Dark Secrets

Ok, so that last post was kind of jumbled and extreme. I was really mad. But there's a better explanation of why I was mad at my dad. It wasn't all because of the events that took place that day, but rather the events that took place throughout my whole life.

Every Christmas I could remember from the time I was living in Guam, my dad was absent. I woke up happy to see the presents, and as I run to them, I notice my sister, my mom. No dad. There was space for him to be there. There was always a space for him in the family. But he wasn't there.

From one year to the next, my life changed and changed, but one thing stayed constant: somehow he always seemed to have to do something on that day. That day, where nobody was working, when nobody was doing something else, he was working. He was doing something else.

I remember one Christmas day in particular like it was yesterday. I woke up at around 7:30 in the morning and went downstairs to find my mom and my sister already sitting on the couch with my present in hand. I got excited and ran down. I sat at the edge to the left next to my mom, and next to her my sister. The sun was shining particularly brightly into the window to the back of my head. It was a beautiful day.

But I noticed something was missing. I looked around as I made my first tear into the present and noticed that my dad wasn't there. Pain and sadness filled my insides so much it hurt. My heart, my stomach, my guts, they all hurt as if somebody was reaching in and ripping them out. I looked down again at my present, and found out what I really wanted for Christmas, a whole family just enjoying each others company.

That was when I was about 9 years old. The next Christmas, he wasn't there, and the next, nope. This continued up until this Christmas. I guess all that sadness and anxiety turned to anger and hatred when I realized this. Unconsciously, the emotion swelled. It brought back lots of memories where my dad was absent. The little times, when he asked me how old I was, the missed birthdays, the mornings that I woke up knowing my dad didn't come home last night. All of those thoughts rushed back to me.

And I blew up.

There's still anger that's in me because of my dad. I mean, I was traumatized. Knowing I had a father, and yet knowing he's not going to be there during the important days of our lives together. As a family.

But I think I released a lot of that pent up emotion stored in the deepest recesses of my mind this week. We went on a family trip to Death Valley and relaxed. We spent time as a family without any distractions like school, work, or news for that matter.

My resolution for 2010 is to regain some ground with my dad, and restore the anger into love for him. No doubt, I love him, but we can still butt heads once in a while.

How come I only get mad at the people I truly love? Hahahahah food for thought.

-Phil

On the Brink of Destruction

Merry Christmas? No, not for me.

This was one of the worst day ever. And the fact that it happened on Christmas just makes it worse.

The day started out with everybody all jolly and joyful and crap like that. It ended with me trying not to destroy everything in the backyard with tears flowing down my face.

How did that happen? Who did what? How come you did that?

My dad was the catalyst for the masses of events that would eventually break me apart.

It started off with Christmas service. Everybody was there. I saw so many people from high school, college, and even some parents that I felt happy. I felt warm inside with all the memories shared with them. My dad was working the volunteer booth with his church buddies.

After service, we all went home. So far, so good.

We go home, and we all do our separate things. My sister washes the dog, I prepare the garlic for the food, my mom washes dishes, and my dad builds something outside. Seeing that my dad wasn't as fit as he was 20 years ago, I decided to lend him a hand.

I go outside, and it turns out, hes building a big box of some sort out of wood. He, always being stubborn, tries to deny my help. I go back inside, and get back to my own work. Then, I see him again, bending down sawing away at this plank of wood with the wrong tool. I get back outside and grab the right saw and I cut the rest for him.

After all the pieces were cut, for some reason he lays them out on the dirt. We have a huge cement patio type of thing big enough to fit the frame, but he lays it out on the dirt. The whole frame is lopsided because of the bumpy ground so I suggest to him to move it on the cement.

Completely ignored.

He continues to hammer the wrong nail into the wrong spot with the whole thing unbalanced. I tell him again, but he says its fine, he can do it. After the first nail (that didn't go through to the connecting piece), he told me to do the rest.

At this point, I started to get kind of angry, because he didn't even listen to my advice, he completely blew me off, then once he got tired, he called me to finish the job.

Seeing that he was my dad, I kept my anger to a minimum and hammered away. After 30 minutes of relentless backpain from the hammering, he brings out screws and corner locks for ME to put in.

I put in half, and then get tired, so I tell my dad I'm going inside for a minute. I come back out, and he says to me, "Decided to help me now?" Now? NOW? What have I been doing for the past half hour while he was sitting down WATCHING me work? I offer him help, he denies it, then calls for my help again, and doesn't recognize the fact that I helped him hurting my back, while he was relaxing.

Now, I'm pissed but I held it in.

I manage to get to my cousin's place without exploding at him. I get there, and I see my uncle. He's the only person I truly hate. I despise him. He treats my parents like crap, he treats me like crap, but he treats my grandparents worse than anybody else. He treats them as if they didn't belong in the house.

Every time I see him, I get angry, so I obviously avoid him. I avoid him, he avoids me. Works out fine.

I start to relax with everybody and I start to have a good time. Then my dad came.

It was dinner time, and my dad came up to me and told me to go pray in english. Why? Knowing that if I did that, everybody would give me glory for something I didn't deserve. So I declined.

But he started to get louder and louder with each command. I said no just the same every time.

I know, praying for the food is no big deal, but remember I was really pissed at my dad. If anybody else asked me, I would do it. Anybody. I know I'm acting like a bitch towards my dad, but you have to understand, this isn't a one time thing. He does it every single time with the backyard work, with the family gatherings, with the stubbornness.

At that point, I was really pissed. I knew if I blew up, then the whole house would have no more fun, no more food, no more enjoyment of each others company. So I isolate myself from the group.

Seeing that I had to drive my mom, sister, and her boyfriend home, I had to stay there until the end doing nothing in fear of exploding with anger.

I made it to the end of the day, and I drive home. I guess I was driving a little fast, because I was pissed. I pull into the driveway and my anger is about to overflow. I know if I make it to my room, I would be able to sleep through the night and calm down. But no, that never happened.

My sister, in her asshole-ish tone said right after I stopped, "You suck at driving."

Well fuck you. Fuck everybody. I exploded.

I'm sorry Jesus.

-Phil

Without a Flashlight

How important are the days I'm living right now? Seriously, how important are they?

That's what I've been saying ever since I heard that junior year would be the death of my social life, and the birth of a working life.

To be honest, the future scares me. Where am I going to go? How am I going to cope with the new challenges I'm put through? Will I even make it to college? So much stress for a kid living in a world that might not even change if that kid didn't exist.

I know I just said this a second ago, but the future scares me. It REALLY scares me. I hate to know that I get compared to my sister in every aspect of my life. If you looked up "perfect child" in the dictionary, the definition would be Deborah Cho; Cornell University sophmore; 4.8 gpa. The perfect child.

Well, what's my definition?

I know without a doubt that my sister will find a great job, live a great life, find a great husband, and enjoy every second of it. GUARANTEED.

Where will I go? Why did the stress suddenly hit me on the side of the head this year? Was it always there waiting to hit me? Why am I so incompetent compared to my sister, the "perfect" one? If she's so perfect, why am I so flawed?

I know everybody says they don't compare me to her, but that's completely bullshit. I'm sorry, but it is. Every time I talk about my sister, they ask, where does she go? And whenever I answer Cornell, they gasp and they congratulate me like the level of knowledge passes on from sister to brother. Yeah right... "Congratulations! Are you going to Cornell?" "I guess you're as smart as your sister." "Wow..."

I wish. That kind of school is only for the elite of the elite, where I don't even come close.

Even asking me where she goes puts her next to me, like examining two products on eBay to see which one is better, which one is made of more quality, which one will outlast the other.

She's always the higher standard. The standard where even if I work to the best of my abilities, I won't even reach.

I love my sister to death and wouldn't trade her for anybody else in the world, but her existence in my life seems to always make it harder.

I guess I think too extremely while the perfect and the flawed and the incompetent, but it isn't too extreme. It's reality.

I know God has a path set for me, but it's human to doubt, to fear, to duck and cover. I just wish I knew some sort of direction in where I should end up. I feel like I'm in a huge room where nothing is visible, and I have to find the exit that leads me to my purpose in life.

I feel like I'm a camper in a dark dense forest, that forgot to bring a light of some kind. I feel stupid for not remembering, and I feel scared for the darkness around me.

In some kind of way, I feel the light I forgot to bring is God. I left him behind in my search for my future. Without him, I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel like nobody else can feel my pain. But Jesus can. He felt it with every pound to the nails driven into his hands and feet, and with every stab through his sides. He can feel my pain. He can relate. Now, I just have to relate back.

Without God, my flashlight in the darkness, I'm lost. I'm lost in the darkness called the future and I need to find the exit. I need to find my purpose.

So, what's MY definition?

Phil

For Every Sin

Most of my ideas kind of branched off from the video, so watch it first.

Today was normal, it was fun. I had lots of fun with my friends. We just chilled. We enjoyed each others presence. We jokingly hated on each other while playing some Resident Evil 5 (weird game by the way).

At least, it felt normal.

After I got home and was done for the day, I did my usual facebooking for something interesting or something funny posted. I found that interesting post through a video.

That video really hit me. Hard. I know every day I sin, and I know every day I say, "I'm sorry God, I'll try to not do that again" and every day I repeat the process. So much in fact, that it has become a habit.

I think we, as Christians, have that mentality that we have time to repent, we have time to sin a little more, we have time to say we're sorry. But for every sin acted or thought out, it is an act of rebellion to God and his kingdom, and a slap to Jesus.

He died on the cross, thorns on his head, blood spewing out of his limbs, swords through his body, and this is how we treat him? For every sin, those throrns are pushed in harder, the blood becomes thicker, the swords rip through skin and flesh more. But for what kind of sin? Is there a difference in sin?

I remember from a sermon that a sin is a sin. It has no value between levels of sin. Sin is sin. All sin is equal. When I heard this, I was intrigued, so I went up and asked a question to him after the sermon:"If sin is all equal, is murdering somebody and lying to your parents the same sin?" And he answered, yes.

So if what he said is true, simply using "oh my God" or "g damn it" pushes those thorns a little bit deeper into His head.

I think the video can speak for itself.

To my journal,

Phil

The Small Things in Life

Last Friday, I went to church and met up with some teachers of mine. We talked about what we are thankful for. It occured to me that I'm thankful for having a family. I'm thankful for having supportive parents and relatives that help me through life. Who knew that living alone for a week would show such extreme results?

Like I told the teachers, I missed having the little things in life that my parents fulfilled, like making PB and J for me every morning at 6 AM and waking me up so I won't be late to school. The simple things like being greeted whenever I came home, or smelling good food cooking as I wake up from a nap. Even having the house clean and tidy. The simple things in life are not noticeable, until they are gone, and boy were they gone.

I felt something was missing ever since my parents left. Although the teachers at church and friends gave me company, there's nothing really like the company of your parents. It's just a different kind of connection. When they left, they took that part away from me, they disconnected from me, and I felt hollow.

I've been through some hard times, but this past week was really hard for me, not because I had to feed myself and drive myself, but because there was nobody there to fall back on, nobody there to be my net, nobody there to catch me when I stumble.

I don't think I ever valued my parents as much as I did until this past week (kind of ironic because they aren't even here). I don't think we, as kids, take enough time to think of all work it takes to keep us functioning like kids.

It's the little things that help kids function. It's also the little things that we, as kids, can't see until they aren't fulfilled. Like my room being magically cleaned, or the sink constantly clear of dirty dishes, or even walking into the clean dog house. I think we neglect the luxuries we are given. The luxuries given by our parents through their energy and effort.

My parents do all that for me, but what do I do for them? How do I show my love? Leaving clothes all around the house, spilling crumbs everywhere, complaining that I have to take out the trash. Nothing I do shows my gratitude towards them. Absolutely nothing.

I realized that I've been treating my parents like crap. Like they were made to serve me as a prince. This past week, I found out how good I had it. But that's why it hurts. It hurts to know that my parents put up with my demanding self and in turn, give love back. It hurts to know they work in my arrogance. It hurts to know that they know I'm treating them badly, and they accept it.

How much love do they have for me to put up with me?

I think it's time for me to show my gratitude and love towards my parents. I'm glad they went on this trip. I'm glad to have realized how stressful it has to be to put up with me because I've had to put up with myself and my trash, my clothes, and my attitude.

It's time for them to get some rest. It's time for them to be able to live more luxuriously, to live like they deserve to live.

Now they can come home to be greeted with dinner, they can come home to a mysteriously clean house, and they can sleep in on Saturdays while I work the vacuum.

To my journal,

Phil

Calling Out

It felt like yesterday when I wrote my last blog. I guess it's because life is normal, everything is the same, and all you have to do to get through the day is to follow the motions. But today was different. Something changed. A big something. My parents left me in charge of the house for a week.

Yes, they went on a trip and I'm home alone. I bet you're thinking, "So what? I stay home alone all the time." But have you slept alone, eaten alone, gone to school alone, and come back to an empty house for a week?

It's only my first day alone. They left this morning. I dropped them off at the airport, saw them walk into the terminal, and I was alone.

At first, when I thought of being alone, I thought of FREEDOM!! and no parents nagging me to do my homework or no parents making me eat dinner with them, or having to do a chore for my mom and dad.

But when the time actually came, reality sunk in.

I guess there was always a feeling of protection towards my parents and how they were close to me and would be my "knights in shining armor" because without them, I found out that I'm lost.

Lost in a world bigger than homework, bigger than my cello, bigger than my house. I had to function like an adult, making sure I ate properly, feeding my dogs, taking out the trash, and driving constantly to and fro without a guardian. I feel small. Smaller than small, tiny.

When I was with my parents, there was laughter, conversation, and a happy vibe around the house. Well, now the house is silent. Nothing is heard but the clicks of the keyboard throughout the house.

To be honest, it kind of scares me. I jump at the sound of car doors being shut by my neighbors even when I know it's them. My senses are all heightened and I can feel everything going around me, the air conditioner blowing, the keyboard with the stickers falling off, the quiet hum of the computer running.

At that point, I began to think about how God was always there, and was always protecting me. How he is always present in our lives, and all we have to do is reach out and grasp him.

The troubling thought is, we don't always go to grab him. We don't go to reach out and call for his presence. We only want him when there's something troubling going on.

But why not reach out even when there isn't something troubling? What keeps us from doing that?

As I thought about that for a while, I came to a conclusion. A quite startling one in fact.

We treat God like crap.

We call upon him when WE need something and when we don't we throw him aside like a broken toy. We trash him and put him in the junk pile, until we need it again, and so we pull him out and reuse him. Then, after all is said and done, God goes back to the trash.

God is not something disposable. He is everlasting. He supports us and helps us in the hard moments, and we praise him for that. But what we have to learn is that we can and must call out to him even in the great moments of life. We have to learn to be able to call Him any time, any place, and constantly.

Without that longing for God through the good times, the relationship between us and Him dwindles, until it finally disappears. Sure, our connection in tough times is strong, but if our connection through the good times is nonexistent, we distance ourselves from God. There has to be a constant connection between us and God for it to remain strong.

I know that I'm struggling with these very concepts. Even just last week, my days were fine, nothing bad happened, and there was no connection between me and God. Well, after the feelings of fear of being alone, I called out to Him. I called out to Him in my time of need. I NEEDED him. When I didn't need him, I practically forgot about Him.

I know now that I have to be constantly reaching out throughout the good and the bad times, stressing and rejoicing constantly with God, for without the constant connection, the relationship I long for between God and me is corrupt, hollow, and brittle.

hahaha I hope this made sense.

To my journal,

Phil

Act!

Wow. It was already about a week since I wrote my last post. I noticed keeping the blog is very time consuming. But when I got feedback from other people, I guess I found a new meaning to writing the blog.

In my first post, I felt hopeless, like I couldn't help anybody even if I tried. I hated myself for not being able to help or trying to help and failing. But this past week, reading the comments, hearing how this blog changed their perception of not only me, but God, and by having a more positive outlook as a daily basis, I found how to help others. I found out that writing my grievances and thoughts in a readable and expressible form greatly helped others.

I found a new purpose for writing the blog.

Anyways, this past week was hectic with school and other activities. The only thing keeping me from giving up and going to sleep for that extra time and having that energy to push through and get work done was Reach on Friday night.

Reach, with out a doubt, was a spiritually moving event. But there was something more. It did not merely move me in my spiritual life, but it moved me on how I expressed it with other people.

I thought Reach would be like that normal praise night with songs and a couple bible verses recited here and there, but it wasn't that at all.

It taught me how blind we are as a society to the low class. The class of the homeless, the class of the needy, and most of all, the class made up of PEOPLE.

How blind can our society be to walk past a homeless on the streets as if walking past a statue? We walk past the homeless, we drive along the streets of the homeless, and we ignore the homeless.

What makes them different from you and me? I'm human. You're human. They are human. They are made up of the same body parts, the same bone structure, the same heart and soul. And yet we shun them from society.

We treat them as dirt. Filth. Rubble. In fact, we don't treat them as such because we don't acknowledge them. They are nothing. They are not worthy of our attention.

But are they worthy for God's? I believe that God thinks of the homeless just as much as you and me. You and me of the society, and the shunned homeless.

In God's eyes, we are the same. There is no society in which he labels us in. We are all children of God, but then why do we ignore and deny our fellow brothers and sisters? Why then do we walk past them to spend six dollars on Yogurtland when a single dollar can be a blessing to them? Why do we leave our brothers and sisters on the streets?

The message that was shared at Reach was different. Unlike all other messages about the homeless, the needy, the poor, this particular message invoked us to act rather than to merely watch.

The statistics given on the video he gave us and the video posted is scary. It's horrible knowing those numbers. "Oh my God" and "Wow" were most of the reactions. "Oh my God" what? This is the world you live in. This is also the world you can CHANGE. But in order to change, we must first act.

Evan asks, "How do you change the world?"
God says, "One single Act of Random Kindness at a time."
Evan Almighty (2007)

We must be a society willing to do that random act of kindness. We must break the walls of our society down and change the world.

But in order to change the world, we must first change ourselves. Change ourselves from an elite society blinded by selfishness to an aware group of people holding each other up reguardless of color, age, whether they are dirty or clean, whether they have nice clothes or have messy clothes, whether they are enemies, we must be one nation unified without hate, without discrimination, without criticism.

Don't worry, I'll fix whatever doesnt make sense in the morning. hahaha

Phil

The small miracles

Today was just a normal day with its ups and downs. It felt like any Wednesday that feels like a Thursday. It felt all in all, repetitive.

But today at lunch, I saw something different. I FELT something different. I saw God through somebody else.

I know God does crazy stuff. Miracles like walking on water, the shining light down from the Heavens, all that stuff. But man this hit me harder than any of that.

I don't know... Maybe it was because he sat right next to me at lunch, or because it was too silent for a group of friends, or maybe it was a sign.

He was praying.

He was praying not to set an example to others, not to be the "holy one", not to stand out, but to merely speak with God before the meal. A conversation between him and God and nobody else! That is what I witnessed today. It was two seconds of my life. It started and ended with a glance. Honestly, if I didn't turn my head, nothing would have changed. He would still be praying, me still waiting for my other friend. But I looked. I saw the image. It wasn't a chance. I saw it.

I know, because I felt His presence filled within me just for a second.

That was the miracle I witnessed today.

Not the feeding of the thousands, not the healing of the blind, but the healing of my heart. The power overcame. No, I didn't break down. No, I didn't cry. I simply felt.

Such a simple action as prayer can have the mightiest of powers. When the world withers away and dies, that conversation between you and God is still strong within prayer.

Other than that, though, it was a normal day. Normal classes. Normal parents. Normal events.

But if that was normal, miracles like this happen every day. You just have to open your eyes to them.

Listen and you shall see.


To my journal,

Phil

Beyond the water reflection

Who knew writing your heart can be so lifting? If I knew that, I would have started writing a long time before I actually did. Actually, I think it's because of my english teacher. Man, how that guy can teach. Before I knew it, I started loving to read and write when I hated it last year. He's really awesome. Although if he read this, he would find all the rhetoric and all of that english stuff that was missing... Through all that, this blog goes out to him for inspiring me to not only write, but to express.

I've had some time to think stuff over the past day on what I wrote. Man, I really poured my heart out.

Maybe I was just over thinking, but maybe not. Can I really help others? If so, how could I help them without feeling what they have felt that caused them to do such actions? How do others help? How can I feel the same pain that they feel so I can connect without actually committing those actions? So many open ended questions....

Anyways, today was a weird day. I found out people actually read this kind of stuff. I got so many reactions, I don't know how to respond to them. What makes them care? Why should they take time to read this? Does it change them as a person by reading my pains? I hope it does. I hope that my pains and struggles will benefit others.

At least, today was so much better than Monday. Monday was a bummer both emotionally and physically. Today, my mind wasn't as clouded, but I was still confused. I asked the question: What's going on with my spiritual life? Is it going forward or backwards?

I remember somebody told me that if you aren't moving forward in you walk with God, you're falling back. Well, I always thought of it as a rope connected to God in heaven hanging down to Earth. There always has to be a connection with God towards him. You have to hold that rope leading to him while he pulls you up even in the struggles of daily life. Even when you are tired of holding the rope, Hold! For at the end there will be a greater prize. But the pain of holding on gets worse and worse as you get higher and higher. There's always something trying to pull you down. There's something trying to get you to let go of that rope.

I fell down that rope. I went from great heights, to the lowest of lows. I'm at base level now. The thing is, it's so hard to get up that rope, but it's so easy to go down. It frustrates me. It frustrates me because I know I always fall off. I know I can't hold on for more than a year, six months, or even three months. It frustrates me how I am always reborn but I am never constant. I cut the lines every single time the connection is made.

That constant struggle to connect for a brief period of time and feel great! Then to break it as if you flip a light switch.

How heartbreaking must it be for God to watch his kids cut themselves off every. single. time.

Sure, to cut themselves, they must first make a connection. But what then after? What happens when somebody asks of their walk with God?

One of the pastors from SMT when I was in junior high talked about this and I never seemed to let it go. This message was for me.

He talked about being a christian, not for seven years, but for one year reborn 7 times. He talked about how the walk with God can not be broken to shards, but it must be constant, unending, habitual. He talked about post-SMT feelings and that there WAS going to be a spiritual high. We all knew it. We all understood it. But what we did not understand was how high the spiritual high was and how low life was without it.

I think another shard of my religious life was cut this past weekend. I felt dark and tenebrous in living life in general. But now is a new day, a new life, a new commitment.

A new commitment not to be reborn again every single time a retreat happens or when SMT is in action, but to fortify the bonds between God and me.

A new commitment not to be a one year old seven times, but be a seven year old one time.

A new commitment not only at church, but as a lifestyle.

Wow if my english teacher read this, he would kill me.



To my journal,

Phil

The raw heart

Wow.... where to begin.

I never thought I would actually come to make this. This really is crazy. Why am I doing this? I guess I just can't open up myself to any one thing and feel fully understanded. Yeah.... thats why. To pour out my heart without anybody crushing it.

Man even just that part made me feel happier. How come I didn't make one earlier?

Anyways, this past week or so has been crazy. No, over crazy. It's opened my eyes. I feel the sky just darkened, the dark advanced, and the light was shaded. Too much information went through to my brain over the last few days.

It just hurts watching others get hurt by drugs or alcohol. I feel horrible standing next to them not being able to do anything. ANYTHING to help them. How do I help them? They're so far down the line, even the small little sayings that I encourage to them on a daily basis won't work. Sure, they say it's fine and they NEED it. But do they really? Is it necessary? Is it vital to them to function properly? They're so far down the line, I feel I can't help them back up. I feel useless.

It just enrages me. Just think! How could they even go down that path? Why dive into a pool of drugs and alcohol........ I want to help but I can't. How can I offer help if the minds and the hearts of those in need are not ready for it? Its like running into a wall where on the other side is a world full of hate and pain ready to be fixed. I want to fix that, but I can't. The worst part is, the people on the other side erected the wall.

I'm just down. I feel worthless. Do I really make an impact on anybody?

So much pain so much pain through the thoughts of watching friends, family, even strangers go down the wrong path: the path leading nowhere but to worse things. Strangers! How can that be? I don't even know them, we've never met, we never had a social connection. And yet, my heart aches for them. Where will they be in 20, 10, or even 5 years from now doing the same stuff day after day... It just hurts thinking of the possibilities.

Even my spiritual life is dwindling. Sure, it was great during missions and retreats, and even at church, but outside of all that, I feel it is nonexistent. The worst part is, I know that, and it pains me. It hurts me every day knowing that, but I don't have the willpower to stop and change directions. Am I on the same road down the way to worse things? Is this the start?

I hope it's not. I don't want to go down that road.

This blog is a test of faith for me. I have so many unanswered questions. I need answers. I need guidance. I want to see if this can change my life. For the first time, I'm writing down my life in a solid form of a diary, or a journal. This is the fork in the road leading up or down. This is the solid proof of the fact that I am lost. This blog, hopefully, will change my life.

Feels good to let it all out

To my journal,

Phil