martinakirsli-blog

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Morong Bataan: A fun and emotional experience.

Last summer, Our church got an opportunity to visit Morong, bataan to have an outreach. I didn’t expect this vacation to happened due to our busy schedules. But we thank the Lord for making it possible. We stayed at Delia’s Beach Resort in Morong Bataan. It is an open area with numerous of cottages.

As we got there we rented 2 houses and 5 “bahay kubo’s”. We were all excited to see the beach so we took our phones out to take pictures to post on facebook, snapchat, instagram and other social medias. After we ate for lunch we all got to the beach and started to have fun. Some of us played the sand and some of us made fun of each other while we were in the water. As the sun sets we prepared food for dinner and after that we decided to play “werewolf” it is a board game that everyone can join. 

On the next day, last day of our vacatio. Our Pastor said we must pass some tracks with a short gospel to the strangers we can see as we walk by. It is accepted by some people but some rejected the small piece of paper. We got back at the resort so we can swim at the sea but apparently the sea looks so dangerous because of high tide. The waves hitting our legs as we watch it going back. It is our last day already so we decided to swim even though it kinda looks so dangerous our parents stayed at our side to watch each and everyone of us. 

Now we were on our way home. we decided to stop by at Duty Free to buy some “Pasalubong”. Indeed It was an amazing experience but it kinda ruined my day because it was the day when my one and only dog died. Anyway all in all we got home safely with smiles in our faces but for me it is still a mixed emotion day to remember.

[martinakirsli-blog]

DELICIOUS AS ALWAYS.

The restaurant is filled with the aroma of delicious food that makes me want to eat the whole menu. Kidding aside,  Pork Bellysima came from a small restaurant named “Pastaholics”. Pastaholics is owned by our family friend. they serve pasta, burgers, and rice meals. Affordable for workers and also to students.Pork bellysima is served with pork, steamed rice and vegetables which is the baguio beans with italian herb pesto style with a price for 110 Pesos only.

Some food can be "nakakaumay" but Pork bellysima is so tasty because they marinated the pork with an asian flavor. of course the main course will not be complete without any drink.  To partner it up Apple Mint is the best drink for this course. so basically it was made of an apple with their secret ingredients. it is not so sweet just an average of sweetness. 

I must say that all of their food at their menu is tasty but i prefer eating Pork Bellysima. It is worth the price especially im a student.

[martinakirsli-blog]

LITERARY REPORTAGE: Depression

The Illusion They Called Reality: How Depression Distorts a Person’s Sense of Worth

Sadness and depression are nearly two concepts that intertwine within a person’s thoughts. Nowadays, it is easy for people to state of their feelings, typing the word “depressed” behind the keyboard. Almost as if it was to be taken lightly given the fact that it was used as a form of expression. However, they have two different stories altogether. Sadness is a feeling that heals and fades over time. Depression is a never-ending cycle of sadness that swallows their victim whole. In fact, depression sometimes leads to a fatal trail of self-destruction. Especially on the story of mother Treby, and her daughter Megan.

For Megan, it seemed as if there wasn't a line drawn between the self-destructive imagination, and when these visions turned into the harsh reality they called a living hell. Behind the bright screens of social media websites, one hand scrolling down on the mouse, and the other dipped into the gluttonous white powder did one individual had difficulty hanging on the line leading to remedy. Too intoxicated from her thoughts to finish the powdery substance.

What was this feeling, exactly? Was it a routine? Was it normal? The questions seemed to dawn heavily on a mother whose daughter had since lost the genuine smile that was free from the face that was rotting, and starved of deprived happiness behind the mask. Since that day, her bed was a place for all kinds of antidepressants to lie on lifelessly, like a position she would find herself in eternity once she thought it was finally time to let go... and kill herself.

Truly, the coffin's cushions were softer, and more delicate than the cold floor. Reality liked to twist her perceptions, she was imagining herself laid out flat, resting gingerly on the casket, when in fact her head hit the cold, hard tiles. Proving even the most morbid of blue fantasies could still take a turn for the worse. Body exhausting, nerves writhing, will fading into oblivion before she vomited. The succeeding second blurring her line of vision into hues as black and bleak as her envisioned future.

The loud thump caught the horrified attention of her parents, running to the scene to find the child they once saw take it's first breath of air, threatened to be put on their last at present day. They immediately contacted the car whose flashing red and blue lights, accompanied by the loud sirens rushed it's way to their household, taking in the patient as swiftly as possible.

It didn't take a while to realize the daughter's parents built a façade of ignorance to their poor child's downfall. Almost as if the couple were a boat left to leisure while their child fell overboard. Actually, it was almost parallel to that. The mother relived memories wherein she left her child capsized on a small rubber ring when it was just a toddler, only having realized the incident when it almost drowned, remembering her heavy palms landing harshly on the small child's back to get the water out of her suffocating lungs. It looked as if that moment, time was never a friend to the mother and father, their daughter left to wither and neglect, like a gardener dying during the blooming season of spring.

Back at present day, doctors managed to save the young lass in a nick of time. Medicine healed her illness, but no amount of stitches mended her broken soul. The psychiatrist became a fool to the daughter’s promises, sweet words of defiance from the same action blinded the former of the latter’s motives. As the daughter, Megan was home, she wanted to make sure she would be would be lying on a morgue instead of a hospital bed if her parents manage to recover her in her critical state once more.

The following days became a cycle for Megan, it seemed as her thoughts drove her to self-destruct, feet dragging her along to a place of emotional ruin. The drugs running through her system letting her rot of despair and agony. Soon, her depression haunted her like a plague, infecting her mindset, making her brain take in more toxic powder than she could, a risk of overdose as her liver suffers from the dire consequences of her actions. Not that she had the thought about it, she herself was devastated ever since her beloved met his passing.

For the latter, it was as if her partner carried her soul along with him, ripping her of her spirit to live on, for her happiness embraced his frame until the moment of his death, and died along with him. Though ironically the man’s heart was a void as well, value was non-existent as he defined what time he would sleep for eternity. In the utmost inconvenient, a time her vulnerability was at it’s strongest. Alcohol was her cure, pills were her demons as her bliss turned to dreams. Pain resonated from the scars over her veins, a masterpiece for which she was the unsatisfied artist, each stroke of the blade bled a palette of deep red. During this time did her mother’s regret torment the latter at it’s strongest. Being a bystander in front of an impending, self-inflicted doom, and out of all people, her own daughter. Life became toxic until proper rehabilitation was given to her. Added to the sad fact that her own parents only managed to send her to one after she tried to end her own life.

It really is in detrimental irony that they gave love and care to their child who ended up depriving herself of it. She was succumbing to what seemed like a small lizard of sadness, would manage to grow into a depressive dragon whose fiery breath burned away her sense of worth on life, as well as happiness.

But as they say, dragons are a thing of fantasy, but it was different for the dragon in her inner world. Telling her that the upper curve on the corners of her lips would never be genuine, that life revolved around the passing of her dearest, that her life was walking on a trail of broken glass leading to a cliff for which she would jump to the verge of her death. That tears from her eyes flowed like rivers on the cracks of her crumbling face. Increasing as the hands of the clock keep turning. And yet, this only existed in her world, for how she envisioned her life was far from what her family expected of her, how sad it was to have such a lovely child at youth, be the same young woman who bathed in illegal ecstasy and drowned in alcoholic habits. In their own eyes, the dragon was actually her, who lived in the illusion that suicide was the only way, her only reality of feeling alive.

Truly, depression should not be equal to sadness, for sadness if just a part of depression. To be sad is normal, crying, feeling like the world is about to end just from a single experience is a kind of emotion people go through all the time, but it does not mean that all of those people who have the audacity to cut or shoot themselves, lose interest on their passions, or feel like they’ve been living in a void for years. That is what those individuals with clinical depression feel while they’re living. Rather, are they even living based on their own perceptions? If people say they are “so depressed” after failing an exam, then what more could the people who wake up everyday questioning their existence feel?

References:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201510/the-important-difference-between-sadness-and-depression

http://www.seventeen.com/life/real-girl-stories/a40427/stop-saying-you-are-ocdadddepressed/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/one-familys-story-of-suicide-my-daughter-was-hell-bent-on-dying/

By: Michael Fabian

Patricia Moyano

Aljun Mendoza

Martina Galvez

[martinakirsli-blog]

Story of My Life.

My name is Martina Kirsli Dizon Galvez. My parents named me after by a tennis player named “Martina Navbratilova” and “Martina Hingis” because my father really loves to play tennis. I was out by my mother’s womb on November 03, 1999 at Veterans Hospital here in Quezon City. I have four siblings and three of them was my half brothers and a sister. Life must be a little dramatic but I’m happy and grateful that i have this kind of family.

When i was 3 years old i was introduced to a Christian Family. Both of my parents were Born Again Christians so they taught me to attend Sunday School every Sunday. I met different children at my age and learned every single basic story in the bible.

My mother signed me in to a Day Care Center to experience Nursery. I learned how to write, pronounce every letter and to draw. I also took ballerina class for my extra curricular as well.

As i entered elementary i studied at Hope Christian Academy but unfortunately my mother decided to switch schools so i continued my education at Flos Carmeli Institution of Quezon City. I experienced how to be bullied when i was in grade six but i guess that’s normal when you’re a kid so i didn't let the teachers know nor my parents. Every weekend I'm attending Violin Class and doing recitals but i decided to stop because i think playing an instrument is not my passion.

After I graduate i decided for myself to just stay in that school because I'm not yet ready to face new environment. But unluckily the school shuts down for some reasons. I have no choice but to move in to another school again.

In my High school days at Sisters of Mount Carmel has been challenging yet i know it was fun. I belonged to a big circle of friends which made me feel that I'm not alone until i reached third year. It was the most depressing moments in my entire life that no one will believe, not my family and not even myself. I was charged for cyberbullying, grave offense so basically a three day suspension. Arranging book at the library, making a rosary, and a scapular.

In my entire life studying I've been a good student not until someone decided to ruin it. As i accomplish high school my parents let me study at Angelicum College for Senior high school i enrolled for Humanities and Social Sciences Strand because I feel like it will be easy for me to choose what course i should get if it is Tourism or Journalism. I was nervous on the first day of school this is the time when I’m alone without my brother. But as the time goes by i became independent. Honestly i met different types of people that made me care for the world or specifically to anybody else.

Experiencing teenage years has been a tough one. My family has faced different challenges that affects each one of us. Friends that stayed for me while i ride this very scary roller coaster. I learned how to speak up for myself and to tell them what’s inside my mind and heart.

It is about time to sign up for college so i signed up at University of Santo Thomas and University of The Philippines. I know it will be hard to enter in this kind of schools but at least i have tried my best. Also This year i entered the legality stage I'm now eighteen but still looks like an eight years old I'm a bit excited for what the future for me will be and that it is now the time to get mature enough in some things. I honestly don’t want my senior year to end, it feels like going to college will be more challenging to the point that i will not have time to make friends and to have fun. So to end this story for the meantime i would like to say that My life will continue as well as my story.

~martinakirsli

[martinakirsli-blog]

the adventure of my favourite artist.

Ariana Grande-Butera (born June 26, 1993), better known as Ariana Grande is an American singer and actress. She began her career in 2008 in the Broadway musical 13, before playing the role of Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon television series Victorious, and in the spinoff Sam & Cat until 2014. She has also appeared in other theatre and television roles and has lent her voice to animated television and films.

Ariana Grande-Butera was born in Boca Raton, Florida. She is the daughter of Joan Grande, the chief executive officer of Hose-McCann Communications, a telephone and alarm system company, and Edward Butera, a graphic design firm owner in Boca Raton. Her name was inspired by Princess Oriana from Felix the Cat: The Movie. She has an older half-brother, Frankie Grande, an entertainer and producer, and she has a close relationship with her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Grande.Grande's family moved from New York to Florida when her mother was pregnant with her, and her parents separated when she was around 8 or 9 years old.

As a child, Grande performed with the Fort Lauderdale Children's Theater, playing her first role as the title character in Annie. She also performed in the musicals The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast. At the age of 8, she performed at a karaoke lounge on a cruise ship and with various orchestras such as South Florida's Philharmonic, Florida Sunshine Pops and Symphonic Orchestras, and she made her first national television appearance singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the Florida Panthers. She attended Pine Crest School and North Broward Preparatory School.

By age 13, she became serious about pursuing a music career, though she still concentrated on theater. When she first arrived in Los Angeles to meet with her managers, she expressed a desire to record an R&B album.  In 2008, Grande was cast in the supporting role of cheerleader Charlotte in the musical 13on Broadway, for which she won a National Youth Theatre Association Award. When she joined the musical, Grande left North Broward Preparatory School, but continued to be enrolled; the school sent materials to her so she could study with tutors. She also sang various times at the New York City jazz club Birdland.

Grande was cast in the Nickelodeon television show Victorious along with 13co-star Elizabeth Gillies in 2009. In this sitcom, set in a performing arts high school, Grande played the role of Cat Valentine. The show premiered in March 2010 to the second largest audience for a live-action series in Nickelodeon history with 5.7 million viewers. 

Grande recorded her first studio album Yours Truly, originally titled Daydreamin', over a three-year period. It was released on August 30, 2013. She is credited as a songwriter on several tracks of the album. By April 2014, the album had sold over 500,000 copies in the United States, and later it became Grande's first platinum album.

The lead single "The Way", featuring Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller, debuted at No. 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100, eventually peaking at No. 9 for two weeks. The second single, "Baby I", debuted at No. 21 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it her second Top 40 hit.The song also debuted at No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot Digital Songs chart, making Grande the only female music artist to debut two songs in the top 10 of the Hot Digital Songs chart during the year 2013. The third single, "Right There", featuring Detroit rapper Big Sean, debuted at No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

By January 2014, Grande is credited as a songwriter on several tracks of the album. she earned the Favorite Breakout Artist award at the People's Choice Awards 2014. In March 2014, Grande sang at the White House concert, "Women of Soul: In Performance at the White House" The following month, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited Grande again to perform at the White House for the Easter Egg Rollevent.

Grande released her second studio album My Everything on August 25, 2014. It sold 169,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard200, becoming her second consecutive No. 1 album in the US.

Its lead single "Problem" features Australian rapper Iggy Azalea and premiered at the 2014 Radio Disney Music Awards on April 27. The song debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and debuted at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Grande's first No. 1 single in the United Kingdom.

The second single, "Break Free", featuring German musician and producer Zedd, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs

In November 2014, Grande was featured in Major Lazer's song "All My Love", which was released as the fourth single from the soundtrack album for the film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

In early 2015, Grande embarked on The Honeymoon Tour, with shows in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. The tour earned $14 million in its first 25 performances, selling 290,699 tickets. Following the tour's early success, more dates were added, and the tour concluded in October 2015 after a total of nearly 90 dates

Also in 2015, Grande guest-starred on several episodes of the Foxcomedy-horror TV series Scream Queens as Chanel #2. She also launched her first fragrance "Ari by Ariana Grande"

Grande began recording songs for her third studio album, originally titled Moonlight, in 2015. In October of that year, she released the single "Focus", initially intended as the lead single from the album; the song debuted at No. 7 on the Hot 100. The song's music video has been viewed more than 700 million times on YouTube.

In March 2016, Grande released "Dangerous Woman" as the lead single from the retitled album of the same name. The single debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Grande's seventh top 10 entry on that chart. She is the first person in the history of the Hot 100 to have the lead single from each of her first three albums debut in the top 10.

Grande began her Dangerous Woman Tour in February 2017 in North America and then Europe. After her concert at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, on May 22, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the foyer of the arena, causing 23 fatalities and many more injuries. Grande suspended the tour until June 7 and held a televised benefit concert, One Love Manchester, on June 4 at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester, helping to raise $23 million to aid the bombing victims and affected families. Grande, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and other artists performed. To recognize her efforts, the City Council named Grande the first honorary citizen of Manchester. The tour resumed in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania. It ended in September 2017.

The same year, Grande recorded the title track of the soundtrack for the 2017 live-action remake of Disney's Beauty and the Beast with John Legend; the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 87. and became a brand ambassador for Reebok.

~ martinakirsli