Has that proverbial question finally smacked me in the face? I'm in the midst of looking for a new position and there have been a few signs that point to that question and suggestions that I should have a plan. To what extent should I have a plan?
When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be able to look down on the planet and see the clouds swirling as the planet rotated in the universe. I wanted to be among the clouds of dust and particles in space and witness the miracles of the universe. But then I found out that most astronauts have scientific backgrounds. Science was fun for a while but never really my forte since I grew to learn that scientists spend most of their time in labs and don't really interact with people, which is what I'm more inclined to do.
As I became older, I found my leadership skills. I took on various student leadership positions that allowed me to interact with students, teachers, administrators and other school district officials. I really loved to see the whole school policy process take place. With all of that came the understanding of politics and lobbying.
College hit and I took a backseat to all the "leadership activities" that I did in high school. It didn't take very long until I was at it again. I was extremly active in the AS organization as well as various other related activities on campus and off campus. All the while, maintaining decent grades in my business program. I event attempted to get an ethnic studies certificate but it would have taken me another semester and more money, which was not an option. Along the way, I gained experience in the human resources field and marketing. Through all my experience in college, I gravitated towards marketing but if I ever had to, I could work in a human resources field but again...not really something I want to completely pursue.
Today, I find myself in LA, foreign territory. As I drove to work today, I started to recount my years spent at Kaplan. How many significant things did I really learn there? I learned how NOT to run a company, especially one the size of Kaplan, Inc. - an international conglomerate. I remember getting the opportunity to look at demographic and sales data and being a part of the planning process for classes and other test prep products and I remember how excited I was. It was finally something that allowed me to use my brain a bit more. Up to that point, I was droning away at the computer, performing tasks on Quark that required minimal knowledge of the program. I found so many ways to create shortcuts that I accomplished tasks in no time. Since I was among the two people who knew that program inside and out, I managed to survive four or five re-structures of the company, at least in the region I helped to manage.
During my last two years at Kaplan, I startd to get involved with community activities again. I started to re-build my network outside of work. Most of my community activities have been spent with the Pilipino American community, one that's still very young in getting politically and socially organized. All the while, I've tried to stick to the field that I have the most expertise in - marketing/public relations/promotions/event planning. So I guess that's what I want to be when I grow up. It'd be even better if I get into a company that will help offset some of my costs to get an MBA but again, how much value will an MBA add to my abilities? That's another question that I haven't quite been able to answer yet.
5.28.2006
Another Reason Why Catholicism isn't All it's Cracked Out to Be
And they ask why non-Catholics AND Catholics are disillusioned with the religion. I hardly believe kneeling vs. not kneeling should be categorized as a mortal sin. Fanatical?...hm....
A Ban on Kneeling? Some Catholics Won't Stand for It
By David Haldane
LA Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006
At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?
Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict.
Though told by the pastor and the archdiocese to stand during certain parts of the liturgy, a third of the congregation still gets on its knees every Sunday.
"Kneeling is an act of adoration," said Judith M. Clark, 68, one of at least 55 parishioners who have received letters from church leaders urging them to get off their knees or quit St. Mary's and the Diocese of Orange. "You almost automatically kneel because you're so used to it. Now the priest says we should stand, but we all just ignore him."
The debate is being played out in at least a dozen parishes nationwide.
Since at least the 7th century, Catholics have been kneeling after the Agnus Dei, the point during Mass when the priest holds up the chalice and consecrated bread and says, "Behold the lamb of God." But four years ago, the Vatican revised its instructions, allowing bishops to decide at some points in the Mass whether their flocks should get on their knees. "The faithful kneel … unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise," says Rome's book of instructions. Since then, some churches have been built without kneelers.
The debate is part of the argument among Catholics between tradition and change. Traditionalists see it as the ultimate posture of submission to and adoration of God; modernists view kneeling as the vestige of a feudal past they would like to leave behind.
At the center of the controversy is the church's concept of Christ, said Jesuit Father Lawrence J. Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy at Georgetown University in Washington. It's a question raised in the bestselling book "The Da Vinci Code."
Because the earliest Christians viewed Jesus as God and man, Madden said, they generally stood during worship services to show reverence and equality. About the 7th century, however, Catholic theologians put more emphasis on Christ's divinity and introduced kneeling as the only appropriate posture at points in the Mass when God was believed to be present.
Things started to change in the 1960s, Madden said, when Vatican II began moving the church back to its earliest roots. What has ensued, he said, is the predictable struggle of an institution revising centuries of religious practices.
The argument over kneeling, Madden said, is "a signal of the division in the church between two camps: those who have caught the spirit of Vatican II, and those who are a bit suspicious. Because it's so visible, what happens at the Sunday worship event is a lightning rod for lots of issues."
One flashpoint involves the Agnus Dei. Traditionalists say the faithful must then fall to their knees in awe for several minutes, believing that the bread and wine are literally the body and blood of Christ.
Lesa Truxaw, the Orange Diocese director of worship, said Bishop Tod D. Brown banned kneeling because standing "reflects our human dignity. It's not that we think we're equal to God, but we recognize that we are made in the image and likeness of God."
Orange County parishioners are still allowed to kneel at other points in the Mass, including the Eucharistic prayers. Kneeling is optional as worshippers receive communion.
No less an authority than the pope is on record as favoring kneeling. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI last year, wrote in "The Spirit of the Liturgy," published in 2000, that the gesture, "comes from the Bible and the knowledge of God." He has not addressed the issue as pope.
American Catholic bishops have taken the opposite position. "Standing can be just as much an expression of respect for the coming of Christ," said Msgr. Anthony F. Sherman, a spokesman for the liturgy secretariat of the U.S. Bishops Committee on the Liturgy based in Washington.
That hasn't quieted critics.
"It's hard to understand why any bishop would prohibit his people from expressing reverence in the way they have done for centuries," said Helen Hull Hitchcock, a founder of the conservative Adoremus Society for the Renewal of Sacred Liturgy in St. Louis.
The controversy at St. Mary's by the Sea began to intensify late last year after Brown appointed Tran to lead the 1,500-family parish.
Tran took over following the retirement of the church's longtime pastor, who had offered a popular traditional Latin Mass.
Tran's Mass reverted to the more modern English form practiced in most American churches, and hundreds of parishioners signed a petition in protest. Then, to pull the church into the modern era, the priest told members, they were not to kneel after the Agnus Dei.
Many refused to comply. "Not kneeling would be sinful," said Manuel Ruiz, 45, "because that is what I believe I should do."
Mary Tripoli, 54, a former member of the parish council, was dismissed for her insistence on kneeling: "Standing may be reverence, but kneeling is adoration. It's the one thing that means Catholicism throughout the world. It's what sets us apart."
At least two altar boys, the parish altar servers coordinator and three members of the parish council have been dismissed from their duties for kneeling at the wrong time, according to parishioners.
Angered by the anti-kneeling edict, a group calling itself Save Saint Mary's began distributing leaflets calling for its return outside church each Sunday.
Tran responded in the church bulletin with a series of strident weekly statements condemning what he called "despising the authority of the local bishop" by refusing his orders to stand, and calling the disobedience a mortal sin, considered the worst kind of offense, usually reserved for acts such as murder.
Tran sent letters to 55 kneeling parishioners "inviting" them to leave the parish and the diocese for, among other things, "creating misleading confusion, division and chaos in the parish by intentional disobedience and opposition to the current liturgical norms."
Father Joe Fenton, spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, said the diocese supports Tran's view that disobeying the anti-kneeling edict is a mortal sin. "That's Father Tran's interpretation, and he's the pastor," he said. "We stand behind Father Tran."
Recipients of Tran's banishment letter said they have declined his "invitation" to depart.
Kneeling, said Teri Carpentier, 50, is praying "with our bodies, not just our minds."
During a recent Saturday afternoon Mass, dozens of worshippers defiantly knelt after the Agnus Dei.
One who didn't was Winifred Mentzer, 84.
"I've been standing lately," she later said, "because I'm all the way up front, and I know that the priest is watching. But I'm kneeling in my heart."
A Ban on Kneeling? Some Catholics Won't Stand for It
By David Haldane
LA Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006
At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?
Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict.
Though told by the pastor and the archdiocese to stand during certain parts of the liturgy, a third of the congregation still gets on its knees every Sunday.
"Kneeling is an act of adoration," said Judith M. Clark, 68, one of at least 55 parishioners who have received letters from church leaders urging them to get off their knees or quit St. Mary's and the Diocese of Orange. "You almost automatically kneel because you're so used to it. Now the priest says we should stand, but we all just ignore him."
The debate is being played out in at least a dozen parishes nationwide.
Since at least the 7th century, Catholics have been kneeling after the Agnus Dei, the point during Mass when the priest holds up the chalice and consecrated bread and says, "Behold the lamb of God." But four years ago, the Vatican revised its instructions, allowing bishops to decide at some points in the Mass whether their flocks should get on their knees. "The faithful kneel … unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise," says Rome's book of instructions. Since then, some churches have been built without kneelers.
The debate is part of the argument among Catholics between tradition and change. Traditionalists see it as the ultimate posture of submission to and adoration of God; modernists view kneeling as the vestige of a feudal past they would like to leave behind.
At the center of the controversy is the church's concept of Christ, said Jesuit Father Lawrence J. Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy at Georgetown University in Washington. It's a question raised in the bestselling book "The Da Vinci Code."
Because the earliest Christians viewed Jesus as God and man, Madden said, they generally stood during worship services to show reverence and equality. About the 7th century, however, Catholic theologians put more emphasis on Christ's divinity and introduced kneeling as the only appropriate posture at points in the Mass when God was believed to be present.
Things started to change in the 1960s, Madden said, when Vatican II began moving the church back to its earliest roots. What has ensued, he said, is the predictable struggle of an institution revising centuries of religious practices.
The argument over kneeling, Madden said, is "a signal of the division in the church between two camps: those who have caught the spirit of Vatican II, and those who are a bit suspicious. Because it's so visible, what happens at the Sunday worship event is a lightning rod for lots of issues."
One flashpoint involves the Agnus Dei. Traditionalists say the faithful must then fall to their knees in awe for several minutes, believing that the bread and wine are literally the body and blood of Christ.
Lesa Truxaw, the Orange Diocese director of worship, said Bishop Tod D. Brown banned kneeling because standing "reflects our human dignity. It's not that we think we're equal to God, but we recognize that we are made in the image and likeness of God."
Orange County parishioners are still allowed to kneel at other points in the Mass, including the Eucharistic prayers. Kneeling is optional as worshippers receive communion.
No less an authority than the pope is on record as favoring kneeling. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI last year, wrote in "The Spirit of the Liturgy," published in 2000, that the gesture, "comes from the Bible and the knowledge of God." He has not addressed the issue as pope.
American Catholic bishops have taken the opposite position. "Standing can be just as much an expression of respect for the coming of Christ," said Msgr. Anthony F. Sherman, a spokesman for the liturgy secretariat of the U.S. Bishops Committee on the Liturgy based in Washington.
That hasn't quieted critics.
"It's hard to understand why any bishop would prohibit his people from expressing reverence in the way they have done for centuries," said Helen Hull Hitchcock, a founder of the conservative Adoremus Society for the Renewal of Sacred Liturgy in St. Louis.
The controversy at St. Mary's by the Sea began to intensify late last year after Brown appointed Tran to lead the 1,500-family parish.
Tran took over following the retirement of the church's longtime pastor, who had offered a popular traditional Latin Mass.
Tran's Mass reverted to the more modern English form practiced in most American churches, and hundreds of parishioners signed a petition in protest. Then, to pull the church into the modern era, the priest told members, they were not to kneel after the Agnus Dei.
Many refused to comply. "Not kneeling would be sinful," said Manuel Ruiz, 45, "because that is what I believe I should do."
Mary Tripoli, 54, a former member of the parish council, was dismissed for her insistence on kneeling: "Standing may be reverence, but kneeling is adoration. It's the one thing that means Catholicism throughout the world. It's what sets us apart."
At least two altar boys, the parish altar servers coordinator and three members of the parish council have been dismissed from their duties for kneeling at the wrong time, according to parishioners.
Angered by the anti-kneeling edict, a group calling itself Save Saint Mary's began distributing leaflets calling for its return outside church each Sunday.
Tran responded in the church bulletin with a series of strident weekly statements condemning what he called "despising the authority of the local bishop" by refusing his orders to stand, and calling the disobedience a mortal sin, considered the worst kind of offense, usually reserved for acts such as murder.
Tran sent letters to 55 kneeling parishioners "inviting" them to leave the parish and the diocese for, among other things, "creating misleading confusion, division and chaos in the parish by intentional disobedience and opposition to the current liturgical norms."
Father Joe Fenton, spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, said the diocese supports Tran's view that disobeying the anti-kneeling edict is a mortal sin. "That's Father Tran's interpretation, and he's the pastor," he said. "We stand behind Father Tran."
Recipients of Tran's banishment letter said they have declined his "invitation" to depart.
Kneeling, said Teri Carpentier, 50, is praying "with our bodies, not just our minds."
During a recent Saturday afternoon Mass, dozens of worshippers defiantly knelt after the Agnus Dei.
One who didn't was Winifred Mentzer, 84.
"I've been standing lately," she later said, "because I'm all the way up front, and I know that the priest is watching. But I'm kneeling in my heart."
5.23.2006
Romantic Nostalgia
So I admit to my romanticized memories of San Francisco. I haven't been there in a while and I'm starting to really crave for the cold air hitting my skin, the sweeping vistas of Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Pacific Heights, Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Park and Downtown SF from Lone Mountain. I miss depending on either the Geary or Balboa line to get me to where I want to be. I miss huffing and puffing my way up and down those damn hills. I miss the rare warm days sitting on the grass enjoying the few sunny sunny days The City gets. First goal after I get a new job - make a trip to SF AND Napa for an olive oil tour and wine tasting.
5.16.2006
final numbers
finally was able to get final numbers from our event two weeks ago. i'm not really jumping out of me seat. sponsorships were up, as well as advertising and silent auctions. all expenses were lower than last year but overall, the net gain was about $2K more than last year. boo! :-(
5.15.2006
5.11.2006
doh! damnit...tonight myspace became the black hole of my existance!
by the way, stomp is a little overrated after you've already seen way too many variations of tinikling and that other pilipino traditional dance where all the dancers are performing with two sticks in their hands and beating them to the music beat. witnessing other ethnic indigenous dances that use non-western instruments probably didn't heighten the stomp experience either. at some points in the performance, i thought of a group of kids throwing a tantrum and grabbing any possible thing in their midst to make large banging noises to add on to their frustrations.
at least i can say i saw it. thank goodness the tickets were free! thanks joey!
by the way, stomp is a little overrated after you've already seen way too many variations of tinikling and that other pilipino traditional dance where all the dancers are performing with two sticks in their hands and beating them to the music beat. witnessing other ethnic indigenous dances that use non-western instruments probably didn't heighten the stomp experience either. at some points in the performance, i thought of a group of kids throwing a tantrum and grabbing any possible thing in their midst to make large banging noises to add on to their frustrations.
at least i can say i saw it. thank goodness the tickets were free! thanks joey!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)