footprints in my heart...

i'm soooooo totally sad and depressed right now. i just found out that my cousin in the east coast just gave birth to a stillborn baby. his name is Christian Rolando. she was supposed to have a c-section on thursday. instead, they're burying him on thursday. my heart goes out to them. the last time i visited them, she and lee were just engaged and they were preparing for their wedding. when i saw the subject line for the email, i was getting ready to be all happy, only to read such sad news. *sigh* sad day...

please pray for their family. thanx.

i love my family. so... i consult a lot. i talk to my friends and family about my life and esp on what's up with my relationships. they're my therapy when i'm distressed, my counselors when i'm going out of my mind, they put a mirror in front of my face when i'm being delusional. so i was talking to my aunt about The One. she cracks me up. she goes, Wala yatang The One. (There's no such thing as The One.) Anakin Skywalker is dead.

i love that concept. that totally takes the pressure off things, off people you date. that's what i'm sticking to. there's no The One. you have relationships and you make them work or you don't. there comes a point when you'll have to choose them every single day of your life and whoever that person turns out to be, then that's the one you're with. if it doesn't work out, then you move on. it put so much pressure and expectations with that concept of The One. you expect to work... for the rest of your life... and then maybe you struggle and then you wonder, why is this happening? i thought s/he was the one? so you're even further disappointed because you disillusioned yourself. you know how you know s/he's the one? cuz you choose him/her and make him/her the one. you choose that person today, then tomorrow, then maybe for the rest of your life.

i gotta remember this stuff next time i drive myself nuts again. have a happy thursday people!

who's going to see harry potter gof* tonight at midnite? i am! i am! i am!!! *jumping up and down with my hands raised!*


gof = goblet of fire. i'm not a geek, really. i saw my lil brother typing it out on aim last night to some friend of his and i even had to think about what gof meant.

i love the movies... i ought to start reading the books... but i kinda wanna get through my goal of reading through a book of the bible before the end of the year first.

"rent" review

i'm piggybacking on b.anne's recent blogpost:

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
~ Blessed Mother Teresa

love, real love, is soooo not what you see in the movies. like robby's post on relationships, trust, compromise, and committment are 3 aspects that are a part of relationships. and all three are not all that easy. trust... it's easy to be scared and be distrustful, especially after many failed relationships, scars and heartaches. it's easy to be pessimistic and think that it won't work out, expect that it won't work out. but to trust is to put faith in something and just let it go. no worries. compromise... this entails sharing. sharing of yourself with someone else. an aspect of sacrifice and unselfishness, in order to give to someone else something that you wouldn't otherwise do all on your own. and committment... the ability to stick it through, even, especially when, things are less than ideal.

it's so easy to get tired. it's so easy to just give up. and love... that love... it isn't the passion, it isn't the affection or even the feeling. it's more of the longevity and the perseverance... the staying power... endurance, rather than speed. quality, rather than the quantity. hmmm... what a concept. i guess, cuz love isn't necessarily extraordinary all the time... that there are more simple moments than those "wow" moments. hmmm, and maybe through those simple moments... that's how great love comes about. that's how it becomes extraordinary... wow, huh?

i had another perspective regarding mother teresa's quote. to love... to truly love Him... yea, that sooo takes perseverance. you know when you're a new student or a new servant of Christ, you have that excited feeling of eagerness to do anything and everything. but then you keep chugging away, studying, working, serving... and after a while, well, geez, it's hard work and you get tired. yea, i'm kinda there. i'm tired of taking responsibility for the youth masses, and heck, i'm tired of being so involved in the church! i don't have very good endurance (although, i usually speak of this regarding sports and my physical ability... lack thereof). but it's kinda true in other aspects of my life. i seem to have this 2 year threshold for my committments. cuz around the 2 year or so mark, i get antsy/tired/lazy and want change. i can see that in most of my long-term relationships, and i definitely noticed that with heaven sent. so priorities change, and now we've shifted our ministry's focus toward the confirmation program. the genius of how i revamped the program is that my involvement is pretty minimal. i'm there as a runner. as someone to fill in the gaps, but i'm not assigned to a classroom to teach the kids. this past weekend, we had youth mass and i helped coordinate the music for it. i was sorta throwing a tantrum to God, whining like a child, saying, "but i don't waaaannna do it. i'm sooo tiiired!" but, i went, yes, grumpily, but i went, and did it. and in the end of it all, i was glad i went and glad that it all worked out. it always works out anyway. i so digress... the point is... well, the point is that, i need to work on keeping going even when i am tired. it's so much easier to just be lazy and just go and do what i want, without responsibility or obligation... but the fact is... i love Him. and that love is greater than lil old me. i have to keep going... and yea, i'm so lazy sometimes, and sometimes, there's not much motivation or return on my investment of time and energy... but there is joy in the work. there's always laughter... and yes... there is love.

the hawaiian dancers were great, jackie looked beautiful, derek looked so happy! and the surfboard seating cards were so cute!!!

enjoy!

having good Christian people in your life is like being able to hop on the carpool lane and get to your destination to heaven faster (inspired by my work commute!)

~ marianne

what's the meaning of your name?

Dorothy
Gift of God : Greek

Sensitive, friendly and kind you look for peace and beauty in your environment and relationships. People like to be around you because of your charm and generosity and because you always generate a happy atmosphere. You have a fairly traditional approach to life and have a strong attachment to home, family and loved ones. With your creative imagination you have potential to be successful in the the arts.

... in the arts, huh? then what the heck am i doing in physician compensation. hmmm...

it's an ever-complicated subject, yet something that ought to be so simple. but thoughts muddle it, and even feelings are quite fickle and unreliable. so how do you know? how do you choose and say "i love you... in spite of." the unconditional sense of it... at some point in the beginning, there must have been some sort of condition. at least something that kept you there in the first place. whether she was the cute girl or he was the one that showed you the world... there was something. but what, what is that?

friends are getting married left and right, as you may have noticed. they all have this bright-eyed and wonderful outlook of each other. newlyweds, right? my girl friends all share this same sentiment of "i'm the luckiest girl in the world!" i have yet to discover such a sentiment within me. but is that the only way to go? i know of 2 significant women in my family, who had to make flat decisions in their life. they had to come to terms with their potential husbands at some point and despite the things they dislike about them, they were able to say, "he's a good man, yes, i want to marry him/he's the one i choose to be with." now maybe we were talking about love in a different context as what i'm speaking of now. i have to ask them about the falling-in-love/luckiest-girl-in-the-world kind of sentiment in the beginning. but i know they share an incredible love with their spouses now. so that is also good in the long run, right? but it's different... it certainly not the whole, i'm the luckiest girl in the world/head over heels/i'll follow you anywhere/as long as i have you, nothing else matters kind of love. it's a very grounded decision in choosing the partnership and that person. but it's not the highly emotional, almost brainlessness of "falling" in love.

and what is that... falling...? i've learned that real and true love is not a falling, not one that is out of your control. it's a good thing, because that also gives rise to falling out of love. both concepts are based on emotions, which are fickle. hence, the change, the falling in and falling out... as if it's out of your control. but love, real love, chooses that person despite imperfections and especially despite times of when you don't think it'll work, in order to keep working at it. but to begin with... how do you know that this person is who you can keep working at it with? because honestly, i'm a pretty tolerant person. i can keep going for years with a person's habits that i dislike. there are petty little things that some people would discount a potential significant other for, that i can just put up with. and there'll always be some of that right? i come from a family and an upbringing of working with what you have and being satisfied with it. i wasn't brought up to want or desire anything extravagant or impractical because we never had those things. we make do with what we have. i can deal with discomfort, i can deal with less-than-ideal things. i have a high tolerance of pain and discomfort... and really, i'm okay. so yes, i try. i try really really hard to make things work. hangang pigang piga na talaga ang relationship. (until i've squeezed everything out of the relationship). and eventually, yea, it isn't enough. or i can't take it anymore and want out.

i feel like i've lost my point along the way in this post. or maybe i didn't really have a point at all. these days, i often hear the term, "you deserve to be treated better/all the best." i also hear, "don't settle." that latter phrase has two different implications. don't settle for being treated less than you deserve. and don't settle for just comfort/convenience. i discover that i have issues with both of these concepts... deserve... defined specifically as to be worthy of merit, synonymous to earn. so what is it exactly that i deserve? and what kind of treatment have i earned? for that matter, what i have i done exactly to "earn" this treatment. (hmmm, i sense low self-esteem issues in those questions. something to think about.) and settle... i never saw any of the my relationships as settling. i always saw the goodness/greatness in the people i was with and i never looked at it as if i'm getting less than what i deserve. but i suppose it's pretty hard to gauge if you're getting less than you deserve if you haven't defined exactly what you do deserve. as for settling for comfort/convenience... sometimes that is exactly the beautiful thing about being with someone. that life is just so easy and comfortable with that person. and sometimes that is exactly what you like about him. but is that a bad thing? isn't there a higher chance of it lasting a lifetime of happiness, a longer longevity? and those are always the guys who get dumped in those movies like sweet home alabama and the notebook. freaking great guys who get dumped for other guys who the girl really fights with... what is that? *sigh*

love... it's certainly not as simple as boy meets girl, courts her, meets her parents, she says yes and they live happily with 2.5 kids and a dog in suburbia.

a long while ago, i was searching for that quote by carrie bradshaw from sex in the city. i got the urge to search for it again and i finally found it.

I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love. And I don't think that love is here in this expensive suite in this lovely hotel in Paris.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the weekend was absolutely fabulous. the move was just fine, not real difficult. and i loved, absolutely loved cleaning up and setting up house. if i had 2 more weekend, i'd finish the whole job myself. i loved playing house in their huge new house. and yes, i'm glad that my mild case of ocd works to my best friend's benefit too.

aside from that, we did actually experience a bit of vegas on this trip. no gambling, no strip bars. but this trip involved a lot of delicious, decadent, luxurious, tongue-dancing food. from hamachi (yellowtail) to foie gras to the most endorphin-inducing chocolate dishes ever... aughh, it was sooooooo good! i can't go into it right now, or i'll get hungry or start daydreaming of it. but soon. i'll post pictures too.

happy monday people.

mina and danny are moving into their new house!!! i'll be going there this weekend to help them move, so stay tuned next week for pictures! i've been very picture happy these days due to my happy lil toy. i'm glad to share with you folk out there.

i've missed my best friend. it's funny. she's been out there since august or so. her accent's changed. i know it's silly to think. but it has. it's gotten more... i dunno. white? i dunno. well, it'll be good to spend some time with them. i do hope we have time to just relax and hang out too. i'd love to go visit the ghostbar while i'm out there. apparently, they're unveiling the new playboy bunny uniforms. if i get to go, it'll be my 3rd sighting of mr. hugh heffner. i think it's destined for me to become his friend. hehehe!

enjoy the pictures here.

she's soooo adorable!