MARGIENARY

The post below generated some very good questions:  They are as follows: In Filipino culture, would you value something that a stranger gave you or that was passed out to many people at a large gathering?  Do you have any thoughts about free distribution to strangers?   Even if a friend gave it to you, would you value it as much if it didn’t cost her anything?  In America, we would especially value a gift if we know it cost something.  For example, if your friend told you that she hadn’t paid anything for the gift she was giving to you:  “Here, I want to give you a purse that someone left in the church building.  Nobody claimed it, so I decided to give it to you!”  Or, “Here, please take this Bible tract.  Some people in Australia paid for it.”  Would this give you the same feelings?  And so here's my two-pence: Based on my personal observations with my tribe, reasons for not buying Scriptures depend on what group of people we take into consideration. Unchur

Centuries ago (at least it feels that long), even before there was Facebook, I started this blog to sort of serve as my journal and confidante. I have read blogs where the bloggers say that they blog because they live for comments. Not me. Except when I write about updates where I ask for prayers, I blog because writing whatever comes to mind is therapeutic and having readers is secondary. I do not care if I am read or not because what I really like is to reread whatever I have written in the past and compare what areas in my life have I experienced growth and where I have not, based on the thoughts I have put down and the thoughts that are currently running through my head.  But then real life hit me between the eyes, and I stopped blogging for months. Well, actually, the real reason maybe because Facebook happened. After all, Facebook only needs a short sentence or a quote every now and then to keep the status message fresh and that does it for most everybod

It was Monday morning after giving Xami a bath when Bong asked me to feel Xami's forehead because he seemed to be running a fever. I took his temp and it was 39 degrees C. We decided to wait for 24 hours before taking him to the hospital, giving him fever meds for the whole day. We waited for his fever to abate, for 6 hours, then 10, then 12, then 15, then 20, still the fever persisted. I read up on possible diagnosis for a fever that won't listen to antipyretics, with no other signs and symptoms. Instead of waiting for the 24-hour period to pass, we took him to the ER at 3 in the morning because his fever was even getting higher then stayed at 40-41. We arrived at the nurse's station where everyone was asleep. One of the nurses stirred and sleepily interviewed us, took Xami's temp and weight. She gave us instructions to take Xami to the lab for a blood count and urinalysis. On our way to the lab, we met the resident doctor and she told us to go back to the

I have not written any blog entry or anything personal for that matter in the last year or so. I could say that after my son was born, he occupied all my waking hours, and I would not be lying, but that is not the real reason why I stopped writing. For one, I suffered the dreaded postpartum depression and I did not know how to deal with it. I denied it for months. I kept asking myself why I became too lazy to engage my mind in anything other than changing nappies. Of course there was the occasional burst of energy that enabled me to accomplish some things in my job, but mostly, I have had to drag myself out of bed every morning and force myself to go to work. I knew I needed help but there was no help anywhere. I called my doctor but other than a pill that was supposed to put smiles on my face, she was not really of any help. I did not take the pill as it was contraindicated with breastfeeding so I really do not know if the pill would have helped me had I taken it. Looki