16. Read and understand Les miserable in French
17. Own and manage a successful restaurant chain
18. Build a huge and functional house
19. Found a foundation that would create jobs and would send children in schools
20. Marry a tall, smart, rich, happy, kind, loving, faithful, funny, good father and an “expert” man

I was fascinated that it is experiencing and witnessing great suffering that motivated him to formulate his theories.

He also had a strong academic background and had been involved in scholarly work at a very young age.

I want to be like him.

I also remembered my poorly written thesis on John Rawls’ a Theory of Justice and I am thinking of rewriting or more appropriately write a more compelling an sharper reaction to John Rawls’ tome.

I want to be a lawyer engaged in litigation.

I will also teach.

I will do academic research and formulate theories focused of politics and economics.

2. Aggrupation of power works.

3. Patience is a virtue (Especially if your waiting for your turtle paced connection.)

4. Net working makes life easier and makes your group stronger. ( Mafia Wars)

5, Read and follow tips but have your own strategy.

6. Ask those who have experience.

7. Do not be greedy. (The rewards are temporary and you usually end up being posted in the Hit List)

8. It pays to have a more abilities. (Enemies can not harm you that much.)

9. Start with earning money then grow your ability. (Level upgrade will be faster that way.)

10. Money does matter.

This is what I would like to do if I do not feel obliged to subscribe to social constructs.

1. BE A CHEF. I always find satisfaction when my cousin Lau says “Ang sarap ng potato salad.” Or when she helps me cook her all time favorite – fresh tomato soup. Or when my sister says “Ate gawa ka ng yema kase mas masarap kapag ikaw ang gumagaw e.” Or preparing my walang kamatayang buttered lemon tuna/spicy canned century tuna with egg/sinugbang panga. And I find it challenging when I prepare a steak or burger and one of the past boyfriends would complain that it is over done or undercooked.

2. PROFESSIONAL TRAVELLER. I just realized that with 50,000.00 and culling a lot of favors I could probably visit Palawan (My lolo on the mother side is there.) Baguio (a friend of a cousin is still there) Iloilo (I have an auntie who works there) Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Bohol, Singapore (a standing offer of a friend that he will pay for everything), Thailand (Ligay! Here I come!) and a hosts of other places. I just have to scour travelling agencies for promo airfares and impose myself on relatives and friend’s hospitality. Then I will post the photos in my blog. Blog about it. Or sell my photos.

3. PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER. Pay per post, they say pays a lot. And I have to just religiously drop entrecards to generate traffic and thus increase my ad sense page impression. I will then have the freesom to read,blog,watch tv, blog, eat, blog, live,blog. Do everything and blog about it.

4. PROFESSIONAL STUDENT. I could apply for a foreign funded scholarship and just study for a whole year. Chevning, Fulbright, Mombusho and what have you are recruiting scholars. Reality check though. Further studies benefits more those who have already chosen their field of expertise. And me? I am still questing. But a whole year of study sounds cool!

5. A BUM. I could just stop working and do nothing. Heck if my parents are willing to pay a number of people to work for them and they can send other people’s children to school even though we are not rich. They could probably afford to feed me for at least a year while I do nothing.

Which reminds me I think I already have a blog similar to this one.

I went to church and back. Quite timely,  since the release of the result is fast approaching.

I prayed at the adoration chapel chanting my secret powerful enchanted chant.

Sometimes i do not want to go to church or to pray. I often think that God knows what we already want or must have so why pray?

Often I think that we live in a vacuum and the things that are happening to us are already predestined by Go so why bother praying.

When I pray I feel like I am making a deal with God.

Take for example the reason why I embarked into the walk and run program – I find it hard to wake up early and I find it the most fitting sacrifice in exchange for my petition.

But in truth it is also selfishly motivated. I did the “sacrifice” because it will also ease the lower back pains that nags me at night and would probably remedy the I am stuck at 65kilos problem.

Come to think of it what is God’s use for my sacrifice?

So if the world and my life is predestined why do I negotiate with God?

Probably because even though things seem so final I acknowledge that God is still the entity that moves the Universeve and I can convince God that I know what I want and what I want is good for me and the entire order of the universe. Or maybe the thing that I pray for is what I am really destined to have and I pray because I do not want God to change His/ Her mind.

To the Force that moves the Universe hear my petition to ace the bar and I offer to you my sacrifice.

,

A few weeks back our water purifier after serving our family for more than ten years, bade us goodbye.

We started buying the five liter tank of purified water from a commercial distributor then.

At first I was ecstatic. It meant 24/7 hot and cold water because we also bought a water dispenser.

Then, I noticed that when my father or mother forgets to buy water we end up not drinking any for hours until any of them remembers or any of them happens to be in the city with cash for water.

I realized that the situation is absurd.

I grow up in Esperanza without bottled water. The closest thing that I came close to is the ice water. Water from deep wells and poured into a cellophane.

I used to fetch waters from the “bomba” water pumps that I fill into clay jars that we call in the vernacular as “Banga”

We are a below average average family in the social strata. And potable water is becoming a problem for us. How much more for the majority who wallows in the base of the social triangle?

Rice sufficiency – the nightmare of hunger.

In May of last year we had the rice crisis. Prices of rice skyrocketed from the average 20 peso plus price range to a high of 46 peso per kilo.

We survived that challenge. But have we learned from it? Have we changed our policies?

The thrust of development is still foreign demand driven. The arable and irrigated lands in Central Mindanao are in danger of being converted into African palm plantations and other areas in Mindanao are on their way to either becoming high value crop plantations or land for plants that provide alternative energy like jathropa.

The problem is that rice is the staple of Filipinos. Most could live without meat but not on a no rice diet.

What bothers me is that these kinds of challenges are reflective of the flawed policy that our government relies on.

Instead of strengthening our country through building up agriculture. We focus on exporting our goods and our people. Which would live us as preys when the globalization bubble bursts. ( I am not for globalization per se. But the mammoth capitalist monster that it created is bothering me.)

News reports currently boasts that our government has a fail safe plan for the upcoming global recession – government spending on infrastructure that would bring more jobs to keep the economy running.

Hopefully, these infrastructures would be the much sought after farm to market roads and post harvest facilities.

And maybe a little bit of spending on agricultural research would not help. And bridging the Department of Trade with the Department of Agriculture would boost the marketing of produce and would inject a bit of restraint in the pricing of these goods that even the farmers can still afford them.

Shut your face bombers!

My hometown Esperanza Sultan Kudarat experienced again a bombing on my birthday. On my birthday. I know I am such a bombshell but for God sake’s do not shell Esperanza with a bomb as a birthday gift. (Apologies for this inane comment – this is probably a testament of the fact that when you live with bombings and violence for most of your life you would not be that affected when you hear that a bomb was detonated in a checkpoint in your hometown.

The student of one of my aunties died on that blast and a policeman who was guarding the post was also injured.

The following day a grenade was thrown at a group of people converging at Oval Plaza in the city where I live. 25 people were injures including the papable in the gym where I intermittently go.

These bombing are a constant reminder that Mindanao may be the Land of Promise but it is also where the steely nerved, the shell shocked, the tolerant and those who strategically preserves a precarious peace dwells.

Those are what basically worries me and well the fact that I am stuck at 65 kilos is also a problem.

So you want more.

I am proud that I am a funny person and I have finally elevated my sense of humor from purely green ones to quirky, crazy and sometimes when I get lucky sensible and intelligent jokes.

I am proud that I am such a voracious reader. That I would read any shit and all those things made me a more resilient and relatively smart person.

I am proud that I have the ability to simplify things that no matter how complicated shit could be I could either see it in a more simple way or explain it to someone in a way that even a 7 year old can understand it. (Thank you UPDS!)

I am proud that I can already control my temper and finally mastered the art of not talking back. (Thanks to Karma!)

Most of all I am happy that I have regained my ability to be fearless and to dream big!

I feel like nothing is working for me.

I feel that you have forsaken me.

I feel that as if I have done a very unforgivable thing that all you have given me is fear, discontent and despair.

God please stop.

Lord all I am really asking for is for me to be HEALTHY.

108 pound body

the gloom to disappear

the money to be abundant

the debts to disappear (fully paid)

the acne to disappear

and for me to be a lawyer.

God I am tired of just hanging on.

Of just striving to survive.

Please make me a better person.

A happy person.

I’m tired.