Poof! They're Gone... and I Feel Free

For the last couple of days, I had been slowly going through a number of bookmarks I've accumulated over the last couple of months. While I'm in school, I tend to bookmark all the articles from news sites and blogs that are delivered to my (email) inbox so that I can read them over the weekend or whenever I have free time. Sometimes I bookmark too many things that I want to read. Sometimes I really enjoy an article and want to save it for future reference so I keep them saved in a separate folder. I also bookmark things that I know I will later need, for school or work. I had things since about 2008-2009 marked... and, last night, they all disappeared. Just like that, poof! They're gone.

I didn't panic, at first. It had happened before and after a reinstall, things were back to normal. Not this time. I reinstalled and uninstalled Google Chrome a couple of times. I signed in (which I don't normally like doing; I try not to have too many things connected to my Google account), hoping that it would sync. I looked up solutions and tried everything I could find. I tried to restore from an earlier date (which brought its own problems... which many people have had with Windows 10). I looked up my saved data online (I use online backup storage). Nada. It was all gone. Cue the panic.

"What am I going to do?!" I asked myself in frustration. "I had links saved for the novel... for work... for the blog..." From 9:30 p.m. until nearly 1 a.m. last night and again from 4:45 a.m. through 10 a.m. this morning, I tried to come up with a solution. The only difference between last night and this morning was that I saw the disappearance of the bookmarks as a blessing... and perhaps a sign from St. Joseph.

"Why did you mention St. Joseph?" you may be wondering. Simple, this happened on the last day of my 30-day novena to St. Joseph in which the main petition was for clarity on my vocations (career and otherwise) and health. I had a ton of bookmarks for all three areas of my life; bookmarks that I was hoping to get to this week as I'm researching some things. Suddenly, I had no references to my ideas. I also didn't have the stress of having to go through months/years of saved links. I feel liberated and physically light. No, I have to start from zero...  just like I'm doing with my career in general.

It may be that my malfunctioning laptop (which I bought at the start of the program and started going haywire during finals week right before I dropped it), the disappearance of bookmarks (making me start from zero), having to leave the degree unfinished, and the focus on my health (with my first hematology appointment) all within the same week is pure coincidence. Either way, coincidence or not, it made one thing clear: I really am starting from zero in many areas of my life.

As I discussed in the previous blog post, I have no concrete (long term) plans right now. I have an idea of what I'm going to do in the near future -- working on a memoir, on my own third novel, and nurse myself back to health -- but I'm basically starting over with everything else. I left one degree. I picked up my chosen career post graduation (from my first BA) as I've felt called to do. I'm starting to discern becoming a lay Dominican (or Oblate of St. Benedict). Hello, clean slate. No bookmarks on things I had hoped would help me. No financial stability that an in-demand career path would've given me. No going back to any of the previous ideas I had (via saved articles). 

As I tried to add bookmarks to my reinstalled browser, I realized just how many links I had saved up but, ultimately, didn't use. I realized that while it meant that I would have to start a lot of my research over, the fact that I have to do it over again seems more like a fun adventure. Furthermore, losing the bookmarks (after the initial period of panic) made me realize how much it didn't matter to me. During last year's St. Andrew Christmas novena, I asked for the gift of being detached from worldly things that would not benefit my soul and this loss made me realize that I'm seeing the fruits of that novena, months after I made the petition.

Cue the moment of realization that this is just the latest in a string of instances in which I no longer care about certain things I once valued as important. Social media? I don't use it as much. Thinking about what people think of what I blog about? Not high on my list of worries. Fearing about what people would think about yet another (MA being the other) degree I abandoned, though due to circumstances beyond my control? Doesn't register. 

I feel free. I feel free from the pressures of things I once considered important but have come to see that they truly weren't. I feel free to pursue God's will for me without worries (though I've been facing some problems in my personal life due to it). I feel free to focus on what's important and let everything else disappear into the background. It's been a blessing.

I'm not going to lie, I'm glad I'm done with the St. Joseph novena because everything that can go wrong, went wrong during those last 30 days. At the same time, it was also a blessing. Through every hiccup, I've felt getting closer to where God wants me. I had a really, really hard week last week (to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if I was under back-to-back spiritual attacks) but now I can sit here, look back, and see that it was worth it. It sure didn't feel that way last week but, in retrospect, it was.

That's where I'm at right now. Well, mostly. I have other things for another post. ;) 

Oh! And if you're wondering which are the websites I ended up bookmarking again (that I use almost every day):
- Hotmail

- Gmail

- This blog

- Los Angeles Public Library (for eMedia)

- Kindle Manager (for eBooks borrowed from the library)

- Goodreads

- Last.fm

- Spoken Bride (no comment)

As I said, this laptop (my only laptop/PC) has been malfunctioning for the past week so we'll see how often I can blog until I get a new one. I'm actually trying to use it until it kicks the virtual bucket because I'm trying to make my savings last for as long as possible while I look for a job (that pays). Yes, I'm constantly saving/backing up my files online so that I don't lose anything important. Mama didn't raise no fool. ;)

And that's it for now. I got very little sleep last night 3 hours or so and an hour and a half-long nap this afternoon didn't help much so I may just go take another nap or do something to help keep me from falling asleep until it's time for bed. Maybe I'll have a dance party. Wait, can you have a dance party to Bud Powell, George Gershwin, and Charlie Parker...? (side note: totally grooving to Bud Powell's version of "A Night in Tunisia" as I type this.)

I hope y'all are having a lovely start of the week!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

What I Learned Wednesday #30: I Thought Today Was Thursday Edition

 I

In case you missed it, the guest post I wrote for The Mirror Magazine is now up for y'all to read. If you've ever wondered why I decided to switch careers from freelance writer to speech-language pathologist, definitely read it. If you're wondering "well, what about your Masters in Theology from Franciscan?" It's still in the cards, down the road. As I've said before, my spiritual director made a joke that I don't look old enough to teach Theology (I still look like a teenager) so I'll just do SLP for now. lol.

Lesson learned: It's okay to change careers. It might not be my ideal career but God has better plans for me and I will just have to trust Him.

II

I was watching the documentary Jazz by Ken Burns (which I am not finished with yet) and learned that a (now) monsignor used to play with Duke Ellington, who was himself Catholic. Msgr. John Sanders has a very fascinating story about how his vocation and how he came to it. I haven't had a chance to do more research on his life story but I found an old L.A. Times article online that covers the basics. Read it; it's so good! Anyone have more info on him? Anyone know where he is now? As someone who is a big fan of jazz (and who almost majored in it; I even filled out an application to USC's program before my reversion), I love it when the world of jazz and Catholicism collide.

Lesson learned: Even in the grittiest of circumstances (and life of jazz musicians was (is?) incredibly hard with many temptations), God finds a way to reveal your vocation. Also, sometimes you don't get to begin your vocation until you're over 30. That gives me hope. lol.

III

I saw a link to a post Fr. Z wrote on his blog about how people (who are in need of prayers) are actually talking about how they're waiting for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to die. What?! I'm a big Papa Bene fangirl so... this does not compute. I dislike that they've nicknamed him "The Rat"... which is actually something my super liberal former professor (who's a nun) used to call him; "a big Rat with red shoes." I still have the dates on which she called him that; I kept a record of everything. Everything. Anyway, as Fr. Z suggested, please pray for these men and those who have similar trains of thought.

Lesson learned: I don't know if I learned a lesson here but I did learn I need to pray for two more people (who I don't know). I seriously cannot imagine disliking someone so much I want them to die. I can't even imagine disliking someone enough to wish them ill. That's just... yikes. Also, pray for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He may not be our active Pope but he still needs prayers. :)

And that's all for this week. I hope y'all are having a good week thus far... and aren't as scatterbrained as I am. I seriously thought today was Thursday for some reason so I had to rename this blog post. Oops. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D

Major Music Overhaul Monday: Part One.

1) I have about 150+ pages to read by tomorrow (oh, how I wish I was kidding) so I'll only post only a portion of what I want to share.

2) Yes, that's an actual screen cap of (part of) my iTunes library.

I've been alluding to the fact that I've been doing some major changes in my life lately. I have. I'll eventually get into the details of the other things I've changed and will change (such as a sort of experiment in which this "jeans and a t-shirt" gal will wear only skirts and dresses for a year) but for now I am going to share one of the hardest for me.

As some of you know, I'm a massive music nerd. I took some Jazz Studies courses my freshman year of college and was set to do that before I had a change of heart. I often help friends out (both guys and gals) with picking out music for playlists for their significant others, road trips, or weddings. You need a song for a specific occasion, I'm your girl. My first love was music and the love affair has stayed with me my entire life thus far. When I was a toddler I used to pluck a string on my mom's guitar and then run away, laughing my little tush off. When I got older, I started singing in school choir. I eventually learned how to play some Beethoven at the end of elementary school and I fulfilled my dream of learning to play the guitar when I was in my late teens. Music is almost always playing, whether it's on the way to or from somewhere or in the background while I'm home. Basically, St. Cecilia (the patroness of music and my confirmation saint) would be proud... yet maybe not entirely.

The reason why I am doing a major music library overhaul is because I've noticed a distinct change in me in the last couple of months that is more obvious now that I've acknowledged it: I am no longer comfortable listening to everything I grew up with. I will be the first to admit that I tend to focus on the melody and not so much the lyrics until a couple of plays. It may be because I usually favor music that is mainly instrumental. Either way, as I've been paying attention to the lyrics of the songs I own I've begun to feel uncomfortable listening to them. An example of a song is like the ones highlighted in the post picture. This particular part of my iTunes library that shows that I have two versions of the same song by two of my favorite jazz vocalists. I LOVE Ella Fitzgerald and June Christy. Their songs are the ones I like to sing when I'm alone at home and can belt out a few without feeling self-conscience. There are a couple of parts that I don't feel happy singing but it's mostly the lyric "thank God I can be over-sexed again." I just can't sing that and the more I listen to the song, the less comfortable I am even hearing it. This is part of why I'm doing the changes.

I may be criticized for possibly being too puritanical in my ways of thinking but I need to do this for me. Consider "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" deleted from my music library. These are just some of the examples I'm going to be sharing as I embark on this quite hard journey (for me, as a music lover, at least) to rid myself of these songs.

That's all I'm going to share for tonight. I still have a lot of things to do in preparation for a very probable test I may have in my Christology course tomorrow so that's it for now. I'll maybe take every Monday this month to finish posting on this or maybe I'll be able to finish it next Monday. It'll all depend on how much free time I actually have during the week. So much reading/studying and not so much free time. :) Anyway, it's "Only the Beginning of the Adventure." (Quick, someone figure out where that song is from. ;D)

I hope y'all had a great long weekend and have a fantastic week. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D

Music Monday

I'm about to continue movie/music night (because I ended up not going to The Script's show at the Troubadour) with a couple of friends, so I'm just going to post the link to one of the videos, and post another video, for music Monday and write a blog tomorrow. :D

This first video is for a song called "No Me Doy Por Vencido" by Luis Fonsi. The song title roughly translates as "I will not be defeated" or "I won't give up". If you speak Spanish, or understand it well enough, I really recommend checking it out. Luis Fonsi wrote it for his then-girlfriend (he's now married to her) when she was diagnosed with cancer. It's a very positive song that can be applied to virtually every situation/struggle you can think of.

This next one is going to be a hit-or-miss. I am a massive jazz aficionado (I was even majoring in both performance and history a few years ago before I changed my major) so I will occasionally throw in a little jazz. For the record, this isn't smooth jazz. For some reason, I don't like a majority of smooth jazz. Anyway, this song in particular is actually mentioned in the novel I'm writing. It's very mellow and I love studying to this song (and others by this trio). It's called "Edges of Happiness" by the Tord Gustavsen Trio.



If you liked this song, or are interested in more by Tord, try checking music sites. I only found three song on youtube. My favorites by this trio, "Blessed Feet" and "Being There" weren't there or I would've chosen those.

I have a few saint book reviews hopefully coming up at the end of this week. Spring Break will be great for reading them... and for finishing my novel. And speaking of which, I'm going to work on it a bit right now while I still have Will. Writing from a guy's point of view can be tough... even with the 6 brothers I have. lol.

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless. :D
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Clean-a-thon: Part Deux, Music, Evening Mass and "Bella".

I seem to have passed on the clean-a-thon bug to a few people now... including my parents. Haha, I'm sorry!! I didn't know the whole concept of having "Spring Cleaning" in January would catch on! lol. I don't feel guilty about it either. Oh no. I've been on my parents case about throwing some things out and it took them years to do it but they finally did and I couldn't be happier. :D If you don't like cleaning and have caught the bug, I'm sorry (and I say that with my Canadian accent, too). On the bright side of all this, at least now people will have cleaner and more clutter-free homes. get rid of the material things you don't need, man (and woman). :D

For those who personally know me, it is absolutely no shock when I say I love music. In fact, saying it like that is an understatement. For as long as I can remember, my house has been filled with music. My mom listened to Elvis, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, and a lot of oldies. My dad's more into traditional music. My eldest brother introduced me to The Doors, Queen, and classic rock. I discovered classical music, the Spanish guitar and jazz on my own. Needless to say, I love all most genres because I've grown up listening to them. I grew up playing (or attempting to play) different instruments. I've been singing since I was little. I've been dancing for as long as I've been able to sit up on my own. I was taught by the best and a learn some things on my own. Despite of all of that, it has been taking a back seat to everything else lately. For the first time in months I sang... and I mean really sang. I hit notes I thought I no longer could. It was almost as though I'd never stopped... and I absolutely loved that feeling. Singing at the top of my lungs, listening to the music blaring... I definitely missed it. I haven't played my guitar since I started growing out my nails but I know if I pick it up again, it'll still feel like it's an extension of who I am. I hope I never go through an extended period where it has to, once again, take a back seat to anything. I hope that everyone has something like this in their life -- something that brings them pure utter joy no matter how low they may be feeling. Thanks to music, and my being able to sing once again, I feel like my old self... the person I was before I got sick... and before my father got sick as well. *happy sigh*

Another good experience I had today... going to evening mass. What made it awesome was the fact that the young Polish priest at my parish gave the mass in Spanish. I'd never heard him speak Spanish (although dad had) and was surprised how well he spoke it. Very fluent. I don't why I got a kick out of it but I did. What was funny was that during the mass I was thinking to myself "Maybe I'm supposed to be a nun" and then he started talking about praying for those who are in the church -- priests and nuns included. Then I though to myself "But I really want to have a family some day. Maybe I'll just stick to writing and try to leave my mark that way" when I heard him say that we should pray to those who weren't entering vocations within the church but wanted to promote it. I thought to myself "He's reading my mind!" lol. It was the funniest thing. He mentioned praying for the immigrants that are having a hard time, which is something I am involving myself in; not just prayers for them but writing about the flip side of that -- having to watch family and friends being discriminated against, even if they are legally here, by immigration officials.

Another thing he mentioned was the movie "Bella" which I still haven't seen (and won't until they DVD comes out because they're not playing it anywhere nearby anymore). Anyway, he was telling everyone that we should go see it because of the great pro-life message the film gives. I have heard it's a beautiful film so I hope I get it from Netflix when it comes out. I'm actually really excited to see the movie. Here's the trailer for those who haven't seen it yet:



And apparently the trailer doesn't do it justice. A lot of good has come out of this movie... including the main actor, Eduardo Verastegui, inspiring a couple not to through with a planned abortion... and then naming their child after him. You can read more about that story here.

I should probably call it a day on the blog because I am starting to get that sore throat that's been bugging me for a few days now. If it's a cold, it's taking a while to hit. I am still hoping it's allergies. *crosses fingers*

For now... thanks for reading and God Bless. :D