Come Again. Begin Again.

CAM-UI-GUIN = COME AGAIN

As promised, I am now writing for my Camiguin getaway 6 months ago! Oh well, it was one of the many things I looked forward to after graduation. It's been like what?! Ten or eleven years since I've spent my every summer in that island paradise and nothing can ever compare with the thrill I felt as I journeyed back to my second home. :')

"Where do I begin?"

So here's the thing about writing 6 months after the subject matter actually occurred  or maybe this is really the thing about writing. Anyhow, let me start with the journey! :D We started traveling from CDO to the port about 3pm in the afternoon of a Monday and my tita (Flery) suggested we stay for the night near the port so we could take the first trip the next day to CAMIGUIN ISLAAAAAND!! XD And so we did. The travel by land was so far really cool. I mean, I missed seeing houses near the highway with random people walking, playing, talking etc. it reminded me of how simple life really is. You just have to focus on what really matters. And through that, you get to appreciate more of the roads you passed by and you also get to look forward to what lies ahead.

                                                            

                      This is Aeriona, my genius niece, and ate Vanessa's dog in our stop near the port. :3

Getting there

So like, it was around noontime when we arrived at Camiguin cause we actually had an accidental round trip around the island. HOHOHOHO!! My tito took the wrong turn for the cold spring we were heading to and so we took the longest cut towards it! Boy it was cool! Like, I still saw the same antique houses along the road, the same immortal landmarks and hot spots (e.g. the Sunken Cemetery, Mantigue Island, White island) in a whim! :D By the time we arrived at the soda cold spring ( couldn't remember the exact name but it sure was close to "BORA" that's why ate Van and I joked about it) we had a quick lunch and had our dip!

The Abode

We stayed in a "hotel" where my tita worked and the accommodation was VIP! :P HAHA. Oh well, I didn't waste my time, so I spent it taking some pictures around. It was near the "kabihasnan" in Camiguin so a short walk will do the trick if you'd wanna grab some food or something. :)

This is Anna Mary, my cousin AND my photographer throughout my Camiguin escapade ;D

So this is the hotel entance. Teheeeee :]

The White Fortress

Okay, so like, the word fortress might not be the most appropriate word to describe the White Island, but still I'd insist! It's such a compelling place where the simplicity of the white sand tells you how it could be covered in high tides but can still emerge itself afterwards; as if victorious from a perpetual battle! NAKS. Kinda' OA na! :'3 Anyhow, words cannot explain how CLEAN and SEDUCTIVE the sea water surrounding the Island is, so I'd just have to leave it on the pretty pictures to tell you the rest of it..

Focus on the interplay of colors AND ignore the feet :3 LOL

T'was a sunny day, I had a darker skin shade afterwards, but it was worth it! This is the distant part of the White Island. They call it the "C" side, the most dangerous yet most stunning view of them all.

So, uhm, can I cover the hottest men's magazine now?

Me+Clams= CLAMITY <3

I've never heard of this place before, but I sure have an idea that Camiguin must've had a clam sanctuary somewhere. Ladies and gentlemen AND wanderlustERS, please help me welcome, one of the best diving destinations in Camiguin: The Cantaan Clam Sanctuary! :'>

This was walking towards the sanctuary. Man, the journey was bumpy, good thing the place was all worth it! Like, REALLY! :D

Like the legendary White Island, it's got white sand and the water is really cool; not so cold, not so warm, just enough for your swimming appetite!

\

Since I just had my hair treated, so I had no choice but to take pictures of myself around the sanctuary! I fell in love with nature once more! Kisses :*

Speechless. :}

Here are the clams by the way,  I almost forgot to post 'em! HAHA. Vanity overload! >.<

The Visitors

Travel wouldn't be complete without GOOD FOOD. And so, in this journey, we visited two friends who welcomed us warmly in their houses. Of course, I took photos of myself around (and I'm sorry I forgot to take pictures of the food served! HAHA. Got too excited!)

This is my tita Flery's friend's place! (corrections?) One thing about Camiguin homes is that they never miss to have ornamental plants and all that, in front of their houses (most of the time). This is just a portion of their garden. Trust me, it's so pleasing to the eyes! ^.*

My tita's friend's house is just near the beach facing the White Island, so Anna Marry, ate Van (that's her in the photo above) and I went to catch some cold sea breeze! :)

This was at the Italian's house at Mt. Hibokhibok. I tell, you, the garden was just so grand! :D I didn't know Italians have a love for gardening!

This is the part of the rest house facing the sea. I'm with the genius kiddo here :3

This is the pathway towards the main house :D

This is the other part of their place, yet to be constructed. That white portion of the sea I'm pointing at is the White island during high tide! ;)

And yes, this the the concrete explanation why I wasn't able to take pictures of the yummy dinner we had---they're all in! XD

Closing Time

In every journey, there is always a beginning and there is always an end. My one week visit here at Camiguin was a story worth telling, and this blog entry wouldn't be enough to tell it all. One thing I am sure of is that this wouldn't be my last visit, and I'll make sure that for the next time I'd happen to COME AGAIN at CAMIGUIN, I'd be hanging my Nikon camera on my neck to make sure I won't be missing anything! Hope you had fun reading as well! I'll keep you posted! ;*

Ang pagpapakitang-GILAS

I daresay this is my team. I quit my loyalty to NBA (though I would still do my annual NBA Finals routine) and solemnly swear my full force support to team Gilas Pilipinas. I never thought they could play that well, so well that I thought I was watching NBA-Philippine version. To the coach, Chot Reyes, you and the rest of the team did a great job in transforming these individuals to be at their best in the court. Iba talaga pag may teamwork! ;-)

The coach and the rest of the team

The line-up :D

Yet another source of inspiration and another set of people to look up to. God is the best! AMDG! :')

PS today, I just got my application certificate for the board exams this October. Ako na naman ang hinahamong magpakitang-gilas! HAHA. I'm so feeling the pressure now. But I believe God is with me always. I just have to do my part. I'll keep you posted! :)

CruuuciaL :3

The hardest part in reviewing is not the part when you're answering tons of questionnaires. It's when you see your friends having the time of their lives and you're stuck at home with so much to do, it's when your all-time favorite movie is on TV and you just can't watch, it's when your family go out of town and you can't go with them, it's when you have SO MANY things in mind and you just can't actualize them YET because you're reviewing. Most of my co-reviewees had it coming. I didn't.

Lord, I need you. Help me. Please?

APOLOGY

I am so SOOOOOOOOOORRYYYY! I owe you so many entries! Like, the entry about my fantastic Camiguin vacation and how I spent my idle summer time watching action movies I missed and how I settled for the mall benches with a bunch of fries in my hand, while the other is busy texting! Missing those entries is so unthinkable of me! Today is the START of the review classes which will hopefully END well by October this year! Then I'll take the CPA  Board exam and wait for the results (>.<) and pray for the best and it is only by then I might have the free time to share to you what happened this summer.

OKAY. It sounds weird and I've got so much in mind and I KNOW and I am well-aware that the details won't be the same but I'm giving you my word now, that my subsequent entries will be fun-filled and will be written by heart. :3 TEHEEEEEE. :] trust me! ^.^

For now, I'm browsing my old pdf files in audit theory and I couldn't just imagine how I'll manage to read and absorb all of these, to think it's just one of the "eight" (8) subjects I have to master! And there's  this tempting wifi connection we have which causes my innocent fingers to browse through google and view the different profiles of my hollywood inspirations or log in to twitter or facebook....AAAAHH! :'(

So if you're with me now, please let me deal with this thing first (the review school). Okay? I may be able to post some short or medium-length entries from time to time during the course of the review, but let's save the summer entry for last okay? I mean, it should be DEAD-LENGTHY and super duper fun-filled so it will really require so much time!

....:*

I will be missing you so. 'Til then! Wish me focus and indomitable faith to believe and succeed! God bless! :)

Review Curiosity

I “love” movies. What I usually think is that they help me drift away from reality, but what actually happens is that movies depict a fun and exciting perspective of how I ought to see life as it is. I love stories, most especially stories I can relate myself with. I am very emotional. Whenever a movie captures my heart, I cannot easily get over with it, it will take the entire night or the next day for me to move on and realize that it was “just” a movie.

It was Maundy Thursday and the family tradition during the Holy Week was to watch movies. This has been one of the many reasons why I look forward to the Lent season (HAHA). I really love seeing my mom and dad and my sister stare seriously at the TV screen, then smile and laugh and look sad altogether. :’) mem’ries. Geeeezz, not again. Okay, so this year, we spent Thursday at home, as usual, and me and my sister had the time of our lives, trying to kill each other to win the remote control. :D  I also made time to update my blog and then I skipped siesta for the time being.

In the evening, we decided to go to Church and observe the Eastern vigil (for a while, so not technically a vigil) and man, the aura was just so peaceful. There were candles, and plants and colored lights, and all else that the 21^st century can offer. I found a good place to reflect and pray. ^.^

This was kinda' how it looked like but it's way better seen actually. :)

After that, we left for home and tuned in for the television. My mom is the type of the person who’s really into Tagalog love movies (which I usually find baduy) and so we had to bear watching the replay of Sarah Geronimo and John Lloyd Cruz’s (insert title here). When mom switched channels during advertisements, I caught a scene in one movie I saw before. It was not long ago when I caught boredom watching “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and believe me, I felt more excited watching boredom in front of me that to stick to this “hopeless-case-for-me” tagalong movie mom’s so serious about.

FINALLY, the remote control fell into the powerful and kilig-defying hands of mine! MWAHAHAHA! XD The three of them went to sleep already so I then owned the TV powers! (MWAHAHAHAHAHA!) Okay now, serious mode. As what I said, I already saw the movie, and the impression I got was that it was a sad love story, so what I was really up to that evening was to grasp some details of the movie which I did not retain or even understand, and to hope that perhaps, it may change even just a small aspect of me, as a person, capable of loving and living a good life. And it did.

I do not intend to write a narrative of the movie because trust me, it’s better seen that told.  :) Anyhow, I’ll write about the major lessons I learned and the very reasons why I finally cried hard in front of the television again since I can’t remember. Like SRSLY, even after turning off the TV and the lights, I still found myself crying to sleep, and I felt so moved that even when I woke up the next day (Good Friday), I still cried like crazy. OOHHHH, SEE?! I was deeply moved that I believe this movie deserves a movie review (sort of) in my blog. Not that Brad Pitt is undeniably handsome and gorgeous, don’t get me wrong please, but if Benjamin Button is actually a non-fictional character, I will really do my best to meet him one day, and it would be such a privilege to be able to speak to a virtuous man, with a peculiar case and a big heart. I’m afraid it was mistake to have taken the movie as a sad love story, it was way more than that. Much more than that. <3

It was a story of life, and of time, entirely. It was about failure, heartbreak, love, trying, and understanding that fact that nothing lasts forever, but some things are just never meant to be forgotten. It is a story of bearing with life patiently, a story of acceptance, of forgiveness and of starting all over. Benjamin is someone who grows backwards, and I admire him for being a good man at that, despite of how painful it was to watch everyone else die old ahead of him, while he grows younger, ALONE. I found it really cute when he was around 10 (I guess) and he had to lie when asked about the last time he had sex with a woman. He looked old, but you can feel that his heart was young, his eyes spoke much more than the words which came out from his lips. Moreover, I also admired the way he accepted Daisy, despite of her, rejecting him not just once, but many times, and loving her despite of her wild sex life with other men her age and for being patient enough to understand her during the process of her adulthood, despite the fact that he should also be understood, as someone growing older, yet younger. Complicated indeed.

All along, I thought that the worst thing that Benjamin ever did was to leave Daisy a year after giving birth to their daughter. But after watching the movie, the second time, I was convinced that it was the bravest and the hardest thing he ever did in his life. He had to leave, and, I admire him again for that.

What really made me cry like a dying pig was when their daughter Caroline, found out about the truth (she grew up loving a different man as her father) and read every postcard Benjamin has sent for her every birthday she celebrated. The words were just so piercing that even now, I’m about to cry na naman ulit. T T HAHA. :3

He told her how he wished to be the father who sent her to school in her 1^st grade, the father who could have been her crying shoulder during her teenage years whenever a boy would make her cry, he told her about….ahh, I just can’t do this. (haha, my gosh, super drama mode na jud) I’m really sorry, this is just how I get hooked with a movie. I deliberately and emotionally get HOOKED. So let me just quote the beautiful lines in the movie:

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” 
― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay

“You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.” 
― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay

“Life can only be understood looking backward.  It must be lived forward.” 

“It’s not about how well you play.  It’s how you feel about what you’re playing.”

“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.” 
― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay

"And I think, right there and then, she realized none of us is perfect forever."

"Some people, were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people, dance."

And the sweetest way they say this is at night, when they are worlds apart:

Benjamin Button: Goodnight Daisy.  

Daisy: Goodnight Benjamin.

You better watch the movies guys, if you haven't yet. I’m getting the feeling that I'm spoiling it badly. ^.*

No wonder the film won numerous awards internationally. No wonder it made me cry dearly. No wonder, that by now, I am very much enthused to share it with you. And I will not ever wonder, why someday and somehow, you will also feel uplifted and inspired by the movie. Don’t just keep breathing. Keep on living. And don’t just live. Live well.

Let me share to you one of the most profound lines in the movie, spoken by an old man who was hit by lightning seven times (HAHAHAHAHA!) but never felt disheartened and I quote;

“The truth is, despite of everything, God keeps on reminding me that I'm lucky to be alive, and that is what’s important.” <3

College Retirement Blues: The "How To's"

How does someone hope? How does someone consider victory? How does someone look forward to what lies ahead?

In the midst of vulnerability, in times when anxiety seems to cover the atmosphere, and when failure seems to clog up your appetite to eat, I doubt if I can personally write about “how.”

There’s no point of telling you a story about how I managed to make my way up to my fourth year in college in the Accountancy program. Everyone in my batch must have had their own versions of bittersweet experiences. This time, as I deem fit, what is worth writing about is how exactly I was able to go through this period of silence, this times of torture in waiting for the “truth” to set you free, and the time of verdict whether you’re actually qualified to take the board exam. (but you know, I’ll still share a little something about everything I’ve done)

By virtue of personal evaluation, I know, I believe and I stand by the fact that I deserve to graduate. As what my dad said; “An instructor in his right mind will not easily fail a 4^th yr student. Dili makasugakod ang estudyante sa upat ka tuig kung bugok siya.” And yes, daddy’s right. Bright ko, bright mi tanan, naa lang juy times mutukar ang danghag ug tapol, or else mediocrity. Anyhow, that doesn’t change the potentiality within. How about putting the potentials into action? Let’s see.

Quality time. When I enrolled for my last 1^st semester this school year, I said to myself; “Never end up with crying to daddy Lord, begging for forgiveness and asking Him for one last chance to prove yourself worthy of the scholarship AGAIN, as what you did after third year.” That’s why, I have honestly made an extra effort to study, to sacrifice weekends with my family and even “some” Sunday masses. I was that desperate to prove myself worthy of being in the program, of “staying” in the program in the “normal” duration. For the record, my fourth year was the first and only year wherein I’ve stayed in late at night just to study. I normally sleep by 11pm but this time, I was able to tolerate even up to 1am. That benchmark improved by 2^nd sem; I could then stay awake even up to 3am. However, quality time is what actually matters, and insofar as my brain capacity is concerned, I really need to dwell for at least 3hrs per subject “minimum”. HAHA. Sorry na, mahina ang kalaban.

Compliance. When it comes to requirements, I am a self-proclaimed go-getter and I am always open to different approaches on how to improve my performance. “Tagaan na lang gani ko ug chance mamugas, ituloy-tuloy napud nako. What gives?”

Attendance. No question. Tardiness? Uhm….

Variances. By saying “variance”, what I actually mean is the gap between my hardwork and my output. HAHA. K. I’m not saying that I do not reap what I have sown, but most of the time, I get frustrated. However, it was during my 4^th year that I have started to better my response when it comes to failing grades because “usually” I get to avoid committing the same mistake again. CHARS OI. Seriously, it’s been a good feeling actually that if in cost accounting, the gap between my efforts and my grades was like the distance between the Babuyan Islands and Tawi-tawi, this time, it’s only like from Bohol to Davao. :3 HAHA. :P

Now what? After talking about “how’s” and evaluating my potentials and my capabilities, what’s the point of this mumbo-jumbo entry? Simple. Actually, it was not about asking; “how does someone hope? Rather, it should be, “why should someone believe? It’s not about
“how does someone consider victory? Rather, it’s a matter of: “why should someone be thankful about failures? It’s not about “how does someone look forward to what lies ahead? Rather, it’s a question of:  “why wait for tomorrow when your tomorrow can be today?” All I’m saying is, it’s not a question of “how”, it’s a matter of “why” because if you know why you’re doing something, then for sure, human nature will guide you all the way throughout the “how’s” in your life. “Kung ayaw may dahilan, kung gusto palaging merong paraan.” (Antukin, 2009)

I hope, but more than that, I believe. And in the process of believing, I have come to realize that I should not do the “believing” only after my exams whatsoever. I should do it before and during every undertaking. It served as my engine, I believe.

I am a dreamer and I’ve always aspired for victory in every field I want to excel in, 10 out of 10 trials have taught me that failures has been the best source of victory yet. I’ve always believed in realizing dreams by virtue of birthright, but life experience has taught me better that everything worth having is everything worth fighting, even worth dying for. It is only when we have a guiding purpose in life that we tend to carve a meaningful path in this world. Failure is not a pre-requisite to success, but it’s a very effective booster or enhancer of some sort, I must say. Lastly, I am a straightforward pessimist and most of the time, the future is my concern. The Accountancy program has taught me that everything I am hoping for, everything I am praying for is always right here, right now. That has been and that will continue to be my principle everytime I take exams and tests.

How exactly have I gone through my four years and how exactly will I deal with this crucial “waiting time” before the semester gives its final judgment? Well, prayers. A handful of prayers and a gallon of prayers. A pinch of prayers and a flood of prayers.  Because as of now, I have already done my part. I have given my all, and all that’s left is God’s will. After all, I have answered my question already. How do I deal with this? I just did..from four years ago and counting. :)