2007 is over?!?!?!?!???

Before everything, please scroll down for my video message.

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Wow! It’s been 3 months since I started up this blog of mine and I never felt so great than ever. I found a home base where I can talk about things that interest me as well as stuff that I see worth talking about. As the year ends, it’s great to be in a place I can call my “blogging/journal writing home”.

My blogging life started all the way from deviantart and it was a roller coaster ride as I get to meet people, discuss stuff, debate and raise issues. To a certain extent it was fun, but at the same time it was frustrating. There were plenty of aspects in terms of communication that I disregarded; thus, I ended my affair with deviantart as a result.

Having a new blogsite means having a new lifestyle and being able to focus a lot more on what I think is very important towards becoming a better person. What is more important than to indulge myself with a lot of things this world can provide me? Yet the biggest fact that I know is that this world is filled with sooooo many things to discover, revisit, utilize, pragmatize and scrutinize.

Thus my expectations for 2008 zeroing on the things I need to focus a lot more on:

1. It’s definitely A MUST for me to study hard Japanese and Spanish to be able to gain all the opportunities to which those languages are being spoken. I need to keep on practicing how to write Japanese. For Spanish, I need to memorize a lot of the words as well as where the accents go. And ultimately, I have to start reading a lot of Correo Canadiense, Nihongo Journal, and other periodicals to continue improving my language skills.

2. I have about more than a hundred books and I only read 11 of them cover-to-cover: “The Pearl”, “The Great Gatsby”, “The Shipping News”, “The Power and the Glory”, “The Alchemist”, “The Fencing Master”, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”, “Kiss of the Fur Queen”, “Snakes and Earrings”, “Lizard” and “Goodbye Tsugumi”.

I read several books yet to be completed: “The Traveller”, “Angels and Demons”, “Futebol”, “What the Cat Dragged In”, “The Cave”, “Atlas Shrugged”, “Memoirs of a Geisha”, “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress”, “Paperback Original”, “When We Were Saints”, “Foundation”, “Youth”, “The Girl Who Played Go”, “Homeland”, “Obasan”, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, “Hey Nostradamus”, “All Families are Psychotic”, “Life After God”, “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle”.

MY GOAL is to read ALL the books I still have to complete and ALL the rest of the books in my library.

3. GET A NEW JOB! GET A NEW JOB! GET A NEW JOB!

4. I do love my family a lot more than anyone else in this world, unfortunately, I’m thinking of going a lot more with friends so that I can improve a lot with my communication skills.

5. Master my Linguistics Lessons through reviewing every book that I used in the program. It’s nice that I’m doing this because I have a lighter load this term.

6. Go to Book Clubs in Libraries or check out Book Reading Sessions around town

7. Do as much volunteer jobs and community service since I need all of them to put in my resume. Being a team player and being a good model to a lot of people is something that my new job will look for… probably hehehe

8. Keep up with Jazz, Gypsy Swing, Classical and Folk music

9. Check out some professors who might be able to have topics that I can use for my thesis. It’s something I really have to try since I wanted to get a Master’s Degree as one of my options.

10. Keep informed with that international exchange program in my university.

11. Get a MacBook or a really fast Windows Laptop. Though this is low priority.

12. Get in shape! Exercise, eat a balanced meal, not too much meat, not too much bread and rice, eat a lot of veggies and fruits, get under the morning sun if ever there is one.

13. Keep praying – cause it works!

14. Keep being open-minded. Being ignorant isn’t bringing you into bliss anymore.

15. Catch up with J-dramas and international films.

16. Catch up with go. Memorize and understand joseki, understand tsumego and tesuji properly, become a lot more familiar with sente and gote.

17. With chess, memorize the attack and defense openings.

18. Keep caring for other people. I feel much better with it rather than caring only for myself.

19. Catch up with Japanese language manga and other indie comicbooks.

20. Enjoy the Beijing olympics as well as the UEFA European Cup on 2008.

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In the coming 12 months, I hope I would be able to accomplish a lot of them (75% should do it). Nonetheless, as 2007 comes to an end (unfortunately), I would like to wish everyone a happy, prosperous and blessed new year!

By the end of 2008, I’m going to look back at this list to see if I accomplished these. It would be a great feeling if I did.

Seasons Greetings! (Video)

To all my friends out there, wishing you all the best this holiday season!

(My mom was laughing in the background & we were also watching “Santa Clause 3″ at that time. Video taken in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada with my brother’s MacBook)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Wishing everyone a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

I just love it when this season comes; though we couldn’t really feel it because of how busy life is through school and work. I couldn’t even do countdowns or talk about gifts or anything related to the usual stuff about Christmas that stresses you out. The only person who reminds me of the occasion is obviously the priest in our parish church; and to tell you, it makes me feel great cause I get to know the real reason why we still celebrate this occasion. Though I have become an open-minded Catholic, I definitely can’t accept the fact that people should disregard Christmas. It’s a day when we don’t stress ourselves and when we don’t think about anything else but having a great time with family and friends.

Our house is quite fully decorated with Christmas stuff. It’s really nice that we never forget to include in the nativity scene which is the real reason why there is Christmas. If it weren’t for the story and the artistic depiction of the event, we won’t think of his holiday as something that is of a great significance than lessay Family Day, a new holiday here in Canada, which is coming up on February next year. Christmas is a lot more of a Family Day than any other holiday ever created.

Thinking about this reminded me about those who left Christianity, never became or never considered being Christians in their lives. I’m not trying to force people to become Christians, but they should be reassured that Christianity has brought itself to a humble place in this world for a lot of people and that I myself consider the Bible as something that can help people to have a fruitful life as any kind of literature there is in this world.

The only thing I will not support are fanatics who would kill for what they believe in. For me, the foundation of Christianity is something that should gather people of the same interest with a mission to provide everyone with moral values that they can use in their lives practically.

And this occasion should remind us of what the meaning of Christ’s birth is for us in our practical lives: Giving, Loving, Sharing, Family, Acquaintances and Reflections

Well, there may be plenty of words left unsaid but nonetheless, I wish everyone to have a peaceful Christmas and I hope to be able to share more stuff here in the near future.

Ingrid Michaelson

“Take Me The Way I Am” – Ingrid Michaelson

I was able to watch a Chevrolet Commercial from Discovery Channel today – I was watching “Canada’s Worst Driver 3″ at that time – and I found the song really good!

I researched for the song and it comes out that I discovered a singer who I could put with the likes of American blues singer Norah Jones, Canadian pop-rock singer Leslie Feist, Scottish pop and alternative rock singer KT Tunstall, and Icelandic electronica and rock singer Björk.

Ingrid Michaelson is an American indie-pop singer who was able to get her song “Take Me The Way I Am” to play in the chevy commercial. It’s nice Youtube actually provided the actual song which has a music video and it’s the first one by the singer. I swear I would actually wait for every chevy commercial if ever I couldn’t find this song.

The music video is actually cute and it does give meaning to the song with the singer being different from everyone else who are dressed as clowns. I’m looking forward to see more of Michaelson in the future.

Foolquest by Bigberd

I was always telling myself to start reading this but it seems that my schedule is too hectic. The least I could do really with this is to organize the chapters in my site and somehow read it smoothly from the very first to the very last chapter. I’m hoping to get a copy of the book if ever the author, Bigberd, intends to publish it.

To those who may pass by this journal of mine (it’d be a surprise and a delight for me if ever there are some who would), please do read through the chapters of Bigberd’s “Foolquest”. I don’t have the synopsis though and I only read the first few paragraphs of Chapter 1 but it does engage the reader to look further into the story. If you want to be thrilled, this is a good literary work to digest.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

(c) Bigberd @ deviantart

1 John 4:4

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“Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

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in another version of the Bible, it says “Your failure is not your future. Defeat is not your destiny. You maybe knocked down, seven times but rise up, ’cause you are born to win.”

This passage is very interesting as it can be motivational. With success as one’s destiny, this passage promotes optimism that whatever we do in our lives, we will never go down as long as we keep up with it. It’s all within us really. If we ruin our paths in life, then we will sink and we will be destined absolutely to fail.

I do think of how my life can go on smoothly without any worries in mind. Of course as someone who believes that there is a supernatural being out there watching for us, I pray that I can be assisted through all my struggles in life and not just merely wish because wishes don’t necessarily become granted. And I have to acknowledge everyone and everything that have contributed towards my successes and failures and i always consider to use them next time I face more challenges.

But we can’t just give credit to something or someone for our destiny to succeed. We ourselves are the most important element towards that goal. We should always be aware of it. God is not a genie. God is a motivator and a helper. And our role is to use our freedom in order to meet our dreams in life which God would want us to attain anyways.