Hope

For the last several days, my strength has been drained by folks who are without hope and because they have none, choose to see the bad side of things. I nearly lost myself. 

They have, in my opinion, a different definition of hope. Maybe because this world has always accepted hope as wish or as some spell you speak to keep the bad at bay. Sad with this sort of view is that bad remains the focus and where you focus is where you will soon find yourself.

A good friend once gave me this quote: it is so difficult to soar like an eagle if you are surrounded by turkeys.

Hence a promise to myself. 

If I walk out in the middle of your angry discourse, it has nothing to do with bad manners but proper choices. If I am silent over your concern things might go bad, on my side of the fence might go bad does not exist. Will be good, however, forever blooms.

Life is too short to be spent on things that will break the heart. And because of that, true living becomes a quest for all that is good in spite of. 

Indeed, being alive is about hope and hope, I believe, is the confident expectation of good.

Thank you Alex, Mike, Anthony and Armin for helping me gain my bearing.  

Home School is...

(A guest post by Mikaela Angelika G. Jaluag)

Catholic Filipino Academy Homeschooling for me is priceless!

I have learned a lot of great and amazing things here. Who said we homeschoolers do not have any socialization practices? Well you got it all wrong and this video speaks for itself.

These are our weekly interactions, our Wednesday Classes, our weekly fun-time bonding. We really enjoy every second, minute, hour that we are together for here we have fun while learning. Here we have our academic lessons, interactions, field trips, recollections, retreats, outreach programs, camping, educational-formative talks and a whole lot more. We homeschoolers, enjoy what every student in a big school gets to enjoy. Maybe even more.

So whenever class is suspended, unlike regular school students, we feel really bad missing and failing to attend this weekly date. Class suspension is, for me, missing the one day that gives us real joy.

There were pressures and challenges too, YES! But thanks to our parent-advisers, teachers and our parents for being with us in this wonderful journey. Through their love, support, motivation and patience we learned to work as a team and, importantly, as a family.

Timid as I was before, I have learned to explore new things here; my love for God, my family, my friends and my talents as well. How to be independent and responsible is one big move for me, too. As a homeschooler, we are taught how to be good leaders and successful entrepreneurs. My school have very warm, friendly and spiritually-motivated staffs, parent-advisers, everyone making you feel welcome and accepted. So come on and join our team of homeschoolers and be part of it. I promise you, not only will you learn a lot, you will be having a whole lot of fun.

Credits to Tito Bo Sanchez. You are not only a genius but a blessing to us and our parents for putting up the first Catholic Homeschool provider here in our country. Not only did you help mold us spiritually with your very uplifting words, you also helped us realize that there is much more to learning, that education can be fun too! Thank you for making homeschooling a fun way to learn.

Homeschooling is truly A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!

Ancients

…. is how the world prefers to see and label late 50’s like me. And nowhere else this rings the loudest than in my chosen sport. For many, I am too old to be riding those roots and ruts and drops on my mountain bike that me and Carmella lovingly calls Tracy. Yes, for many, I am ancient.

But is it I and the ones like me who are ancient? If the view comes from they who believe I should be counted among those who limit their life adventures to morning walks inside the Manila Memorial Park,  followed by round (or square) table discussion of current events from the free newspaper they get for having breakfast at McDonald’s, then ancient belongs to them. 

Me and my ilk would rather see our limits, hear our breathing, and define for ourselves how brave is brave. We would rather live our life and live it to the fullest. We would rather mount that bike and ride that dangerously off-cambered path leading to the trail head, pedal like crazy up that cursed uphill, leaning your bike towards to that tight single track turn, in the attack position every time.

Oh yes, we are ordinary mortals. Like the Manila Memorial Park Morning Walkers Inc., we do round (or rectangle) table discussions. In Bebe’s along Victoria Avenue, we talk about our steeds, not to boast about our treasure for that belongs to the poseur more than the mountain biker, but anything that levels you up from the ordinary is always hot topic and worth discussing.

And so we ride. Like Dan and Demjur who are also in their late 50’s, we ride. For no experience reminds us we are alive better than being on our bikes and hitting the trails. Clip in!