When I saw Ditsi walk down the aisle on Dec 22 at the UP Chapel, I was enchanted indeed by her gown. Simple and Elegant. It is full of beads! Wonderful bead work indeed not the traditional wedding dress beads! I love it and just had to post it here! Thanks Maye for the photos!
The best thing is that Ditsi with the help of friends conceptualized, designed and made it themselves!
Ditsi Carolino independent documentary film maker and director of "Minsan Lang Sila Mga Bata", "Riles" and "Bunso". 
Dear Friend,
The He Cares Foundation invites you to be a channel of God’s blessing to the poor. For many years now, the He Cares Foundation has been providing for the physical and spiritual needs of local street children. At present, an average of 40 to 50 children benefit from the once-a-day feeding accompanied by daily prayer and bible sharing. The drop-in center also gives these children a place to go in case of emergencies, such as illness. In addition, the foundation is currently working with the Red Cross to educate these children and their families on health and nutrition and is in negotiations with DECS to allow the center to provide credited non-formal education.
But there is still so much to be done.The ultimate vision of the foundation is, of course, to get children off the streets and enable them to live healthy, safe, normal lives and become happy and productive individuals of our society. Among other things, we would like to increase feeding to three times a day, provide a permanent shelter, and increase educational and livelihood programs. But we can’t do it alone. We need your help.
You can make a difference in the lives of these needy children. In their name, we ask that you share whatever you can with them. There are many ways you can help. Join us in our mission and let us all be channels of God’s blessings.
In Christ,
Bro. Joe Dean Sola
Missionary/Founder
He Cares Foundation, Inc.
To donate visit the website of He Cares Foundation. How to donate click here.
One great symbol of God's promise is a rainbow. It is His promise that the world will never be destroyed by flood again. It is both a symbol of hope and love.
A week or two ago, we were at the marine protected areas awards and recognition night at the celebrity sports plaza. The event was dubbed Para El Mar. It has been a while since I attended a big gathering. I received several complimentary tickets and distributed these to friends and colleagues. But it was such a rainy day that very few people wanted to go. Anyway, I was really thankful that I was able to attend. Met old friends who flew in from Palawan. Took a lot of pictures. Got to talk to some friends in conservation work that I rarely see because they are almost always in the field. It was a good night. What made it special was that there were this Filipiniana dance group. I adore watching them. The opportunity to watch traditional dance are few and far between.
Advent from the Latin word advenio, meaning "to come". (Wikipedia)
The past weeks I've been chewing on some thoughts and I stumbled upon Lex's blog about a term I recently learned. Cognitive dissonance. Now, I looked it up in Wikipedia which defines it.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs.
In simple terms, it can be the filtering of information that conflicts with what one already believes, in an effort to ignore that information and reinforce one's beliefs. In detailed terms, it is the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, where "cognition" is defined as any element of knowledge, including attitude, emotion, belief, or behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions. Experiments have attempted to quantify this hypothetical drive. Some of these have examined how beliefs often change to match behavior when beliefs and behavior are in conflict.--Wikipedia
will post more on this topic soon.
This song was sung during our wedding. Coincidence, I read about it today as uncanny as it may seem of all days. It just presented itself again. The universe seems to unfold as it should. God's fingerprint in everything there is.
Image from Wired Magazine The 2007 Rave Awards.
Not everything is what it seems. Not everything in this world is black and white. There are shades of gray. The optical illusion above shows that it seems that A is in a darker shade of gray and B is in a lighter shade of gray. But the gray lines on the side shows that they actually are of the same shade (true check out the % gray in your monitor if you want:-) ). One would realize and reason that "ah ok dahil sa shadow" it is because of the shadow that made the B of the same shade as A. But our eyes deceive us. Why? I think because of preconceived notions. Our minds tells us things. Our world view defines what we see. Even if the actual logical reason is already there in front of us. The solution to our illusion there but still our stubborn "worldview" and concepts that we hold on to prevent us to see objectively, sometimes.
