Category Archives: Life Stories

Cracking the Confidence Code

Confidence, female style

Confidence, female style

For two years I’ve had in my arsenal of books “The Confidence Code.” It was given to me by a friend on impulse – because he was supposed to give it to someone else – and I took it with loving gratitude.

I then buried it in my personal library, there where I could see it but dismiss it. I have given up on self-help books at that time. I thought them boring, limited, would confuse my understanding of the world. There is no one size fits all. And if I would still have to separate the chafe from the grain – it is useless to me. I simply had no time for chaf-ing and grain-ing.

But then I was confronted with a crisis – a confidence crisis – not mine but of someone very close to me. So I had the urge to know more about it, know more about the science, and to see if the book could give me an idea of how I was able to build up my own, so I could share my story, so I could ease her pain. This fall into the abyss of self-doubt – it happens to all.

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Channeling ze inner goddess

Nurtured

Nurtured

Hubby went away. Will be away for 20 days. He is the resident cook. Heck, not just the resident cook. He is cordon bleu, a cooking superstar, with legendary chef-like prowess.

Many have passed through our door, the invited – and those who invited themselves – testing him, and finding themselves impressed. Always.

So I was naturally apprehensive. With him away, we might grow hungry.

In panic, I sat down to list all the places in Vancouver we could eat at. Then I stopped. Frowned. Led to a different path by my thoughts.

I started to list down all the food I loved to eat as a child, food my mom would cook, food that I missed. Food from a time long ago, comforting, heart-satisfying. From memories that have not been a part of my recent life.

The life starred in by the hubby-chef.

As I listed down my favourite food from my childhood, I was seized by an idea. Why not cook them while hubby is away? With no one to critique my cooking, I should be okay.

Right?

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A genre-busting book

book cover infographic“Wonderfully imaginative! “

The old stories of man’s rebellion against God to find himself are given a new twist in this novel which combines Greek mythology with the Book of Genesis set against a backdrop of modern technology.  Forces are at work to awaken the divine spark inside a seemingly ordinary girl:  goddess-incarnate-as-woman yet pawn of greater powers, Maia must tread carefully lest her search lead her to open doors that were not meant to be reopened.  Here is Eve again tempted to repeat the act which caused that terrible tragedy:  the Great Fall from Grace … or is it the path to redemption?

I am reminded of Tolkien’s Hiding of Valinor, of C.S. Lewis’ “Perelandra” and of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’ Labyrinth.”  The book made me aware quite forcefully that another world does exist beside our own and only with eyes unveiled can we hope to get a glimpse of it.  But as there are those who would once more rip down the veil itself to reveal what lies hidden, the heart is suddenly gripped with foreboding lest the time be not yet ripe for such a revelation.  Are we ready to reclaim what we once rejected?  The story of the Seven Sisters is our story, too.  I can’t wait for the second book!” – Myra B.

Brimming with mystery and calling for adventure, P. Milisande’s first book ‘As Above So Below: Veil Over Atlantis’  will enthrall readers.

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Marco Delgado: Not given everything he wanted (and it was okay)

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Wind turbines and Marco Delgado

Marco Deglado has a legacy to Philippine Christendom that not very many people know about.

It started with passion, and a mission. Ambassador Antonio C. Delgado, Marco’s grandfather and the First Philippine Ambassador to the Vatican, made it his personal advocacy to have a Filipino saint canonized. This became a reality with the beatification in 1981 and canonization in 1987 of San Lorenzo Ruiz. An issue came up, however, when the sculptor started work on the likeness—whose face?

It was then that Marco’s grandmother took out a picture of the boy Marco (who was then living with them) and thus, immortalized him as the face of the patron saint of the Philippines, the Filipinos and interestingly, the Overseas Filipino Workers.

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Canada: a compassionate country

Prod and Eleanor Laquian

Prod and Eleanor Laquian

As editor-in-chief of a Canadian newspaper, I had the privilege of meeting some awe-inspiring people. I will be featuring them here and I hope you will let them touch you and enrich your lives as they have mine.

29. That is how many times the Laquians have moved their household.

Nairobi, Kenya, Santiago, Chile, Suva, Fiji in the South Pacific, Beijing, China and many cities in between—they have been there and have called it home. They made lovely memories in all of them, but had little or no roots. The restless (by choice and by circumstance) can grow weary of impermanence too.

Until Canada.

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Inner abilities

Dwelling Place

Dwelling Place

I just finished a book recommended by one of my favorite bloggers, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.

The title was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

I did not know that lemon cake could be sad, and the child in the book did not, too. At the back of my mind was the other book/movie Like Water for Chocolate but I suspended the animation, not wanting to color this latest book with my own perceptions (or that other book’s perceptions). Which were pushed back to the forgotten anyway (which reminds me, I have to get to that book again).

Of late, I have been reading several books where people have super powers. Except they are real and not in the realm of the imagined.

Okay. I may be naive but that was my takeaway: these people are real and they had problems. No, not problems, but abilities which are so far off center that it becomes a disability.

Like people who can taste emotion in food, which mostly, interestingly, is one of pain.

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Vancouver’s Grouse Grind

The view

Ancient sentinels by Danvic Briones

The Grouse Grind® is a 2.9-kilometre trail up the face of Grouse Mountain, called Mother Nature’ s Stairmaster. It is located in Western Canada.

I signed up to conquer The Grind.

But it conquered me.

When Sun Tzu said “subdue the enemy without fighting”, I didn’t know he was talking about mountains.

And there, on top of craggy stairways, winding their way to a seemingly unreachable top, on a tough terrain that has been peppered with foggy breaths and hardened determination, I found out – I am not superwoman.

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What if you can go on an adventure – now?

Out there

Out there

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

That has fascinated me recently.

Because we humans are all about finding our roots, finding that place where we feel we belong. But what if we belong nowhere, and everywhere?

What if moss is not good and it just ties us down, keeping us from our potentials, from finding out what’s out there?

Some of my friends are upping and going. Just going. Taking that trip to South America to stay for 6 months. With children. Finding a job to sustain them, just enough to sustain them. See the city, the countryside, know the culture, try to understand it and appreciate it and then move on to another darn beautiful place.

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