragment of God, a person continues as an ascending citizen in the universe and travels through numerous worlds on a long, adventurous pilgrimage of growth and learning that eventually leads to God and residence on Paradise. Mortals who reach this stage are called "finaliters." The book goes on to discuss the potential destinies of these "glorified mortals."

The Urantia Book places much emphasis on the idea that all individuals have the same opportunity to know God, and it says nothing can hinder a human being's spiritual progression if he or she is motivated to be spirit led. The book regards human life on earth as a "short and intense test," and the afterlife as a continuation of training that begins in material life. The "religion of Jesus" is considered to be practiced by way of loving God the Father with a person's whole being, thereby learning to love each person the way Jesus loves people; that is, recognizing others as brothers and sisters and being of unselfish service to them.

[edit]Cosmology

The book teaches that the universe is vastly older than current scientific theories state, and that the universe is the product of intelligent and purposeful organization.^[7]^[19] Information aboutcosmology and astronomy is provided in parts I, II, and III of the book. The book discusses space and time, describes the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets. The authors claim that the universe is teeming with intelligent life located mainly on the planets of extrasolar planetary systems.

The book describes that at the center of the cosmos is the stationary Isle of Paradise — the dwelling place of God — with Paradise being surrounded by "Havona," a created universe containing a billion perfect worlds, around which seven evolutionary "superuniverses" circle. All the groupings of galaxies of inhabited and uninhabited universes circle around the Isle of Paradise, the gravitational center of the universe, which some Urantia Book readers believe is located in Great Attractor.^[20]

The term "universe" in the book is used to denote a number of different scales of organization. A "superuniverse" is roughly the size of a galaxy or group of galaxies, and the seven superuniverses along with Paradise-Havona are together designated as the "grand universe." A "local universe" is a portion of a superuniverse, with 100,000 local universes being in each superuniverse. Beyond the seven superuniverses, enormous uninhabited "outer space levels" are described. The term "master universe" refers to what in modern usage would be the total universe — all existing matterand space taken as a whole.

The physical size of a local universe is not directly stated, but each is said to have up to 10 million inhabited worlds. Urantia is said to be located in a remote local universe named "Nebadon," which itself is part of superuniverse number seven, "Orvonton."

The book discusses alternative explanations for the universe's origin and offers explanations for some observed astronomical phenomena. For example, the book claims that astronomic redshiftarises from "numerous factors of error" and is "wholly unreliable" beyond nearby galaxies, the greatest distortion being caused by the seven superuniverses revolving around Paradise in the direction opposite from the galaxies in the "outer space levels."

[edit]Science

The book attempts to synchronize religion, science and philosophy and many statements about science appear in the text. "The ideal human estate is that in which philosophy, religion, and science are welded into a meaningful unity.." "Science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and trains his thoughts along lines of exacting precision. And science also stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies religion by the destruction of superstition." The book hold science in high regard, however opposes the purely materialistic science. About conflict between science and religion the book states: "In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things." The Urantia Book debunks astrology as "pseudo science of Babylon" and also states: "But the frank, honest, and fearless search for true causes gave birth to modern science: It turned astrology into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, and magic into medicine."^[1]

In Paper 101, "The Real Nature of Religion,"^[21] the authors write:

We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired.

The only apparent anticipation of science the book has made, in Gardner's opinion, is that it says the magnetic sense that homing pigeons possess is "not wholly wanting as a conscious possession by mankind." In 1980, a British zoologist, Robin Baker, published evidence that humans have a limited magnetic sense.

Kary Mullis a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist indicates on his personal website^{[better source needed]}^[22] a striking coincidences between a story of Adam and Eve^[23] in The Urantia Bookand the finding published in "Science": 309 (2005) that a variant of a gene that regulates brain size arose roughly 37,000 years ago with a 95% confidence interval of 14,000 to 60,000 years.^[24]According to The Urantia Book: "Adam and Eve arrived on Urantia, from the year A.D. 1934, 37,848 years ago" (Paper 74).

Mark McMenamin, a professor of geology, quotes a section of the book describing a billion-year-old supercontinent that subsequently split apart, forming ocean basins where early marine life developed. He says, "This amazing passage, written in the 1930s, anticipates scientific results that did not actually appear in the scientific literature until many decades later." McMenamin also states, "Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book."^[25]

In his book Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet Ted Nield comments on McMenamin's statement, saying "These quotations are selective, of course, which is always the key to making the prophecies of mystics look 'uncanny' If you look at other parts of the same passage from which those quotations come, you can find a rich and colourful mixture of half-correct ideas and plain nonsense... But the trick of a successful prophet is to say enough things, and to phrase them sufficiently elliptically, so that the occasional correct hits within the general rambling leap out at the prepared mind - just like cloud patterns, or the face of the Man in the Moon." In this case, he says, both scientists and mystics "apparently independently 'discovered'" this supercontinent, "and it was the mystics who sleepwalked there first."^[26]

Adherents believe that there are some examples of scientific foreknowledge in The Urantia Book.^[27]^[28]

[edit]History and future of the world

The book's extensive teachings about the history of the world include its physical development about 4.5 billion years ago, the gradual changes in conditions that allowed life to develop, and long ages of organic evolution that started with microscopic marine life and led to plant and animal life in the oceans, later on land. The emergence of humans is presented as having occurred about a million years ago from a branch of superior primates originating from a lemur ancestor.

The Urantia Book says "this story is graphically told within the fossil pages of the vast 'stone book' of world record ... the pages of this gigantic biogeologic record unfailingly tell the truth if you but acquire skill in their interpretation." Unlike current scientific views, evolution is said to be orderly and controlled. Primordial life is taught to have been intelligently planned, implanted, and monitored by "Life Carriers," instead of arising spontaneously. The book says that "mortal man is not an evolutionary accident," and that the purpose of evolution on a planet such as Urantia is to produce creatures of "will dignity" that can develop spiritual natures and survive material existence, going on to have eternal spiritual careers.

The Urantia Book teaches not only biological evolution, but that human society and spiritual understandings evolve by slow progression, subject both to periods of rapid improvement and the possibility of retrogression. Progress is said to follow a divine plan that includes periodic gifts of revelation and ministry by heavenly teachers, which eventually will lead to an ideal world status of "light and life" in the far distant future.

Though there is the ideal and divine plan, it is said to be fostered and administered by various orders of celestial beings who are not always perfect. Through mistakes or deliberate rebellion, the plan can be wrecked, requiring long spans of time to recoup lost progress. Urantia is said to be a markedly "dark and confused" planet that is "greatly retarded in all phases of intellectual progress and spiritual attainment" compared to more typical inhabited worlds, due to an unusually severe history of rebellion and default by its spiritual supervisors.

The Urantia Book describes the successive eras of biologic, intellectual, and spiritual uplifting as "epochal revelations" of God and his ministering agents to man. According to The Urantia Book the Lucifer Rebellion^[29] was a disruption of God's divine plan in the history of Urantia. In the book, Lucifer is classified as a "Primary Lanonandek Son" and head administrator of his attending system. He proposed the concepts of personal liberty, self-autonomy, and self-assertion. These concepts were adopted on Urantia first by the head of its human affairs, Caligastia. By joining Lucifer, Caligastia caused the eventual collapse of the same fragile civilization he had come to guide as "Planetary Prince" of the realm.^[30] The Urantia Book emphasizes that despite its dark history, Urantia has been the beneficiary of much good. The life of Jesus, designated in The Urantia Book as the "fourth epochal revelation," is said to have redeemed the planet of the blunders of rebellion. "And when Jesus came down from his sojourn on Mount Hermon, the Lucifer rebellion in Satania and the Caligastia secession on Urantia were virtually settled."^[31]

[edit]The life and teaching of Jesus

More than one third of the content of the book (Part IV) is devoted to a narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus. From his birth in Bethlehem and infancy in Alexandria, the story extends through his years of school in Nazareth and his work as a young carpenter after the death of his father Joseph, in order to sustain his widowed mother and eight brothers and sisters. Topics include a girl Rebecca who fell in love with him, and Jesus' rejection of her proposal for marriage. Jesus is said to have traveled around the Mediterranean Basin (Alexandria, Rome, Athens etc. ) and regions of the Middle East (Mesopotamia and Caspian Sea region) in his late 20s, and after these trips, the narrative begins to parallel what is depicted in the New Testament, but with numerous extra details. John the Baptist and the twelve Apostles are people of flesh and blood with their virtues and flaws. Jesus' teaching, as presented to his apostles and followers, is exhaustive, enlarged and presented in contemporary language. The work of Women's Evangelistic Corps appointed by Jesus is narrated too.

Jesus mission on Earth the book describes as bestowal of Creator Son. Each Creator Son can rule his part of universe – the local universe – after completing seven bestowals, the final of them is in the likeness of mortal flesh. This is the one of reasons why the Creator Son came to Earth – Urantia. The other purpose of his mission is stated in the book: "A Creator Son did not incarnate in the likeness of mortal flesh and bestow himself upon the humanity of Urantia to reconcile an angry God but rather to win all mankind to the recognition of the Father's love and to the realization of their sonship with God." The core of Jesus teaching is that the men are children of God and their fellows are their brethren in one big family; when Jesus is their elder brother. The idea of kingdom of God as presented by Jesus is the rule of Heavenly Father in the hearts of men, but many of his followers misinterpret this idea as purely earthly kingdom. The book states that today Christianity is rather a religion about Jesus instead religion of Jesus – his original teaching – which the book reinstates.^[1]

If you are intersted in reading The Urantia Book in its entirety, click here.

How to Convert Units of Measurement

2012-09-06T14:06:00.003+08:00

Converting units to other units can be a tough ordeal for some elementary and high school students. Even I struggled with the concept when I was studying for my elementary examinations. It was only during high school physics that I've known about the simple way of converting. As you know, physics can be very confusing in terms of units like kgxm/s^2. Hence, I am sharing them to you now to save you of my year-long quandary with unit conversion.

First things first! You MUST MEMORIZE the conversion factors. There's no way we can dispute this step.

Memorizing the conversion factors is essential if you are to convert imperial to metric or vice versa. For example, you want to convert 5 feet 6 inches (imperial) to centimeters (metric). We'll tackle metric system later, it's easier.

We know that 1 foot = 12 inches, and 1 inch = 25.44 millimeters. We need these conversion factors for our problem.

Now, this is our flow: feet-inches > inches > millimeters

5 feet 6 inches has two units. You need to focus on the foot unit first, then just add the second unit later.

12 inches
5 feet x -------------- = 60 inches
1 foot

How did we get inches as the unit of the answer? Simply because in the left side of the equation, the foot units are cancelled out. Actually, it will be you to decide what the numerator and the denominator will be. If a numerator (in the above case, it's 5 feet, with a default denominator of 1) has a similar term on the denominator, you can cancel them out. In our case, the similar terms are "feet" or "foot."

Another example. You want to convert 72 inches to feet.

72 inches x -------------

You know the conversion factor: 1 foot = 12 inches. So since we're dealing with inches as the numerator (72 inches), the denominator of the next item should also be in inches (12 inches).

1 foot
72 inches x -------------- =
12 inches

The "inches" are cancelled out. The remaining symbols indicate division. And the remaining unit is foot. The answer is 6 feet.

Going back to our previous problem, 5 feet 8 inches = 60 inches + 6 inches = 66 inches.

Since 1 inch = 25.44 mm, then:

25.44 mm
66 inches x ------------ = 1679.04 mm
1 inch

Let's take it a little further. In converting metric values, you first have to understand the metric conversion table. For the unit of length, the standard value is METER. Any thing longer than a standard value is designated with a Greek prefix. Anything shorter has Latin prefixes. You'll see:

1 meter = 1000000 MICRO meter (um)
1 meter = 1000 MILLI meter (mm)
1 meter = 100 CENTI meter (cm)
1 meter = 10 DECI meter (dm)

10 meters = 1 DEKA meter (dam)
100 meters = 1 HEKTO meter (hm)
1000 meters = 1 KILO meter (km)
1000000 meters = 1 MEGA meter (Mm)

Let's convert 1679.04 mm to kilometer(km), taking note of the placement of numerators and denominators.

1 meter 1 kilometer
1679.04 mm x ----------------- x ----------------- = 0.001679 kilometer
1000 mm 1000 meters

Just multiply all values in the numerator, and divide them with all values in the denominator. Cancel out the units until 1 unit is left.

Last example. Convert 12345 feet to kilometer

You have to check your resources and enumerate your conversion factors first. Then our flow would be: feet > inches > centimeters > meters > kilometers

12 inches 25.44 mm 1 meter 1 kilometer
12345 feet x ---------------- x ------------------- x ---------------------- x ------------------- =
1 foot 1 inch 1000 mm 1000 meter

3768681.6
= 12345 x 12 x 25.44 / 1000 / 1000 kilometers = ---------------------- = 3.7686816 km
1000000

A Dream that Pepeng Fulfilled

2012-08-04T15:17:00.002+08:00

She was running fast – there were falling rocks and everyone was shouting. As the rain poured fiercely on her, she could see her house rapidly sinking beneath the sudden flow of mud coming from a mountain. In the pitch black night, she tried to call for help, but the loudness of the raging mud flow muted her. In an instant, it reached her, burying her beneath the horrid piles of mud, rocks and dead bodies… she could not breathe… she was sure she was dying…

And then she woke up.

Aling Dolores would never forget the night she dreamed of that nightmare. She was soaked with sweat on her bed, being thankful that it was just a bad dream. But never had she thought that one year later, on the night of October 8, 2009, this fateful dream of hers would come true.

This is the story of Aling Dolores’ survival from the tragic incident that struck the humble village of Little Kibungan in Puguis, La Trinidad, Benguet.

No Tears
We found her sitting at a corner of what used to be the classroom of Grade 3 students in Puguis Elementary School. Together with more than 100 evacuees, she sought refuge in this school hoping to ease her from the gloomy landslide that raked everything she had. At 52, her wrinkles and gray hair proved to be testament to her battles in life. She seemed grief-stricken and puzzled for her great loss; but somehow she still managed to smile to everyone inside this makeshift camp.

Around her, people were chanting hymns… the atmosphere bearing a heavy mode of grief… In front her were the five plywood coffins of her daughter, her son-in-law, and her three little grandchildren who all died during that rainy evening. This classroom was a temporary funeral home.

Aling Dolores had not yet shed a single tear since the incident. Yet, a grave feeling of emptiness blanketed her being… an unfamiliar rope that strangled her breathing.

As the singing grew louder, Dolores courageously set off to revisit the night she cheated death.

Last Supper
“Sabali ti ulimek ken lamminna idi rabii (The silence and coldness of the night was different),” she said in a sinister tone. Typhoon Pepeng had already taken its toll on many parts of Northern Luzon. Some of her neighbors had just gone to Puguis Elementary School in hopes of a safer shelter. Amidst shrieking winds and jostling mud, she and six other relatives chose to share a meal’s bounty inside her house situated along a steep mountain crevice. Her daughter Jane, along with her husband Antonio and three children, feasted on their supper at a cabin just below Aling Dolores’ place. They stuffed themselves with adobo, and that was enough to send Jane and the four to a good night’s sleep.

Dolores seated cozily in her kitchen as the candlelight flickered on the table. A power outage had plunged their village in utter darkness. She was repeatedly lighting the candle, for the winds outside were putting it out. This could be an omen, she thought.

She dismissed her gut feel and tried to think of other things. Ah, it was indeed a relief to have finally paid this lot where their house stood. Just recently, a loaning firm had lent Jane with Php 15,000.00. They were then ready to hire a lawyer to grant them a title for their lot. “Pagtulung-tulungantayo nga mabayadan, Inang (We’ll work together to pay [the loan], Mom),” Jane had said to her mother.

A sudden gush of chilling wind entered her kitchen and caught her. The candle flickered and soon Dolores plunged into the dark. She lighted it again. Dolores was about to resume her seat when a terrible sense of foreboding enveloped her…

It was 10:30 p.m. This was the night. Her one-year-old nightmare would finally resurrect.

“Flashback”
A deafening roar erupted from outside her house. Thunder, she thought, stunned. But no lightning preceded it. As the noise grew violently louder, the floor beneath her feet started trembling. Earthquake! She hurriedly rushed outside and almost slipped – the ground was painted with mud. She was halted by what she saw.

A raging river of mud had appeared in front of her. Blocks of wood and cement twisted viciously, destroying everything in their path. Despite the darkness, she could see how the mud flow swept the entire slope like the hands of a ferocious giant. She screamed her lungs out… it was useless… people were already shouting and running for their lives. The sight almost paralyzed her from where she stood. Her nightmare…

Something hit her from her side, and she stumbled to the mud just to find it was one of his sons who bumped into her. He was scurrying towards the treacherous mud flow. An unbearable wave of dread brushed her… she wanted to stop Martin from going any nearer… What in the name of God was he doing?

Alas! Her maternal instinct suddenly possessed her. In between slippery mud and heavy rain, she plowed her way to where Martin was directed. Jane and her family were in serious danger. She stumbled three times, bruising her ankles and elbow. She kept running. She could hear Martin shouting inside Jane’s cabin. She looked at the direction of the sound… then a cold shiver crawled up her spine – Jane’s house was already half-submerged in yellow-brown mud flow!

She could not think clearly. Her mind raced whether to brave the mud to save them or to stay calm and wait. Confusion got the best of her when the mud flow gripped her naked feet. Instantly, someone rushed and pulled her to higher ground. It was Martin. By impulse, she searched Martin’s side for signs of Jane’s kindred, but there were none. Then his son hurriedly ran towards her own house. She thought she would go crazy that very instant. Then… she heard an agonizing scream… it was coming from Jane’s cabin… “Uncle! Partakam! Kayat ko pay mabiag! (Hurry up, Uncle. I still want to live!)” Anthony! He’s alive, Dolores thought. She scampered across the tumultuous mud river to save his poor grandson. She could not afford to lose one; she had dreams for this child...

For the second time, Martin pulled her back. He was back with his brother Marvin alongside him. He had a long hose and a knife in his hands. In a swift mode, he forcibly swam across the heightening mud river and in to Jane’s house. Anthony must breathe.

Twisted Nightmare
Aling Dolores never thought nor dreamed of this. In her nightmare, it was she who died. But to what happened she had prepared no reaction. No teardrop would come out, no weeping. She just sat there on a chair in her kitchen.

It was 2 a.m. of October 9. Her four sons alternated doing CPR to Jane, Antonio, Jeanson, Aj-ann and even Anthony but to no avail. It had already been three hours since they managed to “rescue” them – the bodies unusually heavy with water and covered in mud. Dolores could do nothing but to stare at them – lips black and blue all over. They waited until sunrise, hoping that at one magical instant, life would spring back.

It never did.

Outside, the mud flow had receded, along with Jane's family's dreams, too. Fate, Dolores said, was mischievous.

Lamentations
The landslide left them and some 40 families homeless, forcing them to reside at the evacuation site in Puguis Elementary. Though her own house still stood, it suffered irreversible damage. Aling Dolores could not help but ride with the current of change that had mercilessly swept her entire village.

“Nakalipat tayo ken Apo Dios (We have forsaken God),’ she said in reverie. “Ngem agsala-sala toy panunot ko nga apay nangyari daytoy kenniami (But I kept thinking why this happened to us).” In previous years, she had since been a member of a Catholic league praying for the healing of the sick. “Agil-ilot kami pay ti adda saksakitna (We even treat the sick).” Only until then had she realized it was they who needed their prayers. “Ania ti nagkamaliak? (Where did I go wrong?)”

Of all the dreams she ached to fulfill for her family, why her nightmare? She had dreamed of her grandchildren studying on a private school, her daughter Jane landing a good job. She had dreamt simple dreams, like having a picnic with her kin, and drinking Benguet coffee with them during sunrise.

But there she was – drinking dole-out instant coffee in an evacuation site, at her daughter Jean’s wake.

She could not rid off such loneliness. All her dreams for them… gone… buried in mud… left in that instant graveyard of lost dreams. She surmised how stealthily death could come upon one’s sleep. “Awan naaramidanda (They were unable to do anything).” Anthony’s final beg for survival still haunted her. She could have done something… to hide that mosquito net the day before the landslide. If only she knew it might tangle him on his bed, pinning him to his drowning end… Martin’s knife could not cut the net, and the long hose failed to come on time. The mud had swallowed him fast. If only she had not given them the meat for their adobo...

Indeed, regrets come last.

In Memoriam
She may be lucky to survive. But the loss it brought her was as painful as death itself. For her, it was hard to live when all else had died. “Dakkel ti nabawas. Kanayon mo nga biruken isuda, kasla adda mapukpukaw (A lot has changed.You constantly look for them, like something is missing),” her voice finally broke and her eyes wet with mellow tears.

She knew she would miss how Jeanson bullied her till she got mad, how Aj-ann used to ask her to comb her hair, how Anthony and Antonio helped her with their chores, and how Jane promised her of better living. It was undeniably painful to accept this fate, this tragedy that tested her... as a mother… as a human.

But despite all that had happened, Dolores was thankful to all the volunteers and friends who earnestly offered themselves to them. In times of need, she had known how it felt to gain compassion upon losing a beloved. Love, she said in Ilocano, is after all a universal thing.

Typhoon Pepeng had undeniably left Northern Luzon with a landslide of why’s. But the biggest question asked by all those affected remains unchanged: How do they begin?

Her nightmare has become a tragic part of Cordilleran history. It has claimed the lives of 81 residents, the highest death toll among the more than 50 landslides that scourged the Cordilleras. To date, there has been more than 340 confirmed casualties and almost 800 million worth of agricultural, infrastructure and economic damages all over the region – almost close to the 1990 earthquake. It has paralyzed Baguio City, fending the four major road networks impassable to vehicles for one week. The gravity of Baguio’s cripple plunged the city into the national limelight. Dolores’ nightmare was a hit.

A Single Piece

Everything is temporary, Dolores said. Everything that the eyes can see will expire, even life itself. How soon? She does not know. “Ni Apo Dios laeng ti makaammo. Isuna met ti nangited ti biagtayo (Only God knows. After all, it was He who gave life to us),” she said while looking at the remains of little Aj-ann, her sweet one-year-old granddaughter.

Though the mountains and its people may forget all these in time, the bitter-sweet aftermath of the calamity would forever nestle in her mind.

Aling Dolores is just one among the many pieces that make up this infamous jigsaw puzzle that Typhoon Pepeng laid upon us. In the end, when the puzzle is completed, only then can we decipher if the whole thing is an image of hope – or despair.

After You were Mine

2012-07-12T18:38:00.000+08:00

I wondered what happened

after you were mine.

but. no.

not mine

not as shrewd as belonging, not as finite as possession –

rather I

borrowed you, for a while,

but

less like a replacement for some faulty appliance,

more like a treasured acquisition – a tome,

housed in a library somewhere I’ll never visit but might think of

on some idle morning as the kettle boils and

letters drop forlornly to the mat

and I catch myself … sometimes … I’m

thinking – on a rainy weekend or a broken Tuesday

which seems fit for little else –

wondering where you are, and who’s borrowed you now

who’s inhaling the scent of your pages and adding a sentence or two.

in a cursive script,

much neater than mine.

I remember the shape of you, sketch the illustration, but blur the edges

imagine a Technicolor version, where there was really

a limited palate

as limited as my own

at that time.

but we painted each other in primary tones,

stuck to the lines

caring nothing for the shades and the scribbles that would follow with time

and with age.

I kept you intact, for a while,

painstakingly guarding your covers then

passed you on

a good sport

to someone else, who could decipher your wisdom,

a specialist in text I couldn’t read any more

after you were mine,

I wondered.

who you’d lent yourself to

and hoped his hands were clean

- Stuart Crowther

(April 2005)

This poem is very special for me. I just happened to stumble upon this poem while researching short films about the gay community, which I was intending to make a short film about. I ended up watching the video below and repeatedly playing the end part where the poem was.

Challenging God

2012-06-10T23:18:00.000+08:00

(I didn't know what came into me. But I felt the intense urge to write this, like the urge to get intimate with somebody, if you know what I mean.)

I have always believed something is lacking in the practice of the Eucharistic Celebration or Mass. Being a hardcore Catholic student from Kindergarten to college, I was mandated to believe that going to Church every Sunday was a must. That I had thought until 6 years ago.

I knew what most of the things done in Church meant. I knew the two parts of the Mass, the symbolism of the raising of chalice and the opening of the tabernacle and things like that. I used to be a sacristan, and I got to read First and Second Reading. To be honest though, I had been unable to fully appreciate attending this repetitive Mass ritual. I tried many times, but I just couldn't fool myself into believing that I felt God during Mass. I began to think something was wrong with me. I kept thinking that I might have been a victim of evil.

Back in high school, I dragged my self to attend mass mainly because of five things:
1) I had to play the Church organ every Friday morning for the Daily Mass for my batch
2) I had to find a teacher during Sunday Mass to sign my index card for my Values Education grade
3) I had to accompany my mom, especially after Mass when we had to go straight to the public market
4) The church was our meeting place for an occasion or a school practice.
5) I had pretty much nothing to do.

You see, most Christians like me were spoon-fed with concepts of religion. It's like the brainwash type of thing, and all you have to do was to accept every belief that was presented to you. To be critical about these beliefs was a big humongous sin, and so was questioning the Bible. I remember being humiliated when I mentioned Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in class. My instructor said it was bad. At the back of my mind, I was thinking, "Wasn't it also bad that the Church killed millions of people during the Inquisition, and that it sold salvation during the Sale of Indulgences, and that it recently sanctified Joan of Arc when it once ordered her killing?" The Church is as confused as I was, I thought.

College came, and I almost forgot I was a Catholic. I rarely went to Church. I only attended Mass for some very unusual purposes. I didn't even go to Mass before examinations. I guess I was too busy looking for a way to pay my tuition fees. I once thought, maybe God wanted to test me to see if I'd give up and fall into the trap of prostitution. I know. That's a weird idea.

Thinking about these reasons made me feel so evil. The last time I went to Church was during Easter. I fancied processions because it was rare and special. I bought some candles and took my camera phone with me so I could take photos while walking. And man, those holy statues were creative!

Don't get me wrong, I am not an atheist nor am I a preacher or a brother from another Christian sect. I am still a Catholic and I currently have no plans of committing apostasy nor schism (terms I learned in sophomore high school Values Education). In fact, I am becoming more spiritual and more connected to what we call God than I was in the past. I pray more often. I tend to reassess my sinful actions. But still, I rarely go to Church.

I am currently on the process of defining my relationship with God. There may be truth in what they say there's a big difference between Religion and Spirituality. I know of people who had perfect attendance in Mass, yet still back-stab their neighbors. I know of people who never go to Mass, but are very helpful to others. I presume I better be less religious and more spiritual. And I bet, people would say, this would be the best excuse of unholy people like me.

Then came this turning point. I was in the SLU library reading books about psychology. I had to stay at the library because that was the only place in school where you didn't have to spend money just to kill boredom while waiting for your next class. You see, I didn't have the funds during college. I didn't even have enough allowance to afford three meals a day. I was lucky I had the "thickest face" to discretely ask my friends for food and other benefits. Back then, I was blaming a bunch of people for letting me plunge into that misery. I was half-blaming them and God.

So off I devoured the books in the library. I stumbled upon the 133 section of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Yes, you'd probably notice where I got that term. Well, my mother was a librarian back in high school. The 133 books happened to be about Parapsychology. I took interest. And the next thing I knew, I was mumbling the words psychic, ghosts, aliens, paranormal, seven levels, chakra, meditation, astrology and all things New Age. I became a huge fan of Jaime Licauco, HP Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and all people New Age.

At first, it was hard to accept I was starting to believe in something that most people find ridiculous and satanic. I was even told that I was falling into the trap of Satan, that I should be thinking about my soul. One guy told me ghosts were evil, that these were just hallucinations. I didn't agree, because if he was right, then half the world then would be neurotic. One girl also told me that heaven was a physical place. I again failed to agree. I was afraid to share my thoughts about the world, because I shared them in the perspective of the New Age philosophy. I was mocked and ridiculed.

But who knew what I did to ignore them? I was happy I found the 133 section in the library. It helped me reassess my faith in this God. New Age did to me what many faithful Christians feared the most - it destroyed my faith in God. It shattered my belief in the Bible and in Christ. Yet, it helped me rebuild it. My faith in God became more intense! It was like breaking an ugly pot, melting the fragments, and remolding it to become a better pot! In this view, I became more respectful about other religions. It helped me understand the nature of religions and man's tendency to safeguard his beliefs at all costs. It made me find God all over again. And no, I am not recruiting you into a new religion! New Age is not even one. It's a philosophy, more like a way of living.

From the movie Patch Adams;
Patch was questioning God for the death of her lover.

It must be rude of me to think now that God is be the most misunderstood entity in the universe. I believe each religion fabricates its own view of its own god. Each religion claims his God to be better than the other religion's God. This helps me gain more insight about God. Perhaps each of us have our own interpretation of God, of what His qualities are, if God is also a She or a We, or if that hot-headed God in Genesis and Leviticus is similar to the God of the New Testament. For me, it doesn't matter anymore, as long as our belief in that God makes us do good.

I come into the conclusion that it is impossible to deny His existence. The evidences are overwhelming! Even the things that many people think contradict God is, for me, an evidence of Him. I even find God within my enemies. I found God in the toilet, in my backyard, and in my glorious penis! I feel no shame in speaking my mind because I believe my thoughts and all thoughts are manifestations of Him.

For others, these thoughts are so bizarre and blasphemous that they might elect me to the cross. But I care less.

I think we would understand God better when we start challenging our faith in Him. That's exactly what I did. Would it be too much if I ask you to do the same?

Nightmare 21

2012-03-20T14:12:00.000+08:00

For the first time in 21 years, I had the worst nightmare. It was the only nightmare that brought me to tears. I was sobbing. It was past noon, when most people were awake.

In my dream, I and my family were eating early dinner at a simple restaurant on a common street in my hometown. I noticed my younger brother wasn't in this dream. While we were eating, I kept asking my father why he had gone back home from abroad. I was happy that he finally got home, but also sad because it was not for the best. I and my father then found a tiny alley and there we talked further. He suddenly got furious that he shouted at me. He pulled a gun out of nowhere, and I ran back to the restaurant. While running, I saw two policemen pull their guns from their holsters and aimed at my father. My eyes were closed but I heard a choir of gunshots. At this point, I knew I was awake. I was breathing heavily.

Halfway between dreams and wakefulness, I could see the image of a distant friend, a friend I barely knew back in childhood. It was Joanna whom I hadn't seen for more than 10 years. She was holding a gun too; her expression was that of pain and anger. I didn't know how I did it, but I hurriedly grabbed the gun from her hands, and ran back toward where my father was.

I knew it was only moments before I wake up. Suddenly, I saw my mother and my sister being hurled into the arms of a few unknown men. They were being carried somewhere, probably to the hospital. They were soaked with their own blood and they were as limp as a noodle. I was furious! I was so furious at that time I felt an insatiable desire to avenge them!

I searched for my father. I could feel my teeth grit almost to the point of pain. I could feel the gun against my grip. I was so ready to shoot him. I was so ready to kill. Then I saw him. He and the two policemen were lying lifeless on the ground.

Then I woke up.

The Most Tragic Love Story of the Decade

2011-10-01T18:44:00.000+08:00

News story: 13-year-old boy shoots alleged lover, then self

I just received this disturbing email from a friend. The authenticity of the email has not been verified. But it seems believable. The story was both tragic and scary. I got nightmares after reading this. I thought it was a mistake reading this email, and I am thinking that the two lovers involved in this story and who had died may be up to haunting me! Anyway, I'm too much of an asshole to even make a blog out of this. Haha. It could be said then, Young Love can be dangerous.
- Lawrence

P.S. Email starts now! Texts in blue (except the hyperlinks) are created by me. If you may get offended by the fact that this email has been posted, please surf away from this page now; otherwise, read on! =)

****************************************************************************

Ito na un pinakihihintay nating love triangle tragic story of the year ….

PAULO, the 3^rd PARTY

JONATHAN…. The 16-year old who was shot

JAKE HERRERA PEREZ (aka Josh) … The 13-year old who fired the gun….

Facebook profile link

Don't "friend" or "message" if you don't want to get an unexpected reply.

LAST POST ni JAKE (aka JOSH).. in SM, while waiting for Jonathan….a few minutes before nya ito binaril …

All started through FB.
All started through FB.

[Part 1]
Kwento ko lang love story nung nasa balita. :p

May 26. They knew each other through FB. Madaling araw.
May 27. Jonathan posted things on Jake's wall. They were getting close.
May 28. Jonathan wanted Jake to change numbers. Masyado na silang sweet.
"Itext mo ako kaagad kapag nakabili ka na ng sim na globe ha? I miss you. ♥"
June 5. Jake posted on FB: Jake went from being "single" to "in a relationship." Jonathan liked it. (june 4 naging sila)
August. Nagkakalabuan na. Palagi na lang may selos na kahalo sa mga post ni Jake. Jake posted: "love you september ok na tayo magkikita ulit tayo muahhhh"
September 4. 3rd monthsary nila.
September 5. Jake commented on a video (The best father yata): "i wish my father is like him kaso hindi ako pinalad sana sya nalang tatay ko" (obviously hindi nya makausap parents nya)

‎[Part 2]

September 9. Jake: "you said you love me bakit ginaganto moko gago ka tignan mu kung anu kaya kong gawin tahimik ako pero gago ako baka my magawa ako sayo at di na kita makita at makita ako na nasa kulungan nalang"
September 15. Jake: "nung wala ako nakikipag landian anu yan tapos ako nag hihirap kakatrabaho para sa gift ko sayo hai ang landi mu naman makontento kana sakin ok kasi balang aral marerealize mo ako lang ung taong kelangan mo habang buhay"
September 17. Jonathan: "JAKE." (nag-aaway na talaga sila and i think they broke up) Jonathan: "Ingat. "
September 18. Jake: "gusto ko sumigaw ng malakas nakakainis ka bat kasi sineryoso kita tignan mo ngayon ang gulo na ng buhay ko"

[Part 3]

September 18. Paulo (Jake's "new") tweeted: "So Kailangan Magkatext, Magkachat and Magkamessage pa? hahaha! OHHHHHHHVEEEEEEER!! )"
September 19. Jake chatting with a FB friend: "hindi move on kailangan ko brad sya ang kailangan ko tatapusin namin bukas kung anu man ung naumpisahan namin"
September 19. Paulo tweeted: "Off to School. Blessed Monday Morning People. I LOVE YOU BABE. "
September 20. 5AM. Jake posted a pic with a caption "the last photo haha"
September 20. 11AM. Jake posted a pic with a caption "nandito nako sm hai naku naman bye na po dami tao dito asan na kaya ung isa haha"
September 20. around 12PM. The tragedy happened.
September 20. 8PM. Paulo: "kasalanan mo kung bakit nasa hospital si jonathan ngayon! napaka sama mong tao!" Paulo then deactivated his account. Trying to hide his identity, I guess.

News: SM Pampanga Shooting Incident | The Shirt And The FB Status

Posted by Biboy Ordinario Wednesday, September 21, 2011 Labels: news, pampanga facebook,pampanga shooting incident, pampanga suicide shirt, sm city pampanga shooting incident

THE NEWS

A few days ago, a shooting incident was rendered inside SM City Pampanga. A 13-year old boy shot his 16-year old boyfriend with a 0.22 caliber and declared himself "brain dead".

The security missed to detect the 0.22 caliber due to its small size. In fact, this gun has a similar size of a cellphone so it's really hard to detect this minute gun with a simple frisk. After the incident, the investigators found a suicide note indicating hatred and jealousy. The suspect also made a white t-shirt filled with scribbles of extreme hatred and pain; and he wore it during the said incident.

THE FACEBOOK STATUSES and THE SUICIDE SHIRT

I was shocked after hearing this news. Our minors nowadays are leading into a path influenced by the negative contents of the internet, mass and social media. I managed to discover the Facebook account of this 13-year old boy.

Observing the Facebook statuses of this guy before the incident, it was emblazoned with mysteries of depression, messages of loneliness, pain and hatred. These are his disturbingFacebook statuses and photos before the incident:

di mo ko kilala ang galing ko mag tago sayo ang alam mo mangyan na mayaman ako pero di ako bobo bro.im not stupid im care full lang sa sinasabi ko kasi ang alam ko ipang lalaban mo im pretending to be gurang tawa ako haha
Monday at 11:58pm

if he left you then came back to search for you, don't tell him
"I am dead cause you killed me",
but tell him "A new me is born, that you don't deserve".
Monday at 11:59pm

After these 2 FB statuses, he posted a photo of himself with a caption "The Last Photo Haha"
Then by 4:41 AM Tuesday, he uploaded a photo of himself carrying the Suicide Shirt that he made. It seems like he didn't sleep before the incident because of his extreme emotion of hatred. You can also observe in his photo some self-infliction that he made in his left arm.

i make a shirt on my own lahat ata ng galit ko sa mundo naisulat ko un ung susuutin ko mamaya bago ako umalis hai naku eto sumple ng damit ko mamaya ang ganda ng gawa ko haha sayang talent ko (Caption of the Photo)

‎2nd time ko mag seryoso sau lng ako nag kagn2 hehe sau muli ko naramdaman ang pagmamahal na ito ngunit anu maggawa ko? mahal mo ba ako? alam ko may mahal ka iba b8 mahal kba nia? hheeh xDD ok lng kh8 masaktan ako basta sumaya ka lng un lang paraan para sumaya ka lang ganyan kita kamahal :) lol di ikaw yan wag mu isiping ikaw yan ok
Tuesday at 5:12am

Then by 10:43 AM Tuesday, he posted his last photo of himself, wearing the suicide shirt inside SM City Pampanga!

nandito nako sm hai naku naman bye na po dami tao dito asan na kaya ung isa haha (Caption of the Photo)

Then in the end... It happened. The SM City Pampanga Shooting Incident

PAMPANGA, Philippines (8th UPDATE) – The 2 teens involved in a shooting incident inside SM Pampanga passed away Wednesday, their doctors and families said.
The 13-year-old boy died before 3 p.m. after his family decided to have his life support tube removed, doctors said.
The life support system on the other boy, a 16-year-old, was also removed Wednesday night.
He died around 11 p.m., according to his family.
He and his younger companion were earlier declared brain dead by doctors.
Dr. Eric Salas of San Fernandino Hospital, the attending physician, said the family of the 13-year-old boy has decided to donate his vital organs.
His remains have been brought to his family home in Mariveles, Bataan province.
Salas and Dr. Alfonso Danac, head of the emergency room of Jose B. Lingad Hospital in San Fernando City, coordinated for the harvesting of the organs.
The family of the 16-year-old victim said his vital organs will also be donated. His body has been brought home to Bulacan.
Danac said the teen's family accepted that he no longer has a chance to live.
He said only the life support system kept the boy alive.
The bullet from the caliber .22 handgun used by his companion in shooting remained lodged in the 16-year-old victim's head.
Before he was brought out of the hospital, the manager of SM Pampanga visited him in the hospital and reportedly promised to help pay for his medical expenses.

Warm regards,
Jam

Judas, the Traitor no More

2011-08-18T04:48:00.000+08:00

“… you will be greater than them all. Judas, you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

By: Josef Angelo Quero and Marcel Lawrence Emil Agpasa

For more than two thousand years, the Catholic Church has stood against the whips and lashes of time. It has endured countless issues against its doctrines and teachings. For more than two millennia, we have been taught of the same thing…

But what if latest discoveries in our time reveal the greatest scandal of the Church, so shocking it could spell its downfall… and the Church could be willing to silence those who would speak of it? The truth is about to be revealed. There is no turning back. Prepare to open the GNOSTIC GOSPELS, THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS!

Who is Judas?

The name itself sends a wicked feel. Judas Iscariot. It has been equated to treachery and deceit. For many centuries, Judas has been the world’s most hated figure. He has been portrayed as an evil incarnate forever damned to burn in hell. Judas Iscariot – the apostle who pawned Jesus to His death.

With the advent of the discovery of an ancient leather-bound book in Egypt, the story of Judas’ betrayal turns unimaginably upside down. What happens when we see the side of a story in the eyes of a betrayer? What if the lie behind the world's most famous kiss is a lie in itself? The answers could take us back to the Garden of Gethsemane and deeper into the rowdy history of the Catholic Church.

Mystic Secret

When the Church was young, early Christians preached in groups to spread the Word of God. There were no standard Gospel (“good news”) to teach that time. Things got worse when Roman soldiers started persecuting those who had professed as Christians. During those daunting days, the Christian community was in massive disarray. Different sects of Christianity emerged, each having its own versions of Christ’s teachings and contradicting one another’s interpretation. Some of them: the would-be Catholics and the Gnostics.

Gnostics propose a more abstract belief: that salvation can be achieved by achieving gnosis or secret knowledge. It suggests that each man holds a divine spark within him that needs to be freed from the material body, and that one can attain divine perfection or reach heaven by deciphering the mystic teachings of Jesus Christ. They suggest the ultimate key to salvation is by self-activating the ‘latent God’ within every soul to a path to self-mastery and spiritual enlightenment. Hence, Gnostics were in no need of priests nor bishops.

This view bothered the early Church leaders. It spelled confusion among followers of conventional Christianity which had gained rapid spread over Asia Minor and the entire Mediterranean and had won the heart of the Roman Empire.

Survival of the Simplest

Then came Saint Irenaeus to the rescue. As a Church Father in 180 A.D., he severely denounced the teachings of Gnosticism, proclaiming that it was a dangerous doctrine never to be read by any righteous Catholic. He was then given the ultimate task of saving a very confused and threatened Church: to choose the righteous gospels that would take the Bible center stage.

Irenaeus had to make sure the selected gospels would not raise questions among its believers. After a private conclave, he declared “there are four gospels and only four… like the four directions of the wind… four corners of the earth…” Since then, the rest of the Gnostic gospels were discarded, burned and banned. And thus started the fame of brothers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

But the Gospel of Judas refused to fade into eternity. After almost 1800 years from hiding, it had finally seen the light of day.

The Bombshell Unearthed

History has repeated itself. In 1896, the Gospel of Mary shocked the world. Then in Upper Egypt in 1945, a peasant accidentally discovered the Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of 12 ancient leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar. It contained the Gnostic Gospels like the Gospel of Philip, Thomas, Truth, the Egyptians, and other apocalyptic writings. Two years later, two shepherds accidentally uncovered the “Dead Sea Scrolls” in a cave in Wadi Qumran in Israel.

And finally in 1978, near the Egyptian Nile River, a farmer in search of gold and treasure came across an old burial cave. There laid a rugged stone box with a leather-bound book inside. He never knew the language was written in Coptic, an ancient language by the Egyptian pharaohs. Never did he know that he discovered what could be one of the greatest biblical archeological find – the Gospel of Judas.

Then Judas’ devastating journey began. After having been found by chance, sold twice and stolen once, little by little the pages of the Gospel of Judas slowly turned to fragments, the remaining pages bore many unrecognizable traces of blank ink. About 15% of the whole texts were completely wiped out from history but the remaining texts were just enough to finally redeem Judas from mankind’s mockery…

Fragments of the lost Gospel of Judas were subjected to a very precise time test, a test that measured when these ancient papyri had been made. The result? Radiocarbon dating revealed the papyri dated back 50 years before or after 200 A.D. – the years when the early Church was still beginning. There is thus no doubt. The Gospel is an authentic ancient artifact.

What’s with this gospel that so got into the nerves of Catholic conservatives? At long last, the world is ready to hold the secrets of the Judas Gospel.

The Gospel of A Hero

In the Gospel of Judas, the author reverses the story of Jesus’ betrayal. Judas is not a traitor. Instead, he is the greatest among the apostles and the closest to Jesus Christ. He is cursed and envied by the other disciples.

The Judas Gospel unfolds with an opening remark “This is the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke to Judas three days before he celebrated the Passover.” Jesus then is described not as the authoritative preacher. He does not speak of sin and repentance. Instead, he presents himself as a guide for his followers to spiritual understanding (gnosis). It portrays Jesus among the disciples as a child who laughs a great deal.

A disturbing revelation by Christ was again made known. In the gospel, the twelve apostles see a vision: they saw a great house with an altar; near it were twelve priests; and the twelve were receiving many cattle as sacrifice to the altar; people around them were doing evil deeds. In response, Jesus very bluntly says to them, “Those you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar—that is who you are. That is the god you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray before that altar.”

Is Jesus Christ predicting the future of the early Church? Did it mean then that that the 2.2 billion Christians worldwide are actually being led astray?

The Divine Revelations

Then, in another occasion, Jesus divulges an Apocalyptic message. He compares the human race to the “unperishable race”, which would be the only race to remain throughout eternity. Jesus says the human race and even the angels shall be destroyed, and only those who shall attain divinity will be spared.

Jesus also explains to Judas a very mystical Gnostic theme that Matthew and the other three gospels fail to mention – cosmogony. In Judas’ Gospel, Jesus narrates the entire process of Creation! From the Supreme God, the great angel Autogenes is created, He soon creates another league of angels (“aeons”) to aid Him. They create the luminaries who are to govern portions of the Universe. Figures like 6, 12, 72 and 360 are used to define the orderliness of creation. Then from the perfect aeons it branches out to Saklas and Nebro, then to Seth and Adamas until the “accidental creation” of the human race.

At the night of the Passover, Jesus and his apostles are talking. Judas shares his vision: he was being stoned, cursed and hated by the twelve apostles. He was hated by the entire world. In reply, Jesus reveals that Judas will have to make the ultimate sacrifice to release Jesus from the physical body that wraps him. Jesus says, “You will be greater than them all, for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

The passage reveals a very deep-seated philosophy of early Gnosticism. It speaks of the doctrine of reincarnation! Jesus shows how the body is likened to clothing which the soul wears and removes in a given lifetime. For the Gnostics, the body is just a material vehicle which the soul uses for self-expression and self-perfection. In the end, if the soul has gained divine perfection through gnosis, the prison body must then be shed off. Jesus’ death would then signal the completion of Christ’s mission as a preacher of Gnostic truth.

Thus, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus arranges his own death and asks his brother Judas to hand him over the Romans. Judas obeyed.

A Sudden Ending

The Gospel of Judas abruptly ends with Judas receiving the coins from the high priests, as Jesus is handed down to the Romans. In a few hours, the Christ’s ever-celebrated Passion-Death-Resurrection mantra would commence.

The author of the Gospel of Judas might have aimed to rehabilitate Judas’ identity in history. Throughout the gospel, the author assumed a very angry mood. He was despising the disciples…

Perhaps Judas might have foreseen that his unlikely obedience would turn him from the great traitor we know to the greatest hero in history. His ultimate sacrifice could sound the death knell to his life-sentence. If it be true, then he is not to be ridiculed but to be thanked.

The Gospel of Judas and the other Gnostic gospels are but reminders for us to reassess what we have as Christians. It is no more a question of whether the Gospel is authentic or not, but rather it is a question of faith.

We may never know who exactly wrote these gospels and why they were written. But their existence does not entirely mean that they are the absolute truth. They may be false. They may be true. But we do know one thing. We still have our own free will to choose what to believe in.

Judas had his…

Pottermore Interview

2011-08-15T15:00:00.001+08:00

What's your Pottermore username?
PatronusOak114

What House do you think it sounds like?
It sounds like Gryffindor because it sounded generic. Wizards do use spells, and the number 114 sounds like it's a multiple of 7 (although it really isn't) which is a number that holds a very mystical meaning for me. There are a lot of 7's in the magical kingdom.

What House do you want to be in?
Ravenclaw! I always wanted to be in Ravenclaw because it thrills me to think that the house is very exclusive. Not to brag, but you really have to be smart to get sorted here, ‘coz if not, then you have to wait for someone else to arrive to give the correct answer to get past through the Ravenclaw entrance.

Does your username relate to you at all?
Yes, a bit. It seems to me a very magical username (but I guess all are). Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve always believed in magic. I’ve always thought that there are things in this world that could not be explained by orthodox science. Even up to now, I firmly believe in paranormal and psychic phenomena. Having been raised within a culturally superstitious community, I would have a hard time putting out this belief from my system.

(The Patronus charm is an advanced sort of incantation that wards off evil (dementors). It fits me well because I have mostly been part of an advanced class or a member of an honor organization that aims to dispel ignorance. The term Patronus suits me well. The term Oak does me well too! Oaks are ancient and mysteries. Some legends say that oak trees are dwelling places of magical entities like fairies and dwarves. I can't seem to find any relevance with the number 114 to my life.)

What kind of wand would you wish to get?
I would rather use a wand made from a wood or tree from my native land. I mean. I have never even seen a holly, elder nor a hawthorn tree. I would prefer my wand to be made from a special native tree called Kamagong tree (Mabolo fruit, Diospyros blancoi) related to the ebony tree. Its wood is very dense, hard and “unyielding.”It’s very difficult to carve or break. The core should be that of a phoenix tail feather or a unicorn hair.

What I got was Black Walnut, 11 1/2 inches, with dragon core. I'm okay with it!

Are you pure, half-blooded or Muggle-born?
I think I’m a pure-blood. My father came from a remote locale where supernatural activities are almost part of daily living (I’m telling the truth). My mother is from an urban state, but she has this unusual affinity for the unexplained. She loves Feng Shui and incantations (prayers).

Which day did you get into Pottermore?
Day 2 (August 1, 2011)! On July 31, 2012, I visited the Pottermore website only to find out that there was this magical contest to find the magical quill. And Day 1 was over. So I decided not to sleep for Day 2. I was closely monitoring the Pottermore page for any changes. I even installed a Chrome extension that refreshes a page every 5 minutes.

What shape is your Patronus?
It would be a tapir. This will be a great Patronus. The Tapir – the eater of nightmares!

What does your boggart look like?
It would be me, in rugged clothing, begging for food and coin!

Would you rather be an Animagus or a Matamorphmagus?
Animagus. Although being a Metamorphmagus allows you to morph your anatomy (to which many males may find interesting), I’d still prefer being a total animal. Being an animal won’t look as freaky as being a human with a pig’s ear!

If you were an Animagus, what animal would you be?
I’d rather be a tiny bird (a Eurasian tree sparrow). I would fly around houses and spy on people! They would never suspect that I’m an Animagus, because sparrows are pretty common. They perch on almost every spot!

The Church and the Aliens

2011-07-05T13:41:00.000+08:00

The Catholic Church says EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE does NOT conflict with the Church's teachings.

I say the Church just wants to go ahead of the game.

They anticipated that the disclosure by science that Aliens do exist is imminent. Church leaders know that the evidences for extraterrestrial life is hard to debunk. Hardcore modern day scientists attest that alien life is completely rational when taking into account the vastness of the universe. Even high-ranking U.S. military officials could no longer hide the undeniable fact that aliens have visited the earth since the dawn of the early civilizations. (Remember the Roswell crash in 1947?)

World leaders also hinted to the nearing of a worldwide information disclosure about extraterrestrial life. What do you think would happen if UFO's and aliens had suddenly been proven to be true? Won't the Church have some heavy explaining to do? Won't the Church crumple to pieces if it can't provide possible explanations?

To avoid confusing its followers, the Church went ahead and proclaimed that Alien life is compatible with its doctrines! Silly Vatican. Here goes my own Catholic Church saying NOW that there may be aliens out there, when it ONCE ordered the killing of people who had believed in alien life 500 years ago. Poor people who were burned at the sakes and fed to the lions.

On LGBT Rights

2011-06-25T09:50:00.001+08:00

Same-sex marriage, an abomination?

MANY FILIPINO CATHOLIC PEOPLE ARE SOOOOOOO NARROW-MINDED! Being RELIGIOUS is different from being SPIRITUAL. You can go to church every day and pretend to understand the Word of God, but still be NON-SPIRITUAL!

By Grzegorz Wysocki

RELIGION is a cultural myth! And to you guys quoting verses from the BIBLE??? Know your history! Don't you even know the origins of the Bible? Let us assume God wrote it through human hands. But history would tell you straight in the face that the BIBLE had been EXPURGATED and EDITED and CENSORED by my dearly beloved CATHOLIC CHURCH more than 1000 years ago! Now, we, Christians, are sooooooo narrow-minded that despite the eruption of new AUTHENTIC ancient GOSPELS (Gospels of Judas, Mary, Thomas) during the last 50 years, we still chose to refuse to believe!

Same-sex marriage may be thought as a VIOLATION of HUMAN NATURE. But look at this: people in the middle ages had also thought that having a terrible disease is a curse of GOD. No one ever thought that disease was caused by microorganisms. Yet, the proponents of this modern-day disease theory, like Louis Pasteur, were ostracized by religious fanatics; and so was Nicholaus Copernicus for thinking that the Sun was the center of the universe; and so was Aristotle for thinking that the Earth was round; and so were the EARLY CHRISTIANS for believing in a god named Christ!

Now, IN THESE TIMES, who would NOT know that diseases can be caused by microbes? that the Earth is round? that the Sun is the center of the solar system? that there are more than 2 billion Christians worldwide???

Who are we to judge what SHOULD BE and what SHOULD NOT BE?

When did we even feel the need to classify a person to what group he belongs?

Why do we always think that what is common is right?

Where should we lay our beliefs?

How does one know what is and what is not?

You see, history is repeating itself. And the reason is clear: it's because humanity fails to learn what should have already been learnt. These LGBT people are being mocked, NOW. They comprise the marginalized sector of our land.

BUT KNOW ALL MEN . . . that Time may come soon enough when the prevailing social norm may no longer mandate heterosexual union; for the LGBT group may pretty much be like Louis Pasteur, Nicholaus Copernicus, Aristotle or the early Christians. They may be holding to themselves what is wrong today, but will be right tomorrow.

Mount Pulag: A Journey to the Heavens

2011-05-18T14:43:00.000+08:00

It was a great experience. I've seen sunrise and sunset many times, but those are nothing compared to what I've seen at the summit of Mount Pulag.

I've seen how protected this place is, how the indigenous people tried to preserve the beauty of their place. I've seen that there is hope. For when the sun sets in the west, you'd expect it to rise on a different place, in the east.

Life's like that, I guess. It's a never ending cycle of sunsets and sunrises.

Project DIO-MAN-JI

2011-02-21T08:05:00.000+08:00

FAMILY – THE CELL OF SOCIETY

What is a family?

How well a family works together and how well it can organize itself against potential threats depend on who its members are and the activities or roles the family members carry out. Recognizing different family structures allows health care providers to focus on family-centered care or provide a family-friendly environment for care.

A family is traditionally defined as a group of people related by blood, marriage, or adoption. However this definition is limited when assessing a family for its health concerns or the support people available because some families are made up of unrelated couples, and at certain points in life not all family members may live together. A broader definition of family is then formulated. A family then is two or more people who live in the same household, share a common emotional bond, and perform certain interrelated social task. This definition addresses the broad range of types of families that health care providers often encounter. Our chosen family – the “Diomanji” family – worked immensely hard for so long a time to fit this definition.

By context, we define “family client” as a group of people who live in the same household, share a common emotional bond, and perform certain interrelated social tasks to which health care is directed. With the aid of health care providers, the family client is the co-facilitator of its own care.

But such care can only be achieved if health workers dedicate themselves to mastering an organized and dynamic approach towards health. The Family Health Care Process is a deliberate activity where the practice of a health worker is performed in a systematic manner wherein the health worker utilizes comprehensive knowledge as a base to assess the family’s health status. Involving in the health care process entails making judicious statements of health problems and to plan, implement and evaluate the plan of care.

To every successful activity, planning is an essential factor. It is expected of a health worker to be always geared towards achieving optimum health care provision for his/her clients. This can be carried out through having a properly prepared nursing health care plan, where interventions are purposely made for a specific family client.

FAMILY HEALTH CARE
A Family Health Care Plan (FHCP) is the blueprint of care that the nurse designs to systematically minimize or eliminate the identified health and family nursing problems through explicitly formulated outcomes of care and deliberately chosen set of interventions, resources, and evaluation criteria, standards, methods and tools.

The importance of the Family Health Care Plan is as follows:

1. It individualizes care to clients. Planning facilitates the delivery of the most appropriate care by considering the uniqueness of each client.

2. The nursing care plan helps in setting priorities by providing information about the client as well as the nature of his problems. From the available data, the nurse sets his priorities for care.

3. The nursing care plan promotes systematic communication among those involved in the health care effort. Problems are defined and the details to resolve the nursing interventions are present.

4. Continuity of care is facilitated through the use of nursing care plans. Gaps and duplications in the services provided are minimized, if not totally eliminated.

5. Nursing care plans facilitate the coordination of care by making known to other members of the health team what the nurse is doing. Coordination of care prevents fragmentation of services and increases the efficiency of health service delivery system.

Developing a Family Health Care Plan involves many steps:

a. the prioritized condition/s or problems based on its nature, modifiability, preventive potential and salience
b. the goals and objectives of nursing care. We should formulate (a) expected outcomes which include conditions to be observed and client response/s or behavior, and (b) specific, measurable client-centered statements.

c. the plan of interventions, where the nurse (a) decides on family-centered alternatives, and measures to help the family eliminate barriers and underlying causes of health tasks; (b) determines methods of nurse-family contact; and (c) identifies specifies resources needed.

d. the plan for evaluating, where we should specify outcomes based on methods and objectives of care.

At the end of the family-health care worker relationship, the family is expected to continue strengthening their health potentials and minimizing, if not totally eliminating, the health risks and problems. The family must have also learned all the teachings on health promotion and disease prevention taught to them by the health care provider/s. Moreover, such teachings should be applied and practiced in their daily living. The outcomes that will result from our family health care plan will be our basis in modifying, changing or terminating our plan of care. We as health care providers should still keep in touch with the family client even after the family health plan implementation so as to establish continuity of care.

KNOWING THIS UNIQUE FAMILY

A single mother, a handicapped son and an aunt – they form the triad of the “Diomanji” family’s humble abode. Situated in the upper fragments of the mountainous terrains of Amgaleyguey, Buguias, Benguet is the brick house of the family, a house that surpassed the bone-chilling cold, blinding fog and treacherous mountain rocks. For more than a decade, it is here where they live; for many years, it is here where they start dreaming of a better life; for almost their entire lifetime, it is here where they think dreams would forever just be dreams.

The event was glorious. Fourteen shivering individuals freed themselves of the red van’s confines. Twelve were college students, one was an instructor, the other was the driver who might have forgotten that the ones riding in his van were people and not Buguias vegetables. These individuals stepped out to the cold and unforgiving atmosphere with only their flimsy jackets and mittens on. They were still nauseated.

Then it happened. A family of twelve and a family of three – two families bound to meet unknowingly at a certain junction in the most highly-elevated highway at a certain hour of a foggy morning on a certain duty day. Was this luck?

Behind the blurry spectacle that the clouds had brought, there lay the silhouette of a woman seemingly waiting outside of a familiar brick house. She seemed to face away, a reason for the twelve to notice a bulk on her back. It was strapped on a white cloth with its ends tied around her left shoulder. The bulk let out an unusual whimper. The bulk was moving.

It was “Baby Manny” – the one whom the community duty instructor was talking about weeks ago. At first, the little child seemed like he was only one-and-a-half years old. But he is not. He is already five years old. He is severely malnourished. As if this little boy’s malady is not enough, he has another handicap that cripples him to his ill bed. He has cerebral palsy.

Then there were more. While the student nurses continued with their history taking and physical assessment of the family, more and more of the family’s dilemma surfaced to dig deep into the students’ hearts, one by one. The father has left them for another family. They have very scarce funds for their daily living. They all have physical ailments… and more… It’s as if the world has forsaken them. It was heartbreaking.

At that time, the role of being community health student nurses dawned upon the twelve individuals as they started providing the care that they can give to this humble family. They have little time left to do the best they can – very little time, indeed.

A single mother, a handicapped son and an aunt – they struggle to fill the gaps of their own living. They struggle to attain a status with which they can be called a family.

KNOWING THE CHALLENGERS
What did Baby Manny and her family do to receive these? An infinitesimal question that knows no answer, just yet… Luck or destiny might have played their roles to this family. But who is to blame? The answer is a needle on a haystack. Cerebral palsy (in severe malnutrition), and stroke are the respective ailments that Baby Manny and Auntie Dionisia were fighting against.

According to Wikipedia website, Cerebral palsy (CP) is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, motor, non-contagious conditions that cause physical disability in human development.

Cerebral refers to the cerebrum, which is the affected area of the brain (although the disorder most likely involves connections between the cortex and other parts of the brain such as the cerebellum), and palsy refers to disorder of movement. CP is caused by damage to the motor control centers of the developing fetal brain and can occur during pregnancy (about 75 percent), during childbirth (about 5 percent) or after birth (about 15 percent) up to about age three.

It describes a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication, and behavior, by epilepsy, and by secondary musculoskeletal problems.

There is no known cure for CP. Medical intervention is limited to the treatment and prevention of complications arising from CP's effects.

On the other hand, stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function(s) due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia (lack of blood supply) caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage. As a result, the affected area of the brain is unable to function, leading to inability to move one or more limbs on one side of the body, inability to understand or formulate speech, or inability to see one side of the visual field. In the past, stroke was referred to as cerebrovascular accident or CVA, but the term "stroke" is now preferred.

A stroke is a medical emergency and can cause permanent neurological damage (as manifested by Auntie Dionisia), complications, and death. It is the number two cause of death worldwide and may soon become the leading cause of death worldwide. Risk factors for stroke include advanced age, hypertension (high blood pressure), previous stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), diabetes, high cholesterol diet, cigarette smoking and atrial fibrillation. High blood pressure is the most important modifiable risk factor of stroke.

Now there are many other conditions that restrain the Diomanji family from improving their health state, be it in the physical, emotional, mental and financial level. It is up to us student nurses to try to educate and empower them to live a healthy lifestyle to the best of their abilities.

Impossible? For student nurses who are ever so willing to try, impossible is nothing!

Two Souls, One Destiny

2009-07-15T10:25:00.000+08:00

Zeus was furious. He had crafted an almost perfect creature that threatened his god-throne. Indispensable was this human creature – for no god could attack and wound it. But in an instant fit of unthinkable outrage, Zeus sent a killing bolt of lightning that struck the human creature to its core. It was split into two unknown entities – one a man, the other a woman. From then on, it was incomplete. From then on, it was eternally in search of its other half …. Soulmate, they call it.

Illustration by Flora Mae Santos

Although Zeus and his many leagues of moody gods may have only been myths, the concept of soulmates continues to captivate the hearts of those long seeking for that great love story. Our fascination for love’s countless mysteries take its roots back into a time the ancient civilizations emerged.

To some, soulmates are but crazy fantasies of medieval romanticists desperate for true love. But obscure as it may be, this magical interplay of souls is, once and for all, a sacred and divine concept duly revered by all mystics of old. It inevitably becomes a possibility.

At first sight

Many times we’ve acquainted with strangers for the first time, yet we know it’s as if we’ve known them before. Oftentimes, we feel a peculiar feeling during that first meeting, “love at first sight” so they say. What explains this instant irresistible attraction that draws two different strangers to a moment of bliss? Is it mere coincidence? Or have we awakened a latent part of the soul, long waiting for that lovely moment when it finally meets its partner soul?

The answer hides not behind any temple nor high-tech vaults. It only surfaces upon the time when we realize there are many planes of existence other than the physical earth. The answer is concealed beneath the deepest crevices of the human soul.

Before one could truly understand the nature of the sacred soulmates, he has to first grasp two very important esoteric principles: karma and reincarnation.

The Thousand Cycles

Contrary to Christian teaching that man lives only once, eastern doctrines tell us that man undergoes an almost endless cycle of earthly rebirths, offering man a multitude of lifetimes (past lives). After death, the soul abandons his body and enters the spirit (astral) world. There he reflects on his previous lifetime until he is ready to move on and reincarnate again in another body. Our souls reincarnate for it to achieve self-mastery and divine perfection – things that are impossible to attain in only one given lifetime. These sequences of incarnations could take thousands of years before one soul becomes perfect. One single lifetime therefore is just a blink of an eye, a tiny slice in that unfathomable Eternity.

But there is this Law that governs all life forms in the Universe – a law so cunning it follows us like a faithful tail even beyond earthly death. Karma. It knows no excuses. Christians, Moslems, agnostics, Satanists – all unconsciously submit to this Inexorable Law of Karma whether they believe it or not. Psychic prophet Edgar Cayce simply defines it as “meeting yourself.”

In this belief, man’s every action is said to harbor an equal and opposite action. As the Bible puts it, we reap what we sow, whether it be a positive or a negative act. An action will always seek forth their rightful origin in the same manner as they were unleashed. Just as how the Golden rule tells us, we meet the consequences of our every action, from the tiniest bit of deed. Whatever we do will surely be done unto us in full measure, “nothing less, nothing more.”

Karma is forever at work “to teach and aid, to give the individual a better mirror with which to see himself.” It is perfect. Ultimately, Karma interweaves the destinies of the soulmates.

An Indestructible Link

“There are no accidents in the universe.” Everything – from the tiniest of matter to the biggest of galaxies – holds a purpose. It is no accident that we have met all the people in our lives now. They are the people whose souls we have already met in our many past lives. This is because when someone forms relations with others, his soul creates a “karmic chain” that binds him to others. This is the reason why mystics have so long told that “we are all interconnected” in this One Universe.

A person who nurtures love towards another builds a karmic link that will bind them together to meet in future reincarnations. When hate is fostered, this hate becomes a “karmic debt” which has to be resolved and paid in a future lifetime, no matter what. For example, our parents whom we had mistreated in a given past life may be reincarnated as our abusive employers in this present life. Hence, if we do not want to meet our enemies in the next life, we have to banish all traces of hatred we have for them to dissolve this astral bond.

Karma gives us what we rightfully deserve, as Cayce puts it, “You can never lose anything that really belongs to you, and you cannot keep that which belongs to someone else.” A soulmate owns his other soulmate. They are destined to be owners of themselves.

This chain, this link … this is the thread that coils the destinies of two souls that used to be one. This is the ingredient for a soul mate…

Soul Mate: The Perfect Partner

And so goes Astrologer Linda Goodman, describing soulmate as “the other half whose aura perfectly blends with yours.” One esoteric group says soul mates are “two souls who share the same blueprint of identity.”This means that they have been created by God from the same “fiber of life” to share the same pattern of soul evolution towards perfection. Thus, every man can only have one perfect soul mate who shares with him the same soul age and soul destiny.

Since soulmates emerged from the same blueprint, a powerful primitive karmic link between them exists that compels their souls to repeatedly meet in a series of incarnations that they tend to become close with each other. With this, the karmic link gathers intense momentum, making the bond so strong they perfectly complement each other in their journey towards perfecting themselves, until such a time that they can no longer live without the other.

But a human subconsciously forms many karmic links with souls other than the soul mate. From our parents to our enemies, the result is the birth of a “karmic bundle” that complicates the intertwining of the soulmates’ destinies. The two souls then could no longer progress unless these bundles of karma are settled. Thus, in that timeless existence in between earthly incarnations (the time after death and before the next rebirth), the soulmates decide to part ways to work their own karmic debts. At this moment, they vow to themselves to meet in a future lifetime. And when that time comes, no force in the universe could ever stop them from uniting once more.

This clearly demonstrates man’s free will as the most supreme and most inviolate of all. The universe is bound to obey the soulmates’ will.

Reunited

And then that time comes. It could be on a forest or at a solitary island, at a night club or on a sidewalk.

“Once upon an instant flash of love and wisdom,” the souls meet in one momentous attempt to recover what was once lost.There they are, in different bodies, of varying lifestyle and social status, but of the same souls. They unmistakably recognize one another from the very recesses of their being, for the “soul never forgets.” In a magical instant, they know they are meant for each other, that they were once one. Their relationship becomes total and complete at all levels of their existence. The encounter is so holy and mystical it carved an indelible impact to the great poets for thousands of years.

“When two souls meet, the atmosphere becomes magnetically charged. The two auras merge, forming one whole.” When one has a headache, the other gets it too. This is because the link between them is immensely packed it creates a bridge between their minds where emotions or thoughts can freely cross.

Sacred Union

And when two souls finally make love, another dimension of divinity is opened. A magical moment that is hard to explain takes place. The universe literally sings with them. Unlike the exhausting physical sex, a soulmate sex act is not only of two fleshes but a merging of two souls (the astral body) into a blessed feeling of utter oneness – this being felt to their very core.In thisastral sex, the lovers experience a very extreme and indescribable ecstasy that transcends beyond space and time! It catapults them to a higher level of spiritual consciousness no ordinary man can reach. The lovemaking is not just a gratification of carnal desires, but in itself a religious worship and a mystical experience that will forever nest within the souls’ memory.

This sacred sex as portrayed in mystic Paulo Coehlo’s book Eleven Minutes has long been a Gnostic (secret) ritual performed to open a divine path to soul perfection. With this, one would know that one’s soulmate is not only a perfect partner for a tremendous love affair but also a companion in journeying towards the Ultimate Source.

Such sacred concept soulmates are. Such also is its mistaken impression.

It’s Complicated

During that solemn episode in life with one’s soulmates, any social norm, religious custom, political differences or social convention does not and will not matter at all. No manmade law could stop them from loving all parts of their being.

Soulmates need not to be male and female, since it is not the soulmates’ physical bodies but the souls themselves who commune with each other. But due to manmade laws, many soulmates face the you-and-me-against-the-world predicament. Soulmates trapped in bodies of the same sex endure painful labels from the mainstream society. Gay and lesbian couples thus are often misunderstood.

Another age-old dilemma presents itself when a soulmate encounter happens when one or both of these soulmates are married to persons who are not their soulmates. Many soulmates meet in a given lifetime when the physical conditions are at their worst. One could already be a woman with four children, another a priest in his late forties. The result is oftentimes the theme of melodramatic novels, movies and soap operas. So if

nothing could stop these souls from meeting, why do these conflicts occur?

The answer is as simple as the word itself: Karma. The actions we made in our past lives begin to seek us and counter-manifest in our present lifetime. A woman still has to work out her karma with his present husband who might have been her frustrated lover in a past life, or a priest must refrain from romantic love because he had had this great obsession to romance in the past. Even our present romantic relationships are part of a Greater Scheme, for no relation is ever wasted. These and all the other intricate plots pay homage to Karma’s infallible nature.

Filling the Gaps

Since soulmates meet at a moment of their choosing, it wouldn’t do us any good to search for our other-half. It is possible that we may not meet our soulmates in this lifetime. Karma would forever remind us to work out all our insecurities with others first before we can enjoy the pleasures of a soulmate encounter, without the if’s and but’s. Two soulmates will meet when the right time comes…

Finding one’s soulmate is in truth a search for a missing Half to form one’s Whole Self. It is one’s journey to finding Oneness with the Self and with the Creator. In the ultimate analysis, a search for a soulmate is a search for one’s own self.

At this very instant, you may be wondering who and where your soulmate is in the nook of this earth. Could he or she be on the other side of the globe patiently waiting for that irreplaceable meeting? Or could he just be anywhere around sharing jokes with you, strolling down Session Road, or eating with your favorite Cookies and Cream?

Your other half is there, somewhere.

Source:

Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation by Jaime T. Licauco

Footprints

2009-03-12T10:49:00.000+08:00

Trails forth from the past

Leads the Lost to the right path.

Come! These you must cast.

A Craft of Immortality

2009-03-12T10:25:00.000+08:00

Often called the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the Philippines is a perfect blend of the Eastern and Western tradition. Its strategic confinement between seas adds to its prestige. The Filipinos, its inhabitants, aside from being hospitable and patient, love a good and enchanting story—and with no exception to such is mythology.

There were many accounts on how things came to be and how people dominated the world. Early folks attribute their joys and misery to the deeds of the gods and goddesses who abide beyond the sky’s horizons. They believe the latter to intervene with the lives of earth-dwellers either by bringing them prosperity that is owed to their faith, or by punishing them against their evil deeds.

Cordillera’s Unsung Treasury

Most people in the lowlands could only associate the Cordillera with ethnic tribes and rituals, nipa huts, woven clothings, lengua de gato, peanut brittles and the like. Little do they know that the Mountain Provinces also possess rich and diverse treasures of literary mythologies preserved by the indigenous folks. Such collection of mythical stories not only remains as part of literature, but a fragment of the highlanders’ way of living. It is an appreciation for the gods who bestowed upon them the bounty which the mountainous terrains of the region hold.

The Ifugaos and many other groups in the Cordillera call their highest ranking deity Kabunian. The Ifugao’s principal god did have other gods assisting him in his divine works. Among these lesser divinities are: Makalun, messenger of the gods; Bakayauwan andMuntundug, spirits of the mountains; Halupi, spirits of remembrance; Hipag, god of war; Libligayu, who spears livers of their victims; Binudbud, who checks on men’s appetite during feasts; and Tayaban, the god of death who wanders at night disguised as a firefly.

Renewing the World

In the beginning, the great god of Mountain Province, descended to earth, and gathered a bundle of reeds. He broke them into several halves and scattered them all over the world. He commanded the bundles to speak, and there emerged people who spoke in different languages. These people became the parents of the different races of the world today.

Our early forebearers also have corresponding version of the great flood during which Noah lived in the Bible. The people flourished and filled the earth’s surface. However, they grew to be arrogant and boastful of their riches. Kabunian was displeased that he decided to cast upon the sinful a great flood, with which only his two faithful favorites would survive—Wigan and Bugan. He warned the two, to go to Mount Amuyao as the great god opened the gates of the sea and in rushed waters. Because they were the only people left, the two married and had two children, Kalimonganand Mangotngot who also married each other.

Food has become scarce due to their growing numbers. But while searching for food, Kalimongan saw two rice plants growing in a pond of stagnant water on a mountaintop. He thought of doing something to stop the flow of water so he could cultivate grains on the mountain side. From his idea brought forth the building of the legendary rice terraces.

And the Gods Walked the Earth

After the flood, not only was the world re-peopled; it was also often visited by the deities. Disguised as a handsome man,Kabunian went to earth and fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Bugan. The two became couples despite the universal rule that mortals could not marry gods. Their love bore three children.

Soon after, Kabunian prepared for his return to the Upperworld since he could not stay in human form and live on earth forever.This saddened Bugan very much. The children were thus divided among them. Kabigat being the eldest son remained with his mother to help her till their land; Daungen went with her father. The third offspring was halved between the couple; with Kabunianusing his power to supply the child’s missing parts. His share of the body became a girl whom he called Bangan (goddess of the sky) while Bugan’s share became Lumauwig who grew up as a skilled warrior. Some tribal groups even consider Lumauwig as the most superior of all gods.

Years crept by and Lumauwig grew to be a handsome lad with whom Kabunian bestowed extraordinary powers. He fell in love with a mortal named Mitura and their love bore a child. It turned out however that Mitura was a jealous wife. This angeredLumauwig that he swore by Mount Pulog he will never live on earth again. Mitura then became very lonesome. Lumauwig took pity, thus he placed their child every night in the sky for Mitura to see. This child became the moon.

Legends of Yesterday

Another account relates how Kabunian masqueraded as a mortal to test the selfish Ihik. He punished Ihik by turning him into a stone. A further myth tells us of the epic tale of Aliguyon’s dexterity.

Scenery of Mt. Kabunian, named after Cordillera's highest diety
From kellyaustria.com

There are also these three alamat. One about the origin of Baguio’s Bridal Falls. While Maribelen and her lover were running away from his father’s warriors on the night of her arranged wedding, her bridal veil was caught by the thick foliage of a shrub. The Falls was believed to have emerged from Maribelen’s veil after her death. The other alamat relates about why Abra has so many hills. Such hills were believed to be the stones used by the villagers to kill the beautiful Abag. The third story recounts how the pine tree came about.

It was said to have suddenly sprouted from the burial place of a gentle girl suffering from a severe skin disease.

The Sad Truth: The Fate of the Gods

It is enthralling to note the admirable creativity of our forefathers especially of the natives in the Cordillera. Much of all the mythologies today had been passed down for many centuries. It is however poignant that while many stories have been preserved and still present today, more than double the number of these stories had already been washed out by time. The youth’s degenerating interest to local literature and the unreliable passing of such through word of mouth are some contributing factors to the dissipation of such literary works.

However, the authorities did a diminutive work in preventing such great losses. There has something to be changed from within the mindset of people who patronize the stories of foreigners. Ironically, something went wrong with the Philippines’ perfect blend of Oriental and Western cultures. Honestly, we cannot wait for the time that even Philippine literature itself will eventually be termed as ‘endangered’, by allowing ourselves to be dominated by the Zeus and the Greek gods of Mount Olympus.

If such stories are gone, what else could we pass on to generations after us? What fairy tales and bedtime stories can we share that can truly define our being Filipinos better yet Cordillerans? Will our poor deities achieve the immortal status? No longer will the human fate rely on gods, but theirs on us.

Source: Outline of Philippine Mythology

By F. Landa Jocano

www.yahoo.com and related links

Chained, Tied in Strings

2009-03-12T10:23:00.000+08:00

The youth is paralyzed.

Very often, the media portrays adolescents and teenagers holding placards with blunt literature who scrape the streets in opposition to the present administration. It demonstrates a clear picture of political activism, telling that the youth is so much involved in political and social issues. But in truth, the majority of the youth is secluded from concerns of society. Only the activist groups show some signs of violent uprising. Nonetheless, very little change is effected.

Once, President Ferdinand Marcos permitted student protests in the streets without restraints. Even then, more and more students joined the mass rallies against local elite. Thus, on Sept. 1972, Marcos declared Martial Law to suppress the impending “social outburst”. However, more than three decades later, the chains that the ex-president tied remains.

In the Philippines, Marcos’ chains became patented to the current government. Political killings, media killings, death threats - all of which share strength of the binding power of fear. Fear is implanted into the culture, aiding those concerned motionless/actionless. This leads to youth passivity that eventually allows imperialism, feudalism and capitalism to take over the society. Today, our gloomy conditions continue to perpetuate an oppressive system of government.

On one hand, some groups resist the system through “diplomacy”, while others prefer mass protests and violence. Either way, all appear to be ineffective in toppling down an inverted Malacanang. From such criticism, may we strengthen national democracy and empower the national democracy can only be achieved through “the reformation of political and economic conditions.”

However, it seems that reformation is far from real. Anomalies plague the social theater, as villains are more likely to conquer. The youth will never be motivated to act since the system they are in is never motivating. Cited are three conditions that prevent youth action and highlight the country’s backwardness:

First, there is hate that emanates from within each individual, against the rotting government system. Graft and corruption pollutes our politics. The citizens in turn are the ones who suffer from the politicians’ greed.

Secondly, the prevailing political problems continue to exist and show no signs of ceasing. Filipinos, especially the young ones, get sick and tired of the spiraling cycle of election-regime-impeachment-reelection. One would expose an issue of corruption then the government will dismiss it. Another would reveal political misconduct, which would eventually be left unsolved. It is as if the government is unwilling to resolve its own internal decay.

Third, it seems that the youth see no hope in procuring such motivating conditions. If they do so in taking resistance, it is only short term and superficial; still, the strategies fail. A frightening system excavates a hopeless and helpless youth. Clearly, a manipulative string can tame a marionette into passivity and docility.

Perhaps, the reason why student resistance feels lukewarm, despite the flagrant militarization of select urban and rural areas by a “creeping Martial Law”, is that Martial Law itself is undeclared. Does the youth need to be set behind bars before it acts out on itself? When it decides to move and alarm the masses, it could be too late.

We cannot let these ‘chains and strings’ incarcerate us. History would illustrate how the youth became an indispensable catalyst for change. Now that the present political system is intensifying its campaigns of a “theatrical Philippines”, the students are called upon to formulate new modes of participation. In this world, “to remain passive is a grave transgression.”

Ang Love Story Ko.doc

2009-03-12T10:21:00.001+08:00

Tayo Ctrl + O

Ctrl + A
Ctrl + B
Ctrl + E

Ikaw Ctrl + C

Del

Kayo Ctrl + N

Ctrl + V
Ctrl + S
Enter

Bakit? Ctrl + J

Ako Ctrl + F

Ctrl + F
Esc
F1
Esc
Alt + F4

"Scene 1" by Luke Decena

Pino

2009-03-12T10:15:00.001+08:00

Munting binhi

Tumubo, lumaki

Namunga, matayog

sa isang ihip ng kaisipang gahaman

Pinutol, natumba

Sa luba’y nagbalik

tinabunan

… ng mga baluktot na pangangailangan

Ala-ala ng mga dahon

Kumakaway, nagsusumamo,

namamaalam

… kinalimutan

The Great Pandemic

2009-03-12T07:00:00.000+08:00

Yes, a pandemic of epic proportions is rapidly taking over the entire global community. It has unleashed its wrath on every nation, institutions and religious states. It infests and corrupts the host’s nervous system, and lodges there until morbid symptoms overcome the body. Not even the most advanced medicines ever created could match against this cataclysmic disease. For it is not of the bacterial, fungal or viral type – it is the infamous ideology of Hierarchy.

How many times have we felt its power infiltrate our living? Such demise is clearly seen in this grief-stricken nation. The National Government, the SLU Admin, church hierarchy and even hospitals – all tactlessly show their powerful crowns to every species below them. And oh! What a pity for these lowly members of society… What a pity for the common Filipino worker, the Louisian, the layman … What a pity for us student nurses – the lowest creatures in the food chain of the Medical Jungle.

The good-old organizational charts found in many buildings tell us one positive thing: the value of respect. Respect your co-workers and you earn their trust. But in reality, it is the respect we give to the faces found at the topmost portion of the org charts that often gives us the advantage. It brainwashes our mind to respect those Big Bosses no matter how unrespectable and disrespectful they are to us. By showing them your smiley face, you ensure yourself a seat for the favorites, while you get their egos bloated.

This Filipino Caste system happens in some hospital institutions. In fact, the victims of this highly contagious ideology are not the patients but most of the medical personnel. From a medical director down to the housekeeper. From the great consultants, to the resident physicians, medical interns, clerks, chief nurses, head nurses, nurses and down to the student nurses! Well, that’s the kind of hierarchy that settles who could shout, command and insult the other. That’s the hospital life we must painstakingly endure on the way to top. And yes, we get persuaded to climb the hierarchical ladder of the orgs, that in doing so we submit to the Bosses’ every bidding.

By far, we (student) nurses represent the majority of the workforce in the health care team. We carry out doctors’ orders, assess anything there is to assess, and do the dirty jobs – these are the important health measures that often go unrecognized. “Thank you” and “sorry” are rare terms for the hospital heavyweights, and even for some medical student-clerks who make “utos” to us as if we were electronic machines of the lowest brand. Hey, I thought we all belong to ALLIED health courses?

When the great consultant roasts a resident physician alive, the latter’s guilt feelings are displaced down his ranks. The anger stuff would all precipitate down to the Lowest Levels of the Hierarchy. Of course, that’s us.

Also as a student nurse, I often get the most lot from shoutings for being a maverick, an oddball. If you feel the need to graduate, well then you have to conform, conform conform! Stick with the rules, or you’ll end every school term finishing your extension duties and paying fees for it. “Attitude” matters, so they say. In this communist pink era, “attitude” equals discipline, and discipline requires conformity to rules – and that means you have to abide, abide, abide.

It’s good to have your instructors “remind” you of your stupidities. Hearing words like “third year ka na ‘di mo pa alam yan,” “ano’ng pinaggagawa mo” “huwag ka na magsalita, matatalo ka lang” “sige, IR ‘yan” and “nakakahiya ka, Mr. Agpasa” is a must for supreme learning (P.S. heavy sarcasm). To excel in your field of work you have to start low, and (unfortunately) be treated low. Sometimes, shouting and insults are tools that clinical instructors use to pierce your every nerve cell and to short-circuit your personality.

While many medical and nurse practitioners overfeed their egotistic selves, others are simply adorable for their unblemished personalities. One worth mentioning is Dr. R.M. whose specialization in cardiology exceeds the physical boundaries. Even Residents R and G, and some of the medical students show sympathy to an admirable extent. But still, these people are outnumbered. The Insensitives dominate.

Even the SLU Admin shows the symptoms of the pandemic. And for goodness’ sake! What is it again that I hear of another planned Tuition fee increase? Surely, an abuse of power and Autonomous status! Bakit taon-taon na ang TOFI? Ano ‘to? Annual TFI Celebration? May ribbon cutting pa sana ah, ta’s magpamudmod sila ng pera. My parents’ pockets have already been dehydrated. To say that the TOFI’s for SLU’s improvement is half-deceit. I wouldn’t react like this if they ever bothered to fix our nursing facilities and the age-old Net Library!

Don’t we SN’s deserve a little respect? Are we not worthy of the ‘services’ that we pay? Do we not spare these hospitals and schools from bankruptcy by fending them off with thousands, if not millions, of pesos from our tuition and affiliation fee? Where is the ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ they so talk about in their Ethics and Theology subjects? Surely, they are all easier said than done.

At times of desperation, we lay on our comfort zones and pretend that all these horrible stuffs are just episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. By this way, we only make fools of ourselves. For all these happen in real-time, with no edits and Photoshops (except for the faces everyone wears when faced with the enemy).Yes, we are plastics! Who’s not, anyway?

The great pandemic is showing no signs of weakening. It persists to devour every mindset of the heads of offices, every room in SLU, every neuron in our brains. It inflates the heavyweights’ pleasure spots with just the right amount to fuel them in maintaining their ideologies. After all, it’s nice to be on top. And to those abusives on top, perhaps they might like to read Kuwaderno 7’s poem Deceit:

You aren’t more intelligent by calling me stupid.

You aren’t more respected by disrespecting me

– you aren’t any better than me.
Today, a mere student will teach you.
Respect me and I will respect you.

The Way We are Known

2008-08-18T10:05:00.000+08:00

Imagine someone in his worst figure – a skinny, filthy, brown-skinned, dirty-haired guy garbed with low-lying eyeglasses, tight-fitting clothes, tattered black-and-white shoes, with a watch on the left wrist, and a bulky black backpack stuffed with white polka dots hanging at the back. If that guy who seems like out of breath from walking swiftly suddenly smiles at you, well then that could be me.

An ordinary day at the university always presents an army of stressors that never fail to infiltrate my already-infiltrated life. I find it hard to buffer them from breaking in to my ADLs (activities of daily living) since I am almost always too busy to do so. I would often wake up late, trying to savor every minute of sleep; then I would eventually end up panting while plowing each staircase leading to the topmost floor of whatever building there is on campus. Fortunately, I never have to pay a visit to the SAO; thanks to consideration! I also take extra notice of my charming eye bags that has already become a trend in the college. Well, you could guess – I am a third year nursing student.

I get my daily dose of medical terms and nursing interventions from instructors who seem to forget that we are only nursing students and not high-speed computer processors. Everyday, I acquire new diseases which I get from class discussions on pathophysiology. Return demonstrations from Skills classes also get to nag me. Include the Research factor, then the stress day has to be complete. By that alone, I could make the most out of the 500-peso library fee while getting a chance to scan old books that smell like foot. Community immersions also make my allowance evaporate. Nursing care plans, teaching plans, family health care plans, index cards, journal reaction papers, learning feedback diaries, and other printable projects are just some of the endless array of requirements that could either make us skip our meals, eat our savings or strain our wrists (carpal tunnel syndrome, anyone?).

I was also done with reviewing health care concepts which were quite interesting. What was ironic though was memorizing the concept of stress management, which was in itself another form of stressor. Students then have to execute defense mechanisms, another lesson in Health Care. But what annoys me most is the way instructors desperately cram on discussing voluminous lessons before the Final examinations in hopes of finishing the course syllabus. We were left but to stare at the “compensatory” handouts and reading assignments that were supposed to be discussed in detail. C’mon, give us a break!

Second year was way less frantic than third year. What belittles the former is that the latter boasts nothing but the nerve-wracking clinical duties. For three days in a week, we ramp those white and pink uniforms, as well as those paraphernalia. 24 hours of fulfillment or fear will elapse so quickly. Of course, the diminutive pink Code of Conduct booklet would flash before our very eyes, reminding us to dare not commit even just the tiniest error (as in wrong ink in charting) while on duty. I had learned the importance of this book during the last summer term. I had spent additional 32 hours in recompense of my negligence as a student nurse. Let us just say I run dry of good reasons to justify my deeds in my incident report (IR).

And yes, who could ever forget those two-letter combinations? They are somehow like magical incantations that clinical instructors utter to tame us. Fearful as it may sound, I deem it an important factor as to the discipline of student nurses in the clinical setting. You could just imagine how an SN would shake and panic after a little erasure has been made in a patient’s chart. IRs, demerits and extension duties are by far the real-life Fear Factor challenge in a student nurse’s life. But lecture classes on minor subjects and socialization outside the classrooms pose another side of the story. I feel unleashed and free after an RLE course. More often than not, we get branded BS in Noise for the clamor we make in the corridors.

“If your heart is not in the nursing profession, then you are free to go. This is not the place for you.” Very often do CIs reiterate this in the college. The statement truly addresses the need to love whatever nursing stuff you do, whether it be just from making simple SOAP charting to assisting in a major surgery. But many of student nurses whom I know do not see the good side in nursing. They would always blame their parents for having them forced into the profession. Eventually, they would say that was the reason for their failing marks in school. Well, whose fault was it anyway? I could not help but think of the sum of money being wasted every semester just for this pathetic excuse thinking that it is never easy for my parents to procure a 23-thousand peso down payment out of thin air!

I remember that day when I also doubted myself in my position as a future nurse. A few minutes before my CEE, my mind was blank on what course to take. Then I only had two options – Nursing or Accountancy. But since I loved biology more than math or logic, I then decided to take the entrance exam as a BSN applicant. To date, there was not a time that regret surfaced within me, only lots and lots of burnout though. As one nursing composition stressed, the journey has just begun…there’s no turning back now…

As I took up nursing, other aspects in my life become compromised. Compare my face before college and my face now, and you could see a total transformation – a totoy turned to a gloom-stricken visage,haggard as they put it. Also, my persistence to excel in this profession has led me to slowly murder my passion for the art of dancing. I could not join in extra-curricular activities because I greatly fear that I would fall from my academics. I have never foreseen that I would perform well in academics in college since I was more of a performer and only a second-grade achiever back in high school. So now, it is really too late to turn back from the standards I have already set; to think that my crashing down dozens of notches down in the Dean’s List is a big matter to others. It is truly hard when people’s expectations exceed your limitations.

In the course of my stay in the university, I have observed that much of the stressors do not really come from the things around me, but more of it comes from my self. Until now, I could not master my emotions so I could combat and manage stress. It engulfs me like how I engulf my favorite hot sizzling banana-cue! Entering the stress arena that battle within the spaces of my thoughts are other almost unbearable problems on finances, family and friends. I could not stop thinking over one stressful event until I lull into sleep. I could just get curious how my body tolerates them all!

The good thing though is that I have already made it a part of my life. It may be distracting and depressing, but I have to live with it. I can never avoid stress, anyway. Besides, I would rather choose three stressful yet fulfilling days rather than one boring and empty hour. My course is a tough and stressful one. If I could not hate nursing, then the only option is to love it.

And to think that being a nurse would bring me the greatest stresses of all, then I should be ready.

Special thanks to: Mama, Daddy, Ate, Ading, Inang;C2 “aras” pipz: dren, marvs, hannah, joyce, sam, ash, tim, audz, angel, jen, shiki; my Bloke Kuwatro peers SY 2006-2008 lois, hannah, jessa, angela, elaine; BSN III-C ernest, vikko, carlo, herschel, krisian, dea, lyndle, melody, leo, daivey, andrew; to knoll; all SLU-SNs; mam rona abul, mam lette, mam sonia, mam bayla, mam pangwi, mam soliman, mam pangwi, mam pachao, mam ochoco, dean; to the new W&B staff; and to my long lost friend whom I’m missing so much…

Communion

2008-06-16T09:58:00.000+08:00

Forever shall life become more dazzling with her, he thought.

He mustered all his courage and finally, three words erupted from his mouth like the seeping of a fountain amidst a jungle. The night was cold yet promising.

But this fragile, beautiful girl in her sweet smile replied to him the bitterest words he had ever heard.

“Look at the moon, her scars, her pale face,” she murmured to the winds. “Ever since, I have vowed to love its owner.”

It pained him to accept this, this fate more throbbing than the embers kissing his feet. She reassured him with her smile, her hair dancing away from his filthy cheeks. His love, hidden for a hundred and forty-three cycles of the moon, now revealed, and now over, too.

For him, nothing is most fitting but the love of a childhood friend. He crumpled the petite love letter resting from his hands, the red ribbons turned to chains. He tore it with the force of regret stemming from his clammy hands. He threw the pieces onto the raging bonfire beside him, his lifeless heart consumed in flames of his emotion.

“I’ll be waiting.” The rustle of leaves deafened his soul, the crunches of rocks and sand hardened his being, but the whispers of the old wind kept ringing in him. A promise of a lifetime.

Twenty years of never knowing and only existing… going by… gone…

Her habit concealed the once tempting hair. A blue gown wrapped her frail body. She soaked in the queue of those forever in love of serenity. She sung with the choir sung ago by the righteous. She was three people away from him.

Closer… closer… Fate was about to mend the past, to heal the wounds of sorrowful parting, and to create a moment that is theirs only to share. She parted her lips. He raised the body…

And then their eyes met and locked. His cheeks, now clean yet rough in grain carved by times of melancholy… her tranquil beauty stealing a look from behind her cloak. A love reunited by a love for the ultimate, and by a promise that defied a million seconds of lost memories.

She smiled. And so be it. “Amen.”