THE BARD, THE ACTOR!

Did you know that Shakespeare never gave up acting while he was writing thirty-seven plays. It was his livelihood. He was one of the "principal comedians" who acted in Every Man in His Humour by Ben Jonson in London in 1598. Two years after the first performance of Hamlet, his name appears on the list of "principal tragedians" who acted in Jonson's Sejanus. Eight years before his death in 1616, Shakespeare was among the "men players" who arranged to use the Blackfriars Theatre.

HUMBLE THYSELF!

"Defeatism is our major enemy in life."

If you cringe before the pitiful mental picture of yourself in your mind, you defeat yourself before you start.

What most people fail to recognize is that within each one lies a reservoir of power. The quality of our life depends upon our determination to win a total victory over the dark fears within that consign us to be weak and fearful.

The renowned lecturer and author, Norman Vincent Peale, has this advice: "you have to humble yourself." You should learn to accept the kind of person that you are. Through self-discovery you will be able to appreciate the person that you really are. Self-discovery is a confrontation with your own self. Naturally, you will never like yourself when you suffer continuing inner conflicts and frustrations that take the joy of life or when a sense of guilt haunts you.

MIND YOUR MANNERS CHILDREN!

Parents have a right to expect that their children over five years of age will have good manners at all times, but especially when strangers are visiting. A mother or father is sometimes very embarrassed when a child behaves poorly in front of visitors. Do you know why? Well, the parent thinks that the visitor will wonder whether the child was ever taught proper manners. The visitor might say to himself, "what kind of home does this child come from? Haven't his parents taught him to dress neatly? Haven't they taught him to keep himself clean? Doesn't he know how to eat properly? Can't he even say, 'hello' or 'thank you' or 'goodbye'?"

There aren't too many times that parents get angry, but bad manners sure get them hot under the collar. And they are right, for if we don't learn good manners as a child, we may never learn them.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - APPRECIATION

"A word of encouragement during
a failure is worth more than an hour of
praise after success."

Anonymous

A JOURNEY TO YOUR INNER SELF

Life is a journey. One day you will discover that you are no longer a child who constantly holds on to your mother's skirt. For years you have traveled through life and now you are approaching adolescence. You ask many questions to enable you to fully know yourself. In fact, knowing yourself will help you discover what lies ahead of you. The key to that discovery lies in your willingness to enter fully into experiences that can be positive forces to enhance the shaping of your vision--of yourself. To know and appreciate the kind of person that you are will be both an invitation and a challenge. It is an invitation for you to look deeply into yourself, to learn how gifted you are. It is a challenge to make a personal decision to enhance these gifts and do something about your shortcomings.

It is when you accept these invitation and challenge that you allow to expand your consciousness of your true being. Only then can you say, "I love and appreciate the person that I am."

SEEING THROUGH OTHERS' EYES

How you look at yourself is not always how others perceive you to be. If you need to improve and develop yourself, it is equally important to consider the opinion of others about you. The dirt in your eyes or a stain at the back of your dress can only be known by you if others tell you about it. It is only when you become aware of unbecoming spots about yourself that you can do something about them.

From time to time, we need others to mirror us and to show us how we are growing and maturing. Not all assessments of ourselves can be taken as valid. We need confirmation from others, too. It makes a big difference if the knowledge of yourself can still be enriched, modified, and shaped through the constructive feedback of others.

A shared thought.

RESPECT AND BE RESPECTED

Good manners are expressions of our consideration for others like being kind, courteous, and polite. These are pleasant and gentle acts and expressions that you do and use, as well as the proper behavior that you practice. You should show respect for others regardless of status be they rich or poor, young or old, ugly or beautiful or handsome.

A well-mannered person believes that to be respected, we must respect ourselves and others.

SELF CONFIDENCE MEANS SUCCESS

A prominent Filipino writer once wrote, "a person's real worth depends on what he makes of himself."

We may have many open opportunities in life, but when does success become reality and not just a dream. To quote Dr. Maltz, "like confidence, success means self-discovery and improvement of your self-image."

Believe in yourself. Make the daily habit of building your feeling of self-esteem. No matter how small your talents are, God gave them to you for a purpose for you to use them for your well being and for that of others. Whatever you contribute to humanity counts. That is how important you are. Recall your successes. Work on your failures.

Self confidence will help you become a successful person.

SOUL SUPPLEMENTS

We all stand at a critical point in human history. The lure of the modern world threatens not only to break the human heart, in fact it is slowly accomplishing its work of destructions, but it also makes our human weakness as its enthusiastic accomplice.

How do we counteract or fight this thing that threatens to destroy us as a human being? What are we going to do? If we were made to choose between material and spiritual things, which would you prefer?

If we are to find fulfillment, it is necessary not only to discover our souls, but to help find a soul supplement that will lead back to Christ. Look into important sources of strengths, which will empower us to live and appreciate life in the context of Christian living and be nearer to HIM, continually making God our inspiration and model in our daily existence, taking time to profess our faith through prayer and Christ-like actions, and strengthening our faith and improving our spirituality or prayerfulness.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - COMMITMENT

"The will to sin, the desire to suceed,

the urge to reach your full potential.....

these are the keys that will unlock the door

to personal excellence."

Eddie Robinson

LOVE, A MAGNIFICENT TRIP

Here's one of the nicest love messages to share:

Love is magnificent, exhilirating trip,

and when it dies, it is worse than almost any other death.

You don't want to believe it, but the ride is over,

and you're just not going any further on this track.

A LENTEN JOKE!

Blonde who married a Catholic

On their honeymoon, the blonde bride slipped into a sexy nightie and, with great anticipation, crawled into bed, only to find her new Catholic husband had settled down on the couch.

When she asked him why he was apparently not going to make love to her, he replied, "It's Lent."

In tears, she sobbed, "well that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Who did you lend it and for how long?

MAKING YOUR HOME LIVABLE

Many of us are only a step away from becoming victims of the leading cause of off-job disabling injuries--slips, trips, and falls. Take the time now to go over ways to prevent these disabling injuries. Some helpful tips:

• If you use throw rugs in your home, secure them with double-faced adhesive tape or place them over a rug-liner or choose rugs with nonskid backs to reduce the chance of slipping.
• Avoid placing shag rugs around the home, as they can cause falls by getting caught on shoes.
• Arrange the furniture in your home so that they provide open pathways, clear of obstructions.
• Avoid having glass tables, which can be especially dangerous should you trip and fall onto one. Choose instead, sturdy wooden tables with rounded corners.
• Keep your living room floor tidy from things you can trip over like toys, tools, or books.
• Keep all telephone and electrical cords out of walkways, secure them out of the way.

MEANINGFUL PHRASES - 3

CLEANING THE AUGEAN STABLES

King Augeas owned 12 white bulls sacred to Apollo. Their stables had not been cleaned in 30 years! Hercules was called upon to do the work in one day. He diverted the course of a river, made it run through the stables, and reported his mission completed. To clean the Augean stables means to clear up a mess. The phrase is sometimes applied to the efforts of a reform government to undo the corruption left by its predecessors.

Hercules cleaning King Augeas stable

THE BED OF PROCRUSTES

Procrustes, "the Stretcher," was a highwayman and innkeeper who had an ingenious method of torturing his guests and victims. He insisted that each of them must exactly fit the iron bed in his inn. To accomplish this end, he would stretch a guest if he was too short or cut his legs to size if he was too tall. A system--educational or political--in which the individual must fit a single type or pattern and conform arbitrarily is known as a bed of Procrustes, or procrustean.

Procrustes torturing a guest

MAN AND WIFE

Here are some funny lines
shared by my best friend, Edong:


"The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret."

"When a man steals your wife,
there is no better revenge than to let him keep her."

"My girlfriend told me I should be more affectionate.
So I got myself two girlfriends."

"A man said, his credit card was stolen,
but he decided not to report it since the thief
was spending much less than his wife did."

"Man is incomplete until he is married.
Then, he is finished."

"My wife dresses to kill.
She also cooks the same way."

"My wife and I were happy
for twenty years. Then, we met."

"A good wife always forgives
her husband when she's wrong."

A shared thought
from Our Daily Bread

Warmth and sincere affection can be brought back into a marriage relationship that has grown cold. Love is not only an emotion we feel but also a decision we make. The choice may not be easy, but it's really quite simple. Take the first steps of positive action by praying for your mate and treating him or her with kindness and consideration. If you do, the sweet winds of grace will blow upon the smoldering embers of your dying marriage. The flame of love will break forth anew. Try it. It works (by H.V.L.).

STUPID PUNISHMENT!

A man was sentenced to 1,000 years behind bars!!! Isn't that stupidity. The judge could have punished him by imprisonment for life or for any term of years, but not 1,000 years. Where in the world have you ever heard of this jail term! Only in Egypt!

The man was arrested after scamming hundreds of people out of 280 million pounds (around $52 million). He cheated 480 people out of their money over several years. He would promise people that he would invest their money for them and bring them good profits, but he would take the money and disappear. Over the years, he made about 280 million pounds.

Is McDoff getting 1,000 years jail term?

HE IS A HAPPY BRIGHT BOY!

It's a great Sunday. Earlier today, Onchong
was so happy to break the news that his graduation
is on Wednesday, and that he is receiving awards
for finishing top of his class. He was proud to
share his perfect scores on four of his
Prep B exams.

CONGRATULATIONS!
What a way to end the school
year. I'll see you in three
weeks. Enjoy the
school break!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - JOYFUL FAMILY

"To maintain a joyful family requires
much from both the parents and the children.
Each member has to become, in a special way,
the servant of the others."



Pope John Paul II

JOY, AN ELUSIVE EXPERIENCE!

Joy is one of the most elusive of all human experiences. You can't catch it when you want it, and you lose it even when you are already touching it with your fingertips. But when you give up chasing it, it alights on your head, like a butterfly, and changes the world for you; the ordinary becomes extraordinary, the drab colorful and the workaday special. And you are taken aback, always in surprise because joy comes when you least expect it.

SPECIFIC, BITE-SIZE REQUESTS!

Lots of things go easier when they are bite-size. If you have a major task to get done, for example, it helps to divide it into smaller units and tackle them one at a time. This is true whether you are redecorating the house, packing for a vacation, or directing a project. The same is true of prayer.

As an active member of a small prayer group this end, we learned a lot about specific prayers. It is wiser to ask for something smaller and more specific and really believe that it will be answered than make huge prayers without seeing results. Everytime we make all-inclusive requests of God, nothing happened, but when we begin asking for bite-size requests, it's a big YES!

If you expect specific answers,

be specific with your prayers!

Inspirational Ref: Our Daily Bread

BY ANY OTHER NAME?

Yahoo

In Gulliver's Travels, the Yahoos are a tribe of brutes having the form of men and embodying all the vices of mankind. So yahoo is an uncomplimentary term designating a lout, a ruffian, a brute, a degraded specimen of mankind.

Robot

In 1923 Karel Capek, a Czech playwrite, wrote a celebrated and terrifying play. Its title, R.U.R., stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, the robots being a symbol of the machine age, mechanical monsters in human form who turn upon their masters. Derived from the Slavic word robota, meaning work, the word robot has become very useful in describing an automaton or a human being who has become so mechanized that he has lost his soul.

Utopian

In 1516 Sir Thomas More wrote a book about an ideal state. Book and place bore the title Utopia, which means No Place (U is from ou, a Greek negative, and top is from topos, place). When, 250 years later, Samuel Butler wrote his novel of another utopia, he sought another disguise. He just spelled the word "nowhere" backwards and called his book Erewhon. Utopian is a synonym for quixotic; it carries the idea of impratical, unfeasible, impossible, visionary, chimerical, ideal but unattainable.

WATER... WATER...WATER...

When we sit down to dinner each evening, our menu includes a great deal more water than the glassful we consume as a beverage. Many foods contain a surprising percentage of water by weight, e.g., cucumber, 96%; watermelon, 92%; milk, 87%; apple, 84%; potato, 78%; steak, 74%; cheese, 40%; bread, 35%.

THE FIRST CUP OF COFFEE

The Arabs are known to have drunk coffee as of 850 A.D. It took Europe almost seven centuries to make its acquaintance. Although Mocha, a town in southwestern Arabia, had become an active port for coffee export by 1450, coffee did not appear in Europe until 1517. By 1580, Turkish coffee was imported in bulk to Italy, through Venice; by 1643, coffee was popular in Paris; in 1632, the first coffee shop opened in London, followed by the first coffee house in Oxford in 1650. Vienna, which was to become so famous for its coffee houses, did not catch up until 1683.

A TEA OF IGNORANCE

There are many different types of tea on the supermarket shelves now; green tea, white tea, black tea, red tea, tea with mint, tea with orange flavor, chamomile, cinnamon, oolong, etc. The four main types are white, black, red, and oolong tea, and within these types are different varieties and flavors. But did you know that when tea was first introduced in the American colonies, many housewives, in their ignorance, served tea leaves with sugar or syrup after throwing away the water in which they had been boiled.

Have you ever tried making tea
from dried sampaguita petals?
It tastes great and the aroma
is superb!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - IGNORANCE

"Two things are infinite:
the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not sure about the universe."


Albert Einstein

A TREASURED PICTURE

Enrico Caruso

The great tenor Enrico Caruso was performing in San Francisco on April 17, 1906. when the famous earthquake occurred. The terrified tenor took just one thing from his shattered room, a picture of President Theodore Roosevelt, personally autographed to Caruso. Later, when he tried to get on a train with the other members of the opera company, the guards didn't recognize him and wouldn't let him pass. But Caruso showed them his treasured picture, was issued a boarding pass, and made his way to safety.

MAKE IT MEMORABLE!

My best friend, Jazmin, shared this funny story!

An elderly lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her lungs, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!"

The four men didn't wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken that she could not get he key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then she realize why. It was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a frisbee, and two 12-packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filled.

Moral of the story?

"If you're going to have a senior moment... make it memorable."

TRIVIA - LIGHT HAS WEIGHT!

If a set of fine scales is arranged so that one scale is kept dark, and light is allowed to fall on the other, the lighted scale will sink slowly. Light has "weight." The pressure of light on the earth's surface is calculated as two pounds per square mile.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER by Thomas Hood

I Remember, I Remember

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses red red and white,
The violets and the lily cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
than when I was a boy.


Thomas Hood

SLOW TO ANGER

Anger is a strong, potentially destructive emotion. When you are personally offended and your feelings are hurt, it's always best to check that immediate reaction of wanting to tell someone off. Confrontation to resolve a difference may be necessary, but using restraint, allowing to cool off, is always wise.

Not all problems have such a happy ending. But the possibilities are greatly increased when we are slow to wrath. When aroused to anger by an untrue charge or a cutting remark, count to 10, to 20, or to 100, if necessary.

Lost your temper did you say?
Truth says, state it in this way:
"When I count the tragic cost,
Would to God it had been lost."

Anon

From: Our Daily Bread

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - PRAYER

"There is not in the world
a kind of life more sweet and
delightful than that of a continual
conversation with God."


Brother Lawrence