but it feels like there's a hundred.
"These are all very good topics. Baka you can give the others that you will not do to your classmates who are having a hard time finding a topic. hehehe."That's scary. We would've preferred it if she picked maybe two and told us the rest sucks so we'd learn how to choose better topics. But we appreciate it anyway.
With great emotion I learned this morning of the ferry that was capsized in the typhoon that has raged in the Philippines. As I assure the people of these islands who have suffered from Typhoon Fengshen of my spiritual nearness, I offer a prayer to the Lord for the victims of this new tragedy at sea in which many children also seem to have been involved.Let us pray too not only for other people involved and affected. The families, the fisherfolk who depend on those shores for livelihood, for the officials of the liner, for the government and other organizations.
For years the show has been running, both female and male fans around the world devoured its episodes and with that, even the values they represent. And what values? Clothes, bags, whirlwind relationships and promiscuity. Sad. There's so much more to a woman than that. In fact, they shouldn't define a woman at all."For all their pretensions to envelope-pushing, the movie's producers apparently could not improve on the age-old answer to a woman's romantic yearnings: the very ideal of traditional marriage so often disparaged by the series. Even the promiscuous, materialistic fashion plates of 'Sex and the City' ultimately succumb to the desire to direct their erotic energies into something more enduring than one-night stands and shopping sprees. They want, as most women do, the kind of lifelong love that can survive wrinkles and stretch marks and the dowdier duds of old age."Let's just say it's all effective marketing, with a box office high being reached. But what a market! It's a pity really that women feel they are empowered by a show that depicts a world where estrogen rules while reason is undermined. There's no point, no purpose. The characters are all feelings and emotions and with hardly any mind work.
Sex in the City has conditioned this generation of women to imitate them by giving sex away, swearing like the Sopranos and wearing freak-show adornments. But it just won’t work. Men use women like that, but they won’t love them.
So here's my first feature of illustrations, a children's book by journalist Jean Perego entitled Joseph and Chico: The Life of Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat. This is really an interesting online find and it makes me embarrassed that a cat supposedly knows more about the Pope than we do. Hehe.
you realize you lost a book you've always treasured.
So I've seen 111 of the 1,000 Best Movies Ever Made listed by New York Times.com
"I believe that - if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression - that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns."In her words, I feel there are also traces of believing that writing as an gift. Although we know it can be developed as a skill, in some ways it works more like a vocation, something someone is born to do. Like yes, Kant's concept of genius.
"It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn't that the point of creation - to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE ... just don't sit on your work and suffocate it."And in the same paragraph:
"Don't pre-reject yourself. That's [the editors' and agents'] job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out and let destiny take care of the rest."My favorite part:
"The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: 'I’m going to write for an hour every day,' and then you won’t do it ... Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness."This one's not from Gilbert herself, but from film visionary Werner Herzog as response to a seemingly hopeless indie filmmaker who wrote him a letter:
"Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work."And the best thing to do about these things is to read the article yourself.
I've had coughs and colds for more than two weeks now. Really, am I that unhealthy? Though this acquired virus only caused me a total of 1 day in bed, around 10 days sitting-working, and 3 days out and about. Not bad, but it's tough when you're coughing all the time and all you want to do is work and finish everything lined up in your agenda. This virus has caused me some opportunities lost.
