Reflected thoughts about life and death, and in between

1. Religion is not suppose to answer all the questions we pose about life, rather, it should give us the courage to answer them.

2. One of the strategies that we are going to employ is to finish our second floor area. Another is to prepare sandbags.

3. My main fear was to be caught in our house with rising flood waters. Thus, i sent an SOS to my friends in the Barangay office and in 15-minutes they plucked out my daughter, granddaughter and our assistant house manager. That event stabilized my mind.... I have to keep my feet dry and eat our lunch at the second floor. Lucky, I have my nephew around to help me out and both survive.

4. I do not think we can curse typhoon Ondoy. At best we could harness our energy to survive this event. Typhoon Ondoy do not recognize a name, a village, or a valued status.

5. One of the learning that people affected by flood, and they are around .5 million of them is that thought that a second floor will protect them from the next coming flood.

6. After Ondoy, when the accounting has been done, when the garbage has been thrown out, when things are back to "normal", will it be business-as-usual?

7. We just had our Post traumatic de-briefing session at Miriam College. I like to thank Dr. Roni Motilla, Dr. Grace Evangelista, the Guidance and Psychology department. It helped me a lot in dealing with my feelings and setting goals post Ondoy's ...whims. I think this can be cascaded to the barangay level.

8. My grand daughter and I will go to Ali Mall and SM Cubao, for our post-traumatic session due to the floods that hit our house here at 20th Ave.

9. We are now planning to have our second floor an added roof that will act as a laundry and sun-deck, evening view deck ( I hope to buy a telescope to see the stars closely), and of course an evacuation area in case a new Ondoy type of typhoon will come.

10. Today I took pictures of newspapers headlines that has something to do with Ondoy. I was not able to read newspapers for several days because we are busy cleaning the house.

11. A co-teacher of mine said that he plans to take a housing loan and have a three floor building for his family's use. He is damn tired cleaning his house when flood waters reaches his abode.

12. Some people do not want to revisit the past because they have felt that it can be a burden to them.

13. After Ondoy's wrath, any heavy rain we will be experiencing will be communicating to us to listen to its fall. I pause and listen and time the length as to its downpour.

14. True, Ondoy devastated a great swath of land, it has made a deeper impression to the consciousness of people who have been affected by it. Our contours of thinking has drastically been altered when rains fall even a gentle one.

15. People should be demanding to their government accuracy of weather reports, which means PAGASA should have the necessary instruments at their use.

16. Our memories are the places that we inhabit at will. We can go in and out of it. We can learn from the import of its joy and pain. It is a special place. To some it is a sacred place. I think, this is the reason why it is important that we remember.

17. Night bath, a good book by Randy David, a night to sleep. This is what I need.

18. At last you are married to your spouse, in due time your will realize "You cannot escape your in-laws".

19. In our modern society the mind will constantly seek its own home. Some say it is a "homeless-mind". Others, will rest in the comfort that the mind is a perpetual seeker. Thus, it wont find a home of its own.

20. There is no (magician) to be discovered in yourself. You have to create that (magician). That requires new imagination about your life, new strategies, new vocabularies and metaphors.

21. Typhoon Ondoy brings out the best and the worst in us. We saw the see of humanity volunteering to help the flood victims. On the other hand, refugees vandalized a school and a report that some robbed the students when the school opened.

22. According to BBC weather report, we will be experiencing sunny days up to Wednesday. I will now have time to clean our concrete slab and apply elastomeric paint.

23. Do you know the value of those photos that have been washed by an un-welcomed storm? God, its priceless.

24. At last you are married to your spouse, in due time your will realize "You cannot escape your in-laws".

25. In our modern society the mind will constantly seek its own home. Some say it is a "homeless-mind". Others, will rest in the comfort that the mind is a perpetual seeker. Thus, it wont find a home of its own.

26. There is no (magician) to be discovered in yourself. You have to create that (magician). That requires new imagination about your life, new strategies, new vocabularies and metaphors.

27. Photos are being dried at the roof. Some photos are now relegated to a tearful goodbye. I simply can't reconstruct them. It's totally destroyed.

28. Sorry if I am not responding to request on remembering my birthday. I am off the calendar and I dread high numbers these days.

29. It breaks my heart when I found out the submerged photos of the past. Its done and over with smudges and prints that can't be recognized. I may just depend on my aging memory to recall what can be recalled.

30. Our concrete slab that acts as our roof is now painted with elastomeric elements. We are now planning to have the second floor fixed for habitation. In case of another Ondoy type we have a place to evacuate.

31. I just finished re-tiling part of our living room floor. It is a social labor.

32. I just finished re-tiling part of our living room floor. It is a social labor.

33. "Work is a slice of your life. It's not the entire pizza" - Jacquelyn Mitchard

34. "Few things move as quickly as the future" - Bern Williams

35. "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." John Updike

36. "Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away." - Tom Brokaw

37. "It's never too late for a happy childhood" - Gloria Steinem

38. "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything". Alexander Hamilton

39. "An Inconvenient Truth" communicated by AL Gore, the media, and other scientists brought to us an understanding of global warming. The recent typhoon that visited us surely says that the weather we are experiencing will never be the same again.

40. Night is for sleeping. And we value it for what it is.

41. We are one who were traumatized by typhoon Ondoy. No control, helpless from the floods. Iba na ngayong ang dating ng ulan.

42. The high point of the floods was at noon time. The sofa is now floating, pails, garbage containers followed the natural course of the menu prepared by Ondoy. Outside the house on the street level was six fee deep. We have a creek that drains the wate...r on this natural funnel that we constructed our house. Some people decided to construct a building beside it. What do we got?

43. When the clear flood waters came in via our main entrance, it was somewhat bizarre that his flood happen to me on a personal level. The floods are there but what can I do? I was sure stamped with "Helpless". Thus, instead of fighting the flood I'd let it enter to see what would happen. It is just rushing water, but it can be fatal.

44. Natural flood waters has the capacity to tilt the way to handle things. When it is your first time, you turn to become a rookie. You estimate certain decisions that you wanted to be safe but in an afterthought, it could turn out to be dangerous.