Wednesday, July 30, 2003

From the book Sirius by O. Stapledon

“Whatever becomes of me I shall always belong to you. Even when I have been unkind to you I belong to you. Even if we might part someday, I will always belong to you. It is I that am yours until I die. I have known it ever so long – since I started loving you. Though we love so much, we still fight. We are bound to hurt one another so much, again and again. We are so terribly different. But the more different, the more lovely the loving.”

“If you had never been you, then I should never have been I, and there would have been no difficult, lovely “us”. And even if I do hate you sometimes, I love you much more, always. Even while I am hating you, I know (and the best of me knows gladly) that I am not just me but the other part of you and me.”

Hmmm, sounds like what some relationships are made of these days huh? The love-hate intricacies of relationships…we love them and yet we still fight with them. How true!

Um, yup, if you are wondering, I was a hopeless romantic during my high school and college days but nowadays, I’d prefer to be known more as a practical romantic. Why? Chikwet! Hehehe. Seriously, being a wife and a mom made some drastic changes in my perceptions of love and I can say that I am a much better kind of romantic than I was before. More ready to make adjustments and more accepting of the shortcomings of people I love. After all, love should be the foundation of every personal relationships there are.

Monday, July 21, 2003

Song Review: Thousand Cranes by Hiroshima

I’m a music lover. Come to think of it, everybody loves music at one level or another. I haven’t met a person yet who said he/she doesn’t like music. I’m pretty sure that’s why it really is a universal language, much more understood than the seemingly simpler spoken words.

an origami paper crane
Just yesterday, I heard something on the radio that I realized I’ve missed hearing for quite a while now. It was Hiroshima’s (FYI, it’s a jazz band not the city) Thousand Cranes. I suddenly remembered that many years ago, a decade or more perhaps, I heard that same song while listening to my husband’s favorite radio station. The disk jockey said something about it being inspired by a true story. Being perpetually interested to learn new things, my curiosity got the better of me and I felt I just had to call the station, Citylite 88.3, and ask the DJ to explain more about the song’s origin. How could I have forgotten that poignant story?!

Fortunately, the internet age is upon us right now so I just clicked on a search engine to refresh my memory. Oh yes, there are websites featuring the tale of how One Thousand Cranes came about. It is such a beautiful though sad story of hope. It is my privilege to share it with you…

can't count everything but this could reach up to a thousand cranes :)
A Thousand Cranes for Peace
(source: http://www.johnworldpeacegalleries.com/1000cranes.html)

When Hiroshima was bombed on August 6th, 1945, the Sasaki family was spared. Or so it seemed. Sadako Sasaki was only two at the time, and until she was twelve, she grew strong and healthy. She was the fastest runner on her school relay team.

One day at school Sadako felt strange and dizzy, a feeling she would keep secret until weeks later, while running, everything seemed to whirl about her and she sank to the ground. Sadako had leukemia, "the atom bomb disease".

While she was in the hospital, her closest friend reminded her of the old Japanese legend that if she folded a thousand paper cranes, the gods might grant her wish to be well again. With courage and faith, Sadako began folding.

Though she was only able to fold 644 cranes before she died, Sadako had a profound impact on her friends and classmates. They completed her thousand cranes and raised money from school children all over Japan to build a statue to honor Sadako and all the children affected by the bomb.

Sadako Sasaki's monument
Today, in Hiroshima's Peace Park, there is a statue of Sadako standing on top of a granite pedestal holding a golden crane in her outstretched arms. At its base a plaque reads:

This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
Peace in the world.

Every year, children from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed around the statue. Because of Sadako, the paper crane has become an international symbol of peace.

Sadako wrote of her cranes: ' I will write Peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.'

a statue of Sadako Sasaki at Seattle Peace Park in the U.S.
So, fellow music lovers out there, when you hear a song with such a beautiful melody with these lyrics "Show her now that we do care / with a love that we all share / send her a thousand cranes / send her your thousand cranes … " I hope you’ll also remember the story of that little girl who, with faith and courage, didn’t lose hope and in turn gave so many people the strength and encouragement to go on in spite of life's many challenges.


Friday, July 18, 2003

Whew! I missed my computer sooo much! Just got it back today. For one whole week plus a day, I wasn't able to sit down and relax reading and answering emails because my modem hanged after a brownout. I had to have it brought to my brother-in-law for repair, which was about 2 hours away from home. He had to replace a new modem because the old one didn't want to work anymore :(

Ah, finally it's back and I'm raring to go typing and reading again. I'm downloading almost a thousand emails which were stuck in my web inboxes (have several email addys) for days. But nope, I'm not complaining, I just glad that my virtual life is a-okay again. My husband was teasing me while I was booting the computer up an hour ago, telling me that I look like a kid who found a lost toy and got it back just in time before the tears. Ha ha, I guess I was really feeling down the past week because of this. Wow, I've realized once again how dependent we all have become on techie gadgets these days.

Now I think I'll be more careful in using my computer when it's raining or when there are thunderstorms like the one we had last week. I can't believe how much a computer addict I've become! And I'm not sure I can stand missing it again in the future.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

I had the flu 2 weeks ago. Me! Who haven't been sick for years suddenly had to lie down for a few days and recuperate. I guess the late nights I spend in front of the computer finally caught up with me. Yeah I know, I should have slowed down. Thing is, that flu week, I had a very important project doing an advertorial for a prominent advertising company. I had to sneak to the computer (when hubby's not looking) and try to finish my draft for the deadline. I would wait 'til the fever subsides and type like crazy until the fatigue sets in again. I was a bad patient huh?

Ah, the things writers do!