My Roots

One of the original objectives of this blog was to talk about my hobbies, which was fulfilled in a few posts. I've talked about painting as a hobby, but it was painting the house I wrote about, not painting on canvas, which I decided to defer.

With the new job that I have, I found a deeper objective to publish my first portrait oil painting. It is not my self portrait but the portrait of my late famous aunt, Rio Diaz, who died of cancer. It was Rio Diaz who inspired me to write, and to continue her legacy of inspiring people through writing.

I believe that it was from the genes of my grandmother where I got my talent in arts. I was referring to my grandmother who belong to the Diaz and Abellera clans of La Union, a province in the Ilocos region of the Luzon island in the Philippines. The company where I now belong is based in San Fernando, La Union. Most of my work mates came from this province (not officemates since we are usually scattered in the offices of clients nationwide), so it is not surprising if some of them could be my relatives.

I also belong to the Catriz clan of Ilocos Sur, Vigan. If there is a province I would like to spend my vacation once in a while, it is this province of beautiful antique houses. Unfortunately, I heard that most members of the Catriz clan are now in the United States, but there is one left in Vigan, one of the parish priests there, Rev. Reyes, whose mother is a Catriz.

Probably my technical abilities came from the genes of the Taa clan which originated from the Gandeza clan of Abra, another province in the Ilocos region. Most of my relatives in the Taa clan have professions either in Information Technology or in the electronics industry.

Last but not least, I belong to the Balolong clan of Pangasinan. One characteristic of this clan, I noticed, is the principle that the father should be a good provider, and the head of a family of well disciplined members.

My only hope for these clans where I belong is for the good values and the talents of each clan be sustained and even enhanced, while the bad practices or habits be eliminated. My given name was taken from my father's name who belongs to the "Taa" clan. It fitted me because I turned out to be an IT professional, but I also want to remember that the love for arts is in my blood. Thus I am now using the nickname only my mother and siblings and the people who took care of me used to call me, the name "Lubel". The "bel" part reminds me of two Isabels, one is my mother who is an artist herself, while the other one is a famous painter, Isabel Diaz, the sister of Rio and Gloria Diaz, two famous beauty queens.

Little did my mother know that her story about an aunt who owns an art gallery in New York, who turned out to be Isabel Diaz, plus her charcoal drawing of me when I was a child, will inspire me to recognize that I also have the same talent and love for arts.

Hope for Type 2 diabetics

I was finally hired and I'll probably talk about some details in my employment some other time. That is the reason why I wasn't able to post in this blog for the past ten days, and most probably, my weekly posting might now be a bimonthly posting.

Anyway, for this post, I'm somewhat glad that it came later because I'll still be in line with my "Bloggers Unite" entry, "Hunger and Hope", where I talked about the source of hope for hunger, which is Spirulina, the blue-green algae, and the United Nations organization, the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina against Malnutrition (IIMSAM). This organization hopes that Spirulina would save the lives of almost 900 million people worldwide that are affected by malnutrition.

The good news is that Spirulina can save not only the lives of malnourished people, but the lives of Type 2 diabetics as well. It is ironic that most Type 2 diabetics for sure, are not malnourished, since they most probably acquired their diabetis from the food they eat. Their diabetes can be reversed, by eating nothing but spirulina, like the astronauts do. But they have to look for the purest and unpolluted Spirulina they can find, and if they can afford to buy any food, then they can also afford the purest uncultured brand.

A doctor who was a diabetic himself, have tried several brands of spirulina and assures that the Tiens or Tianshi brand is the purest brand that can cure a Type 2 diabetic by taking 5 capsules during breakfast, lunch and supper. Change of lifestyle is a must, meaning eat only low GI foods and exercise even by just walking for at least 30 minutes everyday. Those with alarming levels or complications should eat only spirulina for breakfast and lunch and just eat low GI foods during supper. Self-discipline is very important for an afflicted diabetic to be healed.

United Nations and World Health Organization recommends spirulina as safe and nutritious (even for children). I have special hopes for my special child, Lyca, so I give her one gram of Tianshi spirulina everyday.

Swine flu and Pacquiao

For the past two weeks, we were scared by the swine flu virus. I did my homework for several days by researching all I need to know about this virus and how to prevent and treat it in case it hits the Philippines. Perhaps I was overloaded with information that I didn't know which of those information would be most valuable to share.

Until yesterday. I and maybe the rest of the world who have watched the Paquiao-Hatton fight were glad how the fight turned out. It was over in a flash but it was an amazing fight that I know will be hard to forget.

How I wish there is a Pacman like Pacquiao who can extinguish in a flash the likes of swine flu virus. But there's more to reality, and Manny Paquiao should be our model. He has prepared himself extensively for the fight, and for any fight. We should do the same for our fight with the swine flu virus or for any virus still to come.

Hunger and Hope

At first I didn’t want to write about the topic of hunger because it is an issue that is very hard to resolve, but my researches are now telling me that there is hope to resolve hunger.

Here in the Philippines, the less fortunate Filipinos have been very creative in fighting hunger. One extreme example is hanging a dried fish or “tuyo” at the middle of the table so that each member of the family can smell it right under the nose while eating only rice. Another example is to add any sauce on top of the rice, or others would add the oil from cooked pork. Even the middle class Filipinos would do that to suppress hunger in between meals, if they are not health conscious. Others would lengthen the availability of rice in their homes by cooking rice congee, instead of the usual cooked rice.

The more unbelievable ways to fight hunger are countless, but people practicing them are exposed to a lot of health risks which include food poisoning and of course, malnutrition.

The past week, I’ve been researching about "Spirulina", a blue-green algae that can help me and others prevent cancer, the main reason why I became interested about it, in the first place. It is now called the "21st century food", because of its potential to solve malnutrition. A lot of studies have been conducted, involving preschool children, to analyze the potency of its vitamins. It can be produced easily therefore there is hope that not only hunger but more importantly, malnutrition, can be resolved.

I’m glad that United Nations has set up an institution to fight malnutrition , and this is the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina against Malnutrition (IIMSAM). This organization hopes that Spirulina would save the lives of almost 900 million people worldwide that are affected by malnutrition.

"In the year 2009, IIMSAM along with the Republic of Honduras and an increasing number of Member States of the United Nations that support the mandate of the organization such as Argentina, United Kingdom, China, India, Russian Federation, Qatar, Italy, Jamaica, and all the Central and South American countries and many more including IIMSAM Official Member and Supporting States, would initiate a Draft-Resolution in the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly to promote the use of Spirulina against severe malnutrition and make it a key-driver to achieve global food security and bridge the health divide." - www.iimsam.org

Traditional Chinese Medicine

At last I can now really talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM. With the current global economic crisis and the discovery of more bad effects of prescription drugs everyday, I feel that it is about time we people in the East go back to the traditional ways of our ancestors to treat diseases which is really mostly TCM but fully understanding its principles, while the rest of the world should try to be enlightened with the principles of TCM, which was a product of 5,000 years of study by the Chinese.

Or maybe I am late to say that because TCM is already practiced in every part of the world. Of course there are still a lot of people who are not aware of TCM and these are the people I’d like to reach this time. Don’t worry because I am just a layman like you and I became interested in TCM because I’ve seen that there is so much logic in its principles. Information Technology deals with logic so it will be easy even for IT professionals like me to understand and appreciate TCM.

TCM views the body as a unified organic whole. It

• believes in balancing the body as a whole rather than treating separate parts
• focuses on prevention rather than crisis management of a disease

TCM is all about balancing and harmony, and balancing refers to YIN and YANG. Disturbing the balance between the YIN and YANG will cause illnesses.

YIN and YANG represents all of opposite principles found in the universe and cannot exist without the other.


Examples of YIN-YANG:

NIGHT - DAY
DARK - LIGHT
COLD - WARM
NEGATIVE - POSITIVE
PASSIVE - ACTIVE
FEMALE - MALE
SOLID - HOLLOW

(The hollow organs are the gall bladder, small intestine, stomach, large intestine and urinary bladder. Solid organs are the liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidney.

“YIN and YANG” is a very basic logical concept. My next topic about TCM will be the 5 Elements, which deals with more interesting logic and in relation again to YIN and YANG.

Start young!

Inspiring people to be healthy is not an easy task for me, but a lot of help come my way to be able to accomplish that. The topic about team sports for example, reminds me to persuade people to start young in the quest for good health. Engaging in team sports will develop that good habit of physical fitness, aside from having the opportunity to socialize with friends.

A kid who participates in team sports will know the importance of targeting a goal. In volleyball for example, a simple "serve" can meet the goal to make the ball go over the net and inside the court. That simple goal of serving successfully can defeat the opponent.

Have you watched a game where the cheerleaders who perform at the middle of the field are the parents of the players? Well, this is just to give parents an idea how to really inspire their children to strive for their goal of winning the game! The Shop Wiki website can help you with your cheerleading outfits, and you will find more information about any sport in this website.

Starting young in team sports will help give a person the discipline to be fit at all times.

Sharing health information and TCM

Exactly a month ago, my post was about "Learning TCM", and during that time, I've started to be serious about learning the principles of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I've said I found very amusing. The past month however, was not focused on just TCM because I had to do a lot of researches about some specific chronic diseases. It was a fulfilling task though, because I was able to share significant health information to my relatives and friends, and also through my new blog, "Amusing Tips".

Yesterday, I've attended a seminar which was focused on the principles of TCM and I was reminded it's about time for me to share my learnings. It will not be easy to understand but once we have internalized those TCM principles, the rest will be easy because there is a lot of logic in those principles. I promise to start sharing those principles in my next post, but I will also share in my other blogs, if relevant, other significant or important health information that I will encounter.

In the meantime, to give you an idea on how holistic TCM is, here is an example: Fear affects the kidney. So whenever a person experiences sudden fear, there is a chance that person will accidentally urinate on his or her underwear. Have you experienced that? The ear is the window to the kidney. If the kidney has a problem that will need attention, your ear will have a sound, like ringing of the ear or tinnitus. Amazing, isn't it? That is just one example to show why TCM is both amusing and amazing.

Love thy neighbor

Whenever I'm free on a Wednesday, I go to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Baclaran. I just take the Light Railway Transit going there. I really would like to talk about that activity here in my blog but I'd like to prepare for that, to even include a photo of the church whose structure is one of the historical architectures in the Philippines.

But last Wednesday, there was an incident forcing me to talk about it. I was on my way to the church, and as I stepped inside the LRT-2 train, there were no more seats as usual since on weekdays, both LRT-1 and LRT-2 are full of students especially in the morning and late afternoon. I tried to grab the first vertical bar next to the door but I noticed that it was swamped with several hands and there was no more space for another hand. I looked at the vertical bar near the opposite door and what I saw was a young lady with the full stretch of her body leaning on the bar as if she was measuring her height with the bar. There was a perpendicular bar attached to to it but it was blocked by arms holding the bar. I had no choice but to squeeze my body and stretch my arm to that bar because the train started to move.

I was thinking if I should scold that irresponsible young lady on the bar but I thought that maybe her parents should be more responsible for her insensitivity to other people. I am a very imperfect parent and there were several instances I felt sorry for not being a more responsible parent, but I'm sure I did not fail to show my offspring how they should show compassion to other people.

Being compassionate or loving thy neighbor doesn't necessarily mean giving alms to the beggars since you might even destroy some of them by doing that. I feel that the smallest things matter, like offering your seat to an elderly, or just by being sensitive to the people around you who might need a space on the same bar you are clinging to.

God's time

At this point in time, I can say that I will have a bright future as far as my career is concerned. I can feel that I will soon be able to put to use the expertise that I have developed when I was working in the corporate. That cannot be immediate, because I still have a lot to learn that concerns wellness, the natural or TCM way. I can feel that will happen in God’s time so there’s really no need to hurry.

Why wait for God’s time? If you wait for God’s time, the reasons for waiting will become clearer when it arrives. I’d like to use as an example that “message of God to mankind” again, which I believed I was tasked to spread. The message was relayed in 2001 and it was strengthened by a proof for me to fully believe it in 2002. Obviously, the time was not right for my task in 2001. The succeeding years, a lot of changes happened in my life, which resulted to my being more confident with my decisions. I was optionally retired from work in 2005 but I became busy right after, studying and becoming an entrepreneur at the same time. Business was not good by late 2007 so we had to stop by early 2008. For the first time in my life, I had time for lighter activities like writing. God’s time has arrived for me that 2008, to finally spread God’s message, because everything seemed ready. That was seven years after the message was relayed. It was that year, 2008, when blogging became the best medium to spread a message, because it was a year the population of blog readers and bloggers all over the world increased tremendously.

The term "kairos" is used to refer to God’s time. In the New Testament, kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God", the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled). It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (reference was Wikipedia).

Reinvent yourself!

The lecture of Pete Avila on reinventing oneself was very inspiring. He is the Marketing Manager of the Philippine branch of Tiens Biotech Group, or Tianshi Phils. We can reinvent ourselves by learning new things which is not hard because learning is an everyday activity.

A number of reasons why we should start reinventing ourselves:

1. The world's economy is changing
2. Demographics keep changing
3. Competitive players are changing
4. Playing fields and market scenarios are not constant.

Reinventing should start within ourselves. How?

1. Always maintain a positive attitude and avoid negative people.
2. Maintain good integrity and character.
3. Work on your strengths, not on your weaknesses.
4. Be passionate, persistent, ethical, and a hard and smart worker.
5. Give up something.
6. Sharpen your skills.
7. Invest in your knowledge, health, relationship, comforts, etc.

That lecture inspired me to seriously study Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM which includes Acupuncture. I can be passionate about it but I have to give up something. That can be my desire to completely learn about web design programming though just the design of the background can be easy. Maybe when I start the formal TCM training next month, whatever won't fit my time, should be given up, of course with the exception of caring for Lyca, our special needs child. I can be sure it won't be blogging because I can share whatever I learn through my blogs. That can even help me retain everything I learn and at the same time help people.

TCM definitely has a place in a world undergoing economic crisis since to be admitted in a hospital can be very costly. The world has changed so that TCM is now well accepted everywhere. My challenge is to introduce the modern acupuncture without the needles, either the electronic acupuncture or the green acupuncture with the magnetic tip. I'll share all these in my next posts.