i carry your heart with me

To the one I love, Jenn...
-------------------------------

i carry your heart with me
e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

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Edward Estlin Cummings
October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962
E. E. Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Edward and Rebecca Haswell Clarke Cummings. Intensely creative, Cummings was also a fine artist, playwright and novelist; his life and art were tightly interwoven. Known for typographic innovation, Cummings controlled both the look and the content of his poems.

Filipina cancer mother sacrificed life for unborn baby

The Philippine Star carried this inspiring story of love and sacrifice that I believe should not be disregarded because of our religious differences. It reminded me of how much we ought to love our mothers:

Filipina cancer mother sacrificed life for unborn baby
12/10 10:00:01 AM

LONDON (AFP) - A British-based Filipina mother who found out she had cancer after becoming pregnant sacrificed her life for her unborn baby by refusing an abortion and chemotherapy, a British newspaper said last Friday.

Devout Catholic Bernadette Mimura known as Milai shunned the potentially life-saving treatment because doctors told her it would kill the child, regional daily the Northern Echo reported.

The 37-year-old, who lived near Stockton-on-Tees, northeast England, with her British partner, Adam Taylor, survived long enough to see the birth of their son, Nathan.

But soon after seeing him baptised, she was transferred to a hospice and died about a week later.

"Being a Catholic, for her abortion was out of the question," Taylor told the newspaper. "It was a tough decision but the decision was we could not give up on Nathan."

The youngster now four-months-old was premature but was born fit and healthy.

The baby, whose mother was given a mild form of chemotherapy to suppress her breast cancer, had to be induced after she developed complications.

Priest Alan Sheridan, who performed the baptism, told Britain's domestic Press Asssociation news agency: "Bernadette said the most important thing was the birth of her baby and she would not do anything to harm him.

"Having an abortion was never a consideration. I know she talked it over with Adam and because she was a Catholic, there was no way she would have done it.

"She had to judge which life was more important and she just prayed there would be a cure for cancer."

Sheridan is spearheading an appeal to raise 3,700 pounds (5,492 euros, 6,490 dollars) to repatriate Mimura's body to the Philippines for burial.

Money left over will help her other three children from a first marriage.

The priest said he hoped the Manila government would help with a grant to fly the three youngsters from Britain for the ceremony.

I never thought am orthodox!

I saw the Belief-O-Matic quiz link on the blogs of Ms. Jen. She took it and turned out that she should have been a Quaker. I figured out that it wouldn't harm me if I also try. I did and guess I should be a Quaker too! Really now?!

Your Results: The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

01. Orthodox Quaker (100%)
02. Seventh Day Adventist (83%)
03. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (81%)
04. Eastern Orthodox (77%)
05. Roman Catholic (77%)
06. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (73%)
07. Liberal Quakers (63%)
08. Hinduism (55%)
09. Sikhism (54%)
10. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (52%)
11. Unitarian Universalism (52%)
12. Orthodox Judaism (50%)
13. Reform Judaism (45%)
14. Islam (43%)
15. Theravada Buddhism (43%)
16. Mahayana Buddhism (42%)
17. Baha'i Faith (40%)
18. Neo-Pagan (39%)
19. Jainism (39%)
20. Jehovah's Witness (36%)
21. Taoism (36%)
22. Secular Humanism (32%)
23. New Age (30%)
24. Scientology (27%)
25. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (26%)
26. New Thought (19%)
27. Nontheist (16%)

GDN had this picture of the the Bahrain Financial Harbour shrouded in fog. 

Blog the Fog!

We have observed that it was uncharacteristically foggy last night when we drove a couple of friends to Sanad and Isa Town. Yet, the cold breeze that came with it never doused our desire to have a glass of Fakfahina! Well, I had a glass of Pomegranate blend instead.

However, it was not the cold nor the fog why I did not turn on the air conditioner and the ceiling fan at my room last night. My new room mate arrived. In deference to him, I did not insist on my "settings". It must be really cold because I was not bothered at all. I just hope the poor guy was never horrified by my wild snoring! ;) Whoa, this is actually the first time I have publicly admitted I snore. This is surely a sign I am improving.

Well, the Bahrain Tribune carried today a news about the fog. I must say that this is one of the very few instances I really enjoyed a Bahrain Tribune headline. Read the news as well, if you are looking for ways to kill time:

A ‘fog’ettable day for Kuwait passengers
Flight diverted due to poor visibility

More than 150 Air-India passengers landed in Bahrain in the wee hours of yesterday when, in fact, they were supposed to be at their jobs in Kuwait the same morning!
Thanks to poor visibility in Kuwait, the flight failed to land there and was diverted to Bahrain, along with an Oman Air flight from Muscat and an Indian Airlines flight from Trichy in India.

And, for once, the passengers were not complaining about how they were not looked after but they were all lamenting how long they had been airborne and how they wanted to be ‘home’.

Sadanand Patil acted as the unofficial spokesperson for the predominantly Malayalam-speaking passengers, saying it was a situation beyond the control of the airline. “After all, these things happen,” he said, “and we were, unfortunately, at the receiving end.”

The Kuwait-resident banker, who was travelling with his wife and three-year-old daughter, did not seem very perturbed with the long haul he had but was visibly tired. “We left Mumbai nearly 24 hours ago and went to Chennai and Cochin before we started off for Kuwait,” he said. “Whoever thought there would be fog in the desert,” he said.

Kariappa was not so magnanimous. “I am travelling for the first time. I am scared. Will I ever reach Kuwait,” is all that he could say in his halting English. “Over and above the tiredness, I have not been able to call my family in Chennai to tell them where I am.”

Soon his desire to speak to his wife was answered by a porter at the Phoenicia Centre Residence in Adliya, who loaned him his mobile to speak to her. Immediately after that, Kariappa, who is to take up a job as a cleaner with a contracting company, was a changed man, offering to share his experiences.

John, from Cochin, was quite satisfied with the way passengers had been looked after. “We were finally in the hotels at around 3am,” he said, “and we were supplied with snacks and dinner. We were also told about the latest flight situation. I don’t think we have a reason to complain.”

But he was still not sure how he would salvage his one day’s salary. “I earn KD30 a month working as a labourer and I will lose a day’s wages. I will probably have to do overtime on Friday to make up.”

Air-India manager for Bahrain and Jordan, M N Naik, said later in the evening that all passengers had reached Kuwait.

He said that since all hotels were full, they had to put the passengers into some service apartments. “We also provided them with food and whatever assistance they needed.”

Indian Airlines Manager Sanjay Misra said their flight from Trichy to Kuwait had to be diverted to Bahrain and the passengers accommodated in some hotels. “However, the weather cleared in Kuwait early in the morning and the plane took off.”

Oman Air Manager Isa Al Harthy said since there were no hotel rooms available in Bahrain, the Kuwait-bound flight from Muscat returned to the Omani capital.

JDV gains Saudi King's support for Mindanao peace process

Also in today’s news but from a Philippine newspaper, the Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives (the Philippines’ lower house of Congress), Jose de Venecia visited Saudi Arabia and discussed the peace process in Mindanao and global inter-faith dialogue with the new Saudi monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz al-Saud.

Obviously, the news item is a PR thing because it talked about de Venecia winning “endorsement for both in an unprecedented one-hour dialogue” with the Saudi king. They have started to count their chicks when the eggs have not yet hatched. This also reminded of an old Pakistani friend in Riyadh who, on several instances, intimated to me how de Venecia fooled them into investing in a failed oil exploration project many, many years ago. I wondered then if this was true. I wondered until now whether this is true. But, knowing the polished politics of de Venecia, I can come up with my theories. I wonder if Mahmood Tariq and his colleagues were able to catch on de Venecia while he was in Riyadh. Has the ghosts of de Venecia's storied past caught up on him?

Tabloid Journalism; Tabloid Characters

Bahrain is such a small country but this should not be an excuse for the tabloid journalism evident in the English dailies in the island kingdom. This is exacerbated when the subject of the “news” is your compatriots. Now, as if this is not bad, everything becomes ridiculously embarrassing when the news is about "sins of love".

Today, this news about two Filipinas getting at each other because of phone calls made to the ex-boyfriend of one is the kind of press we Filipinos do not deserve.

I will not take any sides on this matter because both of these ladies are embarrassments. I will have to add them to my list of "girls behaving badly" to the detriment of the Philippines.

While I have developed this fixation about being too conscious not to violate the minutest of my host country’s laws, I am afraid not every Filipino is on the same wavelength. Dinala pa sa Bahrain ang kalandian nila! (They have the gall to bring to Bahrain their flirtations!)

Superfluous billboard

Veronica Mendoza of Quezon City wrote the Philippine Daily Inquirer about superfluous billboard, specifically the one at the Rizal Park. She laments the patronage politics that has characterized Philippine leadership and perfected to harrowingly scandalous proportions by my favorite president.

Well, for a while and after the May 2004 elections, these billboards were removed but my favorite president's spin doctors realized the PR bonanza that the SEA Games affords them. Voila! The billboards are back!

Read her letter which was published on page A14 of the December 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I grew up taking early morning walks with my grandmother on the grounds of Rizal Park. In the process, I got curious and eventually seek an answer to this question: “Why should one person deserve to have a huge park named after him?”

To this day, I can’t help but feel proud every time I pass by that person’s monument and what it stands for. For me, there is only one “superstar” in that park, and that is Jose Rizal. And so it makes me so uneasy to see that other people are trying to grab the limelight from him.

I refer to the billboard placed quite near the Rizal Monument, announcing the Rizal Park Rehabilitation Project, with the President and tourism secretary claiming its success. My salary contributed to that project. So if there’s any face that needs to be there, it should be mine.

This is so typical a scene anywhere in this country, further reinforcing the patronage politics of false indebtedness to political leaders. We often see billboards that thank a certain mayor or congressman for a paved 300-meter road that used to be of a dirt road.

This practice has to stop. What we want to see is the proper accounting as to how government resources are being used. Tell us through those billboards how much is the cost of a project, who is doing the work, and when it is set to be completed. And for goodness sake, thank the people for the tax they paid, which made the project possible.

Please take down that billboard in Rizal Park, or I will assemble a group from the PRO-Gun Society and get them to shout “Fuego” as they aim at the billboard.

2 Filipinos reach mobile phone film finals

First posted 05:32pm (Mla time) Dec 06, 2005

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva

TWO Filipinos are among the six finalists in a mobile films contest in which first-time film-makers use mobile phones to create short films, INQ7.net has learned.

Noel Osting and Janice Yu are in the running for the 10,000-dollar cash prize, according to the First-Time Mobile Film Makers website.

More details and their interviews can be read at http://www.mobifilms.net/6finalists.html. Visitors to the website can vote for their favorite film-makers.

In his brief profile on the site, Noel Osting said he submitted a mini-documentary about his life experiences as a young Filipino growing in the Philippines.

"What inspired me most to enter this contest is my desire to give my family a decent house to live in, and to further enhance my skill thru the filmmaking workshop," he said on the website.

Osting's entry is titled "Kuliglig" (Cicada), a word to describe a native farm trailer commonly used as a tool for tilling rice fields in his community.

"I chose this because it represents my community's struggle to [be] free from the bondage of poverty," he added.

Yu's entry, on the other hand, dwells on the Chinese Cemetery in Metro Manila.

"My treatment of the story would be to focus more on how the cemetery brings about a sense of belonging to a present day Chinese-Filipino, who are slowly beginning to lose their sense of identity as they begin to embrace a more Filipino way of life," a description of her entry read.

Yu said the availability of video on mobile phones is "a godsend" for videographers like her as it gives them access to equipment that is packed with features despite their small size.

Discovery Networks Asia, the Asia entertainment company of Discovery Communications, has partnered with mobile phone company Nokia for this contest.

Chicken Little singing "I am the Champion" (according to Nauval from Singapore, a narcissist version of "We are the Champion") under a spotlight made from a torchlight put on his bed is an appropriate analogy of the recently concluded 25th Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines where our country emerged overall champions for the first time since joining the games more than twenty years ago and amidst the backdrop of a limping Philippine economy, the specter of terrorist attacks and grandstand politciking of our leaders. 

Toto called me up earlier from Riyadh on his mobile. We talked for almost an hour. We talked about a lot of things. Life and business. Love and friendship. Of course, we talked about our common love for technology and toys for the big boys! He has finally made me realized that I have not joined deviantART. So, here it is. I am now a deviant... just yesterday, I was thinking of creating an account with Flickr.com so that I can upload my photos... coincidence... timing... but not strange... 

Not today!

I wrote something for today. I thought it was profound. I smiled at the monitor. I skimmed the blog. Hmmm. Very good. I hit the Publish Post button. Then, there it was! System error. Shut down. Reboot. I am back - finally... But, I lost my steam... I can not rewrite that blog. It is gone - at least today. Not today!

Meandering no more...

No excuses, I am back. I have looked back. My back is free. I am back. This is the same old me. Wandering. Wanderer. I may have achieve so much in the eight months I avoided blogging but I have yet to realize if I have achieved so much for myself, for the world, in myself or in the world.

No, this is not a case of identity crisis. Am not Sybil. This is not even a case of mid-life crisis for I am still young to reach that stage.

It is just a realization that sometimes one has to detach himself from the things he loves to do in order to refine himself.

The last eights have been a collage of events, people and places. The excruciating summer heat of Bahrain. The unabashed politics and betrayal in the Philippines. The plethora of natural calamities. My personal wounds and struggles coming to a crescendo once more.

While I went through the motions of my daily life, I realized I was lifeless. An automaton. I laugh because I just have to laugh. I cry because I just have to cry. I eat because I just have to eat. I live because I just have to live. “Just”. But it was not just. There was no justice in going through the motions.

Then, one fine morning, I woke up to realize that it is just me. “Just”. Finally, I have to do myself justice by not merely laughing, crying, eating or living but I laugh, cry, eat and live because I choose to, because I opt to, because I will to.

Then, it is today…

I am back. I have looked back. My back is free.

Meandering no more but a meandering shawarma once more!