A Challenge to the Youth!

What is this challenge am I talking about? Is this the much-awaited PACSiklaban? Brainiacs? Math Quiz Bee? Physics Challenge? The Search for the Ideal Thomasian Personality? Nah... The challenge I am talking about is not about these; it goes beyond the normal challenges. It is something that can be a life-changing experience.

In a time where everyone is on the go or on the fast-paced moves, people aim to be on top so they do everything -- ace the board exam, study abroad, make numerous researches, you name them, we do (or we're planning to do it) -- all in the name of success (usually coupled with fame and money).

Imagine how would you feel if we reach these? Of course, we're overjoyed and overwhelmed. But what do we feel after? We're hungry for more, right? No contentment. Empty.

This is where the challenge comes in. In a generation where everything is just a touch (or click) away, we tend to forget something. That something plays a vital role in our lives but we often neglect it which eventually leads to disappearing into oblivion.

FAITH.

A five-lettered word which connotes a thousand meanings; a noun which becomes, as according to James 2:17, a being if placed together with action or deed.

The challenge is this:

How will you incorporate FAITH in your life as a student? How will you stand out, not because of your success, but because of the things you've done to glorify the Lord? How will you use your studies -- talents and skills -- to serve the Lord?

These are the questions that should challenge us, especially the youth.

We are nobody. We are just mere specks of dust turned human beings. But (yes, there's a BIG BUT), like the quote I have posted days ago, "The most humbling statement we can say is: We are nothing without God. And the most powerful statement is: WITH GOD, I can do anything."

P.S. A letter to ponder on. :)

Dear Student,

I see that you are tired. I tell you, drop your book and rest for a while. Why worry too much about your studies? Smile. Be confident. All you have to do is prepare well and be in school. Then, against the hundred questions that tried to destroy you, there I'll stant and rescue you. Passing the program requires not only ME nor only YOU but rather ME AND YOU. Just do your best and I'll take care of the rest.

Your Teacher,

Jesus

Remember APAT DAPAT! :)

So, are you up for the challenge? :

Date A Girl Who Reads

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

- Rosemarie Urquico