It's my mom's Birthday today May 10, 2005, this morning she cooked her favorite pancit for our breakfast, I help her prepare the ingredients and after it was cooked I am the first one to taste it and Hmmm… so tasty and it satisfies me. The mother’s cooking ability has nothing to compare with because it has an ingredient of love, which is one secret ingredient every mother has, when it comes to cooking foods to her family especially to her children. I am thankful to God for giving me a mother like my mom, thankful for everything she has, everything she did for me. I am so blessed having a wonderful mom like her. For my mom, Happy Birthday! Wishing you all the best in this world… I love you mom.

The better your thinking ability, the better you are at differentiating between valid information and garbage, and the better you’re able to communicate with others, the more successful you'll be in every aspect of your life — business and personal, physical and mental. Because together these skills, or attributes, can:

• Substantially reduce any tendency you might have to be fearful of life.
• Change a habitual negative outlook to one that is positive.
• Get you into the habit of turning inward for solutions to problems, where they always are, rather than outward, where they never are.
• Bring to you the realization that you, and you alone, are responsible for what happens in your life.
• Prevent verbal sickness and improve your health in general by changing your outlook.
• Reorder your priorities for the better.
• Rearrange your hierarchy of values for the better.
• Give you the ability to focus on the important things in life while ignoring the unimportant ones.
• Make you more selective in choosing which ideas to admit into your mind and which to deny passage to.
• Improve the belief system through which you screen all entering ideas.
• Keep you from wasting time entertaining false ideas.
• Reduce the likelihood that others will be able to further their own best interests at your expense.
• Reduce or even eliminate any tendency you might have to feel guilt.
• Make it extremely difficult for others to kill your dreams.
• Make it extremely difficult for others to intimidate you through words alone.
• Make you more self-reliant.
• Increase your self-confidence.
• Give you a better understanding of people.
• Purge your mind of the accumulated garbage dumped on you by others.
• Free you from bondage to bits and pieces of what is nothing more than pure mythology.
• In short, they can transform you by "the renewing of your mind."

OK. Where do we go from here?

May! What comes out first in your mind when you heard the month May? Is it flowers blooming? Is it the start of rainy days? How about Fiesta of Saints? Sta. Cruzan? Going to Bohol will be a nice idea, coz almost everyday there is a fiesta celebration of every town there. May is our Barangay Fiesta. But that is not what’s inside my mind now. May is the month for our beloved mothers. May is also my mom’s birth month. Every second Sunday of May is for Mother’s day, this month is intended for Mothers, and for the many things she gave you. My mother is so special for me; she is the best mom in the whole world for me, no matter what my mom is always my mom. Her name is Lolita, every time I heard that name, I can picture out the mother figure in that name. I love my mom, though I didn’t express it physically but my mom knows and feels that I love her, and I know and feels that she loves me too. Nothing compares the love of a mother, it is a selfless love, and she will give everything she can for you. To my mother, Happy Mother’s Day. I love you, Ma. And the song by Boys II Men entitled “ A Song for Mama” explains my love for my mom…

A Song for Mama

You taught me everything
And everything you’ve given me
I always keep it inside
You’re the driving force in my life, yeah
There isn’t anything
Or anyone I can be
And it just wouldn’t feel right
If I didn’t have you by my side
You were there for me to love and care for me
When skies were grey
Whenever I was down
You were always there to comfort me
And no one else can be what you have been to me
You’ll always be you always will be the girl
In my life for all times

Chorus:
Mama, mama you know I love you
Oh you know I love you
Mama, mama you’re the queen of my heart
Your love is like
Tears from the stars
Mama, I just want you to know
Lovin’ you is like food to my soul
You’re always down for me
Have always been around for me even when I was bad
You showed me right from my wrong
Yes you did
And you took up for me
When everyone was downin’ me
You always did understand
You gave me strength to go on
There was so many times
Looking back when I was so afraid
And then you come to me
And say to me I can face anything
And no one else can do
What you have done for me
You’ll always be
You will always be the girl in my life
Chorus

It seems nowadays more people in any age bracket use the internet, like chatting, e-mailing and surfing the net. I observed that there’s a lot of internet users don’t have the right manners or don’t observe netiquette that includes me, sometimes. So here’s its ten principles I got from a reference:

1. First impressions. The agreed formula is to begin with the name of the addressee: don’t use the fuddy-dudy “Dear Rob,” but simply “Rob.” A cherry “Hiya” is over-familiar. Simply launching into your message is unduly abrupt, unless the two of you are regular correspondents rapidly sending messages back and forth.
2. Mind your manners. NEVER WRITE MESSAGES IN CAPITAL LETTERS – it’s considered the internet equivalent of shouting. Because e-mail takes place in the absence of the recipient, it lacks the inhibition imposed by their presence (even if only on the phone), so it’s easy to be rude or think that e-rudeness doesn’t count.
3. Think before you send. E-mails fired off in haste may cause lifetimes of repentance. Before you press that button, pause. Do you really mean that insult, threat or offer of money? Would you like to get your message you’re about to send? Are you prepared to honor any offers or threats you make?
4. You’ve got mail. Always check your messages. Only a fool would leave his post lying around unopened or not listen to his answering machine. The same applies to your e-mail inbox. There is a film producer who hands out his e-mail address but says, “Don’t bother e-mailing me. I never check it.” Why have it in the first place?
5. Cyberspeak with care. Picasso was a technically brilliant draughtsman, so when he painted women with both eyes on one side of their heads he did so as a matter of creative choice. Similarly, you should not write e-mails in abbreviated or poor English – such as “c ya tonite” or “lol”, meaning “laugh out loud” – unless you have demonstrated a grasp of the real thing. Otherwise you risk being exposed as a fake.
6. Don’t techno-bully. The internet has its own snobbery, and Web geeks can be terribly rude to those less computer literate. The considerate e-mailer, however, never looks down on those who can’t work the latest gizmos and checks with the recipient that they have the equipment required to read a message or open an attachment. It is not a crime to be baffled by the Web, particularly since its greatest express are often baffled by real life.
7. Beware mass mailing. It is never flattering to receive an e-mail then discover it has been sent to hundreds of others. Mass mailing is acceptable when sending jokes or invitations, but unacceptable as chain letters. If you have to send a message to everyone in your address book, keep the other names hidden using blind carbon copy (bcc), unless you know they are friends or colleagues.
8. Say something nice. Some etiquette experts feel that invitations, acceptances and thank-yous should be sent via old fashioned post. I disagree. Moreover, a positive e-mail, be it words of congratulations or affection, can brighten the day.
9. Never e-dump lovers. On the other hand, it is bad form to give anyone the heave-ho by e-mail. If you must write, rather than see them face to face, it is more respectful to do so by hand. The casualness of e-mail is as insulting as it is dismissive.
10. Write for the record. Use e-mail as a chance to recreate the joys of letter writing. Telephone conversations vanish into the ether, but all the e-mails you’ve ever send or received are sitting on a hard disk. Who knows? Others may want to read them some day. So remember to put some care into your respondence.

Now, you have the knowledge about netiquette; use it to avoid offence online…