::Friday, August 24, 2007::
I know I know, I haven't updated in awhile, blah blah. It's sad that I've developed the habit in when I promise a soon update, laziness, or in this case busyness, prevents me in fulfilling my promise. Well as soon as I returned from the West Coast I've been spinning all around: arranging the art exhibition, completing financial aid and loan crap, and now Pratt packing.

So my summer is finally over. I've been out of school since May, and as Jessi best describes my situation, "yeah...it's time for [me] to go back". Mico is gone. Stanley is gone. And I've got about 12 hours to go.
I'm finding it difficult to describe how this summer was, it was neither here nor there. But then again, my idea of a magical summer would be a phantasmagorical trip around the seven continents with friends and family, to bungee-jump down Eiffel Tower in the morning, climb the pyramids in the afternoon, and swim through the Great Barrier Reef by night. Okay that sounds too imaginative...oh well.
Anyways, I did have many eventful moments (Ate Bisten, art lessons, VBS, California), but each activity was either followed from or by long periods of extreme un-productivity; lounging around the house, sleeping, wanting to go out but unwilling to do so.
I crown the internet as king of wasting time. I'd be spending countless amounts of hours searching through shmuck, only to find that my back aches from poor body posture, and my eyes unable to focus clearly.
But my wasted time was, I guess you can say, balanced by some crucial spending moments: reuniting with my beloved cousin from the Philippines, fellowshipping [if there is such a word] with children, seeing my aunt for what may be the last time. Heh, I suppose the times I've been a home bum were there so as to emphasize the preciousness of the eventful times.
Yeah that makes me feel a lot better.

Alright I guess I can end my think-out-loud entry here. I'll post those Cali pics sooner or later. Right now I've got to arrange the immense amount of crap all around and stuff them into suitcases.

Pratt. Here I come.

::Saturday, August 1, 2007::
Alright so once again, I'll be posting up a buttload of pictures I took from the very eventful last week. Once again, I'll try to comment as little as possible.
So first up, Vacation Bible School, or Gameday Central, held at the Co residence [The West Essex Baptist Church was also having their VBS simultaneously]. Some good points of holding it in the Co house: saves lots of money, we have the opportunity to use tents and have recreation at the Turtle Back Rock park. Bad points: Possibility of disrupting the neighborhood, and with the limited amount of space, we could only invite a limited amount of kids. But overall it went quite well. Only 20ish kids came, and though the devil relentlessly attacked us [i.e. rain, construction work], GOD managed to pull us through and we all still had fun =).






Tita Melba taught the pre-schoolers, aka the cutest kids in the VBS.


Ate Anna disctracting the pre-schoolers with kickball XD




No, Mico told them to purposely raise their hands so that when I take the picture, it looks like she's leading a very deep and comprehensive class ^_~

That whole VBS was very tiring for me. I would get up around 7:30am so Mom, Monika and I could get ready, pick up some kids and arrive around 8:30. Of course presenting the Bible Story and singing and watching over the kids until 12pm is quite tiring, but I dont have time to nap. Around 1pm I go home and teach two art classes, then I babysit/take care of Becca, who at times slept over, and prepare for the next day's Bible Story until about 3am in the morning. And doing this routine 4 times in a row isn't fun. Hee hee oh well. It's only one week out of 52 that I get to do this.

Alright so, here's Family Camp 2007!


If there was one activity Jessi and I had to do, it was definitely the canoeing.


DANNY AND TRICIA! AWWWW!


As is the routine, Jessi and I hold a party at our room.


Stanley doing 'with' in sign language. Or so he thinks. Sigh, he's got to be the most fidgety person I know, one poke and he'll flab around like crazy. Shendi is a close second.


Danny and Stanley getting up close and personal o_O. Poor Tricia...


So Apollo and Anna set up a triathlon, which involves rowing around the lake gazebo, capturing a flag, row back to the dock and pass to your teamate who would run intoto the pool building and pass the flag to your teamate who will swim across the pool. Your team swimmer will pass the flag to you next runner who would run to the second lake, pass the flag to your last teamate who will climb up an inflated iceburg and attatch the flag to the top. This pic is my Team C, who were able to give our team a HUGE jump ahead. Go team go!


I was in charge of being in the gazebo and passing the flag to my team's rowers. While from a distance, I heard people cheering and the rowers, um, rowing as fast as they could towards the gazebo, Jessi and I were taking pictures of duckies swimming around =)




Team A I think, were first to reach the gazebo and grab their flag, but their flag fell in the water, making them one of the last to reach the dock. Aww.



Anywayz, Sunday was when talents were presented!




I love this one ^^




THOSE IDIOTS! XD

Saturday night most of us youthies had to leave for Sherryl's sweet sixteen.


Mico's in her "uniform" since she's part of the cotillion.


POSE! <3




Mico dancing it off hip-hop style! That included some booty shakin and poppin!



After the party, those youthies running around the revolving doors of the Marriott.

So once we came back for Sunday, besides the church service and talent time, it was also Hannah's 1st birthday!




Danielle, Gabby, and Hannah #2 attempting to feed the lechon. Oh well.



Alright. That's IT! I'M FINISHED! I'm tired of posting up these as you're probably tired looking at them! But there's gonna be hundreds of more pictures to come since I will be going to LA!!! Laterz.

::Friday, July 31, 2007::
Gasp. I’ve had an epiphany.
There are times when I am experiencing a really strong emotion, then I would write it all down in paper, in hopes of posting it up here; but usually I’d write late at night and then become lazy to post it up. This one however, I must share. So here’s an excerpt of one that had troubled me:

Life is not a fairy tale, nor is it a book. Sometimes I wonder why GOD created angst, it’s such an annoying, stressed emotion that dampens a person’s confidence when tampered with too much. But as it goes, such emotions exist because a person would then come to understand the wonders of love and joy and/or exist to prove that we must be 100% dependent on GOD, and not ourselves.
Poo. Life is so hard, ‘cause no matter how much passion you have, or how much you think you’ve achieved, there are times when it’s just not enough. But to balance this with something positive, experiencing and overcoming the difficulties is what ultimately makes our lives become more accomplished and fulfilling, knowing that we are capable of falling, then getting up and trying again. So in the end we usually don’t end up being what we want to be, instead we end up being who we are resulted from the trials we underwent. Perhaps our end is what we wanted in the first place, perhaps not. What’s scary is that we won’t know where we’d end up until we actually end up there.
Um, I guess ‘stressed’ and ‘uneasy’ are how I am feeling right now. I keep forgetting that I’m freakin’ nineteen and reaching the age when I should learn to be on my own. It’s very scary, because I can still remember times when adulthood was like reaching for the stars, far…far away. Should I feel ashamed to confess that I deeply miss my childhood, when I would watch cartoons all day and believe my parents were an everlasting ATM? I find it scary how close I am to finishing my schools days and entering the working world, where ever penny spent on worldly things has an ultimate consequence...

Looking back on this, I have discovered that being child-like instead of acting like I am 25, is not so bad for my age. Now what I mean by acting child-like is that I enjoy games and hobbies most kids half my age enjoy; I don’t mean I enjoy being rebellious, wimpy, jumpy, or annoying.
So to explain my reasoning, I shall provide examples:

Gosh I can’t believe I am saying this but…THANK GOD FOR ANIME! [there, I said it…><]. If you are a frequent reader and have read my past entries, you could obviously tell that there have been times my life revolved around anime characters, bishounen, fan-art, fan fiction, and becoming as Japanese as possible. Most of my art kids are around nine and ten, and are entering such a stage. Six of my kids, Abby, Jared, Pauli, Laur, Danie, and Dom, are completely obsessed about Pokemon, Abby and Jared to the point that they’ll become bored with their artwork unless they include any Pokemon creature. Fortunately, remembering from my anime phase, I know Pokemon quite well, especially since 5th grade was when the original 150 were featured. So while the kids are doing their artwork, I’d strike up a conversation about Pokemon, they’d join in, and continue to open up to me; thus is a method of my ministry to reach out to the kids. A better example is of my two animations students, Caren and Becca. Caren is much easier to walk with, since I know her more and I see her more often in church, so talking to her about anime and whatnot is fairly easy. Becca on the other hand, rarely visits the church, and is quite lonely, so it took me awhile to muster up courage to talk to her while she did her projects. Thankfully I learned she’s a HUMOUNGOUS fan of Fruits Basket, so on the nights she slept over [she lives far and sometimes her mom is unable to pick her up] we would watch several episodes and laugh throughout the night. So now we’ve become good friends, and, what touches me most, when she’s over our house and playing, she smiles and seems a lot happier than before.

So my attachment to childish things is what helps me connect to these kids. They don’t view me as a mundane adult, but rather as an older sister who would always want to play with them. One student I’ve mentioned before, Gabby, may have previously not known my existence, but after our lessons, after listening, talking, and laughing with her, she always smiles whenever we meet, and if she can’t find her family, she would always ask me to help her look for them or take care of her, which I gladly do.

And so I think, could this be a glance of how GOD feels about kids? That though He is the King of kings and omnipotent, he still opens his arms to allow them to come to him. Heck I bet he would even chat about Pokemon or Fruits Basket with them, so long as to express his love for the kids and help them understand that He is their protection.

Wow. Ha ha HA! That’s just so awesome! So I guess where I am right now, I don’t have to worry about at all, because in the way I behave, the way I have the kids open is up, is all part of God’s plan for me. <3 <3 <3




Don’t worry. Pictures will be up.

::Monday, July 9, 2007::
Oh. My. God. What a crazy-ass weekend it’s been!
But first, happy belated Independence Day. Well more like, happy rainy Independence day. It started pouring while our church youth played volleyball [the official TLSCF sport], and so Mom offered that they all hang out at our house and play Wii. But once Stanley, Kuya Tony, RJ, Apollo, Mike, Ate Anna, Renate, Ivy, Christine, and Carol and I came over, we instead played an INTENSE game of Taboo. I am counting on Apollo to give me his recorded footage of the teams [Boys vs. Girls] in a very heated argument over the unjust scoring system. Although we girls won the argument, we lost the game ><. Ha Ha anyways, the rain eventually subsided around 9, just in time to see the fireworks display. Yay.

Friday was Tito Frank’s graduation party; sea food night at Ponderosas in celebration of his magna cum laude in computer networking! Perfect timing too because I was craving for seafood. The way he describes it, his field concerns fixing the comp in a way that he is able to view your desktop screen on his computer screen, and he could control your mouse actions. This is exactly like Mr. I’s cruel spying methods during High School Digital Imaging >_O. Anyways, I enjoyed the presence of my relatives, as I stuffed down shrimp and watched my uncle wear his cap and gown in the middle of the restaurant. Hee hee, classic.

Oooh, now we get to the intense part. So after dinner my family of four hop into the CRV to head for Tita Flo’s house to play some volleyball. I was listening to my ipod when suddenly I feel Dad push on the breaks hard. I look up to see that Dad was able to avoid hitting the Beamer in front of him, which had also stopped in time to avoid hitting the stupid wagon in front that made a turn without warning. Next I heard a loud screeching behind me then suddenly, BOOM, the four of us whip lashed forward then back.
It took me about five seconds [believe me that is quite long] to realize that we have been officially involved in a car crash. I quickly glanced at Monika, who sat at the center of our backseats, fearing she may have been hurt, and to my horror she was silent and started crying. Turns out she’s completely fine, as well as my parents, she was just shaken. The drivers behind us got out as well as the beamer people (Who I think we also hit due to the impact of ours) to investigate the crash. I get out (for fear that carbon monoxide might be there) to see the result. Our back window shattered and the jeep that hit us was completely shamed in the front and its radiator was leaking. The drivers were two young teens, who said the breaks had trouble functioning, and pleaded for forgiveness. That’s when I noticed my right side of the head was throbbing and my lower spine ached. So the ambulance arrives, asks me and the still-shocked Monika questions about how we are doing, where the pain was, etc. (The best question was…EMS: Are you by any chance pregnant?) Tita Flo and Apollo arrived to provide support and see if we were all okay. Although the pain started to decrease, Mom advised I get examined at the hospital, so Monika accompanied me into the ambulance while Dad (still trembling), who was with Tita Flo and Apollo, stayed behind to file the police report.
While the sirens roared and the ambulance raced through town, chatted with the young EMS to make the situation easier for the tense Monika. Turns out that one of the EMS (who I adore) graduated from LHS when I was a freshman, and the other EMS knew some of my old West Orange acquaintances. Monika then relaxed and started talking more. Now when I was placed in a wheelchair and pushed through the hallways, All I thought about was House MD, and how much equipment I’ve actually seen used in that show. Hee hee, it was quite exciting, though of course not as dramatic.
Dang this is a lot longer than I intended this to be, so in a concluding nutshell, I only have a bump on my right side, and tension in my jaw. I should see my doctor within 3 days (aka today), and I must NOT engage in sports for the next 2 weeks. Ohhhh, I pray that I’ll be fully recovered by our VBS week, with the theme being GAME DAY and Ate Renate and I being RECREATIONAL LEADERS. Gosh.
So what have I learned from all this. I thank GOD for protecting all of us, for the Co’s and Palomares support, for my friend’s prayer, AND for seatbelts. BEAT THAT CORZINE!

Sooo…Saturday was the VBS training for the teachers at Sandy Hook. Hmm, I guess I haven’t talked much about the VBS…Game Day Central: Where Heroes are Made. Basically it’s training teaching kids about Evangelism. Pretty deep stuff. Ate Renate’s the directo-ohh so that’s why I’ve hardly mentioned it. I don’t have as much of a burden to rant about here. Ha. Ate Liz was the one who trained us this time. Gosh I love her so much, so full of energy and spunk, and she really emphasized the point that our main goal of this whole VBS thing is to get in touch with the children, who are the future of the church. <3
Alright so here’s a bunch of pics of me, Jessi, Meeks, Christine, Ate Renate, Sheryll, Ate Liz, Jezreel and Monika maxin’ and relaxin’. I’ll try to comment as little as possible. So enjoy:


This was our training challenge: step on the small stones to cross the "acid river" to the other side of the grass. The catch is two feet must be on the stepping stones. One foot on the stone means it's taken away. And Yes. That's mom dramatically posing ><


Jess is laughing up a storm. Or being disgusted. I think.


Return to nightmare beach!


Climbing up the rocks while Tito Boni and Tito Sid fish.


Mico being...just Mico.




Chilaxin during our lunch break.


Us two hotties went swimmin the beach...




While these bums just tanned. With the exception of Mico.


ITSY BITSY TEENY WEENY YELLOW POLKADOT BIKINI!! Christine was totally setting herself up for that.


ice cream!




Dang, after swimming in the salty sea, Cheetos never tasted so gooooood.




Beautiful.

Christine attempting to struggle climbing the rocks.


MY HEART WILL GO ONNNNNN!! Yeah she was totally setting herself up for that too.

Alright that'll do for the day. Gosh that was long. But very informative.

Must...keep...cool...in this...hundred-degree weather X_X