My Very Special Xmas Gift~

Just saw the exam result I was very satisfied.

Thank you Jesus, thank you St Joseph of Cupertino for giving me a very special Xmas gift!

;) 

Have a merry, blessed and joyous Christmas everyone~!!

Putting Our Trust in Him

photo source: here

It's the Advent Season and what is a better Christmas present than to share some good news with my brothers and sisters in Christ, right? For all ye Christians especially Catholics, the knowledge about Chaplet of Mercy or Divine Mercy is crucial.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy (or the Divine Mercy Chaplet) is a Catholic devotional prayer based on the visions of Polish nun Sister Faustina Kowalska. In the 1930s, Sister Faustina had received visions from the Lord asking to spread His message of mercy throughout the world. She also received instructions on how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Catholic Church teaches that anyone who recites this prayer at the hour of death will receive great mercy. Jesus also promises that anything can be obtained with this prayer, provided that it is compatible with God’s Will. This prayer can be recited with or without a rosary. 

 (source of information: here)

I did recite this prayers occasionally when I had the motivation, but after reading about the outcome of this prayer, I regret not reciting this prayer diligently like I should. Chaplet of Mercy is best recite at 3 am, but since I am at dreamland that hour, my family and I would recite it at 3 pm in the afternoon.

I remember, during this holiday, me, my mother and my sister Mel were reciting this prayer and we made a petition so that our beloved cat Kitty, who did not come back since the day before, to come back to us. (Yeah, we sometimes dedicate prayer to our pet). That same afternoon, about 4 pm, one hour after we prayed, Kitty came back and meowed to us. Imagine our gratefulness to the Lord that moment for answering our prayer that soon~!

There are a lot of miraculous and great effects of this prayer shared by Brother Stanley C. Villavicencio of the Philippines about this prayer. I will share with you on the coming post. Right now, for those who are not familiar with this prayer, I would like to share with you how to recite this prayer.

 photo source: here 

1) Begin by touching the crucifix and make the sign of the cross.

2) Start by reciting one OUR FATHER, one HAIL MARY  and continue with the one APOSTLES CREED. 

3)  By referring to the picture, pray this at the center medal.

ETERNAL FATHER, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

4)  On the 10 beads, recite this prayer:

FOR THE SAKE OF HIS SORROWFUL PASSION, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

5) On the red beads (refer to the picture) where we usually recite the Our Father during the Rosary, you recite the same prayer just like at no 3. 

ETERNAL FATHER, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

6) Continue the pattern of praying ten clear beads followed by a red bead until you come back to the center medal.

7)  On the center medal pray three times:

HOLY GOD, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

8) Include this prayer after step 7. 

'Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your Holy Will, which is Love and Mercy itself.

 

9) End by touching the crucifix and pray The Sign of the Cross.

SOURCE OF PRAYING STEPS:  HERE

Enjoy this Christmas gift from me and don't forget to share this gift with your other brothers and sisters in Christ too yeah~! Have a blessed Christmas in advance~!

If You Really Knew Me...

If you really knew me, you would know that ....... (fill in the blank)

If you were to utter those words out, what would you fill in the blank?

This is a phrase adapted from a programme called 'Challenge Day' , a workshop which was conducted  by an organization (Challenge Day Org) at high schools around USA. I first knew about this programme through  the Oprah Winfrey Show, oh yeah my favourite talk show of all time. Now it is aired on MTV with the title 'If you really knew me'. 

"On March 5, 2001 at 9:20 a.m., 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams pulled a .22 caliber pistol from his book bag at Santana High School in Santee, California and fired more than 30 shots into a crowd of students in and around the boys’ restroom." (source: here, a report prepared by Richard D. Reo, Jr.)

"According to The 2003 National School Climate Survey, more than 800,000 students are verbally harassed every year in American high schools because of their race. "Last year we had a whole bunch of fights between black people and white people," says Dorian, a junior at Monroe. "They had the police at the school." (source: here, regarding Monroe High School and the other high schools in USA)

Challenge Day programme was created to curb high school killings (which involved shooting), suicide,students' depression, bully and racial tension. To curb this,  the wall that separated  the students through the typical labels such as 'popular clique', 'class clowns', 'athletes', 'nerds,' and  'emo kids' has to be broken.

So have you ever bullied someone, hated someone, or loathed someone just because he or she is different from you? Have you ever teased, made fun of someone merely because of the way he or she looks?

photo source: here

  The picture depicting students from different cliques opening up to each other.. ;) 

So if you think you have done the things above, you should watch this programme. It is aired on MTV, but you can also watch the video online at this link or know it briefly through this video..

The effectiveness of this programme to change the students can be found here.

Pursuit for Career HappYness

 photo source: here

My mom always tell me not to be too choosy while looking for a job.

I know that. I know I am considered choosy because the first priority for me in choosing a job for me is whether I like that job or not. Not the salary nor the classification of the job whether it is blue collar or white collar [I am even clueless which job falls on which category (-_-") ].Whether people will classify the job as good one or not, as long as I like it and it's a clean job, then I'm on for it. I don't give a damn about what others think of my job because it's my job, my career and it is for me to decide whether it is a right job for me (or not).

I am already feeling the heat of job hunting cause I will graduate next year. Most of my peers already had their own careers and I realized that I am going to join them in the real adult world soon - the working world. No institution like university to protect you anymore, no privilege of getting student price for the services that you want to purchase, nothing.

My mom suggested me to continue with Master and she told me not to worry so much about the school fee but worry more about my future. It's nice to hear some comforting words like that but at the moment, I am done with studying. I mean, there's more to life than education, right? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against education but for me, education is not only gained at class and lectures, but experience in the real world is an education itself.

I would like to continue Master if I can make time for it, but it won't be right after my degree I guess. I have not decide what I want to Master in, which field I like the best, so why indulge myself in something which I am still unsure of, right?

Personally, I would like to gain experience in a job first before I go for my dream career. My dream career is to be a writer, columnist or a journalist - anything to do with writing or being creative. Then again, before pursuing for this dream career, the job that I would like to experience first is the job that my senior is doing, which is to serve the community. I mean, what job is cooler than to get paid for doing good deeds for others right? Some would even do it for free. 

Still, I have to think it over. I want my future career not to revolve around earning money or getting promotion alone, but something which is more important like it involves my passion, gives me personal satisfaction and not to forget, giving back to the community. 

So, what is your definition of a career happiness? Is it a stable job, stable income, promotion, or doing what you enjoy doing? I hope it is the last one.

Whatever it is, I hope your pursuit for career happiness will meet a good outcome.

Every Boy's Got One...

 I'm in my book-maddening mode again this holiday - the only time where I got the mood to spend times with novels and such.

photo source: here

The novel I just recently finished reading was 'Every Boy's Got One' by Meg Cabot. This is the third title in 'The Boy Series'. This third title was just as good as the previous title - Boy Meets Girl. The way Cabot narrated this story and the other stories in this series was truly creative - she was using the medium of notes, diary, e-mails, sms-es, etc to tell this story from different characters - which gave us the chance to know the viewpoints of different people. It was hilarious - I mean the diary and the e-mails' contents. I guess Cabot was convincing when writing some notes from the viewpoint of the male characters. That's what I call a good author.

This story is narrated mainly from the viewpoint of Jane Harris - the maid of honour/best friend of Holly the bride. Jane was helping Holly to elope to Italy with Holly's boyfriend, Mark Levine, who also brought along his best friend Cal Langdon to be his best man. Jane and Cal had totally different view about the elopement, Jane was totally supportive of the marriage while Cal, thinks that it's too early for Mark to settle down. 

Actually, this story was inspired by Cabot's own elopement back in Italy too, but creative Cabot was not sticking to the cliche of having the bride as the main character or narrator; instead she narrated this story from the viewpoint of the maid of honour.

About the main characters, both Jane and Cal are very different but yet very similar - Jane loves cats and Cal (though he won't admit it) actually loves cats too. They are both very successful, Jane is the artist who created and drew Wondercats while Cal is a journalist who wrote best-selling nonfiction book. 

When will Jane change her negative view about Cal? And when will Cal start to believe in love and marriage again? 

Ah.. I won't give you the answer to the question above. You have to find out yourself by (duh!) reading this book..

If you are into romance and comedy, this is the perfect book for you. ;)

Surreal Moment in my Blogging Experience

Interframe (credits): Thanks to Cik Kiki for teaching me how to grab and save picture from the web.. Thanks to sis Mel for updating my edit post so that I can use this canceling function.. ;)Without you guys, I would be left in the dark of how to blog in an advanced manner lol.

If only words can be used to express what I felt after receiving this e-mail...

Look who won on week 1.. *wink2*

The adjectives like speechless, unbelievable, superexcited, can't breathe, Xmas feeling mode on, sure would come out...

I WON A BLACKBERRY TORCH 9800 (!!!!) 

For my blog entry for a contest held by Nuffnang and Digi - one of my privilege to join this competition for being a Digi angel.




A few minutes later, after digesting this news from the e-mail, ahem,  it's a must for me to announce share the good news and spread the joy around on facebook. Thanks for all who congratulated me and were happy for me. 

Can't believe I received two phone calls right after sharing this good news on facebook. My bestie Amanda called within 5 minutes  all the way from Kuching after I posted this status on my facebook just to congratulate me on this winning. That was so sweet of you to call in the midst of study week. All the best to you girls on your exam yea. Pray to St Joseph of Cupertino. After the phone call from Ada, I received another call from a friend of mine, Mark (bukan nama sebenar)  who happens to be a Blackberry and gadget geek - who called all the way from Penang to confirm this and asked me how I won it besides congratulating lol. I guess the aura of Blackberry Torch 9800 must be that big for a Blackberry maniac expert to call me to confirm this. Mark, iboh jeles k.. (itupun kalo ko baca post ini hua3) I will let you see it secara live when I finally got it later. Hahah. Ok kidding. 

OMG. Okay, enough with all that excitement. I hope I am not gonna jinx this. *paranoid mode on*

I hope no bad luck will come after I became so happy for this. *superstitious mode on*

Thank you guys! *touched mode on*

I felt like just hitting a first prize lottery or getting straight As for my public exams.

Thank God for all the blessings!

Thank you Nuffnang and Digi!

OMG I gotta do some charity (like washing the dishes and clean the gates) after this.

Legacy (Private Series) - Book Maddening Mode

photo source: here

When I looked at the cover of this book, I knew that this book is going to be another typical popular rich girls involved in sorority drama + scandal + mystery + power and all the elements of students attending private school. The good thing about reading a typical genre is that you know what it's going to be like, it may not give you so much suspense like Sidney Sheldon books but it's not going to bore you to death either. Reading some typical book is like ordering that dish that you already know how it taste like but still you order it for the sake of eating it again and to make yourself full. And that was exactly what I was doing. I have expectation towards this book, but if it doesn't meet up to my expectation, then that's the downside of reading something typical. And I digressed...

So let's get back to the main focus, which is to give my review on this book.

Okay, so this book, LEGACY, is one of the PRIVATE series.

I guessed by reading LEGACY, I've skipped the earlier PRIVATE series and left blur blur with all the characters mentioned in LEGACY. That's the thing annoying about reading book series. You skip the first volume or the other volumes before that particular volume that you are reading, you are going to be left in the lurch.

The story revolves around Reed Brennan, a scholarship student who entered the prestigious Easton Academy Private School. Coming from a middle class family, she is not the typical private school rich girl type, and of course SO TOTALLY not the Billing girls type. Billing House is the sorority house for the posh and rich girls who are the member of the Billing underground society. The society is so exclusive, you have to be popular, rich and daring to be one of the Billings, but in this volume of the PRIVATE series, Reed is elected the president after the death of Cheyenne Martin, the previous Billing president. I guessed in the previous series, Reed had proven herself to be worthy of being Billing girls. In this volume, Reed could not get over the fact that Cheyenne sent her an e-mail blaming Reed for her suicide before she died.

And during this year, it was the first time the Billing girls and the students from Easton Academy were not invited to Legacy, a very exclusive and grand party that got people talking. Only the third generation of private school attendees are eligible to be invited to this party. Thus, as the new president of Billings, Reed had to find a way to get the girls and her friends to the party, though she herself was sure she was not eligible to attend it herself.

At the same time, in the midst of all that troubles, Reed felt that she was being watched, but by who?

So how did she manage to get the girls to the party? And who is that mysterious person who threw the LEGACY party and deliberately left Easton students out of the guest list? And was Reed dreaming or being a plain paranoid when she felt that she was being watched?

Read this book and better, the whole PRIVATE series, and you will find the answers. Or else you will left hanging with no answer like me for just depending on this one book to read. Hmmph.