Check this out.

Hmm, I'm still kind of shy about it but if there is one big way for me to inspire others to reach out to their community, I'm always up for swallowing all my insecurities to do it.

Mwahs.

I never really was a diehard music fan. I'd never die nor kill myself because of music. But c'mon, who doesn't like music anyway?
Guy Berryman of Coldplay.
I've listened to different music genres and started with boyband pop music like everyone else my age. I mean, who hasn't gone gaga over the Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls or even Blue, especially girls of the Generation Y? But then I've grown tired of ballads that idealize love or the lost of it. It was already all too lethargic for me.

Eventually the music of those pre to post-pubescent boys and girls reduced in popularity at some point and so I shifted to pop rock and discovered the likes of Blink 182 and Matchbox 20. It's sometimes a respite to listen to raucous but still-sensible rock lyrics other than crooning, sentimental pop love songs.

Then The Corrs entered the spotlight I put up while I was singing the lines of "All the Love in the World" in the shower. After all, it's not everyday you see an instrument-playing band of three girls and a boy with a tin flute, bodhran, and violin and still immensely successful. Have you ever listened to an Irish jig, or maybe one of The Corrs' instrumental singles like "Toss the Feathers"? It's a distinctive breed of combined country and pop rhythms that shouts "cool" and "mild" at the same time.

After a while, there was LeAnn Rimes, a young pop-country artist who sang the soundtrack of the hit teen film Coyote Ugly. Before her, I thought I was done with love ballads but I was wrong. Her voice, charm, unknown popularity, and gentle music are just right for me.

Despite the empathetic, unpredictable music of pop-country artists The Corrs and LeAnn Rimes, rock is still my kind of sound. I still enjoy listening to Matchbox 20 and also heed the songs of Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, and even of veteran rockers like Oasis, Lit, and U2. The irony of it is that I love rock but I don't consider Korn, Slipknot, and other notorious metal rockers as musicians but as noise-makers. They give me intense headaches, nosebleeds, and an aftershock of hating the world.

So if you ask me to describe my kind of music, I'm going to answer: definitely pop-country, rock, and a little dose of Eminem. How about you?

Right now, I'm so inspired. I just read a Time magazine's Commemorative Issue article about the late, great Pope John Paul II.

When I saw the multi-awarded film Million Dollar Baby with Althea almost two months ago, I asked myself if euthanasia is morally and logically right. If you see your loved one tremendously suffering in his deathbed, begging to remove the tubes sustaining his life, would you do it? I asked myself that question and found it hard to answer but the movie answered it by Morgan Freeman's character deliberately disconnecting Hilary Swank's character's tubes and thus, ending her suffering. After all, it hurts to see someone you love so much toil in immense pain in front of you, right?

This is the cover of the issue I read.

Pope John Paul II, even after his death, answered my question. While the U.S. was debating when to remove a feeding tube from the weak, struggling Pope, the Vatican continued to put the Pope on one. Why?

Nancy Gibbs, the writer of the Time article, wrote, "The Pope made his message was clear; that life is God's alone to give - and to take."

I was relieved and surprised to have my questioned answered right there. I know it's difficult to watch someone suffer but listen to this ... last, last Sunday, I heard 6 homilies by different priests on TV. Of course, all of the homilies were about the same topic, they are only related differently by the priests. All of them were completely inspiring and enlightening but one of them emphasized that the road to Heaven is narrow and very, very rocky - that one suffers because God shows him the road to Heaven.

So there, if a situation was put in front of me, when several people would be deciding whether to cut off the tubes sustaining a person's waning life, I won't do it. Because, after all, LIFE IS NOT OURS, IT'S GOD's.

I have a new motto now and the late Pope gave it to me: Be not afraid. Why should I be afraid, anyway? God has given me no reason to be.

Grab your rifles, synchronize the satellites, and get your men moving; I'm declaring WAR! Yes, you heard it right - WAR.

Who wouldn't declare war anyway if two of your favorite NBA teams have lost two games in a row in the 2005 Playoffs? The Sacramento Kings are having a hard time versus Seattle Supersonics while the Memphis Grizzlies also lost to Phoenix Suns. My excuse for Sacramento is that most of the players are from injuries and they lack confidence. The Kings have weak defense; they're a shooting team and they need to improve the defensive half of their strategy.

Death to the Sonics and the Suns!

On my other hand, it's entertaining watching Memphis and Phoenix battle. Basketball fans know that Phoenix finished number 1 in the NBA Season while Memphis is only the 8th seed but heck, the Grizzlies are putting up quite a game. Phoenix is struggling versus the Grizzlies but Phoenix always gets the points at the end.

I'm just so angry right now that I'm declaring war. My teams are going to get up and not lose everything without a fight.

I was going to do the same on the Phoenix Suns' logo but I was stricken with laziness, so I made it for the Sonics logo na lang. Later on, I'm going to post my Sacramento Queens logo but you might steal it from this blog so I'm going to decide pa.

Before I went to sleep last night, I was thinking of what to post here today and I couldn't think of a topic. After all, what I did yesterday was watch re-runs of Friends in videos that I rented for such a cheap price and just hang around in front of the television.

Have you tried watching Friends? Two words: totally hilarious. I know that the TV series already ended with its season finale last year but if there are reruns in local or cable channels, catch it. Try watching one whole episode and you, mark my words, will not stop laughing ... like I was yesterday. Kim, my first sister, was watching the first season with me and she was laughing so hard I was already wondering how she could breathe in that.

Last night, I watched the the tennis film Wimbledon with Mom and Kim. It's a cute movie and you'll appreciate it even though you don't know a single damn thing about tennis. As for me, I've always loved tennis and I'm always read latest happenings in international tournaments. The film had such an effect on Mom that she proposed to send us to tennis lessons if there's something like that nearby. Wow, it'd be awesome learning how to play tennis.

The German Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected as the 200th something something pope, and the next head of the Church. Now he's already Pope Benedict XVI. They say he is orthodox and that's good, isn't it? Well, a big warm welcome to the new Pope and I'm looking forward to what he will do to improve the world and to widen the scope of Christianity to those who have no faith.

Being an attorney someday is my biggest long-term goal since I was in fourth grade. Yes, my mind was already made up that I'm going to pursue law because I've always known that it's a noble job. I'll be able to help people and earn bucks at the side. But lemme assess it: do I really want to be a lawyer? Or is it just the sound of being an attorney makes me think of running rings around somebody?

Like everyone, I've gone through many ridiculous and, at times, absurd ambitions when I was a kid. I wanted to be an astronaut, a marine biologist, a historian, and an architect. Why ridiculous and absurd? First, the Philippines has no spaceport to accommodate its own space missions and in that case, no astronauts. Being a marine biologist is a childhood thing. You know how kids think science is fascinating and fun. Well, to Einsteins out there, congratulations to you, but now that I've gone through physics and chemistry, I'm aware it's not exactly "fun and fascinating." A historian! That's not a real occupation and it's more like just a hobby. I'll be better off to being a museum caretaker than be a historian. Lastly, architecture is an awesome field but I never really was inclined to drafting, schematics, and those blue prints. Dad is an architect. He designs houses but he's really also a geodetic engineer. He's a mathematician but that's him, not me, and so architecture’s also not for me.

If you ask me now what I want to be, I'll give you several answers: a lawyer, a member of the jury, or a legal representative. Sum them all up and you'll get one answer: an attorney.

Ask me again and I might give more answers: a filmmaker, a teacher, a writer ... all of which I'm kind of pursuing this coming June. I'm going to take up BA Journalism first then proceed to law proper in a law school.

I love films and one of the reasons is that filmmaking is a subtle and somehow, meticulous art that I want to change the outlook of Filipino people on films. I don't want them to look at movies superficially but in a dramatic manner like how art aficionados analyze the works of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Picasso. And some people do that when watching the auteurs, but only some. Most don't.

I want to be a teacher because I think I have that inclination, I adore kids, and it's the profession we often understate. I want to be a writer because I have a unique ( or weird?) way of looking at or into things. As if it's all valid.

So, you see. I'm going to UP, pursuing four of my biggest ambitions. Mom made me promise the other night that I'm going to be a lawyer. That's their dream for me and it's my dream for myself and for the people I'm going to help. So there, I really want to be a lawyer. You know how I just love asking myself questions whose answers I already know.

The venerated head of the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop of Rome passed away at 3:37 am (Manila time) today. It is a time to look back at the holiness and momentous contributions of Pope John Paul II. It is not a time for regret though 'cause we all know that he's going Heaven, he's going to heaven, he's going to heaven.

It is the first time that I felt grievous for the death of a world icon. I didn't have the opportunity to see him when he visited the Philippines in 1995 because I was just in first grade then but he touched my life and his influence has been immense on billions of people and not only Catholics at that.

Let me enumerate some of his work:
He is one of the factors of the liberation of the Soviet Union. He influenced the restoration of democracy and religious freedom in many countries. He also governed the Catholic Church from solid conservatism, opposed political participation of priests, and explained the issues that continue to divide the Christian churches. He's not only the leader of the Catholic Church but also an esteemed icon of many religions and Christian denominations. And most importantly, he was living example of the goodness of God and he's a great man who cannot be described with only a few words.

I can write endless things about him and there isn't one that's not good. He deserves the title John Paul the Great to distinguish him in history and to emphasize what he did for the world.

That's the Pope gazing out on the Holy Land from Mount Nebo. It was from this site that Moses first glimpsed the Promised Land.