"He Who Does Not Know How to Look Back at Where He Came From Will Never Reach His Destination"

Who can guess the name of the person to whom the above quote is credited?

Haven't figured out the answer? If not, then you need to refer back to your Philippine history lessons...(major hint!...but if you still don't figure it out, it's OK...I'll eventually post the answer in the comments section)...

Anyway...I thought this quote was very suited to this entry for 2 reasons: 1) I am a proud Filipina-American and 2) Yesterday, I was involved with something that had to do with a big portion of my past. I spent 9 years of my life attending the same private parochial school, from the time I was in kindergarten until the 8th grade. It was literally down the street from my parents' house, and since my mom was very active with the school and church, I was there pretty much all the time as a kid. Since the school was celebrating its 50th anniversary yesterday with a special Mass, I was asked to give a speech at the beginning of the Mass, and I was asked to include a sentence about how attending that particular school helped me to go on to get my Master's degree and a (relatively) successful career. OK, so to do what I do, all the science behind it came from my graduate program, so, at first, I thought it was a bit of a stretch. However...there is the (major) component of dealing with people. That's something that I needed to learn long before I was even old enough to attend graduate school. Isn't the golden rule to treat others the way you want to be treated, and that even if other people are being jerks, you need to be the bigger person and let it go? That was definitely something I learned long before I earned my Master's, yet it's the most important part of my job...

...As a fun little thing to add, since I like to post pictures with blog entries, here's a little look back at my past (my kindergarten photo). My family says I look pretty much the same, which is quite flattering, since this photo was taken about 25 years ago!