Shutter Island and The Truth

My husband and I watched Shutter Island last weekend. It was a spur of the moment decision that we don’t even know which movie to watch. After going through the list of movies the theater had, we finally went for Shutter Island. It was a little dragging in the beginning. There was nothing much going on except U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), went to the Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island. They were investigating about the disappearance of Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), a patient who vanished into thin air from a locked and highly secured room.

Teddy Daniels had a theory of his own and thought that the hospital was doing human experiments to their patients to make them more responsive and manageable. He wanted to uncover the truth at the lighthouse where he thinks all the human experimenting was going on, but he was surprised to uncover the truth about himself instead.

The doctors decided to try the role play experiment hoping to bring him back into his sanity and go along with his delusion. Apparently, he murdered his manic depressive wife after she drowned their three children in the lake behind their house. She was begging to him that she wants to let go that he decided to shot him. The doctors successfully made him see the truth and one by one it started coming back to him about that day that his wife killed his children, but it wasn’t for too long. The next day, he had a relapse.

It was indeed an ending I did not see coming. It made me ask, how much pain and truth can a person handle before he/she eventually loses his/her mind? Whether Teddy Daniels was trying to hide from the truth by creating a fantasy in his mind or block the pain, we will never know.

People deal with pain differently. Some after a few months realizes that things happened for a reason and learn how to move on. That is why the support of the family in this time of need is very important. Some people also seek for a psychiatrist’s help while others deal with it on its own and in the end lose track of the truth and reality, and they start creating a delusion to permanently escape from pain.

Jobs

My sister’s boyfriend had recently enrolled himself to his master’s degree. He will be going for accounting, and we are all very happy for him. Good paying jobs are hard to find these days especially when you don’t have any educational background and experience to back you up. There are a lot of people who are also looking for a job. He wanted to move and had been actively looking for a job everywhere. He searched for Chicago jobs, so they could live closer to us. He also searched for Philadelphia jobs because I heard he has relatives there too. I advise him that wherever the job is that is where he should go. I hope he finds a job that he deserves.

MP3 Players

I just checked the website of the airlines that we will be using to fly to the Philippines. I need to confirm our flights. The travel agent said that I could do the confirmation twenty four hours before we leave, but Papa suggested that it would be wise to check it now in case something happens; we still have the time to fix it or call our travel agent. I checked on their entertainment on board and it seems to be very promising. I need all the entertainment I could get because we need Frankie to be entertained all the time with thirteen hours of sitting on the first leg then another 4 hours on the last legs of flight. He really likes listening to music and singing along, so one of these MP3 players that we have will surely keep him busy especially when we are waiting for our connecting flight.

Paper Ads, a Waste of Paper and Trees

It was November 5, 1991 when continues rain flooded Ormoc, a city of Leyte located in the eastern Visayan region of the Philippines. The flood claimed 4,875 lives excluding the bodies that were found after the official count was proclaimed. The number one cause was the drastic cutting of the trees to make way to the sugar cane plantation. There was also illegal logging and some trees were used for paper.

Trees are being cut everyday to make paper. I know we couldn’t avoid not having paper but can’t we minimize it? Don’t you know that a ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees? It bothered me when I woke up this morning and saw a bunch of paper ads. We always get that every Sunday with the morning paper. Papa always keeps it and drops it at the recycled bin at our church but there are a lot of people that just mix the paper with their other trash that made it even harder to recycle. I also find those paper ads very useless. Everyone else could go to the store’s website and view what the ad for that week without having to deal with having paper. A lot of companies are doing well with doing things paperless and I hope in the future we will eliminate having paper ads completely. That would make a huge difference and lesser trees being cut.

Moving

My dear friend and her husband are moving to their new apartment. She is very excited because this will mean a new beginning for them. I wish I have a lot of time in my hands, but I am so busy myself. I would really love to help her with the move and settling things up. They had been waiting for this time and now that it is here, I am so happy for them. There are a lot of things that they still need. I already left her a message to let me know if she needs anything. She mentioned before that they really need new office furniture because they never had any before. It is so exciting and tiring moving but in the end, it is so worth it.

Back Up

I need to start being serious about printing Frankie’s pictures. It seems like I kept deleting the pictures that I have in the digital camera and now they are gone for good. I still hated myself for not getting an online backup when he was a baby for his baby pictures. When our computer broke down on us, all of Frankie’s baby pictures were gone for good. There was no way I could retrieve them. In fact now that I am in school it is the more I would like to get a back up, so I have a place where I could store all my assignments and paper works. You’ll never know something might happen to them.

Frankie Singing

There is no time in a day that Frankie and Papa are not singing. In fact because of that, our VCD player broke. Frankie had learned a lot of songs not only baby songs. What I find very amusing is, when he sings, he wants us to sing with him. He likes his Dada to sing with him too, but Ryan always tells him that he doesn't know how to sing. Before going to bed he likes to sing then he enjoys listening to me sing too. I hope he will continue to love singing when he grows up. Here is a video of him this morning. He had a fever last night and had a clogged nose. Excuse the picking of the nose. :)

Treatment

I remember my late grandma having to suffer with arthritis all the time especially when it was a little cold outside. There were times when her hip bones and spine becomes inflamed that prohibited her from moving too. I remember her crying in pain, and we felt so useless because there was nothing we could do. We were not sure if what she had was still connected with arthritis. We couldn’t afford to take her to the hospital, so she pretty much carried the pain. I wish we had the ankylosing spondylitis treatment then in the Philippines but we didn’t. It is so nice to know that there are people and places that people that are suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis could go and seek treatment.

Life Insurance

I started looking for life insurance quotes online to see if we could afford to get Papa a life insurance even if he hesitated when I asked him. I was stunned with the amount of people who called us and left a message. The email that I gave also was flooded with quotes from different companies. It makes me ask, where were they when I was looking for health insurance for my Dad? I guess now I have so many options to look at. I better start going through them also find something for me too. I still don’t have any life insurance myself.

Role Model

I was in one of the registers checking out a customer when my co-workers and I saw a little girl deliberately eating the candy bars that we have by the check out lanes. She was eating them one by one, and she must have eaten four when one of the ladies that I worked with came up to her and asked where her parents were. The little girl’s parents were just nearby sniffing on the perfumes/cologne as if nothing happened. When the little girl dropped one of the candies, she picked it up and a back of lip gloss that we sell fell from her pocket. She grabbed it and put it back on her pocket. We were all astonished and couldn’t believe what we just saw. Our supervisor approached the parents and gave them the candy wrapper that their daughter dropped on the floor expecting them to pay for it of course. The mother just smiled as if it was ok with her.

I went back to my department to finish what I started. I have not seen them after that. I took my lunch, and when I was getting ready to zone, I was so surprised to see the same candy wrapper that our supervisor gave the mother hidden in the back of one of the shoes. Right next to the wrapper are two empty boxes of perfumes that were stolen because we couldn’t find the content of it anywhere. I am not trying to judge people or say that it was them who stole those stuff I found and other four things that my other co-workers found, but you could just imagine.

However, if it was the case, how could the parents let their kids see their stupidity? I am over the shoe department, and I always get old and used baby shoes or kid’s shoes in a shoe box that we sell because the parents put a new pair of shoes to their kids and walked out with it without paying for it. The kids see it and they would think that it is alright to steal. Some parents also liked switching none clearance shoes and put it inside a clearance box, so they could pay the cheaper price. I just had a couple a few days ago, and what was sad is they have their son and daughter with them. What is going on with this world? Are we that desperate to get the things that we couldn’t afford that it is alright to do the wrong things in front of our children? If you can’t afford it then you don’t need it or save for it and buy it when you have the money. These kind of people makes me sick because their kids will be doing the same things when they grow up. How about you? Are you good role model to your children?

Planning for Retirement?

It makes me laugh every time I see how much deductions I have from work. Twenty percent of my check goes to our 401K and ten perfect of Ryan's goes to our 401K too. It hurts a little bit because there are other things that I would love to pay off with that. We only have fifteen hundred left for my car, and I really would like to pay it off completely but Ryan said that we can't touch the 401k. I guess it is good thing for the future, so we don't have to worry about retirement. I asked him about the orange account just to pay off the car, but he is concern that something might happen and we need emergency money. It seems we still have a long way to go before retirement but as he said, when are we going to start? When we are old and can't enjoy our retirement because we need to work? I guess it makes sense. I am not used to this back home I guess. Good thing I married a man who makes sure our future is secured.

Ping Pong Set

I wanted to get Papa a ping pong set for Christmas. I contemplated on it and was wondering why people were returning them to the store that I am working with. One customer said that it was too small for a regular sized table and it wasn’t worth the price. Papa really enjoys playing ping pong. We used to have different kinds of game tables in the Philippines when I was growing up. He made the tables himself, and we used to play different kinds of games. I wonder what happened to it now, now that Papa is here.

Electric Cigarettes

I love and miss the Philippines, but there is one thing that annoys me when I am there. I hate it when people just smoke everywhere. I can’t breathe when someone smokes because I am not used to it. Nobody in my family smokes that is why when I around people that smoke it makes me cough. I wonder if they have electric cigarettes there now for sale. It must be a nice idea to get my uncles some of those because all of them smoke. They probably find it interesting. I am sure it will feel and taste like they are smoking the real thing minus the side effects.

Money

I am so pleased with what we have done for the past year. Ryan and I have been transfering money to our account somewhere unseen and it is amazing how it adds up after a year. We have not touched it even if Ryan had paid for our Philippine trip tickets. We would like to have all the cash we could have when we remodel the house when the market is getting better again. We have not done the taxes either. Ryan always does it last minute when it is almost the deadline. Since I don't have any idea about it, I just leave it to him. I don't even remember him doing that early on. It is always around the end of March or early April. It is ok though. We have plenty of time.

Career

I didn’t want to go back teaching when I first got here. I know that I still have a long way to go with taking some classes, and the students here are way different in terms of their attitudes than in the Philippines. After giving birth to Frankie, I realized that I should go back to school t teach again. Seeing him everyday makes me want to be with kids again. I just want to have a career where I am not going to be dependent with my husband for the rest of my life. With the recession, I noticed that there are a lot of people going back to school to better themselves and their careers. I definitely agree that there is no age limit when it comes to learning.

Furniture

I am so excited that this month is the last month that Ryan and I will be sending a big chunk of money to the Philippines. Grace is graduating soon and this is her last month in school. I have almost covered all her graduation expenses except this very last one. I feel so happy and accomplished that I had helped my sisters get through school. All I need for them to do is to pay it forward. To help those who need help that is around them. We would still be sending to the Philippines, but it would not be as big as we had been sending. I told Ryan that now I could save my blogging money to be able to get a modern furniture for the living room. We still have that old beat up one that Frankie had torn apart. I am not in a hurry though because I want to get a really nice. It might take months to save, but it will be worth it.

Filler

I really hate it when I plague my blog with paid post. I know it is a blessing, but I also don't like it when I can't write a filler because I don't have the time anymore. I did most of my writing first, so I am done with it then did school work. It really didn't take that long but it is thinking of what filler to write is what I really hate especially when I have quiet a few readers in this blog who never fails to visit me every once in a while. I will be off to work in a little bit. I did what I have to do last night in English, so I don't have anything that needs to be done. I am still contemplating on the next thing I should do about something, but I think I have made my mind. So to my constant readers please excuse my blog for not having anything new.

Internet

Losing weight is so much easier these days than probably 20 years ago or so. There are tested weight loss supplements that are available for people who need its help. There are a lot of them though, so one needs to be very careful on which one to go for. That is what I like about the internet because it is very useful in helping one decide which to go for. It makes it losing weight a lot easier. I just love the internet, and how it helped a lot of people just like me.