There are so many things that I can worry about right now, but I will choose not to. God has proven to me many times how faithful He is. I will remember who He is in my life, instead of needlessly worry about things that I cannot control. God is always in control. All I have to do is come to Him in prayer, and He will silence my fears.
“Praise be to God,
who has not rejected my prayer
or withheld his love from me!”
Psalm 66:20
You might remember the old woman in this picture as the same person from this photo. Well, the last time that my husband and I went to Chinatown, I decided I would stop longer and talk to her. I want to listen to her story.
Her name is Nanay Carlita. She is 73 years old. She has six children, four of them already died, and only two of them are still alive. One of her children has a disability that prevents him from working. She still has a husband but he suffered from a stroke and also could not walk or talk properly.
One of her grandchildren had a son who he and his wife couldn’t support. So they left the child with Nanay Carlita. She’s had to support the child through begging, being unable to find any other work at her age. Her great grandson is already 4 years old, she told me. She lives in Bulacan so she doesn’t go home everyday. She goes home on Sundays, and goes back to Ongpin on Tuesday. I asked where she usually passes the night, she said that there’s a guard at the back of the church where she usually sits to beg who lets her sleep in the guard house every night.
She expressed so much gratitude at the kind people God sends her way. She lifted up her left arm to me and showed me a deep and long scar that runs from her wrist past her elbow. She said that she used to have a big lump on her arm. She went to a health center in Binondo, near the Binondo Church, and begged the doctors there to help her. One doctor did take pity and operated on her arm for free. The doctor also covered her hospital bills, until she was fit enough to leave the hospital.
She says that on good days, she gets around P80, which she saves so that her husband and great grandson will have something to eat for the week, until she has to go back to Ongpin again. She also told me that sometimes, she gets rounded up by the DSWD with several other beggars in the area. I asked what usually happens after they get rounded up. She said “Wala. Ikukulong kami hanggang may tumubos sa amin” (Nothing, they put us in jail until somebody comes to get us out). People like her do not see DSWD as friends. She says that they’re not put in homes anyway, they just go hungry in jail.
I shared whatever I had with Nanay Carlita; gave her food, money and encouragement. I told her that God is still good, and that He loves her. If only I can give her more. I promised that every time I’m in Ongpin, I’ll look for her in her usual spot. Even before I gave her anything, she seemed so happy just to have somebody stop and talk to her. I asked if I can take a photo of her, and she agreed. This time, unlike the first photograph I took of her on the sly, she looked at the camera.
I’ve been working in different call centers since 2003. I’ve had good times, and unfortunately, lots of bad times. The truth of the matter is that it’s not for everybody. I know, I have a gift for stating the obvious, haha. But really, not all people can survive this industry. It’s really easy to judge people who skip from one call center to another, but the people who usually do that are those who have never worked in one before. Read the rest of this entry »
My husband and the cat are both sprawled out on the bed sleeping. Sarap ng tulog nila. 
The cat’s even stretched out both arms and has her head on my pillow. I missed these moments. Earlier I made talong with bagoong, kamatis, and onions to go with the fried tilapia that my husband cooked. It’s the simple, quite days like this that reminds me what’s so great about being able to enjoy your marriage. Even everyday stuff becomes a good experience.
Anyway, I cleaned out the bathroom earlier and now I have a bad headache. I should go and sleep too. Later!
First time I watched this HappySlip video, I LOL’ed. It’s silly and adorable, isn’t it? I ended up downloading the song in the video, haha. As a child, I had silly dreams too. I wanted to be a mortician, a lion tamer, an astronaut, and (at some point) even a police officer.
I set a few goals for me this year. One is to finally be able to develop my own film. Another is to set up a basic photography studio for business (it’s already in the works with a friend, hopefully it pushes through soon). There are a few personal ones that I can’t say, and then there’s that goal to make my own wordpress themes for both this blog and my mom’s blog.
Of course there are a lot of quality themes out there (and I mean A LOT). Here are some tips on how to get some great Wordpress Templates. However, there’s something different about being able to make your own template from scratch, instead of just replacing banners and some custom graphics here and there.
I want to be able to make my own template so that it will look exactly how I want it to look like. I can’t tell you how many hours it took me to find this particular template that I’m using in my blog now. It’s oriental, it’s wide (so that it won’t cramp up the photos that I want to post), and it doesn’t look over decorated. I like it, but I want to be able to fully understand how it works so that I can make one for myself in the future.
Oh, so many things to learn, so little time.
My husband and I watched Transformers 2 last week. It’s really understandable why a lot of people don’t like it, but my husband and I found it entertaining. I guess because we weren’t overanalyzing anything. The fact is that sometimes we just want to go inside a movie house and not overthink. Just get our senses assaulted with aggressive alien robots. With beards. And a sense of humor. Minsan masaya lang yung ganon.
His youngest brother is coming home a few weeks from now. We’re both nervous and excited about it.
I’ve been reading this article about understanding computer firewalls following the issue I’ve been having with my internet. To be honest, I never really used any other kind of firewall aside from the one that came with windows xp. I understand that it’s a tradeoff. It slows your internet down a bit in exchange for the added security it’s supposed to give you. Granted that it’s working as it should. I usually disable the windows firewall altogether, by the way. However, it’s considered good practice to have one installed so that you can gain control over what goes in and out of your computer. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t really need one because the people out there on the world wide web, have no interest in peeking in your backyard, so to speak. But this isn’t a perfect world, and the reality is that a lot of bored geeks out there can make your internet experience mighty unpleasant. It’s always best to install a firewall, and an updated antivirus and antispyware software. I shall get around to that… eventually. I’ve just finished reformatting this machine, and I’m still in the process of reinstalling everything. I already have an antivirus, the other two will follow tomorrow.
So I finished my mom’s new website. Now what? Of course she wants a few things tweaked here and there (like the addition of a forum, which is probably a good idea). The next best step is to submit the website to a free web directory. There is a lot that can be found on the internet, if only you have the patience to search. You have to be aware, though, that not all of them are free, and not all of them will be good for your website. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been up almost all day battling this ridiculous technical issue with the internet. As I described in my last post, I can’t upload anything to the internet at all. This is true for any website (facebook, this blog, multiply, etc etc etc). I can’t upload through FTP (I tried several different clients), I can’t even send out email. I tried everything from system restore, to disabling the only firewall that I use (Windows Firewall), to uninstalling/reinstalling/changing antivirus software, and finally to reinstalling the OS several times. It’s been going on since June 14, the upload rate is almost always ZERO, with intermittent bursts here and there, but never really letting me upload anything. SUN broadband’s technical support has been polite but essentially useless. It’s been over two weeks and they still haven’t done anything significant, and I’ve been calling every single day to follow it up. They claim to have done a “network restoration” in the area, and have already refreshed and reset my connection to the network, and it’s still the same issue. The only other thing I can think of is the possibility that the modem may be defective.
So I’m going to stop reformatting my computer now and see whether Sun will make good on their promise to send a site technician within this week. I’m going to rebuild my system again and try to put everything back to the way it was before Sun screwed me over with this network issues.
Also, Aljude ran a very high fever earlier today. He’s sleeping now, and the fever has broken. I hope that it doesn’t come back in the morning. I’m going to bed now. This day has been really tiring.
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