Simply Belle

Note: YouTube videos below are no longer available. You may google them up yourself.

Last Monday, Phyllis, a friend of mine from Las Vegas called another friend of mine in Seattle, Elaine, to tell her that a girl with a giant talent from the Philippines was going to be featured on Oprah show tomorrow, which was yesterday. Elaine then asked me some questions about the girl through YM (yahoo messenger.)

E: Do you know anything about this girl that Oprah is guesting tomorrow?

Me: Her name is Charice Pempengco and she has an awesome and powerful voice for such a little girl. I can’t watch her live on Oprah show though because I am working tomorrow, but I will definitely watch her on YouTube.

The following night, she sent me an email telling me that she and Bob (her husband) were blown away by Charice’s performance, with tears streaming down their faces. I have watched Charice hundred times on YouTube and I know that she is undeniably one of the best singers out there right now, if not the best, for her age.

Out of curiosity and excitement from the worldwide attention she was getting, I wasted no time searching for her recent performance on Oprah on YouTube and watched all four segments at once, unmindful of my husband’s constant complaint of the noise volume. (I purposely blocked him off for the duration of the show so I wouldn’t miss a thing.) This is the second time she appeared on Oprah, and I tell you, the saying, “it is sweeter the second time around,” is, indeed, true. I wasn’t even through with the first segment, I soaked in probably four pieces of kleenex. And I wasn’t supposed to cry because I have seen her perform many times before on YouTube but I couldn’t hold my tears especially when she narrated in tears her humble beginnings, life’s experiences, early struggles, and painful childhood memories of her abusive father.
And her rendition of Celine Dion’s song, My Life Will Go on, once again, brought me to tears and took my breath away.

It is so amazing how such a little girl,who came from a poor family, is now singing duet with well-known and big time singers like Celine Dion and Andre Bocelli. This, folks, is history in the making, as I wasn’t aware of any singers from Philippines who had gotten this much international attention.

Sorry, I had to delete the videos because they are no longer available on YouTube.

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“Wilderness is where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, and where man himself is only a visitor who does not remain.”The Wilderness Act 1964

I had another fun long weekend at the Chiricahua National Monument. Reason why I haven’t updated my blog for over a week now. The place we went, is a very beautiful place of spectacular rock formations–dramatic pinnacles, stone columns, balanced rocks, which were formed by a volcanic eruption that took place 10 to 15 million years ago. In 1976, the United Congress designated 9,440 acres of Chiricahua Monument as “Class 1, pristine wilderness.”

The forces that sculpted these rocks are still in progress. Heating, cooling, and freezing and thawing constantly change the rock formation, even as we were watching it. Like a grain of sand washes down in the rain, dissolving minerals and washing away softer portion of the rocks. These tiny changes add up over the years. And eventually, perhaps 10 million years from now, the forces will wear out the mountains and this whole thing will just be nothing but a memory.

This is called “Balanced Rock,” a perfect nature’s work of art. Someday, due to some forces, this rock might fall off.

This was taken right after we got up to catch the sunrise but didn’t quite make it there.

I was actually scared driving below these pinnacles, and towers because they look like they could easily fall off like one of the pinnacles in the picture. I wonder what has kept it from falling down?

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