Just another vandal issue

Just this year, a certain school repainted their gates to beautify their institution. They prepared and spent thousands just to emphasize aetheticism to promote wellness and at the same time to tell people around the community that their school has improved, or something like that. After the said project, the administrators, and others saw the effect of their expense. Beautiful walls with carefully painted designs and all those stuffs were seen by the public. But then one view was unacknowledged, the presence of persons who vandalize and make the clean and newly repainted area, dirty to look at. Now, after months of displaying such act, the newly repainted area are covered up with different messy symbols.

This is the current problem in the city. Their presence makes the city dirty. With their presence, too, promotes untidiness which will be sterotyped then as the undisciplined individuals. They really make the city ugly. But, this blog   did not mean to discriminate the work of art brought about by murals just like the other places but, this work of art should be put in their proper place.

With the current situation of the city towards the issue of vandalism, implies that people are creative. They have a sense of work of art. But then again, this behavior should be put in place. Another thing is that we also differ from our intentions. May it be that you vandalize to express, to experience its beauty, or just merely to disorganize and bring the city into its ugliness. We all know that. But the focal point of this item is the other implications of vandalism to the community. This means, the bad effects to the society.

People, more particularly the youth, are doing this activity not merely for expression but for making severe damages of the cleanliness of the community.

This picture is taken from the internet, situated in Corrales-JR Borja Sts., Cagayan de Oro.
The wall of the school near Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan.

Let's do something about this existing problem. Let's help the government clean this kind of mess.

As a leader: Think first, and then stay calm

Early this morning, one of my groups have an existing problem. God! It's killing me. I have so many problems to entertain and solve, yet there's this problem added. But, God reminded me that I should think first to my actions if when I became so aggressive, would this solve the problem? No, I don't think so. According to Paul, the apostle, when he told Timothy (Second Book) that as a leader, we "should stay calm". Okay, so preferably, I calmly tried to figure out things though I really wanted to cry. But, I should be strong.

There are some things that leaders forgot. They, sometimes, outbursts their emotions forgetting the fact they already went beyond the boundary. They are overpowered by their emotions, rather than their cognition. Like for instance, try to relate the leadership of Hitler. What happened? Due to his desperations and deprivations when he was young, he lead the nation with fierce.

Consider this Hilter's statement before he became a barbarous leader,

"In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible."


The degree of impact of emotions to leadership is really big. But this does not mean, that we, as leaders, should be overpowered and use powers to destroy or revenge, but a gateway to improve people's lives rather than considering much of yourself. It is better if these experiences are used for the betterment of everybody that they won't experience the same things as you did before but rather, use them as an outlet to plug in a life that would let the community experience the other way around. Instead of thinking the same way as Hilter,

At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the Nazi movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!	”
—Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934[ This is not right. Let's be leaders, not just merely dictators. Empower others. Inspire them to be like you. Think first, and then stay calm..

Why wait, why not now - LET'S DO SOMETHING FOR A BETTER CDO TRAFFIC

Amongst the citizens who probably knew the terrible accident happened last Thursday. A Bugo liner crashed due to human errors. Imagine, a PUJ versus a 10-WHEELER TRUCK. Picture out what happens if they crash. Terrible!

Others see it as a reminder of life, that life is temporary. Well, it's correct but why not diagnose the other view? There will lesser accidents if drivers are responsible enough to be well-kept in terms of road safety. But don't get to blame only the drivers, consider the passive, apathetic, aggressive citizens who just walk and cross the roads as if they are walking in a fashion ramp. This is the current situation of Cagayan's traffic. But we just have to focus first on one element of accident, a major factor that would complete the essence of accidents. Human error, in the view of the drivers. Irresponsible drivers nowadays are very evident. Proofs are there. Drivers won't bother for their speed, if they are too fast or not. They don't even bother if they are parked in the appropriate lane to unload and load passengers. They just land in the middle, without even considering the  fact that there are still many other 4-wheelers that use road to go on to their travel. Another, nowadays, drivers (public or private) do not have seminars as provided by the government as preparation for the driving stage. They just got the license from the LTO without a training. This is really happening in the city. RTA's don't even bother the pace of the driver's speed. (I really encourage a more intensive monitoring for this).

With these, accidents are really visible enough, resulting for deaths. People bait their lives for another call for responsibility among the people. I pity them. If the people just try to have a diagnosis and try to follow the dos and don't s provided by the authorities, perhaps the lives of these people wouldn't be a sacrifice to raise up this problem.

As Kagay-anons, let's do something about it.

Just finished the PWT devo!

It seems so unpredictable to perceive the mysterious powers of God. This day seems to be freaking me out and the whole day, I got to scan the notes. This is making me insane. But then I was calmed when the ministry head of the Pray and Worship Team, Rose lead the session.

God! I feel so weak when I got to call Him but I tried my best to give my best shot for the Lord. Though I feel so light, so vulnerable, I made to call Him in my way.

This is the way my day would end. So holy, making me cool in the sense that I made to prepare myself for the next day with the very guidance of the Lord.

Thank you Lord!

A complete picture of a true leader

(This is taken from my daily devotion, dated January 11, 2011, 6:28 AM)

1 Timothy 3: 2-3, 7-10, 13

"That's why officials must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage. They must be self-controlled, sensible, well-behaved, friendly to strangers and be able to teach.They must not be heavy drinkers or troublemakers. Instead, they must be kind and gentle and not love money...Finally, they must be well-respected by people who are not followers. Then they won't be trapped and disgraced by the devils. [Church] officials should be serious...and they must have a clear conscience and hold firmly to what God has shown us about our faith. They must first prove themselves. Then if no one has anything against them, they can serve as officers...Those who serve well as officers will earn a good reputation and will be highly respected for their faith in Christ Jesus."

Paraphrasing the qualities or shall I say the characteristics of a good leader (by Christ), we have these:

1. A leader must be faithful. Faithful in marriage in serving or in doing his commands.
2. A leader must be self-controlled, sensible, well-behaved, friendly, and able to teach.
3. A leader must not have any undesirable traits to possess.
4. A leader must be well-respected. But to earn respect, a leader must respect them [people] too.
5. A leader must be serious [especially during work].
6. A leader must listen to the clear voice within. A voice which leads you to a good way.
7. A leader must show integrity.
8. A leader must serve well with the guidance and blessing from our Lord Jesus Christ.

If these are possessed by a potential leader, everyone is assure that that person is sent by God to serve them. This leader is whole-heartedly serving the people, treating them gently because this leader knows they are creations of God.

Prayer:
I pray for a successful [campus] elections this February in Xavier University. May it be a peaceful one. Leaders who will win from this election must let God guide them to their decision-making. They must not let their selves divulge to earthly desires. Instead, serve the others with all their hearts.

God keep us all!

The Turning Point (My first blog)

Chapter 1
"You are my God. I worship you. In my heart, I long for you, as I would long for a stream in a scorching desert." Psalms 63:1


I have known this friend of mine for years but this is the first time that I could create a detailed profile of her life. Today, she really is passionate to everything she does. She enjoys her life right now as if she has her day as her last. She laughs at its peak till she is satisfied. This is the first chapter of her life that she began to speak about God for good. As far as I've known her, she doesn't act like Paul, the apostle, who preaches or sermons those people whom she think isn't doing right. Whenever she tells them about that, she always rely and support to the texts in the Bible. I really find her awkward to hear her speaking like that. She doesn't act that way. But, for months of being a consistent Christian, I began to accept her new spectrum she's viewing. If you'll gonna ask me how did she do that, well, I cannot answer that question if you'll not talk her personally about that. But somehow, she told partly the things related to the issue of renewal.


She told me that last year, it was the first semester of her second year in college, she met an old friend, Sasa. Sasa invited my friend to have a Bible study with her. My friend laughed when Sasa sends her the invitation. My friend felt it odd to have a bible study with this lady. She thought that she is so desperate for her to do that and even argued that she already knew Christ that much. I asked my friend, "how come that you even you feel like it's a boring thing to do, but why still meet her to do it? You may refuse the invitation, if you want." I really don't know why but at that time she is somewhat embedded with a spirit or something that she became a knew person [I am talking to]. So, that's it. My friend accepted the invitation and tried a new act, a challenging act to make. 


From then on, they continually meet for months up until such time that my friend I knew changed. She acts the way I didn't expect her to be. She knows how to pray much rather than stating the whole memorized prayers. She always inserts a text from the Bible to support to advice to people. I really don't expect that she will show off the different "her" I got used to company. She kept silent for days. She tends to close her eyes rubbing her entire face with her both hands as if she has a big problem. I just leave her for the sake that she whatever she is encountering, I let her call me. I won't force her to tell me the entirety of the story. Up until such time that it was September, 2009, she is the new friend I am facing. I really saw the different friend I get used to hang up with. I really don't know what happened but I really saw the prints of change in her. I knew her as a very fierce person. People see her as a person whom they cannot dare to compare with their selves since they knew this person as a very unreachable person, so delicate that they couldn't even try to make fun of me. Though she has tons of friends but most of her time, she is always alone. I am her only friend who dares to mock her to wake up. That was her before. But know I saw the big difference. She is renewed. I am puzzled so much that I couldn't control my own temptation to ask her. I asked her, "why are you acting like this? It's been such a long time that you didn't tell me what's going on!". I was shocked when she just smiled when I asked her that way. "I am the new me. I am renewed and I appreciate the real peace in my life now that I didn't know before."That's it! Wonderful reply, friend. Those phrases made me more eager to ask her for more details. Later on, she then told me that she was baptized. She now belonged to a new church she thinks that God set her to be with for the longest time. Now, she's more intimate with Christ.  Her lifestyles changed till the very tiniest bit of her actions renewed, even her own perceptions about life, all suddenly changed. I really knew her as a very time conscious person. She hates late comers, she easily bores whenever she waits for a company. She doesn't want to waster her precious time since"time is gold", she says. She's not the ambitious friend I knew but the gentle, humble and kind friend I saw. She's brainy though, but the thing that I got to emphasize is that she diverted into a new creation. She's the person I really have to know once again. But how come did I say these things yet you don't have a concrete picture of who she is before. I'll tell you the very details of her life before she began to sermon and talk about God.


Chapter 2
" I asked myself, 'what can the next king do that I haven't done?' Then I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and stupidity...wisdom is like having two good eyes; foolishness leaves you in the dark. But wise or foolish, we all end  up the same." Ecclesiastes 2: 12-14


Indeed, she is tough, brainy, unreachable, passionate yet fierce. Who wants to be with this kind of person? Though she's intelligent, dependable in all the things that she does but she's so like tigress whenever she sees faults. Perfectionist. She wants to see all things perfect. Yet, she has no friend to lean on whenever the times get tough. Why? She's so arrogant and everyone doesn't like to be with her because everyone perceives that whenever you will be with this person, you'll get to be intimidated, which is not good especially for Education students. I am with her for years and these are the primary of the things I observed in her. I patiently hang up with her though being with her is a very tough job. Did I say job? Yes, a job, for the sake that she will have a company to talk to. I really don't know why should i stay with this kind of person well in fact, I'm not born to be anyone's slave. 


Academically, she excels. She's one of the dean's listers when we were first year. Though at times, in the preceding semesters she isn't included but she always has a QPI of 3 point something which is equivalent of A-. She is always doing good in class. She does all the ways and means to compete and always got into these stuffs that sometimes whenever we have chances to talk, she forgets to eat! I really wondered why. I asked her why she's like these and that. She just kept on mocking. If you just try to picture out a tiger taken out in the zoo. A wild animal just got out of its cage, so fierce! That's her. Again, I asked her why. "I don't want to experience those hard times again, friend." she replied. Did she say "hard times". She told me her past in details as if I am her diary, a blog. 


At the young age, she already experienced the hard times that she isn't supposed to experience as part of life stage. But she and her family did. "I really hate the part that even a single viand my family cannot afford to buy them...my father at that time was a carpenter. Just try to think the payment after that, do you expect thousands of it? No! You are paid for just merely two hundreds, three hundreds, less than five hundred or something. There are times that my father would plead to the neighbors for debt just to buy a box of milk for my younger sister." she cried, "Thinking of those days, I really don't want them to happen again. I hate it! That is why, I work hard for my scholarships since I got to continue my studies to fulfill the very mission of my parents. My father, now is a motorela driver, earning less than one thousand a day and my mother is a government employee earning thousands. Though they earn that big, that doesn't mean we live in a comfortable life. We are surrounded with debts, hundred of thousands of them just to send me and my sister to school. My family cannot afford to pay almost 30, 000 pesos for my entire semester, multiply it by two for my two semesters per year plus the summer. My sister, a first year high school, she's also trying so hard to get into a science class because she's viewing her future though at this time she's too young to think of those things. At the age of 12, she already thinks of her state when she gets in college. Why do we need to do these things? What do you think?" With that question, I was speechless. So shocked with the things she told me. I cannot think nor even dare to imagine that this friend of mine has this kind of problem. Amidst the silence, she continues to ask why did they have to think of these things. I stuttered. I cannot say a thing. But then, she answered her own answer. "We are required, friend. We are required to think this way to secure the future we perceive. That's why we got to grab each opportunity that passes to take  advantage. Since we are not even in the average in terms of economic status, we only have two choices, and that is, if we continue to study or not." 


That's it. Now, I understand her for her situation that is why she's acting like a freak when it comes to grades, to her studies, and to other things she have. She is required to take them seriously. In the middle of her semester, after that revelation, she began to swerve. Her life goes on to nowhere. Knowing only one straight path: home - school - library - home - school - library. Blah! What a bore! Her life goes on routines, so plain that she always find a hard time if these would be interrupted by another activity. 


As time goes, she slowly freaking out. She told me that she couldn't bear the pressure brought by her parents' frustrations. She added the fact that she is the eldest sibling in the family, too.  So, all her life, she walks on to the path towards obscurity. The only thing that pops out to her mind is that she will do things with her best shot for her own sake that her family won't rebuke her. Too dramatic may it seems but it's her real life behind all the masks she is wearing all the day. I tried to observe her, looking from afar, you may conclude that she is still, very fine, with no big problems she is facing but the truth is she is in the middle of agitation. 


She's lost. She doesn't find herself since she has been pretending all her life that she's okay well in fact, she's not. She't bombarded with too much pressure especially to her parents and so with other people around who are expecting much of her. For her, she can barely move from where she's standing because she's always into pleasing other people though she doesn't want to make her life that way. 


"Friend, sometimes I feel that I am only born because I am to fulfill my parents' ambition and not mine. I always ask myself about my existence...I wish I could've died. I seem to develop the sense of death as a remark of my existence. I realize things like I am only existing but I do not live. My life is so dull. Sometimes, I do not know what to do next. I have no visions since all my life, I have been following what my parents' want me to be as a picture of their supposed to be their image. I really don't like treated like a doll to be dressed but it seems that my life right now is like that..."


Chapter 3
" Help! I'm in trouble, LORD! The enemy has won." Lamentations 1:9


I have a short talk with her and again, in details she told me her inside story.Fully describing her life as a world of gloom. When I arrived home, I always hear her voice saying the same words,


"Friend, sometimes I feel that I am only born because I am to fulfill my parents' ambition and not mine. I always ask myself about my existence...I wish I could've died. I seem to develop the sense of death as a remark of my existence. I realize things like I am only existing but I do not live. My life is so dull. Sometimes, I do not know what to do next. I have no visions since all my life, I have been following what my parents' want me to be as a picture of their supposed to be their image. I really don't like treated like a doll to be dressed but it seems that my life right now is like that..."


I couldn't imagine that a lady as excellent as she would be thinking that way. She's seeking somebody to hold on to her problems. Though I am already near yet it seems she finds me awkward to be with since the time that she totally revealed herself to me. Letting me see the different side of her. But, it's a good thing at least she opened up. 


From the moment that she is into confusion, she always find ways to be alone. She wants that nobody would be near her as much as possible. She's going insane. 


But the pathetic thing that is happening is that nobody could see her lamenting. Instead, she shows off the other way around. Later on, she's called by somebody and that changed her a lot.




Chapter 4
"I was almost drowned by the swirling waters that surrounded me. Seaweed had wrapped around my head. I had sunk down below the underwater mountains; I knew that forever, I would be a prisoner there. But, You, Lord God, rescued me from that pit." Jonah 2:5-6


From the state of being an all-time lost being, she finally get to the world where she didn't expect herself to be in. I don't know what really happened but there's something that happened to her that changed her like that. She began to have a heartfelt smile and starts to mingle fully to others and express herself to the fullest without compromising others. "I really thank God for saving me...I've never been into this momentum where I can sleep at my utmost...I'm at peace and now I know where to stand and can decide where I am going..." I was bewildered when she uttered those words. At that time, I felt that there is something that is going on. I really cannot understand the atmosphere, there is something that I cannot understand. There is something in her that I cannot distinguish. As I sat near her, I observed that her face blooms. Suddenly, she told me, ""I am the new me. I am renewed and I appreciate the real peace in my life now that I didn't know before." Months later, I keep on tracking her. Going her with her footprints as my guide, I started to be alarmed. "What's going on with her? Why she'd changed that way? Why? Who changed her?" But my heart beats fast when she turn back to me and said, "Are you in confusion, friend?". I nodded. "God changed me this way. How great is He. I find home and I am at peace." She smiled then. 

Then...

I got to narrate these things, acclaiming the miraculous event that only those near her could testify. By the way, her name is "Mecyll".