Remembering Uncle

The past two weeks had been both happy and sad for our whole clan. He went to the big city for his monthly checkup with his cardiologist. He felt chest pains. He was immediately admitted in the hospital and within two weeks he died.

He struggled with diabetes for years. This coming April was supposed to be his kidney transplant. A new life. A better life. That is what we all dreamed of. What happens now then? It's sad because after Grandpa died, he became the whole clan's father and now that he's gone, life as we know it will never be the same again.

We all dream of having a better life at some point. In our case, we wanted a better life for Uncle. A life where he is not restricted by his medicines, by the food he eats or by the activities that he do. We wanted to spend more time with him and why not? He was kind, gentle, humble and smart. His smiles were precious and his admonitions were authorities.

Uncle was the quiet, reserved type. They say no one really knows what goes on in his mind. But this is what we all know- he had a good heart, he fought for justice and for what is good, he cared for the poor, he loved his family and He loved God.

Before going to bed last night I chanced upon an old article about making an Ethical Will. Ethical wills are often written documents made to pass on values and wisdom to the next generation. These are your legacies, your own personal manual on life sifted by your experiences which you share with your family or other persons close to you in the hope that they may preserve and even follow what you value. These may be stories of your family history or simply letters of love to your loved ones.

Think not of evil, for evil thinking leads to evil doing, (Eleazar of Worms)

Avoid bad society, make thy books thy companions, make thy book cases and shelves be thy gardens and pleasure-grounds. (Judah Ibn Tibbon)

Never turn a poor man away empty handed. (Eleazar the Levite)

Uncle believes these things and if he had made a written ethical will, I'm pretty sure I can find these words there.

We have days left before his funeral and we are spending these times remembering, reminiscing, crying, laughing, and praying. We are all truly going to miss him but we are all also happy that he is now home with the Lord. God bless you, Uncle. We love you so much. May you rest in peace.

Source: Wikipedia

Blogger Template and Blogger Background for Dummies

As if you are not having trouble enough thinking what to blog about then here comes the trouble of choosing a blog design. I know newbies like me like to browse the web for that perfect blog to get inspiration from.Then trouble begins. "Oh, I love this blog's design!" " Oh, I love this one, too and this and this..."

Open Google search. Enter "free templates". Click download. Go to your blog's html editor then edit html. Voala! A new design! Not! You preview your blog and some of your widgets disappear. What's worse is that you don't even like the design after all. Well, cry no more. For newbie bloggers who can't get enough of blog designs but do not know how to edit html, here's a fairy for you.

The Background Fairy offers free, yes, free backgrounds for your blog without you changing your blogger template. The problem sometimes with changing blogger templates is that a lot of the codes get lost and deleted. Also, new  buttons  or page elements are created which you don't know how to edit. Even if you know how to edit html, sometimes the task is too difficult especially for dummies like me. It's hard to trade those precious buttons and widgets you made for your blog for a blog template that you may or (God forbid) may not like. The solution is quite simple. You just leave the blogger template alone and just change the background.

I have tried this in Blogger, just go to your Blogger dashboard, click "Layout" then click "Add a Gadget" and choose "Html/Java". Copy the code that the fairy will provide and place it in the "Content Box" of this html gadget. Click "Save", sit back and enjoy your new blogger background.

"How to be Free"

Sometimes we don't even realize we're being boxed in. We forget how to be free. Until one day the barriers we always thought were there suddenly weren't!

I just have to post this. This cures a "robin moment" , don't you think?  What a lovely, funny, even heart-warming commercial by LG. I might just buy that TV (SL Series LED LCD TV), too. I hope they have stuffed toy versions of the birds as freebies.;-)

We Are What We Believe

"To believe that the young do not feel deeply, desperately and wondrously is a grievous mistake." Robin Easton

We are what we believe and I believe I can sing. Well, not American Idol material (although I'm secretly dreaming I am the next Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood), but I can sing. I never thought I had the voice until one day my grade school teacher called me to sing for her a song. I couldn't remember what my "audition" piece was but I remember how she told me to tell my parents I will have to stay after school hours for the next couple of weeks for choir practice. Congratulations! We were going to have a school concert and I will be singing with the choir and just like that, I believed my teacher that I can sing. I was seven (7) years old then and singing opened up a whole new world for me- the world of music. I learned how to sing better and even directed a  few chorus in high school(and won contests for that). I even learned how to play the piano, guitar, and a little flute.

Reading Robin Easton's story made me appreciate my childhood more. Looking back now I didn't realize then that I was blessed to have grade school teachers who quickly identified my potential and pushed and groomed me to be the best that I can be. I still remember how they made me read stories from this machine which rolls out the sheets of paper of  a story going a hundred miles an hour! It turns out it was a speed reading instrument to gauge your reading ability and I passed it every time. The next thing I know I was accelerated to the first grade in just months (I think I was only 6 years old then). They made me memorize tons of texts, Bible passages and oratorical pieces. Oratorical pieces? I didn't even know what oration meant and I wasn't sure I even liked it, but I won 1st or 2nd place each time they made me join a contest. For something I thought I wouldn't like, it came as a surprise to me when I found myself joining oratorical contests in high school (and yes, I won a lot there, too). 

My mother always tells me that I can never know if I am good at something if I don’t even try. "You might fail", she says "and that is fine, but you won't know if you'll succeed if you don't try." That had always been my motivating factor whenever I have my "robin moments" to try new things and venture into unfamiliar territories. I do not always succeed, but I find that even disappointments can bring out your potentials.

"Got Goat?"

Let's say you are being charged of corruption but thanks to an amnesty deal, you are free to go about your business without any fear of prosecution. Suddenly that amnesty deal is nullified, made ineffective. What do you do? Well, sacrifice a goat of course!

Apparently, that is what President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan is doing (at least in the eyes of his critics). Sadaqah, an Islamic term for "voluntary charity" is any act of generosity which may be in a form of money or meat of a slaughtered animal given out to the poor to ward off evil or misfortune.

President Zardari is the husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In 2007, an agreement for amnesty also known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, was made between Benazir Bhutto and then-President Pervez Musharraf allowing Bhutto and Zardari, to return to Pakistan without facing prosecution over alleged corruption. Last December 2009, the Washington Post reported the decision of the Supreme Court nullifying the amnesty deal.

As far as slaughtering animals for good luck, I know that some people in the Philippines still do slaughter animals for good luck, as in slaughtering chicken and letting the blood drip on foundations of houses or buildings before they are built.

Blogging my Way Out of Limbo

I'm back! I'm sorry to have been gone so long. It's partly because I don't know what to blog about and partly because I don't really know how to blog. So, I have been reading a lot about blogging and I have never been overwhelmed in my life on such a topic! There is blogging for fun, blogging for a cause and to my surprise- blogging for money. I want to learn how to blog in this time where I am neither here nor there. I recently resigned from my job. I am looking for a better job now and in the meantime I decided to make blogging my new hobby.

So, what is blogging and how far has this trend gone? I have been reading this article by Mark Penn and I think blogging has opened up a window for people to uncover the hidden writer within themselves. It's true that not everybody can write, but at least everybody can try. It's also true that not all bloggers out there make money online but whether or not blogging has financial benefits to the blogger, the effort that one makes in blogging refines writing as an art as well as the individual. That in itself defines culture and that makes blogging an important tool in establishing civility.

Although, we cannot discredit the fact that some bloggers only care how to make money even if it means posting low quality blogs or even employing things to cheat the system for them to earn money, still there are those who take time to create blogs with unique, engaging and memorable contents. I take my hat off to these group.I agree that this group needs to be recognized and yes, to have more laws made for their protection and benefit.

Writing a blog takes so much  time. From choosing a topic to researching, one needs not only to be resourceful but also creative to get your point across. Even if you are not blogging to make money, what every blogger has  in mind is how to get traffic- how to get people to hear (or read) what you have to say every time. Whether you are a big corporation blogging about your products or a simple lady letting everyone in on the secret ingredient to your best recipe, it's important to know how to present your ideas effectively.

As for me, blogging has proven that being in limbo is not such a bad thing. With all the pros (polishing my writing skills, social interaction with a wider audience, and hopefully make money online, etc.) and the cons ("no enforced ethics code" according to Mark Penn, no stability for those trying to  make blogging a living, and unclear legal protection for free speech, etc.), blogging is a platform for one to continue educating himself or herself.

Be informed. Don't stop being curious. Preserve credibility. Become a better person. Blog your way up to a way of life. That is blogging for me.