what is essential is invisible to the eye

ten minutes ago, i was at the height of overwhelming curiosity...
nine minutes ago, my eyes were wide with awe and disbelief...
seven minutes ago, i felt uncomfortable stirrings of envy...
two minutes ago, i was wallowing in self-pity...
a minute ago, i opened blogger and signed in.

it took stories captured in photographs to make me feel all these emotions. a picture paints a thousand words. in this case, those pictures just gave me a novel!

so what is my antsy self about this time? well, friendster started it. this amazing site helped me reconnect with my childhood buddies. its with great amazement that i found out that many of them have been surfing the world for years! woah! and here i am still dreaming about it with thailand as the ONLY feasible place i can afford to go to.

just to make myself feel worse (i can be masochistic), i opened my own friendster photos. to my shame all i see are immersion pics, xuhs pics, and siargo pics. worse, any viewer could see the glamour of my work! teacher.me. NO snow, NO fireworks, NO disneyland, NO blue-eyed blonde anywhere! just mountains, dilapidated chapels, dust, sweat ( i swear the viewer could smell us!), islands (how unique. there should be a yacht somewhere), and to my horror, CORNFIELDS! before my heart sank down to my banana peels, i gave a sigh of disgust. everyone has been everywhere but me.

why? because i choose to teach.

you can say this is an after-effect of bro. francis' how do you keep the music playing but after i got over (a little) my envy of my globe-trotting friends and shame over my rustic lifestlye, i went over my photos again. i did nt see snow, fireworks,temples,disneyland but what is there is just as awesome. can be even more so!

i saw how i choose my life.

i still envy my friends but i cannot be ashamed of my choices. those pictures that i have are NOT ABOUT PLACES, its about PEOPLE. and thats the most essential thing. heaven is where my heart is. it is with the persons i chose to invest my life with. and when i look at those pictures again, the words they say are more romantic than snow falling over bridges, more powerful than a dozen fireworks, more grand than a royal palace, more awesome than mickey mouse. i see my life and i see people who make up my life. and i am grateful.

ten minutes ago, i opened blogger and signed in.
five minutes ago i was overwhelmed by sadness.
three minutes ago, i was ecstatic with realization.
a minute ago,i said I AM GRATEFUL.

now, i publish.

osasi team siargao churva

cloud 9: those kids are naughty but nice. they would lend us their surfboards for free!
i think one of the most photographed spots in siargao.
on the way to sohoton: promise the waves were NOT huge!
at the mouth of the cave before we had our dive. woah!
guyam island: we are alive. yeah.

Note: Nitz is our photographer.kk.