Yes, I Took That Pic While Driving

Driving along I-695 towards Baltimore, I saw the scary nimbus clouds in front of me. The first thing I thought of was, is there an umbrella in my car? Second was, oh cool it looks like the apocalypse. Of course the song playing on the radio was "Firestarter" by Prodigy. Which kinda creeped me out (if you haven't seen the video, Prodigy looked pretty demonic there... Well they always look demonic actually).

So I thought of hell and what it might be like to spend eternity there (not that I'm planning to of course). Two days ago I went to the National Shrine with my mom, and at the book store I saw a book about hell and out of curiosity read a part of it. At Fatima, Mary showed the children what hell looked like and they got scared out of their wits. A vast sea of fire with a lot of blackened human forms screaming or groaning in pain. And then there were the animal-like demons. If they weren't promised a spot in heaven, they would have died in fear, Sister Lucy said. 

Funny enough the song switched to "Crossroads" by Bone Thugs N Harmony. First thing I thought was, what's up with the apocalyptic clouds and creepy songs? Second was, what would it take to go to heaven? How do I secure a spot over there? Can I RSVP?

If I am faithful to the commandments, which can be summed up to: love God and love my neighbors, then everything should be alright. Love God above all. Love my neighbors, and not just those who love me. Love strangers, love enemies, love everybody. Unconditionally.

See how it all comes back to love? Because God is love. He created us out of love. He created us because He wants to love us. And He created us to love. To love Him back and to love others. And a lot of times it is extremely hard. When trials come and things don't go our way, would we still decide to love God? When people betray or hurt us, would we still decide to love them?

This is where it matters the most, when it gets hard to love. When we realize whether we love unconditionally or conditionally. 

The key to heaven is love.

It's timely for me that CFC's theme this year is to love one another. God has been testing me this year regarding this. He's even testing me to love myself. And at times the tests really kick my butt and I would wish He'd stop. But I figured, it's gonna end some time right? I just gotta keep my head above water. Hang in there. Just practice patience and understanding and love and all that good stuff. God wants me to be a better person and that is why He tests me. So I should welcome all of the trials that He allows to happen. Bring it on! Hah. But not too much, okay? Kidding. Whatever it takes to get me to go to heaven. Maybe a lot of work needs to be done on me, hee.

So actually I shouldn't be confident enough to be taking pictures while driving. In an interstate highway. With the apocalyptic clouds hovering above me. 

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Bibliya Study

I love the Great Adventure bible study series. I didn't expect having a deeper meaning of the written Word would make me realize the significance of the bible in my everyday life. How stories that happened centuries and centuries ago would still apply to my life now and to my future. That God has plans and promises for me, and for all of us.

What's even unexpected is how my SFC friends and I would even bring up bible stories and characters randomly in conversations. And it's actually fun reading all these stories from the Old Testament (we haven't reached the New Testament yet).

And of course when giving talks, it's easier now to apply bible passages or stories on some parts of the outline.

The only challenge is, being the procrastinator that I am, I always have to cram the day of the bible study day. Most of the time at work. I bring the discussion guide questions to the office then read the bible online at USCCB.org. Bad employee, bad!

But the bible study is really great, not just because I get to learn a lot and be inspired but because of the people as well. Today I was having a bad day but when I came to the bible study and ate and discussed and watched the dvd with the people in the group, all my frustrations went away. Camaraderie is awesome :)

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Walkman!

My eyes widened with glee when I saw this contraption on the Perrins' dining table. Brought back memories of my high school days when I would listen to my walkman in the bus (Pearl Jam's VS album would play over and over when I was a sophomore) or while cramming for an exam. I had an Aiwa with 6 channel preset buttons for the radio when I was a senior. But when I was a freshman, I used to salivate over my cousin's yellow Sony sporty walkman that came from the "states."

Thanks to Dette and Tito "Norbs" for this great find!

And since this walkman made me reminisce about the 90's (even 80's), I now bring you Retro Junk.

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9 to 5

Okay that was a lie. I don't work in the office from 9 AM to 5 PM. I usually work from home in the morning to beat DC rush hour traffic, then go to the office around lunch time.

Anyway the pic above is just to show you what I stare at for a couple of hours, 5 times a week. My PC (ugh) with the nice color-coded (albeit full) Outlook calendar, my Maryland Terps cup, and the legal pad with all sorts of formulas I try to concoct every time a proposal needs to be sent out.

I like my job. It exercises my brain, especially when I need to do all those algebra and calculus stuff for proposals. It makes me do techie stuff and even creative stuff when an ad needs some minor designing. Plus I have a really laid-back boss who doesnt care where or when I work as long as I get the job done. He forgets to record the time offs I take unless I remind him. This job allows me to have a stable source of income while at the same time serve God (I've even gone on mission a few times during my employment here. It was no problem with my boss).

Just this afternoon though, I was talking with a good friend of mine on Google Talk/Gmail chat. She was talking about how she wants a job that directly serves God more. That made me contemplate about my job.

I work for a political magazine/website based in DC. Most - if not all - of our writers have been fawning over Obama. Their articles and blogs obviously show that they're Democrats, especially when they keep saying negative things about the Republican candidates. Now I'm not saying I'm a Republican or a supporter of McCain (I'm not even eligible to vote), but I feel all these writers, political pundits, etc have in some way influence over the voters. While I don't have anything against Obama as a person, I do have an issue with him being pro-choice and with his plan to have all supreme court judges to be pro-choice. If Obama wins, I fear for the lives of those unborn children. If he wins, does that mean my company had a small hand in that? And does that mean, as an employee of this company, I indirectly helped the pro-choice cause? I helped kill unborn babies? Yet I call myself pro-life? A witness for life?

I'm confuzzled.



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Bidyo

I'm loving this mobile blogging thing. I'm here right now in Delaware shooting a video for my good friends Jericho and Rina's bethrotal reception video. It's an honor to help tell their story to their family and friends. This is the 3rd love story I've helped with, and the funniest. Every time Jericho is involved with a video shoot, the concept is always creative and the acting hilarious. I can't wait to edit this.

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Witness is now mobile!

I just figured out a way to post on this blog through my crackberry, so I can update whenever, wherever. I can even post a pic that I took through the phone's camera (hi David!). Now if I can only figure out how to move it down...

Maybe this would get me to update my blog more often, since my last post was roughly 4.5 months ago.

Slacker! :D

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