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Friday, May 30, 2008

Sister Blog in my Multiply

From now on I will be using this Multiply Account for uploading Music/Video files and photos of my own creation.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Moving Away, Going Toward II


Exactly two years ago I wrote my last full entry here in my blog with this same title. And just like how I described myself before, I feel like I am again "standing in the middle of things." I just started moving my first box-load of books to my next house of residence, the Loyola House of Studies. Yes, I am moving again. I am moving on to the next stage of my formation but now as a Jesuit theology student. Wow! I can't believe I will be hitting the books once again like a full time college student. For the past two years of my regency I have been used to standing there in front of the class as the authority figure. Those days will be gone for now and I will just have to adjust because, surely, the next four years of being glued to my chair inside the classroom will be tough. But I am excited! TO LEARN ANEW. I just experienced being a teacher and I can fully say now how tough it is to become one. I am very thankful to all my teachers in the past for doing a 'divine' job. Literally, one needs divine intervention in order to teach Christian morality to present-day teenagers. I remember waking up each morning asking myself the questions, "What am I going to teach?" "How am I going to teach?" Sure, I have my lesson plan readied a week before but every moment I hit the platform I enter a world different from what I have earlier imagined and planned.

Indeed, that was a humbling experience for me. And it is all the more worth going back to the classroom in order for me to learn. There is a lot to learn still. Like what I often tell my students, "What we know is just a drop in the vast ocean." But it is impossible to know everything. We just have to focus on the 'essentials' and, often, most of it comes from what is self-taught, one's own experience.

Yes, I am standing in the middle of things, a place which I have not planned or imagined before, and for the same reason a place where I can face another direction and continue to learn. A place that I do not control nor fully expect that it will move smoothly, for if it becomes like that then what is there to learn and be excited about. I am grateful to the One who allows me to go through the endless goings toward and movings away.

Free


By Jomari Manzano, SJ
Easter Sunday 2008
Dedicated to all my students in Ateneo de Manila High School


I. It’s difficult to live the ordinary
The routinary time spent by the minute
It’s difficult to stand alone on stage
And have as our audience just our self

It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think
We’re alone
We live on our own.


Refrain:

Break free from yourself
You are not made ordinary
Set free your own ways
And live up to your destiny
Stand up and learn to walk
Take that road
That’s made for you (Repeat last two lines)


II. It’s difficult to spend our longest hours
Perform our tasks and roles unnoticed by others
It’s difficult to face our limitations
Life’s ups and downs that look without direction


It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think
We can’t change
Can choose no more. (REF.)


It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think.