Blank is #BetterByBicycle

Pray I'm not exactly a religious person but I used to be. I was born into a devout Catholic family. I grew up religiously attending mass with my family. We would pray together every night and bless the food with a prayer before eating. My siblings and I attended Catholic school and we joined church related organizations  and activities. I received a New Testament bible at age 8, and I remember reading it during my free time every day even though I couldn't comprehend the meaning of the verses. I have a nun grand aunt and a priest uncle and it was a source of pride among our clan to have kins who heed the clergy calling. When I left home for college, I started to slowly go astray of my religious upbringing. The demands of the academic life made me skip the mass every now and then. But more importantly, my mind was opened with the corruption and hypocrisy  of not just the Catholic church, but almost every organized religion in the world. But I have no plans to leave the church n...

I remember when the film  Eat Pray Love  came out, the travel sphere in the Philippines was just starting to take off. I mean, sure tourists had been around since time immemorial, but it wasn't too long when traveling by  air became within reach of ordinary Filipinos. The presence of budget carriers made it  feasible for every  Juan  to go to far flung places. The internet also paved the way to the rapid growth of travel blogs, providing platform to share experiences and tips to enjoy places when on a shoe-string budget. Then all of a sudden, everyone seems to be off to somewhere, flooding the different social media platforms with pictures and videos of sun-kissed faces and bodies, pristine and white sand beaches with crystal blue water, sea of clouds, sophisticated architectures, colorful and sumptuous food! Every freaking evidence that one is in another place but home or work. Traveling for recreation and relaxation has become an essential part of a sane ...

When I ditched the city life more than a decade ago, I knew that I'm gonna be like one of those characters  from the various slice of life anime series or Jap films  I watch. My main motivation to cycle had always been to cut down on my carbon footprint, but there's also a part of me secretly wishing to live like some high school student in Japan. I knew my time to live that life had passed, luckily I work in a school, so going to work with my bicycle oftentimes makes me feel like I'm a   joshi kosei, to some a kokosei 😅. I even got myself  a randoseru and I secretly celebrated every time my colleagues or students comment that I'm like a Japanese student (sometimes they'd say Korean and I would instantly correct them 😆) when I enter the campus gate on my bicycle donning a randoseru .  Next time I'll get an Insta 360 cam to get a better shot of my j oshi  kosei / kokosei cosplay.  Cosplaying aside, I wish more Filipino students and workers woul...

More than a decade ago, I decided to quit my job in the city, giving up a relatively reasonable compensation package in exchange of a laid back lifestyle of the province. I wasn't really sure of my next career move then but all I know was that I want to reduce my carbon footprint. I want to work where I could just use a bicycle as a transportation. I tried applying in our municipal hall because I thought, well I want to change the world, perhaps I should be in an institution that has direct power to make changes. How naive eh? So I submitted my resume but I never heard anything back. Then a relative informed me that her former employer, which was a state university, was looking for part-time instructors in Psychology. At the time, I was skeptic at the whole idea of me teaching. I had no teaching experience and I remember having very little patience in tutoring my peers back in high school and college. But I had nothing to lose so I gave it a shot anyway. I submitted my resume and w...