sacrifice

the Holy Week is about to end with tomorrow being Easter Sunday. the whole celebration holds a sense of wonder in the sense that the devout show just how devout they are. what makes the RP so distinct in its practice is well, the graphic nature of some people's devotion. question: is their practice a personal choice or did they acquire the idea of flagellation from their parents and so on? is this faith or taboo? what do they hope to gain from self-inflicted pain?



obviously i'm not well-versed with this kind of Christian devotion and i'm approaching this with an outsider's point of view. and i would look at this kind of practice in the same way i look at the hordes of people during the Black Nazarene. Is this their penance for their years of sin? do they hope to gain forgiveness through nailing themselves on the cross? basically if the devotees do find God in a personal way through, well, pain, then we should just let it be. any other intention would besmirch the already controversial practice.

I'm ending this post with more questions than answers. many say practices like these are taboo, but for the one nailed on the cross, the one with a bleeding back due to flagellation and the one carrying a cross made of an electric post, its an annual display of faith that is deeply cultural as it is spiritual. nothing wrong with that.

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what's my sacrifice for the Lenten season? i'm afraid i didn't cut down on my SMS and internet usage. i broke my fasts. i did do the Visita Iglesia and i did deprive myself of some good things. maybe next year then.

Happy Easter everybody!

catharsis again

i just realized that catharsis can mean many things for different people. it may mean watching a theater play for one and eating ice cream for another.

while i'd prefer deleting my phone's messages every single time i'm angry or melancholic. but this time, i'm deleting it for the sake of slowly ridding myself of excess baggage which includes: anxieties brought about by people who love to whine, anger let loose by those who feel cheated, happiness that should be fleeting, because all good things come to an end, and most of all, the weight of the world succintly expressed by the simple sad face.

yes, one small step towards catharsis. (although, the much needed trip to Davao can't hurt.)

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i watched "The Reader" yesterday. i bought it along with "Rachel getting married" for a reasonably cheap price. it was a good thing the group left while we could. the dvd joint was raided by police a few minutes after. Tal had to run inside to get a very confused Rea.haha

thought collections

i just came home from the Berchmans outing and suffice to say, it was good to meet with the group again (though i see most of them, well, most of the time). but there's this feeling that you have when you visit a familiar place, or relish something you haven't tasted in a long time - that was the feeling i had this morning.


this saturday, i hope i'll be leaving for Davao. "hope" because there are some school related matters i haven't taken care of yet. but i'm pretty optimistic that only a typhoon would derail the trip. it's a welcome respite after pharma, examinations and painful duties. while the family's there, i might buy a new laptop to replace the old one (AND HOPEFULLY I'LL LEARN TO READ INSTRUCTION MANUALS NA).


yahoo just reported that there are financial and environmental strains in leaving your PCs on overnight. i just thought of the times when i left my PC running just so i could finish downloading my movies and series episodes. i couldn't blame myself rin kasi the download speeds here in the philippines are suuuuuuppppeeeerrr fast (note: sarcasm). but i'm well-versed in the numbers by the billions, but as an individual, let's just say i'm doing my fair share of the work to save the planet and let's leave it at that.

for the coming school year, i know there's optimism riddled somewhere between the lines of my face. and whatever mistakes i have made during my second year, i have enough of a backbone to learn from them and move on with my life (on to bigger and better things).

time on my hands

so relishing my first day of pseudo-freedom. i love to string a lot of things in my life with "pseudo" since, well, in this case, freedom really translates to around 2 - 3 weeks. i think.

so the first order of business for the day, was to wake up extra early to go the Dep of Foreign Affairs. it's been a long time coming. the last time i was there, was with my overly praning dad, and i was 17 then. wait, it was almost a year ago already. one thing led to the other, and i couldn't process my passport that time. now, with the necessary documents in tow, i dragged my butt to the DFA. i was expecting a gazillion people at around 8am, since the last time i was there, there were a gazillion people lining the whole expanse. but lo and behold! i was one of the few people there, and it only took me an hour to finish the entire process. after like a year of putting this off, my mom's rants would finally be laid to rest.

i'm definitely a fan of lists, save for New Year's resolutions. O_O. so this summer, since i have a feeling that classes/workload will be relatively light, i have a few things i want to do to make this summer productive naman. the list is still in the drawing board.

now i have a light schedule on my hands. but before i jump off a cliff, i definitely have to get some sleep.

crunch time ii

YES PEOPLE IT'S BEGINNING TO RAIN REALLY HARD.

I'LL TAKE THIS AS MY CUE TO SLEEP ALREADY! SCREW MY DEEP-SEATED YEARNING FOR PROGRESS!!!!!!!!!! SCREW IT!!!!! ARGGGHHHH!!!!!! MY SANITY IS JUST A FINGERBREATH'S DISTANCE TO OBLIVION!!!!!! LALALALLALALLALALLALALA