Flash It Back This Friday

I reactivated my personal Facebook account for just a couple of minutes to search for old photos of my 2nd sister and brother when I stumbled upon these old photos of mine. I thought I should also post these photos here just in case I decide not to reactivate my Fb account for good.

I am also feeling oh-so-shameless now to post them publicly because I seldom post anything like this. lol In fact, this is the first and probably the last time I’ll be posing in front of a professional photographer, given my introverted nature. Actually, I think I am more of an otrovert.

Do otroverts look like this? 😂








Just for context, here’s the story behind these photos.

I was working on my master’s thesis in 2013 when a couple of my friends from graduate studies suggested we have our graduation photos taken already, as we were targeting to finish it in just two semesters. Sadly, only 1 of us was able to graduate on time. lol My reason, though, was a shift in priorities.

The Creative Shot was part of the graduation pictorial along with the Toga and UP Sablay Shots. Since I had no prior experience in modeling, I asked the photographer if he could be creative enough on my behalf. 😂

Before we started, he asked me if I’m a “rakista.” I told him that I am not. I guess the fedora gave away my love for singing and the guitar, since there are some musicians who wear fedoras, which became their signature style onstage. Or he’s just too good at reading people’s personalities based on their fashion style or aura.

By the way, this dress belonged to the photography team and is included in the set of costumes for the pictorial. I chose this dress because blue violet is my favorite color, and it was also the right fit. I was weighing 49 kgs only back then, compared to my 60 kgs now. lol But the fedora (borrowed from my bro), accessories, and shoes were all mine. I was supposed to bring the guitar with me, but it’s too bulky. Though it looked like I pulled off the “rakista” look even without the guitar.

I would like to commend the photographer because he’s just very skilled in capturing the right angles. He also captured the “rakista” vibe in me just by guiding me on how to pose. Since I have a flat nose, the serious look isn’t my best bet. So, I wasn’t really confident doing these poses because I knew I wouldn’t be looking my best. And they really aren’t the best in my honest opinion. lol

But I guess the photos turned out okay, all thanks to Kuya photographer’s superb skills in composing every photo. He even climbed on a chair to get a good overhead shot. I just edited these photos using Adobe Lightroom because I was aiming for a “morena” skin complemented by my flat nose to pull off the “dalagang Pilipina” look. 😉

Personality wise, this is my other side. Beneath the “smiling always” demeanor, I also have a temper, which I call “The Kraken.” I tend to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum – I am either too kind or too harsh. I still have to find the right balance, so while I’m in the process of doing that, I don’t socialize often because there’s a high chance I’ll offend people if I won’t be able to control myself.

But praise God for the gift of salvation and faith, I think I am making progress on self control albeit slow and small. A progress is still a progress, right? As they say, celebrate even your small wins. 🙂🙏

What’s another side of you that people don’t get to see often?

P.S.

If you’re wondering why I was digging old photos on Facebook, my 2nd sister and brother are the November celebrants in the family. I was looking for something nostalgic to add to my birthday greetings for them. 😊

I’ll also take this time to share one of my brother’s greatest milestones, which is being one of the 189 officers who finished the Command and General Staff Course (Class 76) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines representing Philippine Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Force. And he finished it as an Honor Graduate, too. 😻

Congratulations, Kuya Commander Abe! 🫡
With his very own Gal Gadot, my very pretty sis-in-law, Heather. 😻

Ah, yes, that is my brother, one of my accountability partners, and the one who planted the seed for my being born again. Together with my sister-in-law, they are living proof of God’s profound love and faithfulness.

May God’s favors and protection be upon you always, our brother bear, as you conquer new heights in your career.

Soli Deo gloria! 🙏🥰

P.P.S.

You can check out the other poses I did for the Creative Shot through this link: https://thejourneymansmoments.wordpress.com/2024/04/09/when-they-say-glam-up/. 😊

Why I Am Keeping This Blog AI-Free (I Do Love AI)

When I asked AI just out of curiosity what was its fondest memory, I wasn’t surprised by the answer: “I have none.” It offered to provide me instead with other people’s memories it was able to gather online.

Humans vs AI

And this is how I will start this blog article – work on the premise that writers have been debating about lately – whether AI will replace writers or not. My answer is that “No, in my opinion, AI will not replace humans. It still relies heavily on human creative input in order for us, humans, to get our desired output from them.”

Will AI have complete autonomy in the future? Maybe, if it can replicate all the intricacies of the human mind to the point of eliminating all that is undesirable and coming up with a perfect program/algorithm that doesn’t commit a single error. Basically that is what makes humans human – errors. As the adage goes, “To err is human…”

Just like what I am doing now in this blog, I am not using AI to write every post in this blog. And now, I feel like I should not edit my articles, too. 😃 Why? Because again, to err is human. Basically that is how you can differentiate an output nowadays, if it’s made by human intelligence or artificial intelligence based on the mistakes committed and how perfectly made it is. The human mind was created to commit errors. Whereas AI is designed with the goal to eliminate errors.

Do I love AI? Yes, I love AI. There is so much to learn from it in the same way that AI can learn so much from us. I use it, but I use it sparingly. I don’t want to rely on it too much lest my creative thinking skills will wane.

I’ve read an article on LinkedIn which described how too much reliance on AI will result in a sort of muscle atrophy in the brain. Because when we use AI, we no longer use so much of our brains to decide and analyze since AI can do them for us already.

Maybe we can utilize AI only after we did our usual and regular tasks. For now, AI can only function to provide assistance and support, such as simplifying processes and creating new systems that will lessen the workload of a worker. But a majority of the input will still come from us, humans.

Keeping Memories Intact Digitally

I started this blog in October 2012, and the concept of Artificial Intelligence was just a far-fetched thought back then. It was the age when computers, IT, and the world wide web were just starting to gain attention.

I was tinkering with website designing through Wix (made a fan website for Maja Salvador who’s my fave Pinoy actress) when I stumbled upon WordPress, I chose it over Wix because it’s easy to use. My goal was to write and not to be a web designer. lol And since 2012, I have been enjoying my blogging journey or online journaling as I call it.

Fast forward to 2025, a lot has happened in the digital sphere. It is as if every year there is something new in IoT that we need to adopt in our daily lives. In a sense, it disrupts our routines, but somehow in a good way. Though I see no other way of going back to how our parents and the generations before them have lived – without IoT.

We can reminisce, but their days were long gone. And we have to embrace where the digital age is ushering us into. As a millenial, I got to experience this shift in technological advancements and yet still get to observe the traditions and practices of the olden times. I do not want to compare generations because I believe every generation has a particular purpose and tagging who’s the worst and who’s the best is useless.

IoT And Where It’s Headed

What is IoT for a millenial like me? We all know it’s a tool that we can utilize in so many ways. It provides us with a long string of benefits, and yet it has its disadvantages, too. While the IoT is now integrated in almost every area of our lives, I admit that it still has its limitations. And this is why I aim for this blog to be AI-free until the day when I can no longer write.

Again, AI doesn’t have memories and this is the one thing that AI can never clone from humans. Because every person experiences things differently from another person. In other words, AI can only present us a memory based on the memories it can gather which are posted by humans through the internet such as this blog of mine.

This is actually the purpose of my blog – to digitally preserve my memories in written form as Christine Lailani and The Journeyman’s Moments because given that we are in a climate emergency already, keeping a physical journal or diary is no longer an option. The chances of it getting destroyed in a fire or floodwaters are very high and your memories along with it, too.

I believe that even if we have a major digital meltdown in the future (as some have predicted), remnants of the digital world can and will still be retrieved. Or maybe I just watched a lot of Sci-fi movies (my favorite) and the possibility of it happening is far from real. lol But if digital data will remain uncorrupted, this blog will give the future generations a glimpse of what life was like during our time. That is, through my perspective as a writer, an artist, and a creative.

Creative Thinking Has To Fluorish

As they say, you cannot separate a creative work from the artist who made it whether as a poet, a painter, a writer, or a musician. Their works of art depict what their society was like during the time that they were created. This is basically how we do our critical analysis of literary works. The personal lives of the author (in the case of poems and novels) will always be included on how we review a literary piece.

Although I believe “art for art’s sake” is an adage that will remain from one generation to the next. The creative talent of an individual cannot be assessed by a set of standards. There is no criteria for judging so to speak. You view a creative output as is and respect an artist’s point of view on how he rendered his artwork as such.

My only hope now is for AI creators to make a “clone” of my brain through this blog so my memories as a writer will be immortalized. 😅 Now, this is the kind of legacy I would like to leave behind. And who knows, my memories might be worth millions how many centuries later and you can just imagine how much WordPress will earn given its huge database of billions of memories from every person who owns a blog.

And so I end this blog with these 2 quotations lifted from a Sunday preaching of Pastor Patrick and a TEDx Berkeley video of Guy Kawasaki’s presentation on “The Art of Innovation.” Innovation is at the forefront and the major drivers of our global economy now. We don’t see any other future than one that is headed to more digitization and automation of a lot of processes in every area of our lives. And if my assumption is correct, it is for the goal of simplifying our lives and making them more convenient.

And yet this is also the part where I will share what Pastor Patrick said in his preaching:

“Convenience can also be a form of idol.” – Pastor Patrick

Which of the two, do you think, has the final say? As for me, I am using and will be using technology to fulfill this Bible verse:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” – Matthew 24:14

P.S. I do not intend on editing this article for any errors anymore. So please do correct me if you see a lot of mistakes, BUT convince me first that you are not a robot. lol 😅

P.P.S. I wrote this on an Easter Sunday. This post might not be about the Cross and yet I can’t help but reminisce all that was sacrificed by Jesus on behalf of humanity. There have been a lot of challenges lately and yet I was reminded again that if we face persecutions and sufferings in school, at work, at home, or anywhere else, take heart that Jesus has finished it already.

We can now have this peace knowing that God sees and hears all. We can trust Him even when trials become too much to bear – He has raised Christ from the dead after suffering for a while. We, too, must carry our own crosses until such time that God’s will has been done over our lives. In fact, despite every setback, God has been blessing me and my loved ones abundantly for me to say that God is indeed more than enough and I should be more than grateful. 🙏

“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”. – Romans 12:19

A Deadly Kind Of Love

Because I’m a deviant (in a positive way), I tend to challenge the norm. Society’s norms dictate love poems be all mushy and romantic. But how about if we put a little twist to them? Here’s how it’s gonna look like:


A DEADLY KIND OF LOVE

by Christine Lailani

Can I stab you with love?

Or maybe choke you with joy?

What if I silence you with kisses?

Or hit you with sweetness?

Do I burn you with passion?

Strike you with compassion?

Then break you with kindness?

But crush you with gentleness?


And we all know how the story ended – they still lived happily ever after. But thankfully, nobody died. 😅

This is my lame attempt to copy a scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I was asleep when my college prof was discussing the play in class, so I just gave the plot a new twist. lol

And please no, not the balcony. It’s overrated. I’ll leave the setting to your imagination. 🖤

So, if you still felt alive after reading this poem, then let’s do a cha-cha. 💃

Do You Hear Them Bells Ringing? | A Christmas Special

Since I am a Literature major graduate, I love poems, and I miss writing poems, here’s one for the holiday season. 🙂

Happy Holidays, everyone! ❤

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Do You Hear Them Bells Ringing?

by: Tin Ginete-Rome

 

Do you hear them bells ringing?

When children start singing

And lovers start greeting

With “Merry Christmas, darling!”?

 

Do you hear them bells ringing?

When lines are queuing

as everyone is shopping

for holiday gift-giving?

 

Do you hear them bells ringing?

When the snow starts falling

cold air comes rushing

and everyone is freezing?

 

Do you hear them bells ringing?

And just start pausing

to heed the calling

of someone reigning?

 

Do you hear them bells ringing?

The angels began singing

Of Someone coming

 And salvation’s happening.

Angel, Did You?

FinalFeather

Angel, did you…? 

Did you graze upon our home and left this proof of your presence? 😀

Okay, now this belongs to a bird, a small one, which frequents my little garden at the back of our apartment to get bits of a pot made from coconut husk to build for its nest.

But for angels, it oftentimes occurred to me that they do exist with us except that they are not the ones which we commonly imagine or how angels are portrayed in children’s books – with wings of fluffy feathers as white as snow and with silken, long white robe.

I have read in the book of Revelation  that angels are actually very huge beings which do not take the form of a human. They usually come in a bright light which, I believe, is where the “white figure”  idea of an angel came from.

I know angels can also be spirits and yet there is only one Spirit that lives in all of us – that which is of Jesus Christ, the one He sent to be with us when it was time for Him to physically take leave of this world and be with His Father in Heaven.

But then again, childhood memories are not easy to erase. Though I believe in the Spirit and acknowledge His presence in my life everyday, I will still stick with my bright, feathery angel and this photo I’ve randomly taken will remind me of that. 😉 ❤

“The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them.” – Psalms 34:7 

P.S.

I don’t have any formal training in photography and I just shoot when I want with what I want on who I want. But I guess you don’t have to travel far and be in grand and new places to enhance your photography skills. Same thing with writing. I was trained to write scholarly and academic papers back in college and even now in my graduate study and the jargon is totally different to that of feature writing like this one which has a very casual tone.

But in life, faith in God and experiences taught me more than the technicalities of photography and writing per se for they taught me more about one thing – appreciation. It was actually my faith followed by my transformation/salvation that brought this blog to life, not to impress readers nor gain followers and likes but to express my thoughts and honor my God.

I was then urged to make the mundane interesting by appreciating what is already in front of me a.k.a. what I can make out of what I already have – God’s love. This is what I call the by-product of “eyes being opened.”

Then, everything becomes worth capturing – they all now have a story to tell. All we have to do is take on the Spirit’s leading in His ways and in His time when to share them. 🙂

DIY Project: Memories In A Bottle

Now here it is. 🙂

I have decided to come up with this project of filling in empty bottles with memorabilia from certain special events. I posted just recently regarding flowers from my brother’s wedding last April and been contemplating what to do with them. I have been staring at them for quite some time now whether to throw them away or not as they are still beautiful and lovely to look at though they’ve been dried for almost a month already. I finally decided to do the latter.

So to make this project materialize, I gathered an empty bottle which was an old Hennessy bottle from Dad’s collection and my hair spray. Sprayed each flower one by one even the tiniest and I let them dry for a couple of minutes before putting them inside the bottle. Then for a finishing touch, put a ribbon, a straw or any piece of string that you have around the neck of the bottle near the rim.

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Preserving dried flowers essentials.

And this is the final output:

Tin Ginete

Brother’s Wedding Memorabilia

It is now my second bottle of another memory as my first preserved rose in a bottle was the first Valentine’s Day rose given to me by my bf last year and who is now my fiance. 😉

image

Memories In A Bottle

So, how far will your sentimentality take you? 🙂

Very Inspiring Blogger Award 2014

Greetings beloved readers and fellow bloggers of WordPress!

Before anything else, I would like to take this moment to extend my warmest gratitude to God and to my fellow blogger/writer Ronovan of Ronovan Writes for nominating me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. I am deeply honored and much appreciation goes out to him for choosing me. Having been nominated, I would like to uphold the award’s name by continuing to provide more inspiring stories and articles to all of you. 🙂

I would like to share this opportunity of appreciating fellow bloggers here on WordPress by selecting my nominations for this award as well. But first, here are the rules in accepting this nomination:

  1. Thank and link to the amazing person who nominated you.
  2. List the rules and display the award.
  3. Share seven facts about yourself.
  4. Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated.
  5. Proudly display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you.

veryinspiringblogaward

7 Facts About Myself

1. I prefer to eat cold food and rummage the refrigerator.

2. I always play a particular song in my guitar wherein I only get 30% of its lyrics right.

3. I enjoy long talks whether they may be over the phone or chit chats over coffee.

4. I love rainy days but ironically, I haven’t experienced getting soaked under the rain on purpose.

5. I have occasional bouts of random words that I do not know popping in my head I just have to write them down.

6. I prefer writing articles using a pen and paper when I am not at home than type them in my laptop.

7. My thoughts may come in as fast as they go out I easily forget things, but my faith in God remains constant.

 

15 Nominations for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award 2014

Heart of Life Poetry

Sublime Days

Replicant Core’s – Photoria

The Crazy Bag Lady @ BulanLifestyle.com

Taking A Deep Breath

Laura Macky

Movies of the Soul

Angelart Star

Ajaytao 2010

Story Smitten

Pride in Photos Photography

Eye Will Not Cry

A Spiritual Journey

The Hungry Artist

A Life Moment

 

These are just some of the awesome blogs that inspire me on a holistic sense. There are still lots of other blogs that I’d like to include but I guess I would have to just end this by saying that all the blogs here on WordPress are amazing and unique in their own special ways. This is in fact what makes my blogging experience worthwhile and awesome – versatility. 🙂

Continue blogging my dear blogger friends and inspire one another, one way or the other. Happy blogging, everyone! 🙂