Picture of the Day: Monica

18 October 2011

This cat reminds me so much of my first pet, Monica.  
Today is her 15th Year Death Anniversary :(

Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales - VOGUE Version

Hansel and Gretel featuring Andrew Garfield as Hansel, Lily Cole as Gretel 

and Lady Gaga as the Witch

Beauty and the Beast featuring Drew Barrymore as Belle

Alice in Wonderland featuring Natalia Vodianova

The Little Red Riding Hood featuring Natalia Vodianovia

The Wizard of Oz featuring Keira Knightley as Dorothy Gale

Date A Girl Who Reads

 by Rosemarie Urquico

(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

If Only I had Known... I might have had my "Banned Books Week" too!

Picture of the Day: Priori Incatatem

18 October 2011

When was the last time you made some noise?

17 October 2011

Sometimes, all you need is a Harry Potter marathon...

Marriage

They do not love that do not show their love. 

The course of true love never did run smooth. 

Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. 

There is no evil angel but Love.

William Shakespeare

Below is a very wonderful story about Love, Marriage and Regret.

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why? 

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her! 

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now. 

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again. 

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage. 

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request. 

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully. 

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office. 

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her. 

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger. 

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily. 

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head. 

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day. 

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore. 

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart. 

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband…. 

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves.

So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage! 

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” 

I did not write this beautiful story,
but i would really love to appreciate the person who did.

I found this article from a Facebook friend who acknowledged 
someone named, Islamic Reflections. 

Thank you for sharing your story to the world :)

10 Complexes named after Historical, Mythological, and Fictional Characters

1. Oedipus Complex. This complex is named after the mythical king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father, Lauis, and married his mother, Jocasta, bringing disaster to his city and family. In the Freudian concepts, this complex explains a male child’s subconscious desire to have the complete and exclusive attention of the mother, and extreme resentment towards the father, who is considered the rival. In female children, this phenomenon is called the “Elektra Complex”.
2. Madonna Complex. This complex is named after a Madonna or a mother figure. In Freudian psychology, this complex is developed in male children who are raised by cold and distant mothers. In response to this, when they grow up, they tend to court women possessing the same qualities as their mothers, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. For this reason, the husband continues to see his wife as his mother and thus, he cannot see her as an object of sexual attraction.
3. Lear Complex. Named after the main character in one of William Shakespeare’s popular tragedies, this complex describes the father’s libidinous fixation on his daughter. In the tragedy, King Lear descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The same complex as experienced by mothers is called the “Jocasta Complex.”
4. Cassandra Complex. The name of this behavioral phenomenon is derived from a mythical prophetess from Troy whose prophecies of doom are believed by no one—a curse given by Apollo when she did not return his love. It describes people’s tendency, often due to denial, to disbelieve predictions of imminent doom or a crisis that would ultimately come true.
5. Napoleon Complex. Named after one of the world’s most intelligent militarists in history, this is an alleged type of inferiority complex often appearing in men who are short in stature. In order to compensate for their perceived defect, sufferers of this complex often attempts to excel so as to gain greater sense of worth.
6. Cain Complex. This psychological phenomenon is a destructive sibling rivalry, in which one of the siblings resents the other for perceived favouritism from a parental figure. This is named after the Biblical character Cain who murdered his brother Abel when God rejected his sacrifice and accepted that of Abel’s.
7. Polycrates Complex. In psychology, this complex is used to describe the desire to be punished. This complex is named after the tyrant Polycrates who, instead of heeding his daughter’s prophecy of his impending death, went to visit a treacherous would-be benefactor and was murdered.
8. Wendy Complex. Named after a character in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It is the phenomenon wherein wives/girlfriends tend to act to their partners as surrogate mothers. This is because their partners continue to act like children. This is also called the “Wendy Dilemma.”
9. Cinderella Complex - named after Perrault’s character that is popularized by Disney, this complex describes women’s fear of independence and an unconscious desire to be taken care of, usually by a stronger or masculine figure. It is said to be an aspect of a larger phenomenon as to why women choose to stay in dysfunctional relationships.
10. Superman Complex - This is named after the popular comic book superhero. Superman complex is an unhealthy sense of responsibility, or the belief that everyone else lacks the capacity to successfully perform one or more tasks. Such a person may feel a constant need to “save” others.

see 10 Syndromes named after literary works/characters

Occasional Pangs of "Jitters"

Freddie never made it back last August 31. Instead, his arrival was moved to October 26, 2011. Our South East Asia trip was not moved, though. Thus, I will be seeing him, soon. In 10 days, to be exact.

Time changes everything. At least, that’s what I always felt about it. Somehow, knowing that gives me some sort of relief. It gives me some sense of solace knowing that, one cannot be stagnant for long. There are intentional changes, mind you, but there are those that time alone cultivates and inherently impose.

I love to reminisce my past. Primarily because, I saw several tremendous transitions. Those moments in my life where I can see so many changes; so much improvement from where I once was. Moments of clarity and grief, victories, failure, heartaches and forgiveness. I can tell that I have changed a lot; grown; and became stronger. Time indeed is a gift. It is not something that is incidental. It changes us, no matter how hard we deny it.

Yes, I’ve changed. And one of the most unwanted changes that I’m facing now is this: I’m in love with him now, more than ever. And it scares me.

I’m sick of feeling that I’m scared of so many things right now. I hear many people call it “occasional jitters”; those moments when you feel you’re not good enough. I’m scared of failing the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Exams, failing the Toastmasters Presidency, not graduating in MPA, and not being the “dream woman” that my younger self envisioned me to be. I am scared that Fred’s growing farther from me, that he may not see me as part of his future… and that we may one day realize that our dreams are bigger than us… that we are better off without each other.

I am so scared to fail. I am so scared to fall down.

I would have loved to emphasize more of this stuff. I mean those innumerable pangs of scare that usually accompanies those single and alone women. But well, I have always been contriving with my conscience to avoid any form of self pity. All I want is to have some sort of medium to let my frustrations out. Frustrations fuel me at desperate times; but nowadays, I felt that they sort of eat me alive.

I have been browsing over the CFA-related materials that I bought. I set my mind and soul to take the Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam next year. CAT I think will be manageable, but CFA?  By golly! I am racking my brains out just trying to remember my previous lessons and review that may help me. I am panicking right now, honestly. I am trying to be optimistic here but… I’m scared that I might not live up with my own expectations again.  

Coal turns into diamonds because of extreme pressure and heat… Am I ready to become a diamond? Hahahaha! Well, all I know is that those certifications are my only ticket in working to Europe. One of my dreams is to live and work (practicing my profession) in Switzerland. In Zurich, to be exact. I just want to take a shot next year, and review for the CFA Exam. I want to do something that will benefit my future.

No more segues now, no more excuses.