If you will have all the time and money in the world, what would you do? That question popped up when I attended a small group talk about a private franchising business last night. The first thing I thought about was to travel the world. Aside from that, I wanted to be a philanthropist and help out the children with special needs who are less fortunate through teaching. But I also want to get trained in this area. I also wanted to attend classes and be mentored in photography, writing, making music, art, or dance. The sad part was I never got to seriously do one of those in three years since I started working.

Don't get me wrong. I do love work. Teaching kids and seeing them learn something from me is a reward that is irreplaceable by fancy or material things. Making a small difference in their lives is a gift that I would never trade off for anything. But I also feel that work becomes tiring when you are deeply involved in it, day in and day out, and you are slowly losing parts of yourself. I do not want that to happen. In fact, I have been trying to savor myself from zoning out.

One way of savoring myself is through traveling. People say I travel a lot. I do it because it keeps me sane and sends me back to a different kind of happy state that I would never get from work. This does not mean that my work does not make me happy. It does! There is just an unexplainable difference that only those people who have a big heart for travel know and understand.

Another way to savor myself is to take photos and edit them. Even though I have not attended photography and photo-editing classes yet, I never stopped taking photos and learning based on my experiences. I still search and learn from other photographers online and in person. I also try to learn from the worldwide source of all information, the Internet. This humble hobby is related to my love for travel. Because if I plan and see the world, I need to capture it in good photos in order to easily return to the experience whenever I like. However, I admire what Sean O'Connell said in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:

"If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it."

Staying in the moment is a perfect way to capture a picture. The photographer's eyes become the camera. And the moment becomes a part of the photographer's life.

Writing reminds me of who I am. Whenever I finished a poem, an essay, a paper for school, or a simply a blog entry like this one, I get really happy. Holding a finished work of writing keeps me excited even though I know it will get criticized or it will never be read. I actually do not mind showing my true self in writing. It is actually where people will get to know the real me.

Music elavates a part of myself. Whether it is music from an mp3 player, a car radio, a live musician with a band, or simply music from nature, listening to music completes a part of who I am. Singing it like owning the lyrics, playing keys on the piano, dancing to a tune, whether beautifully or amateurishly gives a sudden burst of energy. It defines the moment. Like if a caption is to a photo, a song is to a life event. A song becomes a part of the soundtrack of my life and it helps me not to lose myself to the world.

Reading also reminds me that there is fantasy, a world apart from our own. But they can be representations of the real world where we live in such as characters in novels that we can relate to. As much as reading brings me to fantasy, it also guides me back to reality. Due to this, I become more hopeful and my dreams become bigger.

The presence of people I value and care about the most also keeps me from losing myself. They are always there to remind me who I was, who I am, and who I can be. They fill in the blanks about myself that I have forgotten or have never realized. I am very grateful for the people who are still sticking with me and have stood the test of time. I do hope each one of us always have people like them in our lives.

When I was a young student, class fieldtrips usually make me excited and happy. I really enjoyed riding in a bus with my preferred fieldtrip busmate and buddy. Now that I am a teacher, a fieldtrip still makes me excited and happy. It is just that it is more tiring compared to teaching at school and simply doing my job.


Last Friday, January 17, we went to a fieldtrip to Ocean Adventure, Subic Bay, Olongapo City. In the bus, one of my students celebrated his birthday with a box of Cello's Doughnuts. Whew! The three hours and a half away from Manila became more fun. I have been to Ocean Adventure before. So this was my second time. The first time was a school fieldtrip too. It was three to four years ago. The place looked almost the same!










Our students had a good time. There were just some moments that could have been better such as our lunch meals being changed at the last minute. We were supposed to have chicken tempura. Our lunch meal became adobo. Another thing was the seating arrangement during the dolphin show. The people sitting on the front seats could not really see well. We were not even allowed to stand up because we might cover other people's views as well. Due to this, the kids were having a hard time seeing the show. The elevation of each row should have been done better. But the good thing was the trip ended in a happy note because nothing else went wrong, noone got hurt, and nothing was lost. It was still a successful one.


The hardest part was stopping myself from buying these cute cuddly stuffed toys..

O_O

Recently, I have dealt with some serious matters concerning my career. I won't elaborate much on it here. But I really felt like things have been starting to happen again. So I immediately knew that God was telling me something.. for the second time around. This trip has been a part of the awakening.

Have you ever went to the Ocean Adventure? Tell me about your experience.