General

I would like to share with you today what I learned during today's sermon, since today is a Sunday. Today's sermon revolves around battles. Our pastor talked about the story of Joshua. God was training him about battles. What battles are you facing today? I am sure you have your own battles in life, like a battle for relationship, for health, for financial problems or what have you. Today, God wants you to remember that, first, the battle is the Lord's. I am still a teenager, and my family had always been living in a middle-class life that most of my problems come from my school (I do not have work yet nor family to provide for). Given this, I do not think I am the right person to talk about financial problems or such bigger problems that you are probably facing today. But no matter how big or small your problem is, please do remember that God is there with you, battling "with" you. Do not lose hope. Do not give up. God is always there for you. He will defeat the enemy.

In the Bible, the Israelites, together with Joshua, fought against Amalekites, who were probably more experienced than Israelites when it comes to war. Israelites were slaves for 400 years, and what they do for living is to shepherd. They probably have not yet experienced holding a sword nor fight. In the end, the Israelites have won the war because God was with them. Moses then built a Church and put "God is my banner". This was as if to say that, do not mess with us because God is here with us, the King is here.
In the Olympics, for example, flags are being held so that others will know that they are from a certain country. That if you are lost, just look for your country's flag and you will stay behind it. The same must be true for us. We must identify ourselves as God's. Let us stand behind him in our battle as He leads us towards victory.

Think of all the battles you have won and think of how powerful, how helpful and how great our God is. He is there for you. Ask for help. Pray.

Level of Happiness

I remember the song "seasons of love". I have not watched the movie Rent, but I do love the song. Now, I ask, how do you measure a year? There sure are so many ways of "how to"s in this world. There are different conversions, different methods and different measurements. For many people, a year can just be treated as simply time that passed, is passing and will pass. How about happiness? How does one quantify happiness?

There is an article, though I did not read it, in Yahoo! about being able to determine the happiest place. I am not quite sure of this, because I was not able to read it at that time. I do not even know where the place is. It just made me curious how they were able to determine such thing, or feeling.

I know many people will also have a hard time quantifying their happiness. Defining it is difficult enough, actually. I, too, do not know how to state my level of happiness. One of my professors mentioned that he read this article. He said that the study took money as a factor in determining the level of happiness of a place. When he mentioned it, I even thought that he was going to say that the Philippines is the place where most people are happy. Being a Filipino, I know that whatever situation a Filipino is in, he will NEVER forget how to smile. Anyway, I have been wondering if money is a good measure for happiness. Of course, it is not the sole determinant.

This, I think, is the same when managers assume that the higher the pay, the more productive, the more determined and the more satisfied their employees are. It is not always true, right? Though I still am not working, we all are lead to this assumption. Since I am a business student, I was taught that this is "partly" true.

I think of the relationship of money and happiness like a parabola. When you really do not have money to buy either the basic necessities or the things you want, having money increases your happiness very much. But when you have so much money already, increasing it would not necessarily increase your happiness.

We all have different views on this. But when we are to be asked about what factors influence our happiness, what would you answer? Mine is that happiness can not be quantified because the things that influence my happiness can not be as well.

2 movies in 1 day

Movie time! I had a chance to watch two movies today. Ghost Rider and Unofficially Yours. The reason why I was able to watch these is that I did not fully understand Ghost Rider. Well, I am sorry to offend those people who want that movie. I was just curious because I have not seen the first one. I have always preferred light movies, as you can see on my profile.
Unofficially Yours is a Filipino movie. It stars Angel Locsin and John Lloyd Cruz. Its story, based on the trailer, is like "Friends with Benefits", "Love and Other Drugs" and "No Strings Attached", all of which I have watched already. I knew beforehand that imitating those kinds of stories is very Filipino-ish. Anyway, I decided to watch the movie because I would like a comparison.

It starts with the main characters having "one night stand". They met again in a national newspaper publishing house where the girl has a certain position and the boy is a newbie. I recall this story from 500 Days of Summer somehow, although instead of the girl, the guy is the one in position. The no-strings-attached relationship went on until the guy fell in love with the girl, but the girl had a hard time in giving her love for the guy. As I expected, the girl had a bitter past experience which was the reason for her refusal to the guy. After some realizations, the ending was a happy-ever-after one. The end.

Get Serious

For today, as I go to my usual Thursday routine of going to classes then back at home, I thought about blogging. Yes, I definitely tried to blog a lot of times back when I was in high school. I had an account in Multiply, as well as in LiveJournal, I think. Unfortunately, I was not able to maintain it. When I was young, I find blogging as something that I do when bored or when I am in the mood to write. I did not really care whether or not others would be happy with all the things I write. Writing, for me, was brain-draining. Now, as UP (University of the Philippines) student, I am required to write so many things. Whether it is analysis of a case, a digest of something or a review, it is a must to write, although, of course, I can opt not to and get a failing grade.

It is just now that I have decided to keep my thoughts into writing. Hopefully, I would be able to share a lot of things with you AND be able to get some feedback and ideas from you as well. I hope to know you in the future. Enjoy life. :)

one thankful day

Today, we had an exam in Financial Management about time value of money, valuation of bonds and stocks and risk and return. Although our professor is really known to give hard exams, his subject is my favorite. I really am curious and interested about the topic and when it comes to mathematical stuff, I really will not give up. I am challenged. I think I have performed well a while ago, and I am very thankful to Him, who was and will always be with me. Why am I telling this? A while ago, as I was on my way home, I could not stop thanking Him, because I even had time to review my answers which I would not normally be able to do. Sometimes, the time is not even enough for us to finish. I know that others think they have passed as well. It is to my understanding that the exams were a little easier. I thought to myself, how would I be without Him? What would be the sense of having to achieve something if not for Him? I really am thankful I have known Him this early, and I could simply not contain this feeling so I just decided to blog. I know someday I will be reading this again, and it would surely remind me of His goodness.

a tiring week

A lot have happened in my life since my last blog. I do not really remember writing the previous one. As the title says, it IS a tiring week for me. I am currently a student. I am not yet working for a company or something, but it seems like do already. I have this subject called Financial Management, where our professor is challenging us A LOT. I know that his intentions are good, because he wants to train us dealing with the 'real' world. Honestly, I am very interested. I love it, although, admittedly, it is very difficult and burdensome for us as students. But I think we have to get used to something like this.


This Monday, I had an experience of going to Manila, a foreign place for me, without any instructions from my father. My friend and I are only dependent on what people will tell us when we ask them something. It was tiring, yes, but I enjoyed it. I enjoy every experience outside my everyday routine life. It has always been my dream to travel the world. Anyway, back to this tiring week, on Tuesday, the organization I belong to had an event called La Fashionista. It is a contest showcasing dresses designed by UP students and models representing their respective organizations and fraternity/sorority. After the event, I still had to do some school works to be submitted on the following day. On Wednesday, again, there were things I need to do. There was paper on our marketing subject that we had to submit on Thursday. By Friday, we had an exam on our subject, Business Law. On Saturday, I have a report for my Operations subject. I do not know if you would understand the pain I went through this week by reading this blog. Probably not. This week is not yet done. There is continuation next week, a week worse than this.


By the way, Valentine's day is just around the corner. For me, it does not make any sense, but I will wait for the moment that it will. I am not looking for someone, and I will never look, because I know I do not need to. :)


I would always want to blog. Sometimes, there are a lot of things I want to write but stay only in my mind because I am that lazy to not type it. Hopefully, this would go on and on and on.haha!