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sweetdazetx: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkg9Ru4DF5n/

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If

“Every struggle in your life has shaped you into the person you are today. Be thankful for the hard times; they can only make you stronger.”

If given the chance to go back to the past, I would choose those times where I experienced struggles, challenges, and pains. Why? I bet a lot of people would choose to relive those happy moments but I would choose the unhappy ones because those times would remind and tell the 20-year-old me who and where I am today. It would remind me of all of the reasons why I wake up and stand up every morning even if I only had a few hours of rest. Those times would push me beyond my limits. Those times would mentally nag the lazy me that I don’t deserve to chill. Those times were the very reason why I am still fighting today.

I could still remember when I was still in Kindergarten; I went to school with only two pesos in my pocket. Yes, I know I was still lucky because a lot of kids would go to school even in an empty stomach. But that day, I knew that my parents really didn’t have money. Back then, my father was a farmer. In farming, you don’t have any income until the harvest time. So, at that time we were really financially challenged. My siblings were still studying so it was only my father and mother who were working for our family. Going back, my mother still gave me two pesos so that I could buy candy. On my way to school, I really hold the two coins in my pocket knowing that I wouldn’t have the courage to spend it. During the Flag Ceremony, I didn’t pay attention to the ceremony. I just kept on thinking about our situation hoping that someone would help us. I also prayed to God with all of my heart that he would bless us.

There were also times where my mother would wake us up very early in the morning because she would tell me and my siblings to go to our grandmother and auntie to eat there because we didn’t have anything to eat. I also experienced going to sari-sari stores and borrow or make “utang” for rice and being declined. Imagine how broken my heart was going home empty-handed.

After graduating from elementary, we wouldn’t deny the fact that we were all very excited to go to high school. Of course, I was very excited. But the day before the so-called “first-day-high” wasn’t so good to me. I could still remember how much I wished tomorrow wasn’t going to come. Why? Unlike any other teenagers, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have any school supplies. Not even a paper or a ball pen. I know the 20-year-old me wouldn’t give a damn if she would go to school with or without school supplies. But at that age, at that time, it matters a lot. I know and understand our situation. But I just can’t help but have my heart broken. I just can’t

help myself not to think what tomorrow would be like. I could imagine my classmates getting all of their new notebooks, pens, etc. and then I would have nothing. Fortunately, at around 7 PM, my sister asked me if our parents already bought the things that they promised. I bitterly answered no. At that very moment, I think she knew what I felt. So, she immediately told me to get ready for we are going to buy some things that would allow her little savings. We rushed to almost closing stores in the city. She bought me two notebooks, a pad of paper, and a pen. That really meant a lot to me.

Those were only a few. But those times really made a mark in my life. Those times push me every day. Those times made me a stronger person than I am today and tomorrow. Those times were the foundation of my dreams. I don’t want to experience those kinds of pain again and more importantly, I don’t want my future family to experience that.

Hence, I still thank God for letting me experience that. Without struggles, I wouldn’t know how to survive. Without experiencing how it is like to fall down, I wouldn’t know how to stand up. I thank God for my family and for all the people who love and support me. I thank God for this life. I know He has given me this life because I am strong enough to live it.

“Sometimes, you have to get knocked down lower than you have ever been to stand back up taller than you ever were.”

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TAKE ME TO ROME!

Out of all the countries, specifically, places here in the world, Rome Italy is the first place I want to go. I can’t remember when I first saw a picture or video of it or how I have come to be captured by it. All I know is that, every time I see a picture of Rome, I feel deep inside me that someday I will be there.

WHAT IS WITH ROME?

Rome is popular in the world for its impressive squares, fountains, monuments and attractions. The city where hope springs eternal. It is a city that is proud of its ancient glorious heritage. Rome is a city drenched in history and Christianity. One can find history and art on almost every street corner. (touropia)

LET’S START THE LIST!

1. COLOSSEUM  – I really want to see the main symbol of Rome. I think just standing there would take me back to the time of exhibitions of exotic animals, executions of prisoners, recreations of battles and gladiator fights.

TRIVIA!

- The original name "Flavian Amphitheatre" was changed to the Colosseum due to the great statue of Nero that was located at the entrance of the Domus Aurea, "The Colossus of Nero". The Domus Aurea was a great palace built under the orders of Nero after the Fire of Rome.

- The emperor Titus inaugurated the Colosseum with 100 days of games, which took the life of more than 2,000 gladiators.

2. TREVI FOUNTAIN – I want to see and take a picture of myself in the most beautiful fountain in the world. Also, I want to throw a coin into the water because there is a myth about it.

The Myth of the Trevi Fountain

   - If you throw one coin: you will return to Rome.

   - If you throw two coins: you will fall in love with an attractive Italian.

   - If you throw three coins: you will marry the person that you met.

In order to achieve the desired effect, you should throw the coin with your right hand over your left shoulder.

3. ROMAN FORUM – I want to see where religious and public life in ancient Rome took place. It has great number of temples. Some of it are Saturn, Venus, Romulus, and Vesta.

4. PIAZZA NAVONA – I want to see the very beautiful Baroque-style Piazza Navona. It has three fountains.

- Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi

- Fontana del Moro

- Fontana del Nettuno

5. THE VATICAN CITY – I want to visit the center of the Roman Catholicism. I think visiting the St. Peter’s Square, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museums, and Sistine Chapel would uplift my being and my faith as a Christian.

  -  St. Peter’s Square

   -  St. Peter’s Basilica

   -  Sistine Chapel

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Sources:

https://www.rome.net/attractions

https://www.touropia.com/tourist-attractions-in-rome/

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/rome

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The Recess Mess

Today during recess, a large truck pulled up to the school yard.

“Someone ordered 100 robots,” the truck driver said. “We are also delivering 10,000 pounds of hamburger and 50,000 gallons of soda.”

The truck driver backed the truck onto the soccer field and when he open his truck, he saw that the robots where eating and drinking the hamburger and soda! “Holy cow!”, said the truck driver. “How on earth is it possible that you could move? And worst eat those food?”, the truck driver added. “Calm down young man, look at the surroundings. You’re not in your world, you are in ours”, said the robot. Shocked and frightened, the truck driver roamed his eyes to see what the robot is talking about and there he saw nothing, but robots everywhere-a place called robotics. “Whaa–What am I doing here?”, the truck driver exclaimed. “Get me out of here!” “You’re here because you didn’t treat us well, you carelessly handled us, not just us but all the toys that you had delivered. Now take time to see how we live our life, that even if we’re just toys in your world, that when we’re broken and no use, you’ll just immediately dispose us. Witness that we have our own life and we have an emotions too”, the robot emotionally said. The truck driver still can’t believed of what he saw, he walk in disbelief, scratching his head off and convincing himself that it’s just nothing. Few moments later, he heard a sound like ranting on his back, as he turned to see what it is, he saw an army of robots who rans after him to imprison him and make him a robot. So, the truck driver ran as fast as he could until—-bang! “Ouch! What was that?”, the truck driver uttered while holding his head after being hit by a ball. “I’m sorry sir, we’re playing soccer here in the field when you’re about to cross and it was too late for us to see you coming”, the boy said. “Fie–field? Wait!”, the truck driver roamed around and he saw that he was in the school’s soccer field, no robots and weird things. “Sir, are you okay?”, asked the boy. “Yes!yes! I’m more than okay”, replied the truck driver happily. The boy notice the strange reactions on the truck driver’s face but he didn’t mind it and he said “Okay sir, thank you.”

“God! What had just happened? Am I just dreaming? Am I on drugs?”, the truck driver kept on mumbling. After some time, the truck driver decided to open his truck to deliver the things he needs to deliver. Scared and hesitant drawn in his face, thinking that the robots were alive. He carefully and slowly open the truck and fortunately, he saw the robots didn’t move and the hamburgers and soda were at place too. Suddenly, a school staff approach him and said, “Hey! Where will you take all of these? I’ll help you.” “Oh! That’s very kind of you, but please handle them properly e–especially the robots”. “Of course. You look tensed, are you okay?”, asked the school staff. “Yeah, I’m okay its just that handle the toys properly, because just like us humans, they’re also important.”

#CreativeWriting

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TRANQUILITY

Tranquility is a state of being quiet and peaceful. But according to Carrie Chan, it is more than that. Yes, it is. Tranquility for me is not just having a peaceful mind but also having a peaceful heart and soul. But I'll be blunt about it, having a peaceful mind, heart, and soul is very hard to achieve.

​ With the generation that we have right now, I do believe that all of us have that time of our lives where we just wanted to run from our problems, hide from our fears, escape from the noise, and just simply disappear. We all have that time of our lives where we search for sereness. Every day we encounter storms and waves. Not the storms brought by a bad weather nor waves of the sea. But storms and waves in the form of challenges. Challenges that will create a typhoon in our minds, and challenges that will drown us with turmoils in our hearts. Nevertheless, we can overcome all of these. We just have to be still, be calm, and have one focus. Overcome them one by one. Why? Because it's you, it's all about you. You are only one. We could also have tranquility in our safe havens. We could go to the mountain, to the beach, or even just in our own rooms. But, actually we don't need to go far. Tranquility is not far from us. It's here inside all of us. It lies deep within us. We just have to search for it, feel it, and own it. Tranquility is in you.

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DREAM CHASER✨

In this amazing world, God created all of us equally unique that has different traits. Each individual has talents, skills, intelligence, beauty and a good heart. It depends on us how were going to use it, protect, and slays it in a virtuous way. Since young, we have the desires, passion and dreams in life that we want to achieve. Our family and parents are the first one who support us to reach our goals in life. Every struggle, obstacles, and failures that we encounter in life was just a challenge on how were going to face and resolve it. This is just a progress on how we can be a goal achiever for us to become a better version of ourselves and to show what person are we and foremost how big your faith is and trust in our God Almighty.

Talking about this dreamer girl. She’s a dreamer, a doer, a thinker and she sees possibility everywhere. Her character defines a goal achiever, a heart strong and a fighter and that resembles for who she is. She is a girl who wants to become rich, get an own house, car, travel the whole beautiful world, payback to the hard work of her family and of course to be successful in her career. She have a big faith in God and always put God first in her everyday life.

——Her story starts here…

May 9, 1998 in the City of Golden Friendship at Canitoan Cagayan de Oro City. The happily married couple Emiliano and Floria Lanzaderas were blessed with a cute, angelic face and gifted baby girl. Her brothers Glend, Jaymar, Emiliano III and only sister Diane are very happy to have their younger sister in the family. Her favorite things to do is to read books and stories, to watch movies and to listen to music. When she was still young, she already have the potentials of being an intelligent girl.

She studied in Elementary at Canitoan Elementary School. She’s began to be an active student girl in her academic excellence, she belongs to the FL (Fast Learner) class, and joining some contest like MTAP and leadership organization. She became the Salutatorian in their school and that could be proud of to everyone , but when she became the salutatorian she felt that her parents are disappointed on her. She got jealous every time her classmates and friends are very happy with their family whatever achievements they got.

And——

This starts her journey reaching High School at Cagayan de Oro National High School (CDONHS). Most of the time, when she joins contests in school her parents doesn’t go to support her. Then, she met her best friend named Shiella and other group of friends named Kryzel, Cessy, Mitzi, and Kathlyn. During her freshmen to junior year- she didn’t gave so much effort to top the class. She thought that no matter how she do, it will never be enough for her family. As a result, she was not an honor student from 1st year to 3rd year but she’s active in joining Academic contest. She also entered the beauty and intellectual battle, in her junior year she joined United Nation as the representative of their section and guess what? she almost got the bacon! She won as the “2nd runner up” then, she also joined Miss Intramural and she break a leg- she did it, she won as “Miss Intramural in CDONHS”. But upon reaching 4th year High school, her parents told her to strive hard to get a scholarship for college because they can’t afford to send her to a University. Liked a dark horse, she worked and strived hard and tried to outrun the top students in her batch. The fruit of her labor- She graduated as 6th honorable mention and was granted full scholarship from Liceo de Cagayan University. For her honestly, she never thought of studying in LDCU, so she looked for scholarship programs offered by a different school and government. But she didn’t made it, so her only choice was LDCU School, and at that time she thought that God has a good reason why she let her study in LDCU.

When it comes into her love life, her parents are conservatively strict to the point that there is no boyfriend policy because for them having a boyfriend is just a conflict to her studies and grades. But every time she get good grades they let her to date someone. Talking about her past puppy love to the guys who broke her heart, she became a strong independent woman because of those heart aches she learned a lot of lesson and realized everything that she is worth it and deserve to be love by someone. Now, she’s focusing herself to build a strong relationship with her supporting, understanding and sweet kind hearted boyfriend Mike. They always put God as the center of their relationship.

Turning college, she want to take a course “Broadcasting” when she was in her 4th year high school, she do broadcasting and want to become a Broadcaster in the future- broadcasting was her favorite thing to do and also it can enhance skills and boost confidence to herself speaking in public, but her mother disagree to her to take that course because it’s very dangerous for her when she will be working it in the future, so she decided to took the course Education and taking Bachelor of Secondary Education major in English. English because that’s also her skills and favorite subject and she loves speaking in public. Today, she proved to everybody that she will continue her journey. She maintain her scholarship and be active in her academic excellence, also continue for being a dean’s lister student. She also leveled up her skills in performing on the theatre stage in High School Musical as she played the role of Kelsey and also she let her Hosting skills be recognized.

Now that she’s in 4th year college, how many months today she will get her diploma and that would be one of her greatest achievements in life. Even though she have encountered numerous times of ups and downs she still conquer everything and be productive to show every one that God is there to guide her to lead into the right path and to reach her goals in life.

She is the very talented, the brainy one, a big follower of God, a dreamer and achiever. Quoted that: “Everything happens for a reason, no matter how big, how small always thank God”. She is the compassionate goal achiever, dream chaser, heart strong and a fighter. She is none other than, the one and only MAY ANN ABALDE LANZADERAS.

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ALWAYS A P R I N C E S S

Once upon a time, in Carmen, lived a tenderhearted couple- Zaldy and Gemma Cabrezos. They were blessed with 5 lovely children- Zyra, Gerald, Wendell, Gezelle, and Zelaine. The couple treated their children as princes and princesses. Princess Zelaine grew up with the love and care of her family. She has a soft and white skin, and a shiny hair. When Princess Zelaine was 5 years old, he parents built their castle in NHA, Kauswagan and then they started to live there. Princess Zelaine studied in West City Central School. During her elementary days, she joined their band and became one of the cute little twirlers. Her family was very supportive of her.

"In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” —Friedrich Nietzsche. A few years later, princess Zelaine attended high school at Misamis Oriental General Comprehensive High School (MOGCHS). She was an honor student during her first and fourth year. She also joined different contests in their school and played as Sharpay of High School Musical during her 3rd year. Her parents worked very hard to provide all of the things that their children needed. But little did they know, their little princess was often times doleful for they cannot attend classroom meetings and school activities for her. But princess Zelaine understood her parents knowing that what they're doing is for them to have a cushy and affluent life.

True to that, in May 2015 princess Zelaine together with her sister, Gezelle, went to Hong Kong. It was her first time to travel abroad. They stayed in a skyscraper hotel overlooking the stupendous city. They went to Disney Land, Hong Kong Market, Clock Tower, Avenue of Stars, and Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade. Then they crossed to Macau and visited the Ruins of St. Paul, the Venetican Macao, and some casinos. For princess Zelaine, this travel was her most unforgettable experience. She was so amazed by the very tall buildings.

Just like any other teenagers, princess Zelaine built friendships and relationships that were soon challenged. She was once in girl fights. But in the end, she still found true friends. Because of her sister's catastrophic love experiences, princess Zelaine has been prohibited to engage in relationships. At first she was okay with it, having crushes from afar and texting guys were enough. But it was not until a handsome and dashing prince from Nazareth came and swept her off her feet. She instantly fell in love with prince Paul. They had a secret relationship. But as the saying goes, "secrets are like smoke; you can't hold and hide it." Her family found out about her secret relationship which made them very furious. They demanded her to break up with him. But princess Zelaine felt that her love for prince Paul is greater than her fear for her family. That's why they still continued their secret relationship but they were more cautious this time. "I refuse to give up on us and I'll always fight for us. I'll fight for what we have and for our love," said princess Zelaine.

Soon, princess Zelaine graduated high school. At first, she took an entrance exam in Xavier University with a course of International Studies for she wants to learn new languages. Unfortunately, she didn't pass the exam. Then because of her relatives who are teachers, she decided to take up Education instead in Liceo de Cagayan University. Princess Zelaine is pressured by her family to do well in school.

On the other hand, princess Zelaine celebrated her debut lavishly. Her family, specifically her sister, spent a big amount of money for her. It was held at a hotel and she wore a knockout gown made for a princess. Everything was precious just like how she dreamed it to be. It was her most memorable birthday for she felt like a real royalty having a banquet in a castle.

Princess Zelaine is working really hard to achieve her dreams which are to travel around the world and to pay off the hard work of her family. Now that her father passed away, this pushed her more to make her father be proud of her. Throughout everything, princess Zelaine never forgets God. She believes that with His guidance, she will make it.  "I will succeed in God's time," she said.

Zelaine May T. Cabrezos- a princess to her family, to her friends, to her prince, and to God.