What Are All These Lyrics?

Most who read my blog probably think... what are all these lyrics? Who on earth is Avalon--I haven't heard of them at all. Some years ago, when all I listened to were Jon Bon Jovi (aaminin ko na!), Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, and Sting (o bumawi naman ako sa mga to ha) never heard din sila sa akin. I was introduced to a genre called Contemporary Christian Music, or CCM, in the 1990's by my cousins who live in the States. It's been around for a long time already and included such "classics" to my ears as Sandi Patty, Steve Green, and Amy Grant, to name a few. May genre palang ganun, I thought. How interesting.

I started to watch out for artists in this field that had music that was less "church-y" and had more of the "contemporary" or "hip" sound my senses enjoyed, but compromised none of the spiritual insight that my heart yearned for. I have never stopped looking since then. Interest in secular music slowly gave way to the search for new albums by Point of Grace, Jars of Clay, Avalon, Anointed, and more recently, Jennifer Knapp, Out of Eden, and Ginny Owens, etc. At some point of time in the past, I have stopped buying secular CDs altogether.

Sino na naman ba yang mga artists na yan? Apparently, the greater public needs a crash course in CCM. There seems to be some benefit in making a "reader" (kung book ito) of some sort that would give an overview of Contemporary Christian Music. If I were to make this compilation, I would choose those that are my favorites. Off the top of my head, the best songs in Contemporary Christian Music, for me, would be the following (not in any order, of course):

1. Under the Influence by Anointed. This is a light R&B track that talks about how a life is changed by the "influence of love", that is, God's love. There are two versions of this track, I prefer the acoustic version that appears in Wow: The 90's.
2. After the Rain by Amy Grant. This is a short, almost-silent track in Amy Grant's Simple Things album released just a couple of years back. With only a classical guitar backing her, Amy Grant, half-sings half-whispers the lyrics to this song which speaks of unconditional love.
3. You Can Never Ask Too Much by Take 6. You can't find any Take 6 albums in this country--believe me because I've been trying for years to look for their Join The Band album that contains this song. Slow R&B ballad 'to that most people mistake for a love song. Yes, its a love song, but for a different kind of love... the truest kind (naks). This R&B/Acapella group is a peer (and I think, a friend) of BoyzIIMen and their claim to popular radio airplay is the remake of You're The Biggest Part Of Me which they released sometime in 1990, I think.
4. Testify to Love by Avalon. This one appears in the album Maze of Grace and is undoubtedly the group's biggest hit. I saw a live performance of this song "remixed" in their new DVD, also called Testify to Love. This DVD also has another song I like, Everything To Me (from their Best Of album and is their best vocal performance, I think). Testify to Love is a battlecry--and how powerfully do they cry it out!
5. Undo Me by Jennifer Knapp. Rock naman tayo. Before Avril Lavigne, andyan na si Jennifer Knapp. Hindi nga lang sya sikat sa radio airplays but her songs are infinitely more meaningful and definitely less self-possessed. This song is all about asking sorry and admitting that only God can undo the wrong things we have done. For a time, my world was filled with Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill, anyone?). But, thank God, one rainy afternoon many many years ago in National Book Store-Makati, He led me to an unknown little album called Kansas by this unknown girl with unruly hair, and my world was changed forever. (The tagline on my blog: handprint of God on the small of my back, my second chance, incidentally came from a Jennifer Knapp song. guess nyo na lang kung ano.)
6. What If I Stumble by DC Talk. I cannot deny that "Jesus Freak" is this band's most popular song. Nag-cross over din ito to mainstream radio airplay. But I have to say that, notwithstanding the appeal of this carrier track, another track in the same album, Jesus Freak, won me over completely, and it's this track about the temptations that usually beset a Christian in the spotlight: "Is this one for the people? Is this one for the Lord? Or do I simply serenade for things I must afford?" The song read more like a diary than a serenade to me. Its frankness and daring is yet to be matched in my opinion.
7. The Great Divide by Point of Grace. In terms of meaning, I think this song packs the greatest punch of them all. I don't want to dilute its potency by waxing too many narratives here, tingnan nyo na lang ang lyrics sa lyrics.com or sing365.com. Incidentally, I think that its the girls' album The Whole Truth, the one that has this track, that is the most profound.
8. Not Home Yet and The Walk by Steven Curtis Chapman. Hindi ko mapaghiwalay ang songs na to sa utak ko, kasi para sa kin they are one and the same--cant explain why. Basta. The guitar riffs are unmistakably SCC's, as well as his rocking-yodeling-crooning singing style. Not Home Yet talks of patiently waiting for the world to come that is our home while The Walk talks of what we should do now that the wait is not yet over. Most people recognize SCC because of his mushy, but timeless and true, I Will Be Here. He has a mushy song for his wife in each one of his past releases, I think. Last year he released All About Love, an entire album full of love songs he has written (save for one remake), most of which were for his wife. Hayyyy, to be the apple of the eyes of a musician... <excuse me while i make kilig myself... sigghhhhhh>
9. Love Song For A Savior by Jars Of Clay. I always mistake the title for this song to be: "I want to fall in love with You" kasi it's this one-liner lyric of a chorus which they repeat over and over and over that sticks to my head. Thinking about it now, I don't think I'd be mistaken anyway since the whole point of the whole song seems to rest on these lines. I want to fall in love with my Savior. Over and over and over. The song is in their album, Jars of Clay.
10. Favorite Song Of All by Philips Craig and Dean... is one of my favorite songs of all. This is not a love song, pero everytime we sing this song in the choir, kinikilig ako. As in shivers run down my spine and the hairs on my arms stand up. Read all of this song's lyrics to find out. Now na. Bilis.
11. And lastly, butal pa at #11 kung Top 10 list ito: He Never Changes by 4Him. A CCM list will not be complete without a 4Him track. These four tenors for Him are a CCM classic and staple (classic because they've been around for the longest time, and staple because they're always around). This is one of their lesser-known songs but a definite favorite of mine. Ang ballad kasi ng dating... moreover, walang super-taas na notes na nakaka-stress pag pinakikinggan mo.

There you go, my favorite CCM songs off the top of my head. I enjoyed making this list, ha! Obvious siguro because I wrote such long explanations. I am quite certain I'm in the wrong field. I'm supposed to be writing a paper on "An Objectives-Based Assessment of The Impact of a Mobile Sales System in a Food Manufacturing Company" (bow) for my Faculty grant but I did this instead.... Hay naku, so what, tigyawat? Enjoy naman dito ever! Makapag-seminary na lang kaya sa US? Hmmmmm..... watchatink? (P.S. You can get most of the lyrics at www.lyrics.com or www.sing365.com. Amazon rules pa din if you want album information. Yun lang.)

Tried Singing Tenor... Cried Watching Boxing

...pretty much sums up my Saturday. Sorry this kwento is sooooooo stale, but I only had time to update my blog today. I'm in madaldal kwento mode today by the way, as I've finally finished ten pages of my faculty grant research paper! Puro review of existing literature pa lang, haaayyyyy.... Hope to finish it by Friday! :D Anyway, Here goes my long narrative about the little things that made up my Saturday...

The Tenor Thingie. Saturday morning we (Praise Theme) sang at the CACD Coordinators' Meeting at the Manila Bible Seminary. (Sorry don’t have pics kasi my camera is still with Nats: he uses it to take pictures of his “scenes at the operating table.” He plans to make a blog out of it—but I told him that for the sake of good taste, and uh, various people having their meals while surfing the Net, maybe he should forego this grand idea.)

Dapat "Praise Theme" ang kakanta, pero since walang mga boys, naging "Praise Theme Girls" (a la Starstruck Kids). Ok lang naman, kineri namin. Aside from leading Worship, we sang two songs: Yes, I Believe (Point of Grace) and Adonai (Avalon). I totally love the second song! It's one of those songs that Ate Abbie and I have wanted to do for the longest, longest time. It was meant to be sung by a quartet, SATB. The other guys (kuya eldrin, darvin, gian, ted, wendell, etc.) couldn’t make it for various reasons kaya naging girls ensemble kami. I also sang the tenor solo (the song has two solos, one for a soprano—which rina sang—and one for a tenor solo na dapat paolo will sing but he has an exam so ako ang pinabanat). Hindi sha madali is all I can say about the adonai solo... but I hope to do it again kase enjoy. :) anyways, as usual, here are the lyrics...

one single drop of rain,
Your salty tear became blue ocean
one tiny grain of sand turning in Your hand,
the world in motion;
You're out beyond the furthest morning star
yet close enough to hold me in Your arms...
Adonai, i lift up my heart
and i cry, my Adonai
You are maker of each moment,
Father of my hope and freedom...
oh my Adonai
one timid faithful knock resounds upon the rock of ages
one trembling heart and soul
becomes a servant bold and courageous
You call across the mountains and the sea
i answer from the deepest part of me
Adonai, i lift up my heart
and i cry, my Adonai
You are maker of each moment,
Father of my hope and freedom...
oh my Adonai
from age to age You reign in majesty
today You’re making miracles in me…
Adonai, i lift up my heart
and i cry, my Adonai
You are maker of each moment,
Father of my hope and freedom...
oh my Adonai

The Boxing Boohoo. After the CACD thingie, umuwi na ako with my dad to spend a lazy afternoon at home. Did a little reminiscing on the piano: played all the old songs of the Cruzada Choir na meron akong piyesa dito. Concert level na ito. After this “workout” (pramis, playing the piano can be a workout), I sat myself down in front of the tube and watched Million Dollar Baby on DVD.

Yuckygrossy mga boxing scenes ha (never liked boxing that much). But overall, I have to say this movie touched me in ways I didn't expect. It's all about the underdog and about people "getting their shot" at life chuchuwa. Although I personally am not a believer in euthanasia, I appreciated how they used this element to reflect more of the characters', er well, character. It's also amazing how Hilary Swank can still look so fresh and hopeful even if her face is all swollen up and bleeding--she was definitely beaming the entire film! Her face really registered everything about believing in and fighting for yourself regardless of your circumstance, hoping beyond all hope, at the same time humbly appreciating what life gives you, even the littlest things (like those leftover steaks she regularly takes home from the diners she waitresses in). No, I don't think it's the makeup. I think it's her smile and how it's just so genuine and expectant. She's supposed to be 31 in the movie, but she looked more like a 21-year-old to me. i cried towards the end—pero tears at the corners lang naman. hindi naman torrents of tears. hello so whats new?

So.... that rounds my Saturday up. Pretty relaxed considering ang dami kong workload. But I pretty much decided as early as 5am: no work-related thinking, doing, speaking, or even breathing. I just wish if my life were on video, I also looked as hopeful and fresh as Hilary Swank even without the matching black-eye (in short: wag naman sana shiny ang fez ko… kainis kasi ang humid e… hehe).

Girls Rule - Dr. Emerlinda Roman is UP's 1st Woman President

...so that's why the pillars at Quezon Hall are salmon pink? ;-p

(from http://www.up.edu.ph) "ON JULY 21, at 2 p.m., the University of the Philippines will celebrate the formal investiture of President Emerlinda R. Roman, the first ever woman president of the University of the Philippines at the University Theater in UP Diliman. Roman, who holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of the Philippines, has thrice been the Chancellor of UP Diliman, the University’s flagship campus. The event will also mark the launching of her UP Plan (2005-2011): “The UP: A National University in the 21st Century,” an aggressive strategy aimed at strengthening the UP’s status as a “world-class” university.

Roman served as UP Diliman Chancellor in 1991-1993, in 1999-2002, and in 2002-2004. Under her various administrations she established the Diliman Interactive Learning Center (DILC), the Center for International Studies (CIS), the Computerized Registration System (CRS), and the Research Dissemination Grant Fund in UP Diliman, which bolstered international publication and presentation of papers by UP faculty."

...etc., etc... Tomorrow faculty members will be joining in a procession for the investiture ceremonies the new president. even now students are already asking if classes will be suspended tomorrow--im not yet sure so i can answer their texts yet. my classes are at 10am, 1pm, and 2:30pm and so inevitably i would need to cancel some of these classes should i be required to attend the investiture at the UP theatre.

okay lang naman yun, after all, this is UP history in the making. yun nga lang, i have a couple of problems:

1. no classes also on monday because of GMA's State of the Nation Address, so that means i will have two straight suspended classes: no choice ngayon, i need to schedule make-up classes... sorry na lang for my students :(
2. wala akong magic UP alampay, better known as the graduation "sablay"... which all faculty are supposed to wear during the procession. wala ako nito kasi... hindi kasi ako gumradweyt, eh... joke! actually i didn't join the graduation procession anymore when i finished college because at the time, i was working na and was assigned to cebu so hassle na makipagpilahan pa sa UP para lang mag-march.

what i really want to do is have class (wow, mabait at masipag na teacher... CHARING!) kasi my compre exams for my masters are on august 14 and i plan to have the weeks before august 14 totally FREE so i can really review. i want to have the classes NOW para by august, i can cancel some classes to review. but if buildings are gonna be closed tomorrow at UP, no way ako makakapagturo kahit gustuhin ko bukas...

hayyyyy siya... will just see what happens tomorrow... im gonna leave for UP at 8am tomorrow so im gonna decide what to do at 7:30am. and like i say, tomorrow is always too far off.

Give It Up

...not to say that I'm turning my back on all the things I have to do. As it is, my workload has just this morning gotten heavier: I have a new research paper to submit on Wednesday, and new tasks to complete for the UP-CBA Alumni Homecoming this year (I was assigned to be the Homecoming "Queen" for this year, which in UP-CBA parlance actually means Homecoming "Slave"--in short, dakilang utusan). But never the mind, I'm taking this time out to listen to a song about giving up, not in the ayoko-na-goodbye-cruel-world mode na uso in movies, but a different kind of giving up... the kind that frees those who surrender and make themselves bound to Somebody else (to paraphrase from a Barbie's Cradle Song that goes: "when I'm bound to You, I feel so free...").

This song is called "Give It Up", also by Avalon (see post: "Renew Me") and it appears in their self-titled debut album "Avalon" (1996):

Dream a little dream,

dream a little while

Remembering a day when you were wide-eyed,

Gave the Lord your heart,

gave Him all your soul

But slowly you have taken back control

Now you're somewhere in-between

Your new world and your old routine

Dream a little dream,

dream a little while

Dream with me of how you think it might be...

To give Him all of your heart

(give it up give it up)

Give Him all of your life

(give it up give it up)

Give Him all of your soul

(give it up give it up)

Give it up, give it up...

Your choice is black or white,

not a shade of gray

Because in love there's no such thing as halfway

Devotion can't be swayed,

emotions can't be torn

He'd rather we be hot or cold than lukewarm

Bring the Father all your soul

(bring Him all your soul)

There's freedom in the letting go

Dream a little dream,
dream a little while
Dream with me of how you think it might be...
To give Him all of your heart
(give it up give it up)
Give Him all of your life
(give it up give it up)
Give Him all of your soul
(give it up give it up)
Give it up, give it up...

Nerd Mode

Since Thursday I’ve been in nerd-mode. (Nats: But you’ve been in nerd-mode all your life!) Fine, the guy’s got a point. But even for someone like me who’s assimilated nerd-ness so much into her life (in fairness to me, it’s my job to be a nerd ok?) that it has become the norm for her, there are times when the nerd-ness is simply too much na kahit ako nane-nerdokan na sa sarili ko. Aaarggghhh.

How come, amalgam (nyerk)? Refer to previous post, plis. Katatapos ko lang sa tasks number 1 and 4 ata--hindi pa complete yung #4. I am still definitely a long, long way from fini. Empirical manifestations (empirical?!! whatda…) to prove this claim: got no time na to update my blog. So paano ko to nasulat? Guess where I am… I am in a moving object: inside a Honda civic, crawling (fortunately for my astigmatism-hit eyes) through traffic-infested EDSA on a Saturday night on the way home.

Ohno, umandar na ang kotse… argh, major hilo!... wait, sandali lang... <stopped typing while on magallanes flyover... six minutes of unimpeded cruising on the south superhighway until stopped at bottleneck at bicutan exit toll gate... gave manong 25 pesos for the toll fee>

...Okay I’m back. Ang dilim na sa labas, hindi ko na makita ang keyboard. No matter: kacareerin ko tong pagbablog na to sa loob ng car kasi as I soon as I get home, I have to continue working on, drumroll please,… ehem: “Tracing Knowledge Flows In An Academic Institution: A Review of Existing Literature” chuvaness. Bow.

Nakakaloka at nakakainis because ang ayaw ko pa naman sa lahat, yung mawalan ng time for the more exciting things in my life! Ang dami ko pa namang raging and rampaging pursuits ngayon tulad ng… er, watching DVD’s! saka… uh, reading Dostoevsky! atchaka,… er, pagpractice ng piano! …okay, okay so I don’t necessarily rage and rampage, so sue me. Still… all this to me is infinitely more fun than knitting my eyebrows over a paper anu.

Eto na, umandar na ulit ang mga sasakyan. Papasok na to ng bicutan, ergo diredirecho na takbo namin ever hanggang makarating ako sa aming humble abode on Cheer Street. Till next blog na lang—hopefully this week if by sumkinda miracle matapos ko lahat ng dapat kong gawin. Ahuhuhu... hay sya, babush na. For added entertainment I leave you with pictures of me in various states of nerdness, ehehe.


nerd having fun


nerd powering up


nerd giggling


nerd's "corner" office... translation: sinsiksik sa isang sulok


nerd with intar-nerd (wag mo nang idenay!!)

Save Me From Sloth... pero procrastination, ok lang

I feel soooooooo lazy today. Argh. My shoulders and head share with me in my sentiments as regards to my workload for today: they ache in protest. Ewan ko ba, I slept naman a bit early last night. Woke up early too. It was after I woke up in the car when we were in UP na that I started feeling this way. Bigla na lang, parang di ko na feel pumasok today. Hay naku I shouldn't entertain these things because I have tons to do... enumerated as follows:

1. Review my BA 186 students' Baseline Project Plans, Key System Requirements and Data Flow Diagram
2. Review my BA 191 students' reaction papers
3. Make an email to Allan and Dona for their software demos for my BA 191 class
4. Finish the TM 298 Research Paper on Knowledge Flows
5. Study Dr. Talisayon's Knowledge Flow Questionnaire for the TM 298 Knowledge Management course I'm taking
6. Revise my graduate paper for submission ASAP
7. Review for my compre exam on August 14
8. Cut my fingernails kasi sumasabit na sya sa pagpapiano, which reminds me I have to...
9. Practice the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in G
10. Make the letter to San Sebastian para sa auditorium nila for the Praise Theme concert sa November...

...etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. How on earth did this list get to be soooo long?!!!! Arrrrrgggghhhh! I'm now seeing that this list was a bad idea. I'm feeling worse and worse by the minute now that I look at all my backlog. But staring at this list--which I pathetically did just now, won't make the stuff there go away. *SIGH*

Sya, sya (rolling up my sleeves--if i weren't in cap-sleeves today this would be possible, but since i'm almost always wearing sleeveless or almost-non-existent-sleeved stuff, "theoretical" rolling of the sleeves lang ang ibig kong sabihin)... If i gotta get down to it, might as well get down to it now. As in now na.

Er,...... but first, bili muna ako coffee sa Starbucks. Tapos pastillas de leche donut sa gonuts donuts... Or kain muna ako nut pesto pasta sa aveneto saka ako bibili ng donut, saka ako bibili ng coffee... tapos, ice monsters na may strawberry... tapos... (and i wonder why ang haba ng backlog ko... ;p)

Nangamote sa Scherzo in A Minor

After two weeks of practicing, medyo malinis-linis na ang scherzo ko. Shown above are the first four bars of the piece, there are 63 more after that. The first time I played this, nangamote talaga ako. Pano ba naman all these past years, I've been playing the piano heedless of the fingering rules. As in nagtigasan talaga ang daliri ko sa pagtugtog: pagbasa of the notes is not a problem, it's following the numbers for the fingers that really got to me. All the undisciplinedness of my piano-playing past is coming back to haunt me. But now, I'm happy kasi medyo, since I've been practicing and I've been being mabait and obedient in all the rules, malinis linis na ang tugtog ko at even na din ang tyempo ng tunog ko... wala na masyadong tigil tigil midway. I'm happy na kahit 29 na ako, I'm still making progress in playing the piano. Next hurdle: Czerny 636!!

Ma'am Aileen Goes To The Movies

Whenever I’m bored I go to the movies. By “the movies”, I mean movies in any format: I don’t discriminate between THX cinemas and pirate DVD’s. I could also mean movies in my head. Case in point: my class topic for today, “Five principles for making the most of IT”, is so BORING it’s dangerous. Just for those who are curious (but you can totally skip this, I won’t mind nor will I be hurt), the five principles are: Business Impact, Communities of Practice, Selective Sourcing, Knowledge Infrastructure, and Strategic Alignment… zzzzzzzz…

…Mind-crippling ano? Nakaka-bobo. Unang-una it’s nothing I haven’t heard before, and pangalawa—and even worse—it’s nothing my students haven’t heard from me already.

So I decided to apply my tried-and-tested technique for killing all things boring: today, my class is going to the movies. FIVE movies, to be exact. Instead of the usual lecture (which I really really really hate giving—and receiving!), my class will do a little business research for film-buffs. My studes are going to look for the erstwhile-boring IT principles at work in these “futuristic fantasy worlds”:

• The Department of Pre-Crime from The Minority Report,
• Zion from The Matrix,
• The Enterprise from Star Trek,
• The Jedi Council from Star Wars, and
• Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters from X-Men

I’m excited to see what they’ll come up with. My class is at 2:30pm and it’s still 8:30am now as I write this. I know I know… this looks like some flimsy “Plan B” for not giving a lecture today but that’s not it, pramis! What the heck, if it works and all that jazz, you know...

Bros Karamazov

I feel scholarly today. That's why I'm re-embarking on a major project: understanding Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve read it before but this morning I suddenly felt the need to read it again. All 936 pages of font-size 8 text in a Bantam paperback. Am pretty excited, yet daunted about it. This book is no easy read. Periodic pauses and breathers midway through the novel are needed just to make sense of all the complexity.

I expect mawiwindang ako sa book na ito. But I take consolation in the fact that the author himself ay may "ka-windangan" ding taglay. A memoir written by a friend relates: “He would clutch his head as though there immediately rushed into it so many ideas that he found it difficult to begin.” A critic has written: “As was his thought so were his novels, excessively complicated and entangled.” In short, may ka-praningan din daw sya. ;-p

Nevertheless, even if both author and work are malabo, the message in both the author's life and the novel's theme is clear: crippling guilt is met and is conquered by all-encompassing redemption. The brothers Karamazov, like Dostoevsky after his imprisonment in Siberia, shared tragedy and were purified through suffering: Ivan with his “murderous thought”, Dmitry his “destructive passion”, and Alyosha his “quiet boy” passivity. In the end, however, all the brothers, and Dostoevsky himself, gained life reborn.

Exciting ano? I look forward to spending stormy days with this book. I can’t wait to finish the entire thing again... and rediscover why Yancey called this book “probably the greatest book ever written.”

Renew Me

time and again God uses the power of music to change my life. this song is God's most effective "Aileen-changing" tool of late. it's by Avalon, my all-time favorite singing group. the song appears in their new album, "The Creed".

why am i such a dusty window
for Your light to shine through?
why am i just a tiny star
in a sky already blue?
why do i offer everything
with my heart closed like a fist?
i want to love You better than this...
why do i live like i'm in chains
when You have set me free?
and why do i have to break Your heart

before i fall to my knees?
i know it's time to pray for change,
give all i have to give;
i want to love You better than this...

so renew me
remake me
undo me
unbreak me
come into the empty spaces of my broken places
and consume me
complete me
pursue me
redeem me
let your Holy Spirit living through me

renew me...

i need Your power to renew me, Lord
i need to know You're moving through me, Lord
i need you as my refuge
my first and last resort
be the river always running through my deepest thoughts
keep me in Your arms
'cause even when i drift
i want to love you better than this...

so renew me

remake me

undo me

unbreak me

come into the empty spaces of my broken places

and consume me

complete me

pursue me

redeem me

let your Holy Spirit living through me renew me...

my life, bend it to Your will

seeking You until i'm more and more like You

so renew me...

Boo Hoo

...I lost my phone. Two possible reasons: I'm blind or I'm dumb. Or a possible third: I'm both. Lost it at Starbucks and I'm not sure where and how. Either I left it in the ladies' room or somebody snatched it right in front of me while I was busy working on my laptop (the phone was on the table behind the LCD screen). The loss of the phone isn't what bothers me (like all material things, it can be replaced and somebody somewhere out there is still reaping value out of it)... it's all those numbers and email addresses and pictures I've had stored there since June last year! Boo hoo talaga... Time to start building my phone book again, new contacts, new numbers, new pictures, new memories, etc., etc. Hmmm, come to think of it, it does have a sense of renewal about it ano? A sense of freedom, you might even say. A sense of excitement na din siguro--kasi now I'm thinking, ano kayang phone ang magandang bilhin ngayon? ;-p

hard-to-accept truths within

Why Settle?

Was blessed with words today. Habang hinihintay ko si Dad kaninang umaga while he was at work, was reading The Jesus I Never Knew ni Philip Yancey. Actually, double blessing kasi si Yancey na ang author ng book, si C. S. Lewis pa ang kino-quote nya.

In his chapter about the Beatitudes, Yancey talks about how in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord honored those who our society usually looks down on: the poor, the meek, the weak, the mourning. While unrecognized in the mortal world, meekness and humility are celebrated in the world after. Sa world na to ano ba ang sine-celebrate? Hindi ba fame and fortune? Ano ba ang hinahanap-hanap lagi ng tao? Hndi ba "a good time" (eat, drink, and be merry and all that)?

Yancey emphasizes his point by extracting from C. S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory...

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."

How long have we been looking for and pursuing temporal and superficial gains and glories in replacement of the eternal, essential, and true? Sa lagay nating mga "makamundo", we think we have a huge deal pero in reality, in the light of eternity, peanuts lang yun lahat.

Why do we so often settle for what this world has to offer when we can have so so much more in the next?

After 14 Years...

…I’m in school again… music school. Wednesday I had my first piano lesson at Abelardo Hall or the UP College of Music. The last time I had guided instruction for the piano was in 1991—sa UP din, with Ate Betty Arcilla. Was only 17 at the time, 3rd year high school and I remember totally hating going to UP for my piano lessons because it was in the summer and UP was something like 2 hours away from my house at the Republic of Far Away Paranaque! Kakatamad talaga nun... summer vacation pa! Who wouldn't want to go to the beach and not need to “work” on scales and arpeggios ano? Nonetheless, dahil super patient si Ate Betty na teacher ko nun at super insistent si Daddy, I finished my 1991 piano schoolyear with Grade IV credentials, I think.

I left piano school in 1992. But I don’t think piano-playing ever left me. Like somebody "called" to a mission, I was inevitably drawn to the piano. Come college, ako na mismo nagprisintang ituloy ang pagpa-piano ko, pero mostly on my own na. Thank God He called me to play for the Cruzada Church Choir and that the demands of Tito Poly on the pieces I was to accompany were challenging: san ka ba naman nakakita ng Grade IV pianist na binabanatan ang Hallelujah Chorus?

My program this sem runs 14 weeks and I’m excited about it. I really, really, really hope I improve enough to join the recital in September! Malay natin, magtuloy-tuloy na ako dito… you never know. I might still be a UP teacher, but not in the College of Business anymore, but somewhere else in the university… in a college less technical and more musical?... Baket ba?!!! Libre naman mangarap ah!


my own humble "concert hall"...in the living room of our house with my cats as audience


Abelardo Hall at UPCMusic... wish ko talaga makapagrecital na ulit


UPCollege of Music... around 10 minutes walk from my College