Inspirare

The Trouble with Punctuations

2012-02-09T23:07:00.014+08:00

Today, I ran into an argument with a fellow teacher on the use of colon, semicolon and comma in introducing a list. And, I felt really bad about it: that I rested on a wrong assumption; that I dragged another to an argument that compelled her to follow my instruction; and that my wrong assumption was not corrected immediately in that argument.

My assumption was that: "the rule of introducing a long list with a colon that tells of a certain order and sets of elements separated by a comma, also applies in the short list". She had no arguments with my other suggestions in the test she made, but it was in this part that we had taken much time. Yet, at the end I was not convinced, so I insisted on my false belief.

That argument bothered me, so I had to check several references, credible references online. My intent was to know what rule applies in short list introduced by a colon. Aha! I WAS WRONG! Immediately, I sent my colleague a text message, expressing my apology and affirming that she was right all along. I even tried to call her, to sincerely say how sorry I was, but I could not reach her.

I was troubled about dragging someone into argument while my claim was unsupported. I felt anxious of probably making another person believe something that is not following the rules of punctuation. The sense of knowing that I was wrong made me anxious, not just because I held a wrong belief, but because I allowed myself to insist on that wrong belief. What bothered me most is that I was not wise enough to check a credible reference, at the time we were arguing.

That was unscholarly for me. That was unprofessional. That was unforgivable because as an academic I should know what I am saying, my claims should be substantiated by knowledge that is generally acceptable. Perhaps, what brought me to check some references was that argument implied a conflict in knowledge. To resolve it needs a mediator and that is a valid and reliable source of information.

That argument on the troublesome use of punctuation, raised so many questions about myself: my integrity as a senior teacher, as learner myself, and as a person. Had I been close minded? Had I been so opinionated? Had I been conceited of my learning? Had I not been listening well? Had I been egotistic? Or was I was just not challenged to consider another's position? That again was a concern to me. I wish I were I just burnt out and demented to be unknowing of my mistake.

Prudence dictates my life that wisdom is above knowledge. Hence, I desire truth and knowledge, credence and validity, trust and integrity, responsibility and self-regulation. However, at the time I should be wise, I rested on a wrong belief and argued instead. Neither, I nor her sought a credible reference to mediate between our conflicting views. Thus, I was not corrected immediately.

As I desire truth and knowledge, at the moment I was unwise, no wiser advice came to my assistance. It was rather late for my initiative to find truth in knowledge. The argument is over, yet I still feel the guilt of being unwise. I feel bad of my unknowing self. I feel sorry that I was stubborn. I feel anxious of not being corrected by someone who at her behest knows of truth.

In this troublesome use of punctuation, the lessons I learned: when unsure, check with a credible reference; when wrong, humbly accept correction and sincerely apologize for the mistake; when right, support the claim with proof; and above all never repeat the same mistake. That I think is the most prudent thing to do when troubled with punctuations. Ouch!

Where's the Good Samaritan Online?

2012-01-28T22:25:00.004+08:00

The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) teaches Christians on authentic charity, love and kindness for others. This teaching challenges our faith to be demonstrated in good deeds, right at the moment when it is needed. As faithfuls, we are commanded to love one another, and love others as we love our self.

It is not surprising for me to know, that a good Samaritan is a rare find. In the parable, the goodness in that Samaritan who helped a person in need is something inherent, and it was contrasted to that of the Jewish faithful. But, Jesus commended the act of the Samaritan who helped the robbed man in extraordinary ways. For Jesus that response was something that Christians should take as a model.

Today, while I was browsing my Facebook wall, a picture of a skinny 15-year old girl with a rare skin disease caught my attention. The one who posted the picture had the interest to have it shared that it may stumble upon a good Samaritan's heart. That is his way to help the girl. His note reads that he had initiated a conversation with her and personally took her picture.

There have been many pictures posted and shared in Facebook of people needing help: cancer patients, missing person, victims of abuse and maltreatment and many others. In some causes, it was acceptable to see those posts in the social network, as they were necessary. The network was of use to get the attention of those concerned.

However, I am disheartened to know that the chance of being a good Samaritan is just passed on to someone else who would like to take the role. I feel this way, because I am aware of how that person could help the girl, more than just posting and sharing her picture online. I know because he could boast with me of how rich he is, and he would also post several pictures of his expensive cars.

The note that goes with the picture reads: "I wanna ask your help guys if we could share this photo and I wish that this will catch the attention of any Public affairs program in the country like Kapuso foundation or Wish Ko Lang to assist this poor, little girl for her treatment as well as for her Lola." This implies that the heroic attempt to help the girl is hopefully passed on to other organizations.

True, that effort may help the little girl, when the image becomes viral to catch the interest of those media programs mentioned. Media networks will profit in it anyway. But, what does that girl really need? Is it the media exposure? Is it sympathy? Is it online publicity?

I wonder how much of the sampaguita which the girl was selling was bought that time, when the picture was taken. I believe it would not be enough for her to bring food for herself and her grandmother. I do not want to discount the intent to help the girl by posting her picture online. It might work. I am discontented though about the intent to help being passed on.

There are good things that come in posting such pictures. One is that it creates an awareness to online users about people's situation and even the illness. Another is it encourages open and continuous conversation. Although, the process of having such picture shared is far from genuinely helping her, when the very people who were aware of the situation could barely help even when they can.

The Good Samaritan in Jesus' parable, is the person who in his own way helped someone in need in ways that are felt, relieving the man's pain and even sustaining him in his way to getting back in life. There, the Samaritan has touched a life, without anyone's help, because he can. There, the Samaritan did not call others and did not announce his intent to help. My prayers go, that the stranger who met this girl realizes that he is the Samaritan who can help her. Everyone who have seen this picture and shared it in his wall is a stranger challenged to be like the Good Samaritan.

A Personal Eulogy

2012-01-12T23:30:00.006+08:00

Today, I assigned my public speaking students to prepare for a two-minute read speech. They have to deliver next week a personal eulogy. Morbid, [ikr] I know right. That was the same reaction I had I when went through writing my personal eulogy, more than five years ago.

The term eulogy is derived from the Greek word "eulogia" which means good words. This type of writing or speech is delivered to honor a person or any thing. Traditions put eulogy as an important speech to honor the recently deceased. Thus, it is often heard during necrological services or funerals. Perhaps, its appropriateness in honoring the dead is to lighten the feelings of the bereived.

So, the eulogy gives a review of hallmarks in the lived life of the deceased. It is not a biography but strings a heartening narrative of how well the person lived his life.

It was an excruciating, yet a transforming experience for me to write me personal eulogy. I was afraid of death, it was one of my greatest fear, but not to the point that thanatophobia would impair my dispositions in life. It just happened that I lived a life afraid of what's going to happen next in my after life and to my loved one's when I was gone.

It would have not been possible for me to write my personal eulogy, had I now overcome my fear of death. That's another story though. But, I was motivated to write my own, when I began to understand that individuals have the power over their life affairs and choices in life, if they could write their own life script. All lifescipts have endings.

The self-help guru, Stephen Covey, was right when he said that to be highly effective, one needs to begin with the end in mind. So, I had to think of how I would desire my life to an end. Of course, that was a fulfilled and completed. I had project how I would like people to think of me as person when my time comes to an end. It took me several days before I lifted my pen and draw out from within me, desires of how I wante my life to be.

That was one of the steps I took so I could manage and take in charge of life. In my silence, I visulalized my body lying on a coffin and went through imagining what I would like people to hear about me as to how I would have lived my life. It was transformative for me, because the process helped me to identify milestones and hallmarks of the various aspects of my life - my career, my financial state, my emotional state, my values, my relationships, and my faith.

Likewise, the process brought me to a realization of the life continuum and the power of self will and self-discipline that God would also like His children to acquire. It empowered me in a great sort to establish my self and my dispositions in relation to the things that I do now. It also allowed me to see my frailties in the past, which I need to deal with to fulfill how I wanted myself to live my life.

It was also mushy for me, I did shed some tears after knowing that I can actually create my life script. I was mushy then because, my life was really topsy-turvy at that time. I succeeded though. Fact, many of the things that I wrote in personal eulogy had transpired, and I began to appreciate life at its best as lived with personal control.

It made me happier somehow and it gave me a positive perspective about death and its connection to life.

Moving Forward

2012-01-02T13:03:00.003+08:00

Time is an element that we consider to have influence on many of our affairs. So 2012 is here and it must be time to be moving forward and that means letting go of some memories that made us anxious in the past. This is not easy though, but it is really necessary.

In retrospect, the faults and follies we've experienced are products of our very own choices and people of course are involved in these. Should we then forget the people who caused those actions that hurt us? That perhaps is the only means that we can free our selves from its haunting anxiety.

We may have met people whom we thought were best for us, but consequently we realized that they are not what we thought they were capable of. That they had motives we were not able to understand in the times we felt we're happy with them. Then suddenly, right in our very eyes we get to know that all is but a lie.

People like these should be left behind in order for us to move forward. Yet, it is not easy, because a simple of thought of them pools a ripple of memories, sweet and incessant alike. How then do we erase such bad memories of our past? How is casting off our worries to the waters possible?

Detachment is the primary thing we have to do. That is to objectify the past we had with those people and the memories that go with them. Detachment is extrarational, that we had to treat the experiences we had with those people without our emotional attachment, from this moment on. We can do this by considering the past as something we had to go through so that we learn in the events that unfolded. More importantly, we can not let the past determine our future if we are to move forward.

The past year may have brought us both good and bad memories. Whichever we hold unto could affect our present way of thinking. We need to fill our mrind with good thoughts if we want to act positively. That means we have to find the right anchors to ponder about in retrospect and in our introspections of how we did in the past. That also means letting go of fond memories of people who hurt us. In such way we are allowing ourselves to have the right dispositions to move forward.

Past is past, now is the time to be moving forward.

What this world's teachers should celebrate?

2011-10-04T23:24:00.004+08:00

So there's this dedicated day for the world's teachers. Wow. That should flutter me. I am happy being one and each day of going to school to meet my students, the completion of a lesson and the demonstration that students learned something from me are enough compliments.

How I wish that one day for a teacher could be spent by affirmation and some relief from the stress of educating minds, both the diligent and the difficult ones. That's just a wishful thinking, for me, since I learned to accept that I was called for this profession and it is my apostolic ministry. Teaching being the noblest profession is I think the most difficult one, for those who have imbibed in their mindset and life system what teaching really is.

So what should a teacher celebrate? I guess, those many small things but are not valued by many in the world: having a chance to have shared even a piece of knowledge that has occupational application; having inspired a soul to have commitment to a life-changing decision; making inattentive students laugh awhile; knowing a student answer right, but who happens to always be wrong; hearing a student think aloud even though his view differs from what is commonly held; getting hold of a student's painstakingly worked learning output; and definitely seeing a student graduate, who happened to have spent very long years in school.

I have personal reasons to celebrate when my students excel. I am happy too, when I see my students commit to changing their mindset and their behavior towards learning. I have met too many difficult learners, including those that some teachers dare not to take in their class. I do, because I know that my obligation to teach is not just a plain work at all. To me, the becoming of teacher is only measured by being able to help the "hardest" to be taught learn to fend for his own learning.

On each day that I would meet my students, I have a personal measures that I am making an impact. That count to my knowledge of how effective I am in the class. It is beyong the systematic measures of evaluation, that students answer by shading numbers. Call it hunch or mere gut feel, but to me that is the most authentic means of knowing how effective a teacher is.

One, when students volunteer to do some favor you ask. Two, when students really inquire on things related to the lesson. Three, when a student say's goodbye to you with a thank you when you dismiss them. Lastly, when students can remember your name, because that is one anchor for all other knowledge that you have imparted to them.

I am not a perfect teacher. No one is. But, I try to be one damn good teacher, by avoiding what I hate from those teachers I have had. Yeah, I did have bad times with some teachers: with my first grade teacher who blamed me for some else's annoying behavior; with my third grade teacher who did not include me from being accelerated because I was a transferee; with my fourth grade adviser who whipped me with a stick because she could not manage my talkativeness.

Even when I reached some age, teachers had hot eyes on me: with my fourth year adviser who campaigned against me with my classmates; with my college teacher who failed me in a subject she moved on another schedule that caused my failure because I could not attend frequently; and with a university dean who sued me and other student paper staff because we unjustly vexed her manipulative act to shut the paper down. I love you all my dear teachers, you have taught me so much from all those things.

I have been in the academe for more than fifteen years. I have taught local and foreign students alike, here and abroad. I have met both the best and worst students in several schools. Though at sometimes I envy my friends who are earning well in the corporate world, I find myself a million times satisfied with where I am. Money could not buy that joy I find in this profession.

When I run across students whom I have taught, and they greet me -- there I know I am a teacher. That is an affirmation to me that I am someone who have been a part of one's life at one time or another. This world can never be what it is now, without teachers.

Happy teachers day to every mentor in the world! To my teachers who taught me, thank you for making one like you. Thank you my Rabbi for making me a teacher too.

Writing a Dissertation Proposal

2011-08-29T01:04:00.009+08:00

Throughout my coursework for a PhD in Communication, I have done researches individually and in groups. Every subject required the students to come up with a complete research paper. Since, I opted to fast track my coursework, I had to take three subjects every term, so that should have prepared me adequately for my dissertation work.

I thought I needed a break from studying right after I passed the candidacy exam. But, I enrolled for the dissertation right after summer of 2011. It took me a month to finally decide on a topic. I got off track with some ambitious ideas from hearing the experiences of DBA student doing his dissertation. I felt I could do even better than what he did, so I found myself downloading, printing and reading stuffs which I would just set aside lately.

I relied on a belief that I was half way done, because my topic is just an extension of a previous research I completed on Third Culture and Biracial Kids in college. I was wrong, because the moment I had the research problems defined, the content and context have changed. I may be studying the same participants, but the scope has greatly differed from the previous. I went over my earlier work to find what I could salvage, but I only found few to be relevant to the study I am doing now. Darn! I couldn't plagiarize my own work. Neither could I fill an empty page with block quotes.

I thought things would be easy as recycling an old work. When the reality that I am doing a dissertation and not just any term-end requirement settled in my mind, my attitude towards what I was doing altered. Ethics, responsibility and the discipline of research writing compelled me to act seriously and be more meticulous on what I read and what I write. I tried to grasp deeper and wider understanding of what others have known and found related to my topic. I tried to get hold of their key ideas and put them in my paper using my own words. Carefully, I restate their ideas with fidelity according to my understanding.

I hurdled mental blocks, by diverting my attention without leaving my target work undone with other tools. When words are not just there, I use visual organizers to give my left brain some rest and have my right brain do the thinking in creative ways. From the first set of research questions I have written, I found the necessity to revise them when my study framework has been diagrammed, after I listed all the variables that are included in my general research question. I found myself doing this at times I lack the words.

Reading took much of my time, but I couldn't write anything without going through the voluminous number of pages in books, journals, and other publications that matter in my study. Taking down notes, in paraphrases and verbatim have really been useful to me, as these substantiate my thoughts about the subject I am investigating. As read more critically and actively, I get to think aloud (literally) to process those thoughts I've read while I pause from going through the text, while a take a leak or get a smoke break.

Even at times that I turn in to bed, my mind would still be thinking about what I was writing. Sometimes, an idea would just popped in my head at times of silence, and I had to grab a paper to put it down so I can remember. At other times, even my fingers would gesture some thoughts creeping in my head about my study. So the way to give myself a break from all these dissertation syndrome is to get myself busy with my office works and teaching works, if I don't have the opportunity to go malling or watching a movie.

I took the advise of a colleague who just earned his PhD, that at least I should have a page written about my topic in a day. He esteemed me so much in his belief that I could write, as he has read my blogs. My problem is when I work on something, I don't leave it undone. As my resolve, I would either set a target to finish a section or certain number of pages for my dissertation proposal. And, it worked well for me. I worked on chunks or sections of a chapter at least in a day when I have time.

Another adjustment I did is to leave my work in the workplace, so I can just focus on my dissertation paper at home. I could not write my paper in the workplace, because I feel that is denying my job the work due me. But, in idle times, when I get bored of my office paper works, I pull a book, flip on its pages and write down notes that I think are important to my study. Since, I work in a school, the library resources provide me ample materials to do my research paper. With other experts around, and those who have completed their PhD's I get free advise and consultation. But, I have not exhausted this much. When I finish the proposal, that's an option.

Writing the dissertation is not the same as writing a term-end coursework requirement. This is true for me, as I believe that a PhD dissertation is an intelligent contribution to the world's knowledge. It is symbolic to define a PhD graduate's competency in doing research and in making sense of truths and realities in his field of expertise. It is a measure of one's depth and breadth of knowledge about his field that will have implications in the course of human life across time and generations. That is, if one takes the nature of a dissertation seriously as a theory-building effort, nothing less.

On Falling and Rising Again: The Winner and Loser's Mindsets

2011-08-20T00:06:00.003+08:00

There seems to me a line drawn clearly between losers and winners in life. Losers fall and can’t stand quickly. They spend more time on the ground whereas they can really stand. Winners fall but are quickened in spirit to get up and move on. Losers look back and see what or who’s behind them. But winners fix their eyes forward, thinking of overcoming their weaknesses and so getting the prize.

Both winners and losers fall – the difference is that real life winners fall by grace and they stand with grace. Losers fall in shame, remain longer in shame and stand in self-pity, envy, egotism and hopelessness.

Life is a race. We must race to the finish, aiming for the prize, the best honor – all the best that life could give and the best we could do with it. But we must race and run for the prize. Finishing the race is a prize in itself; getting the honor of racing first, second or third does not really matter at all, since in the end the laurels will lose their luster and so do we. Making and breaking records is another thing, it makes our names eternal, virtually.

Winners race with a goal. Losers race aimlessly. But both are running the same track. Winners are real sportsmen. They are proud of other’s victory and express their happiness for someone’s honor in winning. Losers pride in single or several short-lived victories. They show cunning in defeating others. Winners are esteemed to grow strongly and do better in every run. Losers brag about their strengths and use them against others. Winners are comfortable in making a good finish. Losers enjoy beating others and are seeking more attention to self.

I failed to obtain something I desired. I failed from the very start desiring it. I failed because that wasn’t the race I should be running. So I didn’t succeed. Instead I fell and stumbled because it was an obstacle race. That was the race I have tried to avoid because my agility and strength do not give me profit for taking it. I’ve taken that race before. I won and lost, lost and won, won and lost again. Like the track, it is a cycle never ending. I have found myself to be better in walking and running on clear straight path without obstacles, without hassles. Am I a coward? No I walk and run fearlessly with aim for the great prize.

I fell but I rose with grace. I stand in equanimity. I learn at every fall. I strain my body to be fit for the race where I am better. I train others freely who desires to make a good finish in life. But I can only accommodate those who are willing to be trained and who could trust me for whatever I learned by experience. I race, with time as my friend. And time is so valuable to waste on anyone who will come for a training, ask for some help and advice but never really follow. I’m patient to handle such people. However, neither I nor they will profit with that kind of attitude.

Discipline, focus, determination, submission, willingness, effort are all I require for apprenticeship. I can bear the pain and agony of training for others, but I can’t make any winners out of those who rest comfortably being losers. If I see my prodigies rising from wherever they fall trying their best to make an honorable finish… that makes me happier, that alone suffices and satisfies me. With them I could extend my patience, until death bed takes me. Hey… I’m no athlete, not even a coach. I’m just a couch potato you could take as your life coach though.

Love is a mental state

2011-08-14T11:56:00.005+08:00

"Love is a mental state" that was what I learned from a teenager mentee I have, one time I had a chance having lunch with them. It is a mental state because we configure everything in our mind of whom to love, how to love, why to love, when and where to love. That great feeling when one is in love is also predisposition to the immediate situation.

There is a philosophical basis to believe that love is a mental state. The phenomenology of love is experienced in varied ways by individuals. The meaning of love is unique to every person. People interpret and give value to the situation, in their experience of another person, actions, words and the feelings attached to those. The good feeling of being in relationship with another is construed, logically to the abstractions of love.

Scientifically, love is a mental state. It draws material bases on the human emotions that are perceived selectively and then interpreted and given value by the mind, as a response to a stimuli. It is associated to the psychological need of sense of belongingness, security and self-actualization. As a need, it is configured in our heads as something desirable. Hence, finding the desirable in someone results to admiration, wanting and so loving.

Sociologically, our sense of self is negotiated in relation to others. We find meaning to our self in relationships with others. As we socially interact, we learn of others' satisfying experiences of loving someone, so we dare explore the situations to find a partner to share love with. Basically, we learn this from our parents, from whom we model our relational behavior with others. Hence, the way we will handle relationships reflects of how our parents demonstrated love to us.

Theologically, love is presented in its most ideal sense of being unconditional, infinite and ever flowing. Love as St. Paul teaches is patient, kind, forgiving, never envious, rejoices in the truth, humble and self-giving. Divine love serves as model for the moral foundations of human love in relation to other people. Here, the self is shared to someone and to everyone, in several concrete ways more than that of its affective values.

In all those construals of love, it remains a phenomenon in the lived experiences of people. What it means lies in the cognitive and metacognitive constructs of the individual who interprets the experiences and the emotions that go with the experiences. As a mental state, it remains abstract, mysterious and evolving to make people go crazy about it.

Why do fools fall out of love?

2011-08-06T13:23:00.004+08:00

Fools fall in love and they fall out of love too as fools. Because love has a blinding force to attract persons together and overwhelm them with pleasurable and self-gratifying emotions, the experience of love becomes an irrational state only known to fools. The unexplainable reasons of falling out of love undermined by emotions are also known only to fools.

Romantic relationships develop from an intimate social interaction. Intimacy in social interaction is characterized by the depth of shared selves between partners, and its degree is increased by the quality and quantity of communication taking place. Thus, falling out of love is affected by how partners value and practice communication that bonded them in the first place.

To put communication out of the equation in any relationship leaves two parties in a disinterested position, distant, non-interacting and with a potential to move away from having any connection at all. Communication is that vital link that allows individuals to find meaningful connections, understanding of differences and establishing trust to one another. Damaged trust is one indicator of poor or ineffective communication taking place, and a cause of why fools fall out of love.

Falling in love begins with an admiration of perceivable traits. With communication, individuals get to know each other at a deeper level. There, the sharing of likeable complementary traits result to validation and verification of trust. At that time, when people unconsciously ignore the thought of possible conflicts between them because they are overwhelmed with that fulfilling feeling of falling in love, expectations are not set.

In the continuance of the relationship, roles and expectations are developed. Unmaintained roles become an issue which violates an expectation. Expectations that are not expressed, are never understood and they are not realized. Violated expectations lead to a damage trust. Relationships begin with uncertainties and people in relationships certainly find their selves in that trap.

At a time that expectations are violated trust gets to be thinner to keep partners holding on to what they have had before. If they don't listen and talk to what each other is feeling and thinking about the situation, the damage trust leads to a split. Only during the split, partners find some time to think. This split provides a space and time to reflect on the relationship that has been.

But a split is construed to be a voluntary break up of the relationship. It is not the same as cooling off. Nevertheless, cooling off that is not definite of time and purpose also leads to splitting up. These are periods of silence. Such event is problematic to both parties because they think more about each other without apparent evidences validated through communication.

The easiest way to justify a discontinued romantic relationship is falling out of love. Apparently, dysfunctional communication behavior has a great deal to do to arrive at such state. Simply, because we become fools to ignore that relationships are built with healthy, intimate, open and other-centered communication. On the opposite, we only consider communication as self-serving. We don't listen and we talk of things out of the context of the relationship.

Do my parents still love me?

2011-07-29T00:06:00.006+08:00

"I am more at home in school, I would like to stay longer in school than to be in the house, with a mother who seem not to know me at all."

"I hate my mother, when all that is important for her is just money and she does not even pay attention to my needs and my personal problems... so I hooked up with many boyfriends and even tried drinking and drugs."

"I'd rather be with my grandparents because they listen more to me, my parents they don't really care about me, because they are too busy with our family business."

Such thoughts verbalized put me dumbfounded. I could feel a sense of trust to be reading and hearing those, but they also shock me to realize what some or many young people could be missing in their development years. Reflecting puts me back into my actualized self with gratitude and confidence that my parents have provided me the love they could afford.

Home and school are separate social spaces sharing performative roles in the development of every child. The students I am handling are not adults yet, but adolescents. They embody the youth who could be sharing the same issues with their parents. Most of them are in the upper middle class of our society with parents busy at work or in business, if not separated or physically absent.

What struck me the most on this issue is that a student one morning asked me: ""When parents are always strict, do they still love their children?" What I heard was a representative of the mimed voices of young people, feeling bad about how their parents are rearing them. But, I could suspect that this signals misunderstanding of the constructs of love and discipline.

On the background where other thoughts, saying that in other countries it is just wrong to treat any child that strict, that it is child abuse. I understood that again as lacking grasp of the fundamental concepts of discipline, legal rights and child development, that most young people mistake to be unfair and a sign of being not loved. That happened all at one time during our open sharing on attitude in my academic advising class.

Putting the issue in the context of family communication, it is clear that those students whose points of views I shared in here are challenged in their experiences of dysfunctional family structures, ambiguous role assignments, misunderstanding of functions, and unexpressed affirming emotions. In other words, they find themselves in a mere dependent or co-dependent relations without symbolizing, signifying and valuing the meaning of family.

More than material things, more than working hard for money, more than dining out, more than having fun, more than going to church at the same time, more than sending children to good schools, it pays to share the meaning of doing all these through casual conversations. There is a richer collateral to keep a healthy communication among family members to build a stronger relationship and a deeper understanding of each needs.

When parents intend to discipline their children out of an unexpected behavior the immediate response is a punitive one. Nagging, pinching, hitting, whipping, swearing, blaming and grounding the child for their actions are the parents' response or form of reinforcement to a negative behavior. True, many parents don't know the impact of these to their child's esteem particularly when other people can see. And, very few would actually process the situation with their children.

Thus, these reinforcement compound to be associated by young people as either strictness or not being cared for. While little time is spent by parents to stay with their children, the children are more deprived to bond with parents as the former spends their own time in other means. With their friends, online and offline, and the unmonitored school schedule they have, children with "strict' parents would rather stay away from home to find a space where they are attended to.

These children who grew up with punishment as reinforcement only learn the pain of it, and not really its relevance to being disciplined. They too will apply the same to their children even worse than which they experienced. But if the children knew that they are different from their actions, and they understand what needed correction in their behavior and they were taught how to rectify their ill-conduct and wrong attitude, they will grow up in discipline and be better parents that they can be.

Being strict is never wrong. Discipline to a child is never wrong. But they have limitations, while being strict is an attitude, discipline is a process. Both have to be contextualized in the frames of family love, parental love to children and caring for every member of the family. Family culture in its own dynamics operate in honoring the family and caring for its members. To discipline with consistency an affirming attitude is never strict nor constricting but liberating a soul from being wrong.

How did I answer my student's question as to whether his parents love him even if they are strict. My answer was simple, no parents want their children to do wrong, as they all want them to be in the right. Having the right attitude, behaving appropriately, becoming better to stand on their own and to succeed in life are what parents want for their children. Being strict is a way for parent to discipline their children. Parents discipline their children because they love them. If parents see that their children have the discipline they expect, there is no reason for them to be "strict".

I furthered, parents get angry, they get mad because they feel that what they expect were violated. They feel such because they love their children. It should worry the children more if they parents tend to ignore even their wrong behavior or ignore them all the more. That is not love anymore, because the parents have become indifferent to their child's situation. What then should children do for their parents, if they love them and need them in their life? That's our next discussion point.

I didn't Know How to Start

2011-07-24T00:48:00.004+08:00

There is an ambitious me, that has always been me in my plight as a graduate student. I have always wanted to make a contribution to human knowledge. Proof of which, the first proposal I drafted for my MA thesis was overrated as a dissertation paper rather than a master’s thesis.

At that time, my panelists had no questions or criticism about the research problem, its aims, methodology and the extensive review of related literature I drafted, except that it was “too ambitious” and they feared I could not handle it. MA candidates were just expected to test theories or models by applying or modifying existing instruments.

They discussed and sent me out only to ask me if I really wanted to pursue the study. I said yes, but after being intimidated by their lack of appreciation for a study above expected standards, I took the flight to work abroad, leaving them a promise that I will be defending my final paper the coming semester via online.

Seven years passed then, I inquired of possibilities of continuing my MA. Fortunately, after examining my scholastic records, the Dean approved my request on condition that I would take a penalty course of 3 units. I took the liberty of enrolling full 9 units assuming that those subjects could really help me. Only the Research Design coursed really helped me to prepare my MA thesis.

While I took the refresher course, I started to draft my proposal, which I also presented in the research class. Positive comments overwhelmed me, from my professor and my classmates. I consulted my previous professors and those at that time about my proposal. Only one of them was negative about my proposal, but Insisted to pursue it.

A month after the term I passed my proposal defense without any revision. Three months after I successfully defended my thesis with a highly satisfactory mark, with negligible revisions on mechanics and style alone. Their comment was the same from the previous: my thesis was not ordinary but as good as a dissertation.

Back then the ambitious me was successful in my personal endeavor to contribute to knowledge. From that research I was able to write two other researchers as application studies that I presented nationally and internationally. But, here I am in a dilemma, and I am writing about so that I may be able to objectify my situation to come up with directions.

All 14 research papers I did in my PhD courses had excellent reviews. They are original, relevant, interesting, beneficial and rigorous to qualify as dissertation materials. I know I can write a dissertation. I know how to do the research. I know the processes, the methodology, the concepts and the theories. However, I am in a slump, procrastinating, waiting for a muse to inspire me, juggling old papers to start with, and reading so many things not quite that I need.

Then, I was able to put up models, build theories and devise instruments. Now, I am not even sure of a definite research topic to pursue. I guess, I got to find that scholar back in me, and it has to be pretty soon. Writing this post is just a means for me to reflect on my situation. I didn’t know how to start but I am doing now.

Generation Z

2011-07-16T18:04:00.006+08:00

Zombies, we now have a growing generation of it. I must confess I am being zombified. This is because of the lack of sleep due to excessive waste of time online. Included in the generation are teenagers and some adults who spend extensive period at night staying online.

To my part, I begin to notice the consequence of this elective sleep deprivation. Every time that I am at work, I stammer, spell some words incorrectly, type with more errors, space out in between and forget my personal things, like that of my flash disk still plugged in my classroom workstation (lost three already). Further, I get to feel some muscle twitches, pains in the muscle around my eyes, neck pains and the sense of being afloat.

Whenever, I lack sleep, I get to drink several cups of coffee the next day, that I could smell the aroma from my pee. I get fatigue, so I get more prone to stress and anger. When I don't sleep I smoke more in my front of my desktop. Am I really working at night at my best as nocturnal?

I reason that way, that I am a night person and that nighttime is just best for me to work while others are asleep in the house so no one's going to disturb me. But, I am not really working till dawn when I am in front of the computer. I am just surfing, chatting, looking and watching. Many of the things I do with the Internet are not even important at all to my career.

Zombified online, that's what I have become. I recall the same situation even before I had Internet access when I work with the computer. It just doesn't make me sleep. Perhaps, the visual stimulation that the screen gives keeps my brain to be working that only until I have turned it off that I would feel the fatigue, in my eyes and in my body.

Before the computers some 20 years ago, I would rather sleep at 8 or 9 at night and wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning to study my lessons, review for exams and work on my assignments. With enough sleep my body is alert through out my classes and I get to see myself happier and livelier. I could not blame the power of technology as it is important to make our tasks more efficiently. I have to look into my routine with using technology.

I can not let myself and my life be ruled and ruined by my routine of staying online and depriving my self of sleep. But, this way of thinking is not commonly shared by the many younger generation nowadays. The zombie generation among the teens need some prodding from their concerned parents to guide them and to help them devise a more productive routine.

Studies show that insomnia does not come out without a cause, that it results from sleep deprivation due to other factors like stress or excessive work and others. I have several students who tell me that they could not sleep at night because they have insomnia, but then they get to sleep early in the morning for a few hours before they go to school. Insomnia is not an elective sleep disorder, it is a bodily reaction to abnormal sleeping.

Lately, I notice that my students are either hyperactive, dull, uninterested, lacking self-control, sleepy or just tired. In one of my lecture, I gave them the rule of thirds in budgeting their time, that 1/3 of their daily life or weekly life must be sent to give their body and brain some rest through sleeping 8 hours a day. I explained that sleeping that much is necessary for them.

Studies show that sleeping time need varies but the amount of healthy sleep for any person should be between 6.5 - 8 hours. Other studies also tell specific night hours for a healthy sleep, right before and after midnight, from 9 pm to 5 am. To my shock I discovered that my students are not sleeping the way they ought to because throughout the night they are online.

Being a member of their online group, I could receive popping message from several students at 2 am or 3 am, while their class the next day is at 8 am. They are online for no reason at all. They tell me that they are doing their school stuffs online. That should please me as their academic adviser, but when reports got to my hands, many of them have incomplete online activities and they don't even do well in their online exams.

I could assume that I have a Generation Z type of z-tudents, who are merely z-urfing the net for their z-elf z-atisfaction. Sadly, they are not aware of the implications of their sleep deprivation, that they don't even realize that they are walking zombies at day time. With that, no matter how active the learning experience is given them, at the little, their memory of things taught them z-imply z-lump. They may not zzzz-nor in the class, but their mind is just zapped and z-paced out that they become zoupy in when they try to think with wide eyes open.

It would hurt, that the generation Z type of students seem z-tupid that they z-leep in the class, or just z-hut their brains from working though their eyes are open. Thus, in an opportunity I had to meet with my students parents, I boldly asked them if they know what time their children sleeps. One parent said his daughter sleeps at 11 or 12 and wakes up at 5:30. That leaves the child sleeping for around 5.5 hours, 30 minutes less than the minimum healthy sleep time.

I have no idea, for how long this routine has been going on with my students. But, I just have to make a daring advise to parents to compel their children not to lock their rooms at night, and unplug the Internet connection, get their communication gadgets from their hold, simply to ensure that the students will get to sleep right. For me, I have started opening the window blinds during my class to kill the zombie out of me and my students.

Though, at my age now, I am thinking that it is a misnomer that sleep hour requirement decline as one ages. I feel I need that healthy sleep all the more. So, I'll be adjusting my routine and start sleeping 2 hours earlier before midnight and wake up before the sun rises. Well, studies also tell that those who sleep healthily live longer, happier, healthier, with higher productivity and better personality. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

How men deal with stressing problems

2011-07-15T11:10:00.007+08:00

Psychologist, Dr. Gray, in his book Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, explains and describes the difference between men and women in dealing with stressful situations. It is fact that there is gender difference, between males and females, due to their biological and psychological make-up, and it is also influenced by one's cultural orientation. Hence, we can misread or misunderstand people depending on the context of how we are looking at them in the way they deal with stress.

A man has his way of arriving at solutions to a problem. Why men go out with their peers for a drink after work is one means of unloading stress. Another is when a man seeks solitude as to be away from anyone else, including his family, friends or loved ones. These are illustrations of the man's defense mechanism of fight and flight, which neurologist establishes to be due to the right and left brain hemispheres at work.

The fight and flight mechanism is normally observed among men as they face stressful, threatening or high risk situations. Culturally, this may vary in degrees as there are pre-existing factors in the matrix, such as beliefs and values systems that could influence one's attitude and behavior towards the problem. Like in Filipino cultural system, our faith and fatalism leads one to take even the uncalculated risk because of that "Bahala na"mentality as the last resort.

Societies have set in their culture the appropriate behavior for the sexes, but in real life people could disregard the differences between emotional states of the two gender, that one expects to see a performed behavior in ways that contradict the nature of the person. So, we feel that different way of acting as deviant, unwarranted or inappropriate, compared to the rest of the social aggregate. But, looking at the cultural difference between gender, brings a light into the understanding of our emotions and experiences.

When I was threatened to be dismissed in my previous job because of an accusation of concessions or money-making means through extortion of money, I took an immediate flight from that difficult situation.

The allegations were not true and there were no evidences at all, but because of the administration's solution to put me under preventive suspensions for the investigation (without pay!!!), I rationalized that I rather leave because there was no use of coming to work at all. But, inside me was that strong anxiety of having nothing to provide for my family, giving them shame and the fear of losing my worth and my face to my colleagues.

Right there and then, I resigned as I was summoned by the HR officer who could not give me a justifiable complaint except for that expressed suspicion from the new vice president. After which, I locked my self in the office and cried to God as I was determined to leave while I pack my things. That was me taking flight from the stressing problem, from which I got stuck at home for a quarter of a year jobless and job hunting.

Men find "alone time" comfortable, and this also illustrates the flight and fight mechanism. In my country, I could hang out with friends just to drink and have fun to de-stress. When I worked in the middle east, I find solace in staying away from my colleagues, leaving the house, sitting on a hill, or just walking in the mall and dining on my own, all "alone". While alone, my creative right brain is stimulated to give my left problem solving brain a time to think of solutions.

Alone time takes some length differently from one person to another, from days to months. But this could be shorter, if one is able to recognize the feelings from the experience, sort out the problems, unload those heavy emotional stressors to arrive at a solution. The man in his alone time or flight time is fighting the problem. Others around him, just have to understand that and never stop to make the person feel that he can always find comfort from them.

Because the man would not like to talk and express his emotions, he carries the burden that for others may seem irrational. But, that is the nature of the man. More recently, in my work I found an escape goat to be in contact with my boss by staying away from her and even ignoring her concern that we talk things out. That lasted for two months, until I realized that I have to work with her for my tenure, without any emotional bond, but merely a professional one.

A flight is also a man's way to fight the problem. It is not fight or flight, but flight and fight. The way this works vary also between men as to their introversion and extroversion tendencies. the man will not likely involve others whom he care for with his problems while he finds solutions. This we will demonstrate in his silence, sleeping time, hanging out, smoking or drinking. But, it doesn't mean he loves less the people he value, its just the way he is.

I thought I Was a Garbage Truck

2011-07-11T23:02:00.010+08:00

I was reading a book critique written by Jinha, a Korean student in my English class. She was able to manage writing a nice critique where she was able to review, evaluate and reflect on the thoughts of her chosen self-help book. What struck me the most was how she picked great insights from the book, which she expounded.In her critique, she quoted David Pollay witty erudition on the Law of the Garbage Truck:

"Many people are like garbage trucks. they run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me. You'll be happier" (Pollay, 2010, p.10).

I appreciated her work so, much that I posted the quote on my Facebook wall as stats. Striking thoughts like this, get me into thinking, and not until I flush my insights somewhere else will I be satisfied that I have been critical about my thoughts. Thus, I go back to some sort of management principles I learned from my MBA class and the school called life.

Ever heard of GIGOLOIL? That to me stands for: Garbage In, Garbage Out, Laugh Out in Life. Happiness is so abstract, yet a strong state of emotion that we all love to be feeling at all times in our lives. This principle and process spells that what we take in is also what give out. But, if we want to live a happy life, then we must decide and act for that happiness.

Attitude is key to happiness in life. Our attitude is influenced by our personal worldview or mindset that predetermines our behavior towards others and towards life. Our attitude is a spectrum, but in its ends are positive and negative thoughts and feelings that work as a push and pull for our behavior. I realized this to be true in daily living and especially in our relationships.

While I am happy with my partner, I also enjoy the time we could stay together. However, our schedules don't fit for us to spend more time. While I could cut from my appointments, my partner can't. One time, I expected we could meet, and I even planned to drop an important appointment just for that. But, uncertain that we have a chance to be with each other that day, negative thoughts crept in my mind.

I turned raging on even little things, as I felt frustrated, ignored and not valued. The best thing I could do was to sleep so those negative feelings can be repressed. I had to be still, I had to master my emotion or it will lord me. When negative thoughts like those fill me, other negative thoughts would pop in. I found my self lacking interest to complete anything that I had to do, even if it is due. All the happy thoughts we had were just like turned into something else - like garbage.

Negative thoughts, emotions, attitudes and behavior are garbage that need to be disposed. The unknowing can just throw these anywhere or to anyone. They hurt, as they contain pain, suffering, angst, fear and anger. Many find lashing and nagging others as an outlet, but that is merely dumping the garbage on others. What then happens to others is that they will just dump that on someone else. Everything else then becomes a dump site.

Good, I was quick to realize that there is something stinking inside me. I was mad without really understanding why, and I was dumping that rage on others. While, we were still exchanging sweet text messages, there were those negative thoughts lurking in my head, shooting me like snares, telling me to dump those negative thoughts right there and then. I got to be still, as we should all be in such situation.

I accepted the fact, that we might not really be able to meet that time. I kept with my routine and move on, went to the church for my service. I acknowledged my emotions, and I sorted them as to how they charge me negatively or positively. I began to thank and think of the positive things we had and my partner has brought in my life. There I realize, that there are more things I should appreciate rather than discard, and what ought to be discarded are those negative emotions I was trying to entertain.

It didn't end there, before I sleep that night, I had to list down on piece paper what I really felt that day, and process them by determining where they came from. Then, I looked at them again and thought of their implications and worth. Eventually, I arrived at practical solutions with a realization, that I was wrong to be making myself act like a garbage truck. That solution is that of a personal choice to live my life happy, laughing out in life, and seeing it more positively in the light of things.

Moving On

2011-07-08T19:41:00.008+08:00

In moving on, the sojourner keeps in his backpack only the essentials that made his life meaningful in the past, the joys that are light, and the memoirs of happiness. With someone else, he takes the journey anew mapping out all that is good before, what is better for now and what will do best in the future. He may take the new journey with someone from his past or a new one in his present.

We are sojourners in this world. We all walk in this life for someone we love or to find someone to love. We move from one place to another. We meet people as we journey. There are those who journey alone, while others want some company. Even those who journey alone later on gets weary and finds the need for a company. The truth is, we all need someone in our sojourns.

The decision to move on is a tough one. It is difficult because we would like to linger on the past, even if it is a hurtful past. It is because that past has become our comfort zone and it is inconvenient for us to leave that past behind. In that past, there are people we loved who we learned to endure because we love them. But since, we are no longer growing with them, we feel it is better to move on in separate ways. Our desire to keep that past prevents us from moving on to another state of life.

Untying ties with people of one's past does not mean condemning them, but merely redefining our relationship with them. Our good memories with them must not be repressed by the hurts, neither should we ignore them nor regard that they never existed at all in our lives. Even those that hurt us the most, have made our lives meaningful for us to be better in the light, against their shadow character. Sure we had joys with them and happy moments to remember aswell. Like in leaving a house as guests, we have to be polite in finding our exit.

It would do the sojourner better to fit into his backpack, very few essentials, the smallest of all survival kits including a map of dreams, a small journal of good memories, a book to go by with life, a pill of courage, a bottle of passion to succeed, a cookie of openness for new experiences, a nutribar of concern to share with another, a pen filled with optimism, a light of hope, a blanket of warmth, a mobile communication to stay connected with love ones, and a huge space to pack in all other things new that can be acquired from moving on.

We can not carry luggage as we sojourn. We need to pack our things light and taking with us only the essential. The most important of which is a map of where we want to go, a map of who we are and who we want to be. So in the completion of a recent journey, we look forward to something else without losing our memory of our life before, while all the good is packed on our back. But if we carry a luggage, we can not move on and enjoy another journey.

Mapping our journey is planning for our new life. That is thinking of our present and looking forward to a future. As sojourners, we can do this with someone else, but the decision should remain ours to make. We can seek a guide whom we can ask to be with us, but if we only see a company as guide, that person can not be with us for a long time we might need them the most. A guide remains in his post for other travellers.

But if we find another sojourner along the way, who shares the same map with us, we can find the journey more enjoyable with that company. A companion in the journey must be necessary, especially if we are trekking trails that we have never been to. With that companion, we can share our fears, our sighs, our worries, and we can even lean our tired backs on each other. That companion has to be trustworthy, caring, enduring, concerned, feeling, understanding, talking and really listening.

With a companion sharing the same map, wanting the same direction, it is never an issue to get lost in the journey or to be delayed in the journey. For all we know that is what a journey is for, finding someone to enjoy where and when we find a worthy companion for each other. That in end we may not regretfully ask, "why have we been looking out for things from somewhere else, when what we really wanted and needed is right here, right now, right where we are?"

The Pathological Liar

2011-07-04T23:28:00.007+08:00

A lie is a means of deception and a defense mechanism. There is a moral consequence to telling lies and some social repercussions. Because of the implications of lies one is pushed to do it to save face while the other is prevented from committing one, also to save face. A lie is supposed to be not of the truth, not necessarily the opposite of truth.

To keep something from being known is not telling a lie, but merely keeping something in secret. One can't force someone to tell something openly when there are concerns in divulging such information or knowledge. Telling of falsity or fabricating information are direct lies. While we have the liberty to express our ideas, we also extend the same liberty to telling lies.

Deliberate lies can become habitual lies. For a liar whose habit is speaking of falsehood, lies become their realities where they find comfort and convenience than facing the truth and speaking of truth. People of pretense are liars. Hypocrites are liars to their social nature. Liars are treacherous people and they have little regard for others than their selves whom they are never able to understand anymore.

Lying is a learned behavior that is observed in social interactions. To have sense of security and belongingness, some people resort to please others with lies. Like schmoozers who will try to please someone else in stature and with high influence to others, they can lick your ass to tell you what you want to hear and agree on everything you say. They will weave stories to tell you but never live those stories for you to really see.

Lying results from anxieties, and it goes with an immediate feeling of false certainty that it might work out. Those who suffered from alienation and exclusion tend to develop the habit of lying to appease and please others. Those who had experienced strong social rejections create a world of lies to make others believe some obscured realities. They are afraid to lose face, to be left out, to be casted out, to accept their situation and to let others accept their truths.

Lying works out on several tries, but when the other party begins to sense the inconsistencies in the weaved stories, a gap in the relationship will soon break. The farther the gap becomes, the clearer the lie is seen. Lying is also purposive, it is intentional, but it works one-way, like a win-lose situation. The liar tries to win others but in the end when the lie is brought to light, the liar loses.

Extreme lying has association to neuroticism and to some fixations. One who may be so obsessed of beauty, lies in vanity and bodifications. One who has been so obsessed of material things feels deprivation in the meager things he has, so he lies through acquisition of others'things by borrowing or stealing. One who can not acknowledge his own weakness cheats. The many social deviances or behavioral aggressions have links to lying.

There are non-verbal cues to lying, but it takes an expert in kinesics and semiotics to understand the relationship between the words and the actions' meanings. They also vary culturally. Consistency is a prime suspect to determine lies, but one should be very careful to see the erratic pattern in the stories told in various episodes of the social interaction. It probably takes the mastery of understanding social interactions and their implications to the content and context of communication to immediately detect lying.

What is immediate to common sense is that a liar is in a pathetic situation. A pathological liar who lives a world of lies is sick, socially and psychologically. Is there an over the counter drug to cure the said illness? I guess, if lies are not of the thruth, and truth is light, bringing the lie into the truth puts the liar in the light. Light heals and it does not burden. Everything that is in the light rejoices in the truth. The truth may hurt, but it never kills unlike that of the lie.

A Post for G

2011-07-04T00:46:00.008+08:00

I do want to write about you and for you in this blog. For several times I've attempted so, but I turned out leaving the page for the post blank, if not unfinished and I had to begin again from scratch. I thought, "I was keeping this blog for various readers, and I did not start this for you". So should I be writing for you and about you?

We tick. We manage to keep on even if our working timezones are different. Your disturbing text messages put smile on my face and I get so excited to check my inbox again and again. My inbox has been filled with your messages, so I had to delete all files from the storage, but I can't erase you in my head, as my hearts speaks more of you often, and I am needing you all the more.

So short a time for us to have known each other, and I know there are many other things that we will discover together. If not for that rain, we would have not been soaked in intimate passion and we would have not been looking forward to the coming days that we will spend together, rain or shine no longer matters. Yet, we are now weaving dreams together.

You were lonely then as you told me, I was lonesome too. I have not been tired of waiting for someone I kept my heart for in the last six years. You were in love with someone else for nine years until your ways separated. Suddenly, the chemistry between us worked like potion to strike me into thinking about you. Like you, I find myself spacing out when I am not busy, merely thinking of you.

We were just so connected, then we began to be expressing how we care for each other. Like kids, we did not understand what was going on, but we just keep on going because the feeling is mutual and we reciprocate our emotional needs. We feel a sense of security and belongingness when from each other, even if we don't spend much time together. You say you are happy with me around, and I feel the same way.

We could stay together all night, not wanting tomorrow to come. We would steal a kiss as we part ways, and our hands could find their ways to hold each other tight. We tried things we've probably not done before to surprise each other. We never failed in sharing the joy we feel, even the little times we stay together.

You understood, we had so many things in common. I said, we should be complementing each other even if there were so many differences that we have. Easily, we developed that trust, respect and mutual understanding. So, you included me in your dreams you want to happen, and you became a part of my life.You said, you found a life-coach in me, while I see a life-partner in you.

Are we friends or are we lovers, to care for each other this much? Is caring for each other so different from loving each other, when we can't even define what love is? Why then do we feel a need to be together, when we have no formal arrangements of what we are? I don't understand, you can't explain it to me either.

All I know is that sometimes in life we do not have a need to understand or explain things. The best of life comes when we get to enjoy and appreciate the feeling we have for someone we care for. No one enjoys the thrills and joys of a roller coaster ride by theorizing on G-force and pneumatics to operate the machine, while on it. We just have to take the ride and so enjoy the feeling, till we are there.

Reading Well and Speaking Better

2011-06-28T22:52:00.006+08:00

One student made me think today with a question he asked over the FB chatroom: "Is it possible that a person who speaks well is a poor reader?"

In principle, there are four components to proficient reading, vocabulary, oral language, word recognition and comprehension, as described by the American Educational Research Association (2004). Reading is a process of decoding and comprehension. Decoding is that process of articulating the sounds of words that the eyes see or that form of word recognition which leads to the understanding or comprehension of the text. Comprehension results from decoding and cognitively processing what was decoded.

Decoding a text requires a good vocabulary and a degree of mastery in the oral language. The symboling process of language operates vis-a-vis with the recognition of the signs, sounds and the object being signified by the symbols. Each letter in a word has an equivalent phone. One's understanding of the text depends on his ability to decode the text.

Though reading requires some mastery of the oral language, an adequate vocabulary and demonstrable word recognition, the most important aspect of reading is that of comprehension. Through reading our vocabulary is expanded, and so our oral language. As we get to learn new words we recognize them and they become part of our vocabulary.

Our understanding of the signification process requires us to associate it with the sound and the letters. Then our knowledge of the text content and our skills in language are enriched as we read more. Because comprehension is a sense or meaning-making process, those who are not well-read will have little to share in the discourse process.

In day to day discourses, we can differentiate a person who speaks with sense from those who just blab words and weave disconnected thoughts. That is not effective speaking. Once influence to others, by speaking, is attributed to several factors, vocal quality, non-verbal abilities and of course content. It is the latter that actually makes sense to a greater degree.

In more intelligent discussions or conversations, such as in the academe, the corporate and even in politics, sense in content and context matter so much. The vocal qualities and non-verbal abilities become essential to amplify the message of the content, than the reverse. Those who read a lot and read effectively as demonstrated in their comprehensive understanding of what they read, has more sensible things to share.

There is less likelihood for poor readers to be better speakers. But, the odds are higher that those who read effectively have richer vocabulary, expansive sense of the world and an outstanding verbal ability. Again, this also depends on the quality and type of reading material that people engage with, and so with their desire to be socially sharing their learned knowledge from reading.

One may have the most beautiful vocal timbre in the world, but without the knowledge to share and language skills needed for social interaction, the voice is useless.

Serendipity

2011-06-20T23:26:00.009+08:00

I ran across the theory of serendipity once, pertaining to accidental finding of some valuable information in the massive archived information particularly applicable to Internet-based data. In social science research, serendipity is that phenomenon of having to obtain findings which the researcher did not intend to find.

In the randomness of things that require one to expect of a pattern, serendipity is nothing but coincidence or an accident. It is unimportant and could be misleading to that of the normative value. In life, serendipity is a sort of a happy accident. A valuable find in an un-anticipated moment which can be life changing. The consequence of which is a new relationship.

Serendipity in social relationships is that form of unexpected interaction, or a clique between individuals. Such is an awesome event for them, because there is a positive affect which becomes a wonderful memory in retrospect. Then it becomes a take off point of looking forward to meeting each other again to get to know each other better.

The affect is an important factor to consider, taking aside that the event is unexpected. There has to be a spark felt by both, but the charge of that force may differ from one another. Someone has to lead and the other needs to be open for that leading. Then, this engagement becomes a co-operation in reciprocity. There has to be an exchange, in reciprocating manner, where both are levelled.

I guess dreamed long-lasting relationships begin in that seeming fairy tale episode of serendipity. One meets someone in a place, at an event least expected. Gazing and glancing, following in sight, passing by, non-verbally expressing signs of fancy, and then finally taking a step to get closer and open up a conversation. Bling! A relationship may begin there, but a relationship is handled differently.

What one felt in that serendipitous moment becomes an anchor for future contact. When there is a mutual response to invitations for another meet up, an opportunity takes place to set the grounds of formalizing the relationship. This is not an engagement yet, but a way of fostering mutual bonds. It is also different when the physical force is so strong, that body language coincide with the expressions like "I am happy with you, here."

That expression can be really tricky, but then it can be verified by other languages. Things can be very different among adults, when they are expected to be mature enough with their expressions. Nonverbal language in haptics, occulesics, use of space and the like, they tell more of verbalized affect.

We read, that there is something going on, when two hold their hand, look at each other with twinkling eyes, end their words with smile as if it is a punctuation mark in oral conversation, kisses and walk a stretch innocently unmindful of what others would think. Ting! That is something else, which happen maybe instinctively yet unplanned.

Serendipity is not destiny, and it is not even a guarantee of a standing relationship. That unexpected moment, in the first place is made possible by decisions that precede it to put two souls in a chance of meeting one another. Whatever happens next is a shared experienced that requires both to make decisions and communicating how they feel about those and about their relationship.

In that happy accident, the two never exactly knew each other, as to how they differ, but they get in sync. That happy accident and the affect that goes with it did not need a resume or a list of common interest, but it ticks. So, to stretch that happy event further, knowledge of commonalities and differences must be about how to complement each other in their strengths and weaknesses.

Serendipity is an accident that no insurance covers. The rest of it is a work in process, an investment that is worthwhile yet has no tag in it.

Cno po u, Dok Pepe? How old na u?

2011-06-20T00:47:00.004+08:00

Mayroon akong suhetibong pananaw sa pagkabayani ni Gat. Jose Rizal, ngunit buong puso ko ring tinatanaw and kanyang kabayanihan.

Di ako avid fan ni Jose Rizal. Una, dahil ang pagdakila sa kanya bilang Pambansang Bayani ay may bahid ng kolonyal na oryentasyong pinilit ng mga Amerikano upang mapahupa ang anumang rebolosyunaryong pagkilos na sadyang hahadlang sa politikal na layunin ng pananakop ng Estados Unidos sa Pilipinas. Pangalawa, may pagkarepormista ang trip niya at dahil doon sabi ng iba nais niyang magpatuloy ang Espanya sa pagsakop ng Pilipinas bilang isang probinsiya.

Ngunit bayani ko pa rin si Dok Pepe. Sa pabula niyang "Ang Matsing at ang Pagong" natutunan ko ang kahalagahan ng pagsisikap at matalas na pag-iisip. Sa kuwento niya tungkol sa "Gamugamo at ang Ilawan", nabatid ko na tayo ay may mga nais sa buhay, na gugustuhin nating marating, kahit ano pa ang panganib.

Sa paglaon, sinariwa ng kanyang mga nobelang, Noli at Fili ang pagsisikap ng mga Filipino para sa Kalayaan. At ang iba pa niyang mga akda, tula, sulat at likha na nagpapakita ng kanyang pagmamahal sa bayan at sa kanyang natataning talino, para sa akin siya ay isang henyo.

Palikero iyan si Dok, sa lahat ng bansang napuntahan niya maraming mga babaeng napalapit sa kanyang puso. Gayundin, ang kanyang pagmamahal sa karunungan na matuto ng iba't ibang wika at maibahagi ang kulturang Pilipino sa lahat ng sulok ng mundo. Hindi nga lang lokal iyan si Dok, isa siyang global na Filipino. Pero sa huli, si Josephine lang daw ang minahal niya. Kontradiksyon ano, kasi hindi purong Filipina ang hilig niya.

Kung tutuusin, maraming mga magandang bagay ang makikita sa pagkatao, talento, wika, kaisipan at gawa ni Rizal. Kaya naman lahat ng Pilipino sa kanilang edukasyon ay dapat makilala siya ng lubusan. Makata, nobelista, skultor, kartonista, doktor, siyentipiko, lingwist, sosyolohiko, enhinyero, peryodista at marami pang iba. Sino sa mga bayaning Pilipino ang may higit na katangian sa kanya.

Dangan nga lamang katulad din ng iba, siya rin ay may mga kahinaan. Ngunit, dahil ang kanyang pilosopiya sa buhay at ang kanyang pagmamahal sa bayan ay humantong sa pagbubuwis ng sarili niyang buhay, ito ang rurok ng kanyang kabayanihan. Katulad rin ng mga rebolusyanaryong pinakipagsapalaran ang kanilang buhay sa laban, hinarap rin ni Rizal ang kamatayan sa gatilyo ng mga konkistador.

Dok Pepe, para sa akin isa kang Bayani! Wat-eber. Dahil ang mga aral sa buhay at gawa mo, ay nagpapatuloy na may kahulugan bilang haligi ng sambayanang Pilipino. Hapi bertday dok! Woooh! 150 years ka na, kaya party party na!

Winner-Loser Mindset

2011-06-16T23:47:00.007+08:00

Student: "A bully is someone who does mean things to losers..."

After everything was said...

Teacher: "If a bully is someone who does mean things to losers, then the victims are losers -- what for you are bullies? Are they winners?

Student: (Long pause... thinking... thinking. Eureka!) "They are not winners."

Teacher: "If they are not winners, what are they?"

Student: Long pause... thinking... thinking. Eureka! "Yeah, they are not winners, the victims are the losers, because they are bullied."

Dejavu ...

Teacher: "You said, the victims are losers, my question is what are the bullies? Are they winners?"

Student: Short pause. "I already said they are not winners!"

Teacher: "If they are not winners, what are they?"

Student: "It is those bullied who are losers, and I am not saying bullies are winners."

Threapeat:

Teacher: "If bullies are not winners, what are they? Have you ever been bullied?"

Student: "No."

Teacher: :"Listen, young man. You have not answered my question. Until you have given me the right answer, we will be repeating, repeating, and repeating this all over again... Again, until you have given me the right answer, we will be repeating, repeating, and repeating this all over again. Again, until you have given me the right answer, we will be repeating, repeating, and repeating this all over again."

Noise rises in the classrom, cajoling the young man in front. The teacher asked the student to pull a chair and sit more comfortably.

Teacher: "Can I ask you a question? You may choose not to answer, but first can I ask you a question."

Student: "Yes, sir."

Teacher: "You have never been bullied, you said, how do you feel about your self. Are you a winner?"

Student: (Confronted). "I am not winner, but... I ... am... not also a loser. I... I... am someone in between?"

Noise again in the classroom. Students chattering, howling, cheering. Like as if the student gave a good answer. The teacher raised his voice to fill the room and reprimanded the class that no other comment is necessary. It was stressed that anyone who would speak, aside from the speaker and the teacher will be sent out to the Discipline Office.

Silence for a few moments...

Teacher: "Everybody listen to this, 'whatever is in your language, or whatever you say tells something about you, the one inside you, the real you in there. What you say is what you think and feel, and what you think and feel says something about you - your self."

Silence for a while, and then some students began to talk with their seatmates. The teacher again reprimanded the class about the rule of engagement. Silence continued, the rest of the class merely became attentive audience. The teacher ask the same repeated question.

Student: "I am not that, if you are thinking I am like that! I am not..."

Teacher: "What that?" What is that 'that'".

Student:"Okey, the bully is not a winner..."

Teacher: "So what is the bully, then? You said, you are not a loser and you are not a winner, you are something in between. You said, the bully is not the winner, and the victim is the loser. So where do you place the bullies?"

Student: "I am in between, but I am not that"

Teacher: "Again, what that?"

Student: "I am not a bully!"

Teacher: "I never said you are. So, what is a bully, if you are not one?"

Student: "A bully is a loser."

The pendulum of winner-loser mindset just swing right there. The teacher thanked the young student, and asked the rest of the class to give their classmate a round of applause. The teacher left some more thoughts to the students that made some of them talk about what a bullied victim feels and suggested practical insights on how they should treat each other in the classroom.

Class dismissed.

Confrontative Mode

2011-06-15T23:28:00.002+08:00

"I don't know"... "I can't think..."

Those statements seem self-defeating to me. Hearing that from a student under my tutelage made me feel terrible about my approach of taking one from his comfortable seat and putting him in the scrutiny of many other eyes.

While I notice that he suffers, and others were laughing and mocking. I stood several meters away, simply saying... "you can do that, I know you can!" How helpful were my actions and my decision to let that boy on board work of a very simple and basic sentence writing task?

A group of boys were yelling, I raised my voice on top of theirs "Shut your mouth up, if you cannot say anything helpful!" There was tension in the classroom, and I could notice that each prepared a sentence which should follow the instruction I gave.

With an assertion of power, I got their attention. Their minds start to warm up, think and their bodies are alerted to listen to the instructions and do the task. But, I find that unusual and exhausting. I'd rather put my energy in thinking strategies and redesigning my methods rather than fueling my behavior with superficial anger that creeps into my nerves.

I understand that I cannot be at all times in such mood because it is stressful. But we finished the class with positive results based on objective assessment. Yet, my question now is how did that situation impact my students' affective state, when I turned into something else they perhaps never expected?

On one end, the situation could be positive that it showed my student that I can be in such confrontative mode; that they should be able to understand that like anyone else I cannot tolerate error and self-defeating thoughts bind them in their learning crutches; that like any individual I have emotions too.

On the other hand, the bad side of it was that we ended the class without processing what happened, how they felt and what they learned from what happened during that period. My greatest concern is that of the student who had difficulty in doing the task on the board. Well the term is not over yet, and we will still meet tomorrow.

The first thing in my class agenda for tomorrow is again to confront the students to confront their selves and their problematic attitude and behavior based on what happened this morning in our class. I feel there is a need to arrest that situation, clarify expected behaviors, process our feelings, redirect our thoughts to more productive class goals, and lastly to give a potentially misunderstood situation a definite closure.

If you were here...

2011-06-08T23:00:00.007+08:00

If you were here, how would you feel about me?

I learned from someone you speak English so well, impeccably fluent. I am now an English teacher, and you probably had not taught of that. I never knew really what you wanted me to be. How I wish we could have dinner, talking about a lot of things in English of your plans for me.

So you went to Ateneo, but you quit that school because you wanted to be a pilot. It's not anymore in Intramuros, it moved to Katipunan. I pass there often going to U.P. It must have not entered your imagination, that I would be getting a PhD in U.P. so I can soar like its eagle.

You trained my brothers so well that they could drive even when they were teens, and they knew much in auto-mechanics. I didn't opt to wear a blue-collar, but I pull my sleeves on my desk in front of a computer and with a variety of people. I knew nothing about car troubleshooting, and I just got my driving license so late. The only things I can get my hand dirty with are checking papers, gardening and cooking.

You were brilliant as a mechanic, though you did not take formal training in Engineering. I heard, you were offered a teaching position in an institute to teach auto-mechanic. I am now a teacher, though I didn't study for it. Not the ordinary teacher, but like you I enjoy the re-engineering stuff of it.

You enjoyed fixing engines, I get to enjoy fixing behavior and thinking processes. I know you had so many friends, as everywhere we would go, you know someone from there. Nobody spoke ill of you, nor you about anyone. I don't know what I have in me, but people just happen to like me, and I interest myself in getting along well with other people. But, like you, I keep myself firm, upright, yet level-headed.

Many sought your counsel, and they respect you so well for your advice. Now, I have to advise and counsel, students parents, teachers and even those executives in the corporate and government. I see you get so tired for doing that, but you still give them a good hand shake and a great smile. I don't give smile to everyone, but I return the happiness I receive to people who share me their time and sweet joys.

You were so generous, in everything and to everyone, even if so little will be left for you. You had the ingenuity to keep a livelihood and a family intact. Now, I have to earn for our living, for mama and also to help your grandchildren. That little skinny and sickly boy you use to carry has to carry so many with him in his success. I tire, but I keep going.

You cried when I delivered the graduation speech in my kindergarten. You could not hold your tears when that cheap gold medal was placed over my shoulders. You were so happy, that was why you treated us for a gallon of icecream. How would you feel if I would ask you to place the sablay over my grown body on my PhD graduation day?

Would you also buy me even a second-hand car, like you did for my Kuyas when they graduated high school? You thought you could fix that yellow car, for them. That thought was great indeed, even if the car left to rust. I still fancy that you could hand me a key for a car when I took home a dozen of medals in high school.

If you were here, I woud not really mind even if I had to walk you outside on a wheel chair, or feed you or dress you up, or wash you and cleanse your bed sores, or replace the gastric bag for you food waste. I wouldn't mind opening the albums so you could remember about your past. I wouldn't get tired to help you remember your name, even. Because, that name you gave me was also your name.

Happy father's day papa. I would never know how you feel about me now, but I know you are well where you are, as you had been for me and for us your family. I just hope, that whatever have I become gives you a real good smile. You just spent seven years with me while you were here, yet now I see you live in me in my life.

Oh, I just wonder, since you were a smoker and drinker till peptic ulcer took you away, would you jam with me as we puff our worries out and sip that high of life over bottles of beer?I love you, papa!

What's the most precious for the young Filipino generation that makes them happy?

2011-05-23T22:35:00.010+08:00

I used to be merely reading my students works to spot for grammatical and syntactic errors, evaluate their logical organization of ideas and their development of thoughts as expressed in words. But that bored me a lot oftentimes, so now I tried to listen and think at the same time of what they are saying, orally and in their writing.

Out of 120 students that I listened to, this day I found out that everyone of them are saying that their family is the most precious for them. Second to this are their friends, and the third is God. Only 3 or 2.4% said that their self is precious for them. Only one said, that her future is precious for her, and she is not a Filipino but a Chinese student.

We agreed on the concept of precious to mean closest to one's heart and important in life. The same findings and congruent with my earlier observations on what makes young people ages 16-21 happy. Out of more than 500 student essays I read so far, the most recurrent concept is that of the family for Filipino students, with Korean students it is material possession and money.

We qualified the concept of happy as 1) something that makes one feel positive, 2) something that has implications to relationships, 3) something that makes one feel so good, 4) something that one does not want to miss; and 5) something that is to die for. The students listed several things which they think make them happy, after brainstorming for 15 minutes, they have to discriminate from their list to chose only the top 5, that includes all those they tagged or labeled based on the constructs of the happiness concept.

The findings are interesting and worth of pondering. Amidst the access, availability and these kids power to purchase entertainment gadgets, the corollary evidences I got reveal that for the Filipino digital natives, the thing that makes them happy and most precious for them is not really a thing after all.

The family is a priceless possession, non-material yet so valuable. It was a also a recurrent response that it is through their family that they find strength and support. Others say that they will risk their lives for their families, and it would cause them ire if any harm is done on their family members.

These are young people, as a fresh graduate student I had believes, later on they will turn to their friends, and friends will become more important for them. Perhaps, that is why friends rank second. One soda company did market survey among young people back in 1990's, and its findings were the same, family and friends are important in the Filipino young people's lives.

I have no further evidences to explain, empirically, why? Sociological explanation of the family as a basic unit says that most of what we are have been taken from our family, or that we learned the basic skills, including dependency from our family. Being young, and not being exposed much to the world outside the homes, the family is really important.

Across demography and economic status would this figure be the same? Now I turn the issue here to mature adults guiding these young people. While teenagers know what is valuable for them, and that is their family, are parents and relatives supportive to acknowledge that fact and really pay attention on spending quality time?

The order of response is also critical to consider the relationship between the two in the life of a Filipino teenager. First is family, when there are family problems, friends become the support of young Filipino. When the family finds that the young is spending more time with friends, that causes conflict resulting from envy confused with misunderstanding.

Then the kid rebels, moves away from good friends and find other groups of influence. When everything fails for that kid, that's time he goes to find the value of God in his life, and then back to his family. It's a cycle, a triadic relationship among Family, friends and God which happen to be very influential elements to the life of young Filipino.

Let's test this concept in mass media. I suspect that advertisements combining the three elements or at least two of them have great appeal to the viewers, to the Filipino family in general. Because what the young reflects is that of the shared value which they first learn from their family. Don't get me wrong, we all like to be treated in our workplace, in our organization, in our cliques as a family member.

We can also suspect that the students response is but a mere convenience, for them to have an answer. But they answered individually several other questions, included that of what is precious to them. The convenience of answering family as most precious or cause of happiness is not a mere scapegoat. The response reveals that the ideals and value of family to a young person is there in the immediate experience and their present reality, as it could surface immediately. Or does it also inform us, of the value of being selfless against being self-less?

The value for family can also derive from the absence of it not just in its felt presence. The family is another concept which is richly attached to a sense of security, comfort, guidance, strength, support, respect, understanding and most importantly love. For parents, losing their children to their friends or to other material things does not require a survey or profound research, they only need to feel that as how, perhaps, these young students felt the importance of their family.

Of Prophecies and Predictions

2011-05-22T21:43:00.007+08:00

The terms prophecy and prediction can not be interchangeably used and confused with each other. Prophecy has spiritual implications to affirm another with wisdom while predictions extrapolate on existing human knowledge to foretell or forecast a future phenomenon.

Prophecies are to prophets while predictions are to scientists and fortune tellers. Prophecy is a spiritual gift that is different from the gifts of discernment and vision. However, great Biblical prophets showed their wisdom in handling these three gifts altogether. These prophets never engaged in predicting events to get others' attention on them.

Discernment is close to wisdom, and it is evident in coming up to a noble judgment on certain issues or matters. It carries decisiveness in action with certainty in faith. A discerning spirit can read signs, actions, situations and words, without getting worn out from making interpretations. Discernment is not confined to the process of subjective interpretation.

Discernment brings enlightenment and it comes with peace and joy. To discern does not need any vision, but the gift of vision may bring discernment. It is Biblical, that men in the latter times will dream dreams and see visions. Those gifted with vision has discernment of what they see means, but they do not further interpret them in their own understanding.

Joseph the dreamer was a visionary. He has the gift to discern the visions others dream, with wisdom to reflect those dreams in reality. He could not just discern and interpret visions, but he could make his visions into reality. With those gifts he became a leader of his people and those not of his father's descent. He sees yet he does not predict.

Isaiah, Exekiel, Jonah, Daniel are among the great prophets in the old Bible times. John who saw visions in Patmos, wrote what he saw, and what he was told to write about. This visionary did not make any prediction at all about his visions. The visions of the end of times are consistent with other visions and prophecies in the Bible. But the very word of the Bible's greatest Prophet, Jesus, teaches that no one knows when that hour is coming, and we should not bother about it.

Why then do we read the Bible as if it is coded, and that we had the ability to decrypt its codes with human knowledge? There is no gift of prediction, only the gifts of vision, discernment and prophecy, and the many other gifts that Spirit pours to whom He chooses.

The gift of prophecy is a gift to strengthen the weak, encourage the hopeless, affirm the needy, enlighten the unknowing, and guide the unwise. The Bible code is but simply read in four letters, L-O-V-E that is God's unconditional love for His creation.

Many had attempted to predict the end of times. It was only Jesus who taught with wisdom about it. He also warned of people who will speak in his name, preach of His coming again, but affirmed the faithful that those who do so are not of Him. He will come, that is another mystery in our faith. If we believe in the Gospel of Jesus' Salvation, and we believe in him then we should hold steadfast, until that hour of His coming.

A true prophet is never treacherous for his intent is pure to bring people closer to the Lord, like how a shepherd would care for his flock when he knows that a storm is coming. A true prophet brings enlightenment to the world and not darkness in fear of impending doom. True prophets do not make profits out of their Spiritual gift. Woe!

Making history and breaking orthodox confines

2011-05-18T21:00:00.016+08:00

We are an awesome foursome dweebs (probably to the rest of the world) who took the boldest step many educated person will more likely dread. Bea, Chitchat, Jenny and I, we belong to two batches of UP-CMC's centinneal PhD in Communication students, but strange serendipity brought us closer. Woh! We are just in sync, in the same wave with our own eccentricities that we became a clique!

Let me chronologically pull this awesome experience we had together. Bea and Chitchat got in the program on the 1st term of AY 2008, while I and Jenny were accepted in the 2nd term. The first two went ahead to take cognates without completing their coursework, while I and Jenny started (right) with the prerequisite refresher courses.

First term of 2009-2010, we became classmates in quantitative and qualitative data analysis. We would criticize each others works, in the class and sometimes behind each others back. Then we would lounge to do some rethinking about our lessons and a lot chatting on non-school matters. Term break came, we took the qualifying exam together. Not all of us made it on the first try, but we all manage to see each other again the next term.

Second term of the same year, we were classmates together plus 1 and 2 minus 1 students on two classes. Incidentally, the two electives we enrolled then had the only one professor handling. We conferred to ask if the two classes could just be fused on single but extended meeting. Luck and logic gave us the opportunity to stay from 6 to 10 pm at school, but once a week, plus our cognate in other colleges. What a dweeb we are!? Because despite the odds we maintained scholarly standing.

While no working students then dared to enroll nine units, we did and we got through with it very well. On the 1st term of our second year, we were classmates on one elective again. That probably bonded us more closer as the course required us to go places and give some meaning and understanding about them. Bea was on her last term of coursework. While the three of us needed one more term.

In the last term, we agreed to take the comprehensive exam together, right after the semester. I thought I could not make it, because I didn't have time to enroll residency for summer so I can be eligible for the candidacy exam. But, Chitchat did a heroic act to save my ass and put me in the turmoil of taking 4 days of comprehensive exam this summer. In return, these slave drivers made me errand to file our application for the said exam.

That was a first, because previous students (according to stories told) took the exam single handed. Other stories (that seem fantasies) tell that a proctor would sit during the exam and even go with the candidate to the restroom on wee breaks. We know and we respect the value of that exam. Without the proctor, we knew and practiced self-regulation.

We responsibly understood that it intends to measure not our memory capacity but our competence to organize our thoughts and put them into writing as an evaluation exercise of our fitness to write our dissertations. Humans and friends that we are, we could not avoid to ask how we are doing and how we are feeling during the exam.

Given to make sense of an infinite universe and tasked to put that understanding into writing for a whole day, definitely tired our fleshly bodies. Our spirits though had the strong will, as we are motivated on checking each other as to how many pages or how many words had we written so far. It was brain draining, the four days of exam, taken two and two, afterward just put us looking up the sky and staring blankly on the wall. Humans as we are, we would wring, contract our bodies, pull our curled legs up and stretch.

I'd go out with Chitchat and smoke, of course we would talk. Bea would follow sometimes though she doesn't smoke. Jenny when she needed would sit also with us outside. We'd talk about the difficulty of the question, but guarded by our commitment to keep the integrity of the exam, we'd avoid talking about our answers. We'd just laugh out the difficulties we felt and boost each other's steem to relieve us of the anxieties and stress that go with answering the questions.

Anyway, the questions differ for each of us. Rational us we are, and scholarly as we are trained, we have confidence that we know the answer, and we know what to say, it's just that we are greatly challenged how to make whatever we have to say in a logical and sound manner and the whole day-exam was really washing our physical strength out. So, we made another history, to surprise one teacher as she noticed our informality, unexpected non-verbal languages as we get tired, and our frequent breaks.

Such violated an "expectation" never set before us to cause cognitive dissonance to an observer. But the observation was construed as a precondition to a presumed untoward incidence that was extended to suggest invalidating the exam. This goes to show how fast the mind thinks and process visual information than actually confirming those inputs as to what they mean.

I have to raise my legs, because they are tired and I want to keep my blood flowing to move to my brains. I don't want to have varicose veins at an early age, so charge for me for vanity, and blame me for that informality, because I did not want to wear Barong with my skinny jeans on. We are 100% sure that whatever we inked in those exams are our thoughts and of course others' that we met in the empirical thinking world whom our professors introduced us with.

We know we can't qualitatively place a margin of error on this exam because we all wanted to push through with our dissertation right away and finish it the next school year. This is another history we want to make. We are just passionate learners, we are just normal people who enjoy communication and learning together.

We are so casually informal, because that is our way to keep at ease and focus on the exam. That is how different we are and that's how we made those historical moments towards our PhD candidacy. Blame nature then for it selected us to be the way we are - wonderful people, excellent scholars, awesomely honest friends. I am esteemed to have you in my great education, Dr. B., Dr. C. and Dr. J-O, and our wonderful professors who are part of who we are now.

P.S. This is not a valedictory address, (yet? meganun?). Dissertation isn't over yet, I'm just draining the little juice left out of my brain.

Child Lost at the Golden Arches

2011-05-16T18:50:00.014+08:00

Name: "Nanna" Age: 2 years and 4 months old Height: 2'5" Possibly lost from her grandmother's care and elder cousin, at the newly opened McDonald's branch in Sta. Ana., Manila, today at around 4 pm. Suspect: 'young mother' between the age of 25-30, height ranging 4'5", black hair, fair complexioned, petite body built; seen with daughter of height around 2'7", skinny and left at the counter unaffected by her 'mothers' disappearance.

Surely, our house would be in chaos right now, blaming and worrying and grumbling to find her if what happened was not a "preempted kidnapping". Say that I am overreacting but the narratives of the tragic drama that was thwarted by my mom's defensive maternal instinct to keep her granddaughter safe in her watchful eyes, tell an angle of a failed modus operandi.

Parents, nannies and kins going out with children should learn from this story. I could not imagine how we could manage the emotional chaos of grief, worry, guilt, and the business of working this case out with the police, and the burdening 'obligation' of recounting to the curious what could have happened. Indeed, panic, would wreak us all down, helpless and hopeless.

Mama, 72, must have missed her granddaughter that much, that when she got home with her parents from Bulacan, she decided to go with Nanna (not her real name), her mommy, and my other niece, 17, to try the new fast-food chain and then go to the grocery store just beside it. Inside, they bought some dessert, and then my sister went to the grocery.

After wards, while they were about to leave, another woman took Nanna by the hand, getting out of the fast-food chain. My niece did not react in anyway that seemed alarming to her. It seemed that manner how she was held was safe after all. My mother screamed, caught the guard's attention and other customers inside. They were just a few steps away.

The guard even consoled my mom, that they are still just near. My other niece grabbed Nanna by her arms, and told her that the woman she was with was not her mom. Nanna looked at the woman and slipped off from her clutch. The woman said "Di ko anak to, 'san yung anak ko?" (This is not my daughter, where is my daughter?), calmly and un-alarmed by her 'mistake'.

The woman went inside to pick her daughter near the counter, who like her, was not affected after all by the situation that she was not with her mom. The woman did no scolding, did not express any anger, or panic. The two left the store without buying anything. While they leave passing by mom, the woman apologized "Sorry po, sorry po, 'Kala ko anak ko" (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought she was my daughter."

No eye-contact between my mom and the woman, or with my niece. Like nothing happened. The two went to buy some dessert in the store's dessert shop outside. Still no eye contact, but as my mom, Nannah and my other niece, passed by them to go to the grocery store, the woman looked at them. These accounts were based from the stories my mom, and my niece could recall.

I must have bias in framing the drama in this post. I can assume that it was just a plain mistake, and I could admit I am jumping into conclusions. Read the accounts again, and then think about my subsequent points on what con-artists in their modus operandi do, and what for they are doing it? Or you may have the same assumptions as I have.

A Cunning Artistry of Maternal Drama

A modus operandi is a scam, there are templates in it, but we are not all aware of. All forms of con-artistry put individuals in a highly emotionally charged situation, that confuses us to think sensibly. They take place in public spaces, and the con-artists blend in the naturally occurring social interactions, dressed up for the occasion and the place. Con-artistry is a well-planned staged drama, that its primary actors are well rehearsed about.

The actors know their script, their actions are calculated, but they can never fake the spontaneity of human emotions. The victims are participants, the actors have anticipation of how the participants will react to their staged drama. Like any stage performance, there are other people around unseen to the participants, but helping to finish the drama successfully. The participant-victim are mostly vulnerable, the very old and the very young, the seemingly unaware and the gullible, the frail and the unable to defend their selves.

I assumed it was a modus operandi that anyone who have concern for their children should be aware of. While, I gave the story, there are some pieces of information, that I could connect to my immediate conclusion, particularly examining the communicative behavior of the primary actors. Most of these things miss our sight and sense, because what we are really interested is the grand narrative or the obvious drama, and not of the other texts that tell something else:

The woman who took my niece was near the door, while her daughter was meters away visible to her and standing by the counter.
The woman left the fast-food chain without buying anything from inside.
The daughter was all calm, unaware but not alarmed by my mother's created commotion, calmly leaving with my niece.
The woman did not react in a way that a mother losing her hold of her child would naturally do.
The woman's daughter was skinny, taller, with long tied hair, and wearing clothes so different in color to my niece's, and no similarity to my niece's physical features.
The woman though apologetic, did not project her face much, that neither my mom nor my niece could recall to describe her face.
The woman was carrying a plastic bag to show that she was from the market, but the bag only has a bundle of kangkong (water cabbage) in it.
A mother knows her daughter, even if she's just holding it by her hand.
Going out the door, maternal instincts dictate that the woman should see that it is her daughter with her, and that she should get out safe.
The woman was able to hold my unattentive niece so she would not react violently (this takes some practice).

You know what, the police station is just 50-100 steps away from the market. My mom was not so aggressive and as assuming as I am, but I think that such "mistake" should be subjected to investigation. I have to say this, though it counters to the interest of my hometown which is being promoted as a historical site in Manila, but syndicated modus operandi have been going on in our community, particularly the market area, at unsuspected time, and where there are visible security personnel and the public around.

I am thankful, Nanna is safe home with us. I hope I am misreading the clues, for all our safety. It could not be preempted kidnap for ransom, because our town, even though we have the Golden Arches now, is not known to be a community of wealthy residents. But it could be preempted attempt of kidnapping for reasons I don't know, and later on this crime syndicate will sell the kids they took if not use them to beg for them in the streets, or take their vital organs to sell. I hope I am just misreading the clues, because all I have are reasons to suspect a possibly innocent woman.

What to do in this kind of situation?

Do remember that the con-artistry is staged calmly so as not to get others attention. Aside from being very attentive and watchful of your children, at such kind of situation, poise and etiquette are out of your concern. Here, are possible things you can do:

Alert others of the situation or that 'mistake' you sensed right away, the criminal would always just like to slip away smoothly;
Shout for help, because that's how you get others' attention;
If the suspect is apprehended, take that suspect to the authorities for further investigation and to record a report of the event;
If you have any gadgets and the offenders are getting farther, take photos or videos;
When the offenders have get away vehicle, take any means to follow them, and bring others with you as much as possible.

When you've done those practical things, go to the authorities, the nearest police station, report it, then discuss the situation with all those concerned, calmly and with hope, that things will be fine later on. It pays to be always vigilant, and suspicion makes sense to trigger our senses to act appropriately. Why do hens act like a fighting cock, when their chicks are attacked? That's the same as our protective instinct to defend what we most value.

Your Time's Up!

2011-05-14T22:13:00.013+08:00

"If I knew Jesus were coming at 4 pm today, I would be out there in the field playing football with my friends because its probably there I would get to see him up close". These were the words my godfather shared to me, when I was just beginning on getting up on my feet from a spiritual renewal. That came after I went through a crisis which really ruptured me to give birth to what I am now.

I used to be so afraid of the end of days. I am not a Biblical scholar who claims to know when it will come. But I believe, that it will come. Some years ago, when I was a teenager, I would watch the free rupture movies of start up sectarian Christian groups. That scared me even to my dreams. They were preaching the same thing, the coming of life to an end.

But I believe in the salvation by grace. I believe in the resurrection into eternal life. I hold that promise of salvation with faith in Jesus who redeemed me and forgave my sins by dying on the cross. Shall I be afraid that my time will be up someday, soon or later? I also believe that my life is a gift by grace, that I did not choose be in this life, yet I found myself in it.

I am not perfect, I am a sinner like anyone else. I fall, fail and falter in my journey of faith. But as I said, I enjoy this life that is blessed me because of that mustard-seed-size of faith that I have been saved. I look forward to that eternal peace, and that ecstatic bliss if it would come here on this world. But this world, has no space for that, because its people has no sense of bringing heaven into this world.

I used to be afraid of death, of dying, because I do not want to lose my love ones. But when I realized that even if I depart from this world, those I will leave behind will be in the shelter of God's wings. I could not hold away from the world, because I had plans and dreams that were not fulfilled yet, because I had in my memory things of the past, both good and vain, that I could not withdraw from.

However, light shone on me, that it is in dying from the world that we are renewed. It is in emptying that we are filled. It is in letting go that we are held by the hands of a greater Power to make us soar. It is in looking at that blinding light that we see truth. It is in having our calloused stone hearts shattered that we are given a flesh one.

We have to be ruptured, we have to die of our old self. That's a truth to live a full life in this world as we journey to our eternal home. We have to be consumed in fire to be pure so that we can be ready to join the creator. Dying is about living, and living does not end in dying. To live in faith is to love for all that it means in godly ways.

I am saddened by the "good news" that some claiming Christian groups teach about the end of days. Their good news preaches of doom, scaring people, for them to run to God, by joining their flocks and offering their money to their churches. They flood the anxious with Biblical texts to fit their knowledge, as if God's wisdom about the times can be calculated by human understanding. The Jesus that I know does not speak in their language.

Jesus speaks of God's unconditional love, infinite mercy, and eternal promises, a guarantee of a fullness in life and a reward of eternal life. Metaporically and allegorically, Jesus preached of the meaning of life, of making wise decisions and choices and of living a life for others in godly love. When Jesus talked of damnation, tribulations or judgment, it brought spiritual consciousness and reconciliation but not anxiety.

Has Jesus ever spoken to any sinner, that he or she is bound to doom? Where are these end-of-days preachers coming from? Their rhetorics are bold and fierce, as if presenting facts and total knowledge of God's mind and will. How many of them have passed this world, and passed the days they attempted to dictate on God's calendar, in reference to the semiotics and hermeneutics of numbers that men constructed? Yet, none of their predictions, revised several times, ever happened.

To these claiming prophets who have amassed great amount of wealth, I say, your time is up too by then, be that May 21, 2011, tonight, tomorrow, next year, on the third day, in the next 7000 years. Your gift of prophecy is not spiritually affirming. Remember too that everything you have here in this world is worthless and with whatever you have spoken and done you shall be judged on the final day. If you are so sure of what you are preaching, give up what you keep for yourself to the poor people of this world, to those whom you judged as damned that in the remaining hours of their lives they will have a taste of heaven by your hands.

Happy living everyone! Life is a beautiful gift from God to live and enjoy with all those God blessed us to love in all our days of our life, until that hour comes to us. Give your biggest smile and hug, for those also mean heaven to some.

It isn't nice up there!

2011-05-14T15:42:00.007+08:00

Moving up the career ladder is perceived in various ways, by those who intently are looking but without ability of understanding. One could suspect politics, favoritism, coercion or other things taken when someone moves up in several steps in the career ladder. For those who lag and who remain in ranks, this generates false assumptions and bitter work-relationships later on.

Five years ago, I applied in the college where I'm still currently connected because that was the only one that had opening by the time I left a foreign language center. I wasn't hired immediately, but a term passed that I was called for an interview. Because of my teaching experience, local and abroad, I didn't go through the usual selection process. I skipped the demo lesson, and even the dean's interview.

I accepted the part-time teaching offer. The school pays generously, because of the hazard of teaching community-college students. I began with six units. I got very satisfactory to outstanding evaluations. So my teaching load was increased by the next term. With consistent performance, I managed to enjoy the reward of teaching overloads
.

In my earlier years in the college, I was most often invisible to my colleagues, but I would audaciously share my opinions during our assemblies. I would also be involved in activities that department organized, taking responsibilities, how difficult they may be. Because I was not always in touch with others in the department, sometimes I would miss deadlines, but never the very important ones.

When I am at fault, I appreciate to be rectified. I admit my faults and take actions to do things right the next time around. Incidentally, I got hired in the college when my previous university professor was in position as the area chair. I was even surprise to see her there, while I was expecting someone else. Definitely, I would not have been hired because she was my former professor, for during our college days, we were really not that closed. So, I am sure I got in, because I have the competencies that the job needs.

When opportunities came, I would accept training jobs and consultancies, but of course I made sure, their schedules do not conflict with my work. I started as part-time faculty, but I demonstrated the same concern and responsibility of full-time teacher. Two years passed, I was invited to teach full time. That came a term after I earned my Master's Degree, and when there was a need for it. Though, it should have been earlier.

I enjoyed a term of being off from studying, before I decided to enroll in PhD program. While I am under a three-year probation for a permanent tenure, I managed to complete my coursework. To make use of my education, I engaged into doing researches that are relevant to my field. At several times, I generously share my findings to the department. Further, I succeeded in presenting papers in national and international conferences, published some works, and still keep on performing extremely well in my classes.

From an invisible nomad, I am moving next week to my own desk and office. Since last year, my name rings among the faculty to be replacing our area chairperson. But things turned differently, and I had to wait, until my permanency is approved. While waiting, I busied myself in doing a research that would help the department. This project hit three birds with one stone, it helped the department, it helped me complete a course requirement, and helped my research assistant in her graduation requirement for an MA.

Others think I was just lucky, that I completed my PhD, got permanent, and then promoted in rank and promoted in an administrative position. Surely, this would come to the envy of others. Silently, all these came at one term. They did not come out of luck; they were the fruits of all hard labor, love for work, passion for teaching, commitment to sharing knowledge, and being in accord and collegial relationships with the people I work with. I have thought of them before, I aspired and not just wished for them.

Some others think, that I got to where I am now, simply because I have the right connections and that I am nice to the right people. I am nice to everyone that I am in good working relationships. But my being nice stops when I think I need to say the boldest truth. As I am in rapport with others, I don't hesitate to tell even the most bitter truth that could hurt. Because being nice is a licence to lie. In most cases, the truth hurts, but it is liberating.

As I have set my mind to all those good things, I tired my body to realize those dreams. No, they were not just dreams, they were my visions, my aspirations, things that I hoped for and things that I wanted. When I have set my mind as to how I could get them, my body tuned in to working them as I wanted. Great things happened in my life, because I set my eyes on far greater things, while I keep a heart of flesh when it comes to dealing with people.

But, not everyone thinks like the way I do. They still think that nice things come to nice people. Greater things, things of high value are a result of great work. It is not just being nice. Because being nice is less than mediocrity. It only appeals on the surface of human character. Being nice is just a feeling. In reality, in complex and competitive world, nice is nothing as to excellence.

People driven to be highly effective, aim for excellence in everything, and so they excel. They move up, and those people who thinks moving up nice tells that succeeding person, it's not nice up there. Great people would push others to move up and they see it as the consequence of meritorious actions. Those who keep on doing excellently has no other way but up! Those up there and below who say it isn't nice up there, are just not worthy to be anywhere.

Can you read my mind?

2011-05-11T20:33:00.008+08:00

Oh, I thought I could give my mind some rest, after completing the half of our four-day comprehensive exam for my PhD candidacy. But I could not leave a soul in pain of her confusing relationship problem. Then, blink, relationships are built on communication, and I am a communication doctor (pretty soon), so might as well practice with free consultation.

I knew I had to get in her mind by letting her share her thoughts, as initially she was so hesitant to tell about her problem. I had to wait, joke, play less serious to make her feel more comfortable until she begins to be more open. Her problem is that she's been dating someone from the same school where she is studying, without any formal understanding of what relationship is all about.

Candy (not her real name), in her early 20s, confesses that during their dates, she and Enchong have been holding hands and kissing. Then, lately, for almost a month now, Enchong has been very busy and they have not been going out. Candy thinks of those kissing and holding hands as non-verbal cues of something, yet this is not confirmed formally by communication, what they actually mean for each other, and what each of them means to one another.

She is confused about their relationship arrangement: what they are, and why they did those things lovers would do without formalizing any romantic arrangement. She is looking for some meaning to make sense of her self within an informal relationship she perceived so. She wanted some sparkling romantic relationship, but this seems to be not what their situation is. Yet, the experiences with unspoken messages and verbal abstraction confuse her even more. She thinks Enchong has the answers, even though she is the one knowing the problem.

After sharing her problem, her question was what she should do. As a consultant, I begged off to tell her what she should do. Instead, I went through a series of laying to her some truths about what I understand in her situation. She agreed to four points I underpinned: 1) Individuals are different in their way of thinking and behavior; 2) there are wide-ranging differences between how men and women deal with communication situations, most particularly in handling relationships; 3) spoken words and non-verbal cues have meanings, and these meanings are confirmed by their consistency in communication interactions; and 4) communication fosters relationships and makes ideas clearer to affect life realities, decisions and actions.

Of course I have to point those to her in simpler terms she would understand. Then she admitted, she got more confused, but she understood her situation much better. She retorted of asking me again what she should do. I gave her three questions to guide her decision, because what I told her, is that I am not in the position of telling her what to, I could only show her a map of the various ways she could get to where she wants to go.

Sadly, she was also confused of what she wanted. First, she told me, she wanted what ever arrangement they have to stop. Furthermore, she told me she wanted to talk to him, without justification or elaboration what for. Then, she continued she would talk to him, in the opening of classes, for that time she's sure that they will run across each other. Then she posted on the chatroom the message Enchong posted on her FB wall:

"Sometimes I wish that the girl of my dreams has the power to read my mind, so that she will know how much she means to me and that all my efforts and endeavors are actually for her!;)"

Next, I started to tell her of what I think about her and Enchong, which at some she agreed and in others she got shocked. But then, I have to tell her, that those are my views and they may not be necessarily true for them. I also told her of my personal love story, and another story that she was able to relate to. In the end though, we stopped talking about her feelings and thoughts about her situation, rather, we got in sync of having fun in badmouthing Enchong's vain characteristics, particularly of taking advantages of the situation.

The moral of this narrative are many: 1) we can read minds, it is not just a wishful thought, but it takes skills to do so, albeit it is not available for all; 2) the best way to overcome a problematic situation is to go through it and be problematized by it because there is no easy solution to a problem; 3) solutions are available, we can not restrict ourselves to a single idea of being able to solve a problem, and so we have to be ready for the consequences and implication of our decisions and actions towards any problem; and 4) love is a meaningful abstraction that we find it strange to understand most often, but it is something worth taking risk, over time.

Most people look for things in common to say that they are in complementary relationships. But, the sweetest part of keeping a relationship includes that of understanding, accepting, and living through differences, settling disputes, becoming aware of what each other really feels. Fidelity is best demonstrated in the openness of one to share what one feels and think about another. Being in sync is coming together to face the situation that affects two people in relationships. Caring for one another is foremost carried out in being sensitive, conscious and concern of other's feelings spoken or not.

I would like to believe what one artist shared to me about love, "that it is a trap", and we don't know what it is in there, yet we want to be in there. That's the beauty of it, we are vain to possess it, we fear to lose it, we are problematized to keep it, and we get confuse as to how we should express it. This is Candy's issue and it will remain an issue until she clearly understands and live out that mystery of finding love and making love a reality, be that true love or otherwise. I hope Candy can read my mind :) .

For the Most Special Woman in the World

2011-05-05T22:01:00.008+08:00

Blessed is she for hers is the power of nature to bear human kind into this world. Perfection is her beauty that nurtures the best in every child. Patience is her virtue that guides children in their preparation for an adult life.

She is a woman, one of a kind, a sanctuary of love and affection. Her tenderness and concern strengthen a weary soul. Her wisdom enlightens a gloomy home. Her caress lifts the downcast spirit in her family. Her smile germinates joy in her house. She wipes a crying child's tears away with her compassion.

She nourishes her husband and children with the meals she passionately prepares. She protects her young from fear and anxieties. She tends to be possessive and over protective because she feels what her children feels. She clothes her household with the warmth of her love.

With her instinctive knowledge she teaches her children to have sensibility in life. Before they go to school, her children learns from her their ABCs. While a father would point to their children what they did wrong, she would, in her volition, tell her children what to be done and what is the right thing to do.

She heals by her touch and embrace. She keeps watch of her bed-ridden children until they recuperate. By the side of her sick children's bed, she would whisper to God to take her children's pain away from them, and bear it upon her. She is her children's refuge.

She is the most special woman in the world. She is called in many languages, mother, mom, mommy, mama, nanay, inay, inang, nay, iloy, mudra, mamu, madir, maderaka... You can call her by many other names, but she will always be one and the same - a mother who bore the pain of labor for you to be in this world. A mother who took care of you so you find yourself to where you are now.

She deserves more than any gift that your wealth can afford - loving her back. You can never repay whatever she has done for you. Besides, she never asks that from you. A big hug, a kiss, and saying "I love you mom, and thank you mom for your love", sincerely coming from your heart is the best gift this mother's day for the most special woman in the world. If you can't physically be with her, an unexpected call from you is something she is waiting for.

To all moms in this world. Happy mother's day, and thank you for bringing us into this world and in giving us life. Thank you for understanding us, when we do not understand our selves, and when we want to get away from your protection and care because we are lost to feel that love from you. Thank you so much mama, you are a gift in our lives and a blessing unto our world.

How I feel when students fail

2011-05-03T22:40:00.011+08:00

Marking a student's course card "R" which means repeat instead of failed, is a moment that really leaves me with a heavy heart. Some could think that I am mean when I fail students. But I never failed any, they earned that for their selves. The modest thing that I could do is to explain to them by showing the records what they have done.

Ethics and professionalism guide me, to keep any grade untouched, unadjusted to accommodate favor to those students who failed. Since there is a higher virtue that keeps me stronger on my stance, I get to feel more secure of my decisions, and I become more conscious of the various implications of this situation to my status as a teacher and as an ordinary social being who feels humanely as possibly required.

Objective as I might have been, still I have to deal with students with failing marks tactfully. One rich kid who failed in the other component of the course, passed in the component I was handling. But his midterm grade was way too low and failing. I saw him tried his best to do what I said for him to pass when he got failing midterm grade. Sadly, he did not do well in the other component. When all grades are in he got a failing mark, which I did not expect.

There were two more athletic scholars who failed under me, but the Sports director only sent me a text message for one of them. That reads: "Good afternoon Mr. Rivera. This is sir G from XXX office. I would like to ask about Student F if she could still pass your subject? Because she wont be able to play if she really fail in your subject." The director sent this message to me twice, because I did not reply first as I felt privileged not to do so.

Running in my mind is a question about what this director thinks of me. I am not market vendor for him to haggle with me. Then, I have no business with him, as he is not my student. I first replied a single word to that message: "NO", thank God it failed to be sent, and I got the chance to give him a more professional response...

"She knows were she fell short, she knows d consequence of her shortcoming, she knows as well how attendance affects fulfillment of requirements 2 pass. Her rounded off grd is 69, due 2 failure in lab. She was made aware of her chances n abscns from midterm. Let her learn focus n priority if she loves sports as student of this school."

The director's reply was brief, "OK sir, thank u." I sure do want all my students to pass, but I can only do so much. And, whatever I may do as a mentor will have no value neither yield positive results when a student does not really put his mind, heart and body to what he or she ought to prioritize. Grades are final marks of achievement, if they are not finalized they are not student's grades for their performance, but a teacher's whims and subjectivities.

A true mentor has a deep sense to make the meaning of education clearer to any student, grades are irrelevant when expected competencies in a course are met by the students. They merely become symbols of achievement and performance. Over extracurricular activities, the learning that students may obtain in the academics are more important than anything. That is, if it teaches them the values and virtues of facing life as learned men and women.

I empathize with my students based on their needs and observable patterns of behavior that needs remediation or intervention. I know what it feels to have a failing grade. I know what it takes to evaluate and measure student's learning performance. I know that my responsibility is not to preclude any student from succeeding and achieving the learning objectives.

I feel slighted when someone of my rank or coming from authority asks me such question of possibility of passing someone whose records show otherwise. I find it more disparaging to transact with other officials seeking favor or asking about chances, and of giving considerations, when everything of those has been done. I have and I always make it straight to my students to challenge their selves to exceed their expectations and mine, and so is to challenge me and my actions if I err so that I may learn too by others-self-rectification.

The True Face of Christianity

2011-05-02T00:18:00.014+08:00

Pope John Paul II has been beatified today, a step so soon made towards Sainthood, 6 years after his death. Pope John Paul is the most traveled pope and his charisma is said to have influenced the fall of communism. Ironically, his beatification is set today on Labor day, a much left-leaning celebration.

Pope Benedict said that Blessed John Paul II "restored the true face of Christianity as a religion of hope". In his burial, the crowd who witnessed it, shouted "santo subito" exclaiming sainthood now for John Paul. Only 1 more miracle is being waited by to make John Paul a saint. This beatification to me is symbolic and meaningful, and for each and everyone the Pope had shared his life with. Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=654_0lrerok&feature=fvsr

I reserve in my heart a pride that twice in my life I have met a "blessed" a "holy" man. The first was in 1981. I was just six years old then when we joined the throngs of people hearing the mass to be celebrated by John Paul II, in the Quirino Grandstand. My mom took me there with her wedding godmother, Lola Penny who was also my mom's spiritual shepherd, along with her two kids.

Because I was small, my mom had to carry me, when Pope John Paul II came in. There was a beautiful image of the Virgen Santo Rosario de La Naval de Manila, that got my attention. I asked my mom, who was that lady. She said, it was "Mama Mary". I asked back, "Does she know me?"

Mama was perhaps startled with my question. Lola Penny answered for her, "Of course hijo, she knows you. She knows every good little boy in the world, and she loves you, just like how Jesus loves all of us." The Pope really didn't matter to me that time, my understanding of the Catholic church's hierarchy would of course come later on in my growing years.

It was perhaps in that first encounter with the Pope that I learned about Mama Mary. I don't have devotion for her like the other religious. But from then on, I'd see my self more involved in the church, first in attending Sunday school and Catechism, then in serving as a choir and lector. I even remember that I won the first Bible quiz bee in the parish when I was 10, beating someone 5 years older than I was.

The second time that my eyes set on Pope John Paul II was in his second visit, during the last day of the World Youth Day in 1995. In the same location, where I first saw the Pope. The event's hymn sings to all that we ought to tell the world of God's love. In this way, I understand John Paul's mission of bringing the people of this world closer to God.

That said, Benedict XVI is right to say that John Paul II showed the true face of Christianity as a religion of hope. It lingers in my thoughts and feelings that beatification of Pope John Paul II ushers hope to the people he met across the world. He is a man of the new world, who kept the fire of faith burning in him and for this world, amidst the exposed errors of bishops and priests, the threats to his life, the fear doom sayers wreak, and the declining number of faithfuls in many other states.

John Paul II, to me is not only blessed, for he has lived his life a saintly life, his is the symbolic face of Christianity as a religion of hope to this world.

The Peacemaker in Me

2011-04-28T14:37:00.006+08:00

I understand that a valid and reliable instrument that science uses should be able to measure what it wants to measure at several times resulting the same way. I was dubious about the Enneagram test from the first time I heard of it.

I first heard of it from my mom, who answered the instrument in a retreat she attended. Then, I heard of it again from my PhD classmates, who took the test from one their professors. My doubt arose from my precept that no test could really determine a person's typology when in fact people change and no one person is the same with another, in thinking and behavior.

Curious, I tried taking an online test two years ago. Then I tried it again last night. In the first test, I was a type 9 with combination of type 2. The next test resulted to identify me as type 9, with even tendencies 1, 2 and 7. As to telling something the same way about me, at two tries, for me the instrument is reliable. I am not in the capacity to judge the test validity because I am not an expert in psychology.

The type 9 personality is a peacemaker, the crown of the nine points in the Enneagram, but of course it has drawbacks of complacency and stubbornness. Reading, from the descriptions I could relate to many things that the descriptions tell about me. I could even see my personality at level 1 of type 9. As compared to other types, I the descriptions tell that I have less problems than with other types.

I do like to be at peace with everyone and anyone. I am a good mediator because of my academic background in communication. I believe in the unity of the body, mind and spirit to make a person whole. I have high regard for introspection, reflection and equanimity in everything. I am open to others and other's ideas. I am assertive, but I know where my limitations are. I should feel good with the results, because my type is the same of great men in the world.

However, as it is true in dialectics, there are always two faces of a coin. In defense of the rich ancient narrative of the Enneagram, those promoting the said typology of personality types of course says it best to sell the idea to the public. On the otherside of the fence, critics argue of its dubious presentations of its history and authenticity as to describing the complex human personality.

Realizing these, I understand that my personality is not a product of the 'divine' properties that Enneagram teaches. Rather, it was simply able to describe me fittingly. The test must have been carefully crafted upon several studies and analysis. What is dissonant in my belief is that these personality types have been set by mystical powers, with inconclusive historical background.

The Rule of Thirds to Manage Your Time

2011-04-27T01:19:00.012+08:00

In photography, there is such a principle called rule of thirds to position the subject in focus but still with the perspectives of having a good background or foreground. The rule of thirds also has applications in budgetting time It ideally works, depending on one's circumstances, goals and priorities, by simply dividing your time into three parts.

In a year, some parts of the world are blessed with four seasons, at least each season goes for three months. In a week we have 168 hours to spend on the many things that we do. Basically there are only three important things that we have to do, sleep, work and the rest is ours for the taking.

An eight-hour sleep is important to energize our body for the day's work. Anyone working or studying will need those good hours of sleep if they want to do well in their jobs or at school. Those homebuddies also need the same amount of rest. Lack of sleep adds to stress and spells alot of trouble that result to poor quality of work and negative emotions that can affect relationships with others.

The other third part of your weekly time can be spent for your work or studies. Well less working hours can really be more productive for any person. But, since 40 hours are usually required as working hours, then you still have 16 hours left for your travel time to and from work or school. In schools, students are not really required to stay there for 40 hours, so the rest of the time can be spent for extra studies, group studies, personal reading or doing homeworks.

The last third part of your weekly time can be budgetted to anything as you please. If family is high value to you, and your working or studying, then the weekends are supposed to be your family time. If you have other activities or interests, then you may spend those remaining 56 hours for them. Say, you have social engagements, organizations, and other commitments you should be able to crunch all of them in this third part of your weekly time.

The ABC principle of setting priorities is also a time management strategy. Here, you set the things that you need to do as to their value or importance and urgency. A's will be your top priority because they are important and urgent. B's will be the next thing you have to do, because they are important although not so urgent. C's are those fun things that you want to do, no deadlines and some may not really be important.

There are is the rule of thirds applied to managing your time. I hope it helps you and works well for you. Remember time is your friend, it can work best for you and never against you if you can manage it well. There is time for everything, but time runs as it is fluid. You can never turn its hands back. If you can not set your priorities and manage your time, the rule of thirds loses its magic and you'll regret not finding the time to do what ever you had to do.

Everything is in your hands not in the clock's.

Time to Begin Anew

2011-04-24T22:54:00.005+08:00

What Easter brings is a new beginning with hope that things will be better. To Christians around the world, Easter is that symbolic occasion to celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection. On this day, we remember the victory Christ had over death and sin. With it comes our hope for the eternal life when we passed this world.

This is the highlight of the Lenten season. In its celebration, we have joy that we can join Christ to where he is, in our afterlife. It calls for change, renewal of faith and perspectives to be born anew. All those entails dying from an old past and coming to a new life from an old self.

At home, there were times that I was broke because I didn't want to touch the money I keep. There were times I did not want to give, because I felt others are not generous in giving. There were times don't want to share anymore, because others are not even grateful. There were times I did not want to help in the housework, because I thought I provide the bread and butter for everyone.

At work, there were times I don't brush up on my lessons anymore, because I thought I knew much of them already. There were times I did not want to know my students more, because I thought I would have them for a short term only. There were times I did not want to help some people, because I thought they should help their selves.

In my studies, there were times I was not serious about them, instead I talk foul of my professors who do not meet my expectations. There were times I thought I knew much and thought better of my self compared to others. There were times that I put so much time on what I study to find my body suffering from lack of sleep and stress. There were times that I was not speaking my mind because I just want to please my professor.

Thank God it's Easter, it reminded me that I have to find my good self like how children enjoy hunting easter eggs. The time I spent away from work and far from school favored some time to see my self and a time to think of what I have become and what I ought to be. I am not perfect, I am sure of that as no one is. But, I take this day like a spring -- a new season of life to begin anew.

... and the last shall be the first

2011-04-22T22:51:00.003+08:00

Good Friday. I was assigned to read for the second reading, the part of Peter and Pilate in the Gospel and the Prayers of the faithful. This has been the longest so far of my exposure as Lector in our Parish.

From the start, I only wanted to have my talents, my skills, put into good use for others, in whatever ways. I never wanted to be seated there in the first row, to be seen when I read behind the rostrum, to be privileged being first during the communion.

Once after reading, there was another lector who commended that I read so well. I was bothered, when it flashed to my mind a lesson I learned from our orientation about serving as a choir. For a choir, their aim in service is to make the people sing with them, make them feel God's presence through music. The comment would have not bothered me, if she told me, that God's word came so strong to her heart as I read. With that I knew it was not me at work.

When I chose to serve in the Ministry all I desired was to glorify God in what little I could do. I don't want any privilege extended to me in this world for what I could share.

Today, before the communion, there was the veneration of the cross. While I was thinking to have the people kiss the cross first, the other lector with me whispered that we should go first because there was a very long queue. He even asked the usherettes that favor.

Serving God is serving His people. That means clear to me that I am not in anyway unequal or of a higher stature to any of my fellow believers. But today, we were able to be first on that long queue. Afterwards we sat there and waited for the rest to finish.

Being there first to kiss the cross does not anyway make me any better as the rest of the sinners of this world. I remember an experiment I did some years ago, when I hosted my cousin's wedding reception. It was held just beside their Episcopalian church.

After the marriage rites, I knew people were so hungry, most of them wanted to be sat first near the buffet. I was watching the crowd as they got in. Those who were seated far back where the last to come in.

Being in control of the program and although I knew everyone was hungry, I opted to try that teaching "... and the last shall be the first". I told everyone after the prayer before meals that those tables in the back will be the first to approach the banquet.

It takes some discipline, conscience and consciousness to understand the humility of letting others be the first. Unlike in competitions, life can be really more fun if we know when and how to give each other the chances we all need or wanted. If everybody just wants to be first, and no one will give way to anyone, that would be really chaotic.

I tried the same teaching in fast food chains. I gave chance for others to be first especially if they are old, pregnant, with children. It feels so good. In the MRT, I'd rather have others get inside first, for I know the next train will have fewer passengers, when all the rest have taken their ride.

That I think was a crazy idea, but there is truth in it, that not all those who come first will be first, and not all those who come last will be the last. Our measures in this world are different from that of God's so we find this teaching really crazy, we all want to be first, we all want to be great, no one wants to be last. But Jesus did as he made himself least of us all.

Source Code: Living the last 8 minutes of your life

2011-04-21T00:51:00.006+08:00

A dream within a dream, lives lived within a life, deaths within a death. Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Captain Stevens, is an action-thriller that a viewer will have to think about again and again. It comes close to the genre of movies like Inception and Shutter Islands.

The story line focuses on a life that Captain Stevens had to live inside the source code. The sci-fi side of the movie is that the source code is a constructed reality that exists only in the last functioning neurons of a dead man's brain connected in wires to the computer.

Through the source code, people on the other side of a reality parabola can communicate with each other and so affect each other's realities. Complicated it may seem, but the concept of the source code is like a time-space, with connection between the past and present, or that of paranormal time-space that links the dead and those alive.

For someone who had consciousness in his subconscious, the movie's storyline can be easily grasped. I mean by some one aware or had experiences of being waken up in a dream within a dream, or mesmerized by a series of recurrent dreams with little variations in its repeats.

The movie does not have grand production designs and the visual effects are but ordinary. What I like so much with it is how it masterfully put a storyline about something occurring in the subconscious of the mind into the conscious. Another thing is the concept of the 8-minutes of memory that is kept within a dying man's brain. Again, this relates to stories of near death experience where a flash of memories appear so vivid to those near death.

The story is fiction of course, but it crafts various beliefs of people about death and life and the realities of changing one's or others' future. People have always been fascinated to the idea of going back in a point of time to change any regretful moment in their present and to ensure that their future will be alright.

The ethical question in the movie's representation of scientific and military advancement is the manipulation of a human being, for the common good, even if it is against some social norms and morals. The movie showed Captain Steven's useless and almost lifeless half body being used in the experiment, giving it a chance to live in a constructed life-reality that only exists in the mind but is connected to change the physical reality.

It was bit boring in the beginning because of the repetitiveness of actions. After the first scene of waking up in another man's body and life-reality, the captain appears in the source code in connection with the scientists in the physical world. This tunes the viewers to immediately know what the source code is all about -- an experimental connection between two realities.

What fascinates me much is that of the concept of the last 8 minutes of one's life. I'd rather have the movie titled "8 minutes" than "Source Code". It lingered in my brain's worms, how that few minutes in one's brain could make a dying person's memory a heaven or a hell of his life to take in his afterlife?

Just consider how the computer, which has similarities with our brain's memory function, could shut down improperly and ruin everything that its memory could take when it turns on again. Bad memories stored in our brain are like bile of toxins, they kill and make our life as hell. But all beautiful memories that we keep give us joy and peace, that is heaven.

This life or the next, this time or the future, the past or the present are all constructed realities, each one is connected to another. As it is true in the movie, we can choose the memories we want in our realities. However, we can only do this if we are conscious of our lives and the time of our dying. We might as well believe the maxim "live this day as if it were your last", or "make every time the last 8 minutes of your life".

Good Deeds of Faith

2011-04-19T11:13:00.007+08:00

One friend of mine, who is an evangelical protestant, had always stressed to me that salvation is not 'through one's works but through God's grace'. But I argue, 'faith without work is dead'.

When one professes that he believes in God through Jesus, he is called a Christian. With that identity he must exercise his faith not for his salvation but for the salvation of others. While it is through that no one can save one's soul except Christ and Him alone.

As I learned from the Church, the passion and death of Jesus, brought salvation to all those who believe in Him. All sins are forgiven through him. As he rose from the dead, his believers must also rise from unbelief, lack of faith and the old sinful ways.

It is a work of faith to reconcile with God, while repentance calls for a 180 degree turn from sin. It is faith at work to be doing 'good' to others, for Jesus said "love one another" as He loved us. Faith then should manifest in the work.

The expressions of our faith and our love of God are meaningful symbols. True, one does not merit salvation from doing good work, for without faith a good deed is nothing. This implies that as we believe in God we ought to, out of our love for him, become vessels of his love for others.

This we can do in so many ways, but yet we do them for ourselves. "Help those who are in need, because some day they may help you in times of your need." Thinking this way is not a manifestation of Christian faith. Consider the Samaritan for his compassion to help someone who would not meet him again or those who would not be able to return the favor.

Christ did not do what he did because he wants something from the people, but because he desires that people live their life in full. A student I had feels so good and at the same time oblivious that he gave a decent looking old woman who speaks English 100 pesos because he didn't have any smaller bills, while she only asked for 80.

What does that 100-peso mean to the old woman, or 1 peso or 5 pesos to a child who risk his life to get on a jeepney to beg for alms? Compare that amount to what you have, surely you had more than that, it feels alright because 'with that small amount' you think you were 'able to help'. To me, that is the worth you give to others who in the eyes of God is equal to you.

When Jesus preached about the dinarius to be given to Ceasar, He emphasized on the woman's act of faith, she gave all that she had. Jesus himself, gave all that he had. If we believe that our life is not our own, and so then it must be given all back to God. There are more meaningful ways to show our faith - the best of which is being one with God in Spirit and in prayer.

When we had a retreat recently, I was not expecting anything for me. But through out I was praying that God blesses and touch the hearts of those who really need. On retreats I would always ask God to meet me. But this time, I was just praying for others. And, he heard my prayers for those I prayed for.

Emptying our cup so we can be filled is an act of faith. Filling others' empty cup is also an act of faith. If a work of faith is an act of love and manifestation of God's love, then it has to be generous, unconditional even to the point that it pains the one giving, for that pain will turn to joy.

Be empty to be filled. You do not need to flagellate your back. You do not need to nail your self on wooden cross. You do not need to walk from one church to another while in between your pilgrimage you gossip and binge. You just need to be still and do what good deeds of faith the Spirit of God will tell you.

To be empty, start out by reconciling your self with those people who have inflicted you pain and those you have hurt so badly. To be empty forego the bitterness in your heart. To be empty let Jesus, in the silence of your heart, take all the thorns and callouses that prevent you from living your life as His follower. Let Jesus live in your hearts forever.

Who needs a college degree?

2011-04-18T12:45:00.002+08:00

College, unlike highschool is more tedious to require some seriousness. It is a time for one student to make a crucial choice about the career he wants to take. Critical to this stage is one's adaptation to new realities and a conviction to stand on one's feet. When I entered college, I was not properly guided as to what course would really fit my competencies and interest. There were so many options in my mind: I wanted to be an agricultural engineer, an architect, a doctor of medicine, a political science, a journalist.

Through some elimination, I opted to take mass communication. I could draw well, but I was not so good in math. I excelled in my highschool biology, chemistry and physics, but we didn't have money to buy the books for a pre-med and the med-proper courses. I was well versed in history and the social sciences, but the University that was so convenient for me was not offering political science in fear of rearing activists. Sadly, it didn't have a program in journalism, which was my elective from first year high school.

After college, I tried a six-month stint in the print media as a showbiz magazine editor. But then I found myself teaching college students eventhough I didn't have any education background. Having a college education was to me a training ground for employment. It is really, because in the Philippines there is no way you could get a better paying job without a college degree. It also depends where you graduated from. Job hunting is so mean to prefer graduates from reputable colleges and universities. I was fortunate that I graduated from one prestigious university. College gives an experience of the world, a glimpse to one's future and formation to maturity.

In the university, I learned my rights and stood to fight for them. My eyes were opened to realities in our society and so I advocated social justice in the streets. It honed my writing skills so I became the student publication's editor in chief. It taught me democracy and civil liberties, then the school administration tried us in their own justice system and sued in the city's trial court for unjust vexation. College is where I got try so many things I couldn't dare do in highschool; smoking, drinking, watching girls dance all the way, cutting classes, arguing with teachers, rallying and picketing to name a few. But all those I guess are part of my passage to maturity. With friends I tried these.

College is the begining of a student's adult life. Exploration will be so necessary for anyone in college to have a pre-taste of what life is. The degree one obtains in college is a ticket to employment, even though it may not be so relevant to the job demands or the life one chooses to fulfill afterwards. The picture I clipped here was taken when we were in the second year. The boys there are my barkadas, we were eight in all. In those years, our mindset of our future was short term, we all wanted to get into the media industry as mass commmunication graduates.

On the contrary not all of us got to practice what we studied. Chris is the only successful media practitioner in us, now a voice in the Philippines top AM radio station. Another one who had a career in government communications was Tygs, the bad guy in us who influenced us to smoke and drink. Roy is in applied communications as call center agent. Ikel who started as billing collector is now handling corporate communications for a water distributor.

Others did not really work in the communication field. Betong and Omar are now lawyers, while I teach in college. Our advantage in our chosen careers is that of having the communicative competence. College was an opportunity for me, because eventhough it did not give me background in education, my communication skills are more than adequate to teach communication arts to students. In legal practice, lawyers need to the same competence both orally and in writing.

College is fun and it enables one to build relationships and foster friendship. In my time college served one purpose, to obtain a degree that would qualify us for a job. On the contrary, the college students I deal with do not have that purpose. They go to college not to have a degree for an employment, but so that they can do something to keep them busy. College for them is a social opportunity to meet new people, and learn at the same time.

Well, the students I deal with are well off than any of us back in college. They can survive life without a college education, because they are economically stable and that they can expect a great inheritance of wealth from their parents. This is one fact I have to deal with in order to make the college experience of my students more meaningful to them. As to me, college gave me the knowledge foundation and core skills that I needed to reach where I am now.

Down Time after a Great Term

2011-04-17T00:00:00.000+08:00

The last term of this school year will always be so memorable to me for many reasons. Thinking about them gives me a smile on my face with gratitude in my heart and a great sense of achievement.

First, I am filled with joy that my students succeeded to meet my expectations that most of them who did not give up in our class performed excedingly well. I refer to my students in COMSK2X who completed their final requirement of presenting their project proposals and my students in ORALCOM who delivered their final major speech.

I have learned alot from them, and I have enjoyed every moment that they would share their laughter, chat casually with me, tell me their personal stories, share their ideas whether brilliant or bleak, and specially when I hear how they learn from what we are doing.

The most important of all lesson that I learned, is that "all practices and simulations we are doing are but bullshit!" Maybe it is at that moment when things are already easy because they have been prepared well for it, and when in fact the challenge is no longer there at that moment, but out there when they advance to their next subjects and when they leave the school.

That student who asked me why we were doing all those bullshit was really smart to think at the moment, because the real applications of a course's culminating activity does not end in the four courners of the classroom. The bullshit being done in the class is a golden shit later on. Apparently, that student did very well in that bullshit activity, and it makes me proud that he succeeded there.

The other things I am so happy about are those of my personal and professional development. This term ended my probationary period to give me a permanent tenure in the college. Along with this is the recognition of my five years of loyal service. Next is, I am being promoted two steps from my current rank because of my research outputs. Also, I am looking forward to an adminstrative position sometime soon.

I consider those both blessings and rewards for my labor. They did not come so easy. I did not really plan for them, but sometime before I have set my mind to greater things, and here they are unfolding before my eyes. Because of my hardwork and passion to be able to inspire others through whatever I can contribute, I have found my voice and it was heard and recognized.

Finally, what gives my heart joy is that I am done with my coursework for my PhD. One student in our last meeting sincerely told me his hope to call me a doctor sometime this year. That to me is a prophecy that I have to work with destiny driven by faith and passion. Through the training I had in my PhD program in UP, I was able to do several research, some of them are published in journals, archieved in the indeces online, and presented in national and international conferences.

Now I feel I am bound to succeed in whatever I will do. Not because I am more conscious of my capacity, but because I know God is with me along the way. He gave me people who provided me favors, like enrolling me for residency this summer so I can take the comprehensive exam, presenting my project while I attend to my class, talking with me when I space out, finding time to dine out to give me social life, smoking with me when I rot of lazyness to booze me up, and yes lending me money when I am broke.

All those things were incredible almost surreal to happen. It surprises me that they happened. Surely, with my own strength I will not be able to them. The excellent G.P.A. I got to merit me a University Scholar status throughout my PhD program, the paperworks that I could do so efficiently, the lessons that I present to the class, the blogs I write while I am busy with academic research works, while attending a full time teaching job. All are impossible to accomplish, but God put me through.

Now the school year ends, it is down time for me after a great term. Before I plunge into reviewing for my comprehensive examination and preparing for my dissertation, and before I compute my students' final grades, I intend to treat my self into a series of lazy days -- an awesome vacation. Oh, this is happiness! Any great ideas as to how I should spend a month and half of downtime?

The Piano Teacher from Romblon

2011-04-10T23:01:00.004+08:00

There are stories that are just plain sad, but there are sad stories that inspire others to be stronger in facing life struggles. While life is not a contest many Filipinos join TV show contests in hope of winning a prize that could help them move from their current troubled circumstances.

At 50's, she came from Romblon, a teacher giving piano lessons to children just so she can join Pilipinas Got Talent because she wanted to continue her check up with her doctor. She mustered courage to face a big audience in that auditorium, the Philippines and even the world, with her story that made people cry not because it was sad, but because she was courageous to stand through it.

Four years ago, her parents passed away. Two good people whom in their probably old age and weak state gave her strength to keep on with life. Her siblings have all gone their ways and have stopped keeping in touch with her. She was not given a chance to bear any child. Her husband left her some ten years ago after spending with her 25 years of marriage.

She is left alone by the people whom she would expect to be there with her. Alone with an old piano, but she kept through with few pupils who would pay her 100 pesos for an hour's lesson while sometimes none at all. She was left alone with her music, her passion, left alone with breast cancer that metastasized to affect her lumbar spinal nerve 3.

While her spinal cord is threatened with cancer metastasis, her bosom that had been badly beaten by tumor is strong to get through with her life. She knew her chance was lean. When asked why she joined the talent show, she muttered all she wanted is a new piano, so she can teach her students better and that she can go through with her medication.

What is heart-breaking in her story is not that of her physical condition, but the treatment she got to inflict in her torn heart more pain. The very people, in her family, and the very man who vowed to love her till death part them, left her in that condition. But she was strong, her faith and hope in God did not falter her.

Kris Aquino, who sits as a judge in the talent show, told her she would send her a grand piano. Such is a generosity that lifted the piano teacher's heart. The three judges knew she had poor chances in getting in the finals or winning the coveted prize. To me she was a winner in that moment of coming up there in the stage with her hope and passion for music.

Her life is a sad song, she is a woman needing the sweetest music to be played to her ears, when the pain of cancer strikes her. I would like to hear her story being striked in those piano keys. That would probably move the audience and tell the world how it misses to show compassion on those who need it most.

Increasing Your Self-Worth

2011-04-08T12:16:00.005+08:00

Self-worth is an abstract value that you place on your self. Other's may see you differently, or not even worth anything, but do remember that self-worth is how you see yourself and how you add value to it. Because we are social individuals, the way we appraise our worth is greatly influenced by what others see or think about us. How do you exactly increase your self-worth?

This is so difficult when everyone else says something different about you and so demeaning to your self-esteem. There can be those things contradicting to how you exactly see your self. This conflict will definitely affect not only your relationship to others but the way you see your self. Life coaches have several tips to help those, who do not seem to understand their own worth, manage their anxieties and gain more in appraising their worth. Doing so is a process:

First, know that you have value - your existence may be a question to you because of your regret on your circumstance right now. You might be bothered by your knowledge of 'perfection', 'fulfillment' and 'successes' of others. The very fact that you are trying to see your self on other's images that you perceive is not contributing any to your self worth. While life circumstances seem to unfold in a series of coincidences, serendipity, accidents, mishaps or ill-fortunes; your life and you are part of a greater symphony or scheme of things.

In the most pressing times, the worth of a person is more appreciated by doing the littlest but noble things. Between a filthy business tycoon and a dirt-clodded street sweeper, the latter has more value because he keeps the street clean of the garbage the businessman is never interested of collecting. Many of the geniuses in the world have actually failed so many times before they succeeded on doing something the societies accepted as excellent.

Second, see and acknowledge your situation - You are where you are because you have value in that situation, that situation may not be what you have chosen, but you have choice to be in another situation. You may not be able to choose your parents or your siblings, but as you are part of that family, you have a pre-existing value in that relationship. This value comes in how you fulfill expected roles and how you demonstrate valued norms in that relationship. Denying your situation because you do not want to be identified with it is a denial of your self.

Where you find your self now is where your value is measured and expected to be utilized to contribute to every member of that relationship. Everyone will have to find him self in a different situations which expect different things. As you identify your self with the situation, you have to adapt to it as you prove your worth in meeting the expectations exacted from what you can do. Your worth, wherever you are, will be appreciated in what you can contribute to its betterment.

Third, you can do more than what you can think of - It is defeating to be merely compliant without exceeding the expectations. Beating the deadline, doing jobs routinely, strictly complying to requirements and the like are but evidences of what you can do as normally as you can. But what is normal is just average, and what is average is often mediocre. Because you do not find self-gratification and fulfillment in doing the ordinary, you do not find what ever your doing worthy to affect your self-worth.

While you acknowledge your situation, you also have to understand that you are capable of going beyond what you can ordinarily do. You are capable of learning to do things more strategically and you have the potentials to think creatively and so add a premium to whatever you can do. When given deadlines, you can actually turn your work in advance, when asked to yield an output of 10% you can deliver, twice three times or more of that.

Fourth, be an influence to others and understand their influence in you - Our self-concept or how we see our selves are permeable in its nature. The human psyche is as acqueous as we are changed in our interactions and communication with other people. To withstand the external influence of others on you, you have to be stronger to influence them instead. You need to find your voice and let your voice be heard as you consider to listen to others' voices. Only with that distinct voice that you can be identified and so be listened at.

It is most appreciated that you can be emphatic, eager to learn from others' views and be critical of the ideas that you share. You should be able to tell what you think in ways that will not dishearten anyone but instead affirm them. You would need to know how others think, decide and behave, so you would know how to deal with them appropriately. To influence others does not mean that you should be stricken with egotism; instead you should be able to share something that others will find valuable and life-changing.

Lastly, believe and become - Believing that you have worth and that you can do something is not just a wishful thinking or a hope that someone can grant you. To believe that you are valuable means to show that you are worthy and that you can deliver beyond other's expectations. Neither should you brag about how you see your self and what you have done. Other people will have to speak of that for you.

To become a person of value, you have to begin by believing that you are valuable and then you need to improve by yourself. You have to be in control of your life as you would with your emotions, your thoughts and your behavior. Each day that you should wake up and face your daily life, you have to be taking every day a challenge for you to be better.

Taking up Graduate Studies?

2011-04-06T22:28:00.010+08:00

Whenever someone asks me whether it is worth to take up graduate studies my answer is always "it depends".

It is graduation season. There are probably some of those graduates, particularly those who excelled academically to be considering taking up a master's degree, and those who finished their master's, a doctoral degree. There are also those students who did not really excel in the college academics thinking of pursuing a graduate degree to add a feather on their cap.

BUT, that's all caps, graduate school is not for everyone. But, again it depends on the same factors that a student intending to pursue graduate studies should really be thinking over. Gloss over these points to check your self if you are really up to it:

1. Do you have a career track in mind where advance knowledge will be required, more than what a college education could provide?

2. Do you have a specific course of interest in which you are really good at and you are truly willing to learn more about?

3. Do you have a particular school (not a diploma mill) where you would be accepted for the course that you intend to take?

4. Do you have the resources (i.e. money, time, support, transportation, knowledge sources) that will enable you to complete graduate studies?

5. Do you have the skills to grasp vast knowledge crunched in so little time, and the savvy to read beyond the required readings or what you're professor have read so far?

6. Do you have the patience to deal with intolerable professors who think they know everything and you don't until they drift away and ask you a question you will have to think of for days?

7. Do you have the social skills to cope with the varying traits of your possible classmates, who would argue better than you, or just stare at you when you extrapolate on things they did not learn of, or a group mate who loves free rides in your collaborative works?

8. Do you enjoy learning on your own because you want your points or arguments supported with empirical knowledge so that you can contribute to the existing knowledge in the world?

9. Do you believe that there are truths, and several sides and angles to a truth you might be needing to debunk or question later on?

10. Is it merely the degree that you want or the learning experience that goes with pursuing the degree?

When I took my Masters in Arts, we were more than twenty, only four in batch had really completed the degree. When I took my MBA we were 18, none finished on the time allotted for us to complete, though I manage to complete all academic works. When enrolled for my PhD, there were 10 of us who applied for the program, five got in, only two of us taking the comprehensive exam soon, two got out of the program, one needs three semesters more to complete the course requirement.

In a bachelor's degree, a student learns concepts. In a master degree the learner tests concepts of the theories and principles that were learned in college. In obtaining a PhD degree, the learner to become a philosopher must argue his way to contribute a concept to the existing body of human knowledge.

It depends where one takes his degree from. My training in the PhD in Communication program of the University of the Philippines did not only enable me to become a researcher, as we have to write a full research equivalent to that of a college or master's thesis every term in every course. Likewise, it opened my nut head to a wide horizon of the field and multiple disciplines that converge in understanding the phenomenon of communication. Further, the learning experience granted me expertise in understanding the context and intricacies of my profession.

I finished my Master's coursework in two years, but it took me seven years to finally bring to my field a knowledge from my labor and thinking. It took me four trimesters to finish the coursework for my supposed MBA degree, which I started the same time I was in my last year of my MA. I completed my PhD course work in two years and a semester. My goal is to pass my dissertation within the next school year. I am not in a hurry, I just don't want to waste time and spend more over time. Don't ask me about the grades, because you'll be in disbelief to brand me merely air headed. But I managed an excellent standing between 1.0 to 1.25, in all those.

Graduate studies is not for everyone. I am not through with it yet, but I have overcome so far. It is something one needs to plan about, really think about, aspire for perhaps, but more importantly work hard for. Taking graduate studies is a choice that goes with a commitment, sleepless nights, stressful days, gruelling paper works, mountain high readings. But it is all worth it, if you have it there inside you what is required for it.

Passing the Buck

2011-04-04T12:19:00.006+08:00

There is an existing assumption in some teachers that students are like buckets to be filled by mere transmission of knowledge. Another assumption is that students can be passed on like a buck to the next level or another teacher even without actually meeting the qualifications to be advanced anyway. Teachers will find it really hard and may as often fail, with those streams of thought guiding their professional practice.

First, students are not buckets to be filled to the brim. They are learners who come to school for several reasons, but ultimately needing the help of a mature adult to train them for life. As learners, they have unique abilities to process knowledge. For a student to learn, he needs to be equipped with the reason, explanation, example, practice and instructions that would enable him to demonstrate the expected change in behavior.

I have never done well in Algebra, although I excelled in Trigonometry, Geometry and Statistics. Until now I could not solve problems about fractions. My teachers should know these of course, but there was no remidation after all. This is my waterloo, that's why I am in the field of communication - a justification founded on the left-right brain divide.

The teacher ought to discover how students do and in what best ways work for them. Teachers are not supposed to process knowledge for the learners and hand them knowledge as if it is surely absorbed by mere verbal transfer. They have to create the experiences where students can discover that knowledge and be motivated to gain more.

Even though I could articulately solve simple equations, I could not go as far when it becomes complicated. No wonder, my high school teacher got me join a math contest, and I still passed my Algebra in College. If my teachers had intervened, and really got to the root of my weaknesses in Mathematics, I knew I could have advanced.

I would have appreciated that my teachers had informed me of why I was having difficulty in understanding how an equation operates. If only they could translate their quantitative thinking in a fashion my visual and linguistic mind would understand. I knew I was highly logical, but my numerical skill was insufficiently nurtured.

Second, there are learning (not teaching) goals that a teacher should enable the students to meet. Only when they are met, that a teacher has succeeded. These goals are translated into objectives that meet the learning needs of students. Hence, they are revised as needed to be more significant for the learners. A teacher's goal is never to pass the student like a buck to another teacher, because there is nothing anymore that can be done.

Now that I am a teacher, I still meet students who don't even know how to conjugate the verb "write" in its progressive form. They spell it with a double "t" as in WRITTING. This lesson is part of the basic education curriculum, specifically in the primary years of a child's schooling.

If this error occur as they get into college, one thing is for sure. That, their teacher in their basic education had overlooked this mistake, and so the buck is passed to their college English teacher. As I noticed this error, I would immediately highlight that part in a student's work, flash the correct spelling on screen or write it on the board.

If a student commit a spelling error on a basic word, how then can we expect them to distinguish the difference between fragments and the sense of a complete sentence? Passing the buck in teaching to the succeeding teachers do not help the learner. It is out of convinience and the expediency of handling the teaching load that irresponsible teachers would opt for this.

If teaching has to be made more meaningful for the students, "right there and then" a teacher should be able to guide a learner into what is "right". Rightness in English Language instruction would mean observing the Langauge Standards, with a capital "S", not just the teacher's standard.

Family Picture

2011-03-24T21:30:00.005+08:00

When I was 10, my paternal grandmother(+) took me for a vacation in Bicol. I stayed there for two months, and that was the longest time that I would have to be away as a kid from my mom and my home, miles and miles away from Manila. There was excitement in the first days while I explored the place.

It was fun in the first weeks, but my excitement passed and homesickness crept in, especially when I would hear my lola joke that I would stay in our ancestral house. That, was the first time that I celebrated my birthday away from home.

As I remembered the days with my family, sadness caught me. All I could do was silently cry holding a picture of our clan that my lola kept in a box. I would run to the room after a tiresome day helping in doing the chores, and after I would get scolded for some mischief. I would look at our family picture.

And I would wish that everything were just a dream, that when I woke up, I would be back home. The fondest memories in that family picture became my refuge, my room a sanctuary to relive happy moments, which then I was not sure I could find again because my Lola as the family matriarch could just keep me there with her.

Today, I had to hold my tears as one student in my speech class shared what all she wanted in life -- a picture with all the happy smiles from her family. She broke in tears in front of the class as she told us how she was affected witnessing her family broke because her mom left.

She said she went through being an "emo-suicidish" girl with less interest to be with others or even excel. Then I felt, I was blessed, even though I spent only seven years with a dad, and the rest with my widowed mom. My siblings and I were like orphaned without a father.

We did not have studio photos of our family or pictures outdoors having bonding time. I could count the pictures where my father was there with us. I could not frame or hang any photo of my family on the wall. That is if I keep believing that a family is composed of a father, a mother and their children.

In my heart's memory is a picture of me being carried by dad going home, my mom walking by her and my elder siblings following behind. This was the usual picture of us, going home from my dad's car shop. There it is vivid, how my family values each other, how my mother loves my father, how my siblings respect and trust my parents, and how my dad cares for me.

My family was not also ordinary. I had a sister(+) from my mom, before she became my dad's common law wife. My dad had three children, he courted my mom when his first wife died. I grew up with my four half siblings and two full consanguine siblings. But there was no difference at all, with and without my father, we identified with each other as a common family.

What makes a family a family is that of the concern, care, respect, trust and above all love that one shares with another. The picture of a family is not always perpect as how many idealizes it to be. We are blessed with a family, even if that one caring for us is a single parent, a sibling or a plain relative, or not of our same blood. A family is a relationship, filled with memories, expectations, emotions. the picture is not always the same in everyone's life.

Traditional old school pictures fade, digital photos can be corrupted. The picture of family varies from one group of people in relationship to another. When I recall my father's physical presence in our home, I would miss him a lot, but what I have left is still my family, whatever the picture is like.

Be Still!

2011-03-22T00:24:00.004+08:00

I remember a story from the Bible, were Jesus was asleep on a boat with his disciples. A storm came, and the disciples were scared. They woke Jesus up, as they lost faith amidst a tempestous storm. Jesus calmed the waters and commanded the wind and clouds to be still.

Be still! Jesus rebuked them for they lost faith when they were scared. Be at peace! Have faith! This is what Jesus tells his followers. Jesus also gave his peace on this earth to those who believe in Him. With that, we can be still.

Tonight, while I was in the classroom, the ground crumbled. My students who were all sitting, felt the tremor first. It was probably at 3-4 magnitude in the Richter scale, that was felt in Manila. From the epicenter in Mindoro, it was at 5.7, felt at 6:37, and then at 9:29, another earthquake was felt in the Bicol region, the epicenter was at Camarines sur with a 4.5 magnitude.

Last March 4, there was also an earthquake with the epicenter somewhere in Batangas and Mindoro, it has the same magnitude of 5.7. I was at the 9th floor administering listening quiz. From the ground floor it was not really felt, but up there, the building was really at shake.

As a teacher, I should be composed in front of my students in such a situation. I remember while we were still, while the we could all feel the tremor and the dizziness that it cause us. I was still, and one yelled out. "Am I gonna die?" I replied, "well dear, if you will from this earthquake, then we all are".

Back in June 16, 1991, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 billowed so many infrastructure in Baguio and the Northern Luzon, I was playing in the school ground as sophomore. I was really scared then, as I felt the ground moving, and I could not even stand on my feet.

All I could do, was kneel on the ground,and slouch there, while I was praying for God's protection to all of us in the school and to my family. Then, I saw the building shaking, the light post shaking, the cables like being wagged by a huge hand. That earthquake took many lives.

I was just right in the safest place in case of any emergency such as an earthquake. Tonight, I thank God that I was still, composed at peace. I even continued the lesson after the tremors, while my students were perhaps oblivious about my actions.

But, I am saddened, by comment I read from the internet, which reads: "I hope God can protect us from all these." With confidence and certainty, I would like to tell anyone who thinks like this, to be still. For God who has given Jesus to us in faith, promises us that his mercy, love, and grace endures forever. If ye have faith, then you should be still, for the Lord God is mightier than any other power on this world and even under it.

Moonstruck

2011-03-19T21:36:00.003+08:00

Our retreat master shared to us the myth of the "moonstruck". The myth could inspire those yearning for a lover but already in their middle ages.

It tells of a folkloric belief that for a woman to find her lover, she needs to look for a man sleeping under the full moon. She needs to wait for him to wake up, and that when he does and sees her from his awakening, he will be moonstruck and fall in love with her.

I do find the full moon strikingly fascinating and romantic. Hence, this allusion of moonstruck to falling in love, romance and relationships. Sadly, I missed to witness the rare lunar perigee this evening.

Honestly, I was at all times in sleep mode during the retreat even though I worked on the activities that we were assigned at. I would sleep through out the bus ride to and from the retreat house.

It's just now that I am in reflection mode and happened to be moonstruck if not affected by lunar lunacy perhaps. I am urged to pause and go over what happened, and of what I heard, felt, said and did in that experience, prior, during and after the retreat.

The retreat that we had was more of bonding for the department and a break from the regular tedious routines of our work. My expectations were met so far, but they were mostly not for me, but for others in the group. First, I really wanted that for our department so that we could have time to know each other more and so be closer with one another.

I went there in faith that something will happen for those who are there. I did not go there, because I felt I had baggages to unload and some troubles to run away from, so that I can find emotional sanity and spiritual refuge. I went there to join my colleagues, and I found myself more of an observer and intercessor.

I was guarded by a conviction of listening only, that the event was not really for me to be talking as I gave more chance for the newer teachers to open up so that I can know them more. I hope I listened well. This is very unlikely when I was still struggling with my faith some five or six years ago.

Back then I would mix my personal baggages with spiritual ideas because I felt I had obligations to be an element for others' renewal. I am moonstruck but what I shared about me, as an individual in a journey towards God alone. Now, I am trying to figure out the impact of what I said to those who heard me.

I feel no guilt at all as to what I have said, but a thought lingers in my mind that I could have been misunderstood. Nevertheless, my heart convicts me that everything that happens, happens for a purpose under God's greater scheme of things. Why was I there, if I my faith is strong and I am not troubled?

With that question, I am struck to know the answer later on, and to listen to my heart as to whether I am still moonstruck with people I love -- my family, or am I lost by being self-rightous?

With self-rightiousness, I could just be really moonstruck, because I am seeing light that is but a reflection of the Original, and in the dark. Even, so it is still light and can help me go through if I am in the dark.

Disaster Risk Communication 101

2011-03-15T21:32:00.008+08:00

While I read the news coming from top western new agencies online, I am saddened not by the images of the aftermath of tsunami engulfed a wide area in the north eastern coastlines of Japan, but of how the news on disaster risks are framed by the journalists. In disaster risk management, the people need to be informed of the situation, updated as necessary; to alert everyone affected, but never to alarm them.

If you have been following the situation in Japan but you're stuck in watching BBC or CNN, or you're referring to western-based news agencies, try to look at what's happening there through the Japanese' eyes via NHK. There you will know the big cultural difference in presenting the situation to the global audience, and the way the Japanese are handling the situation.

The libertarian principle of journalism is that of being socially responsible as a watchdog of the government for the people, and they have a developmental function to emancipate the people from ignorance that inflicts on them various social dilemma. At this early, it becomes obvious how non-Japenese journalists are framing the news to sustain readership or audience share.

The operatives of these journalists, I fear, could add to the pressure now levied on the Japanese parliament. While the lenses of these journalists try to capture the human drama, they fail because the drama is not there at all. In writing, these journalists present the information as dramatic as possible to make the issue hot at an alarming level, even if it is not.

Another concern that surfaces here, is that the tide of information that is not normatively undergoing gatekeeping anymore because the media wants the news out immediately could have an implication as to how authorities should be dealing with the issue. The media seems to be taking an ominiscient role, that is all knowing and all seeing, but blind to the repercussions of their newsframing decisions.

Top western news agencies are focused now on the quantities of death, impact to the Japanese and world economy, and the threat of a nuclear leak. Most often, they refer to experts and authorities outside Japan who also rely on the news that they watch, as if those have an insider's look at the case, while they thousands of miles away from the location.

Indeed, the scene may look 'apocalyptic' , the threats 'at worst fearsome'. But, if we look intently on the actions and the behavior of the Japanese at the foreground of those images, there we see calm, composure and confidence that they can go through with what happened in their own way.

How did the Japanese recover from WWII after Hiroshima was blistered with hydrogen bombs? How they prosper amidst the fact that the Japanese archipelago is sitting on the Pacific-ring of fire, with earthquakes every now and then, and tsunamis from dating from prehistory? The answer to these lie on the matrix of their culture and their values. But, these are often ignored by those outside Japan.

Lastly, the Japanese is not only rich in its culture, but in its openness to share to the world its knowledge. The Hyogo Framework which is model disaster risk management models all over the world is mostly Japanese. What we can see now, is that Japan is setting up a model as to how communication should take place in disastrous stations. Ironically, many do not understand this.

That 19th century painting of the Kanagawa Wave shows how the Japanese mastered their environment by understanding as well as reverring nature. That nature is not an enemy. Even if it demonstrates its strength and power, the Japanese knows what it means and respects that as they remain still. Panic or alarm is an absent element in that cultural artifact.

Can you tell me what I should do?

2011-03-12T18:09:00.006+08:00

What should I do? This is the most difficult question that I cannot answer for my consultee, even so for a friend. Answering such question, for me would be subverting the individual capacity to think and be responsible for his or her own life, and this puts the burden or blame back to me, if things don't work well the way they should.

In very confusing life situations, all of us our vulnerable to experience cognitive dissonance. This takes place when what we think don't happen to be aligned on our precepts or existing schemas. When we encounter something odd or unknown which should not be happening as we expected, that triggers cognitive dissonance. So, we turn to others for some help.

To some people, seeking help is a weakness. To other's seeking help is a strength and a way to reinforce, assess or challenge one's frame of thinking to determine a solution that is congruent to what is already preconceived. Meaning, we seek help when we already know what help we need, but we are just seeking confirmation that our intended actions are right.

I feel that the question "what should I do?" is different from that of "tell me what you think should I do?". The first relieves the one asking of the responsibility and accountability to the personal obligation of resolving his or her issues. The second, is seeking opinion that may have value to coming up with an informed decision. The first critical and the latter is socially healthy.

The question "what should I do?" has an underlying tone of desperation, dissonance and confusion, while the latter has an attribute of personal capability. Both questions manifest a need for communication, and some clear, tangible and logical solutions. The first obviously seeks empathy from the surface, but the critical part here is the need for empowering the individual to assess his or her own problem and self-initiated solutions.

One time a friend told me how she was not so happy with her marriage or her husband. She asked me, what she should do. First, I am not in the position of giving her any advice as marriage is out of my schema nor my specialization. I resolved to just give her so many available options and illustrations of what other people have done. Until now, she is in the same situation, simply because she idealizes a life she is not in which she is not doing anything about.

The question "tell me what you think?" goes with an embedded question "what should I do?". The embedding suggests that the one being consulted has the capacity to rationalize things and help the seeking party. As the latter is embedded, it is evident now that what is important to the asking individual are ideas that can help clarify the issue and resolve it later on. This requires comprehensive understanding to the listener and sharing of critical insights.

A strong-willed woman I know approached me about how her academic plans were devastated by a decision she never expected. She asked me what I think she should do. Coming from her schema of having everything in her life planned and written out, I understood that her dissonance is due to some violations of expectations. She expects something which the other party does not know anything about. Recursively, we went back and forth her issues, her feelings and her expectations, as we go through the pros and cons of many possible actions she can do. She resolved to adjusting her expectations and rewriting her life-script.

The two situations I illustrated are different and maybe incomparable. But, what is common there is our personal need for other's help to inform us in our life-decisions. We need others, but we can not totally depend our decisions on what others think. Our life is our life, not someone else's. We need others to listen to us, as we need to listen to what they think.

Our tendency to mirror our lives with that of others' will affect our very own understanding of our self and our directions in life. As we need to live with others we also need to stand strong in our own feet, that includes being accountable and responsible for our decisions and actions. Then, and only then that we can tell our selves and exclaim to others that we have lived our lives and completed our own race.

Lastly, with those two situations we need to see who we really are in terms of our dependence, independence or interdependence. There are instances were we need to be dependent, as an infants to their parents, or as the elderly to the young. But we grow and as we grow we need to be independent in many things and interdependent at some others.

Witnessing the Struggle of Man against Nature

2011-03-12T16:29:00.016+08:00

I was glued on TV the whole day watching the 'unfolding drama' of a great earthquake and the following tsunami that devastated Japan. I have to be honest that I was a bit desensitized to the issue eventhough before my eyes was a real deluge.

I should have been more empathic, scared, sad, anxious or whatever, particularly when my mom started calling her friends and relatives to alert them of what's happening. She even told us to go to the church, because a priest in the parish said so.

I was just composed, looking at the repeated video on BBC, CNN, FoxNews, CNBC and NHK. What I witnessed is the reality of stronger and greater natural disaster, which some scientists have warned the world, but the world leaders did not attend to. When the tsunami struck, I remembered what happened in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

What I understood of the event is that man is helpless with the power of nature. Of natural disasters, we do not know when and where they will happen. But this does not mean that we should not be prepared. One thing for sure, the Japanese had the best preparations when it comes to disaster risk management. The Japanese who are naturalists have advanced in science and technology to keep their citizens safe as its people knew that their archipelago sits in the ring of fire and most vulnerable to all sorts of natural disasters.

I must have felt desensitized as I felt more informed through the news and through my earlier knowledge on disaster risk management. I knew Japan can handle the situation. No, not in the way of stopping an earthquake or plugging the way of the tsunami - but in alerting its citizens to safety and composure.

Disasters strike, and we are not sure when and where. One thing is to be aware, another is to be prepared and alert in our actions when it happens. With climate change more is to be expected, nature has become more unpredictable as its unleashes its strength in greater intensities mostly unknown to us.

I have confidence that the Japanese people can go through what inundated them. First because they possess great resiliency amidst natural and man-made disasters. Second, they place high value on living in harmony with others. Third, they have the technology and material resources to recover from their situation. Fourth, historically Japan has stood and survived so many deluding events. Lastly, the world is not indifferent to their need and call for help.

At this point, we need to learn from what happened in Japan, in Thailand, in Haiti, in New Zealand and in many places in the world, to help in our disaster risk management efforts amidst the unresolved fate of this world as a result of climate change. Now, while disasters reach at high scales, international efforts must be geared to a global readiness for every one in this world.

Be Consoled and be Filled with Joy

2011-03-11T14:32:00.005+08:00

I am driven to post this today, for reasons I do not know. But I am certain, that somewhere, this post would be of value.

Console yourself with the Scripture if you believe in God, "with our suffereings come perseverance,in perseverance, character, and character hope - and hope never fails" (Ro.5:4). God knows our hearts. He knows who among us puts faith in His Son.If you know the Son and believe in Him, your joy must be complete.

If you think you are suffering now while you walk your faith in the Lord, that is not a test but a training for you to give you perseverance, to develop you character so that your faith may be whole. While tests can be failed, trainings only calibrate.

This world offers so many things for us to experience momentary happiness. In watering holes, they have happy hours and casual sex. There is 'ecstacy' sold in tablets. There are new age techniques to change your aura, yoga to breath in 'joy', mantras, chakras and charms to bind negative energies.

There is Feng Shui to drive off bad luck, and fortune tellers that give false hopes; narcotic drugs to hallucinate and detach one self from reality, modern day witchcraft to cast spells and renew self-esteem. But can any of these really give joy?

No, this world has nothing for us, when we start to walk our life in faith. This way of life in our modern world is not something new, and we are being tempted to sin by many things int his world. It's been this way ages ago. The Scripture reads: "Surely, you know how it has been from of old, ever since man was placed on earth, that the mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment" (Job 20:4-5).

We are challenged in this life. There are no annointed Biblical character, prophet, disciple or saint who have never faced troubles nor committed sins. Jesus himself, suffered temptation, persecution, deserting, humiliation, pain and death, to forgive us our sins and save us from the debt of our sins.

The difference between a Christian and an unbeliever is that compared to them, we are certain that when we suffer troubles, God's hands will be there to move and save us. To us, challenges are but a training and not to test our faith but to strengthen our faith.

God knows our hearts because He implanted that faith in us. The Word inspires Jeremiah to say: "Before I knew you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart... (Jer. 1-5). There is no small or big faith.

Didn't Jesus say that even if your faith is as small as a mustrad seed you can command a tree to be uprotted and groundted to the sea (Mt. 17:20). We are set apart by the Lord for Him so that we may have life to the full; and that Hs joy may be in us and our joy may be complete (Jn. 15:11).

Persistence

2011-03-09T00:00:00.001+08:00

Persistence is the unfailing spirit of man to reach his goals. It is the willingness to succeed and gain victories amidst trials and tribulations. Not everyone though has the persistence to endure.

Persistent is a man whose heart is full of hope and trust. A man endures and overcomes with persistence. Persistence comes with faith, and those who endure are strong in faith. This faith is not only that of coming from himself but that which is faith in the Divine.

We all fall, falter and fail. If we can not stand up from our fall, then we can not gain strength from enduring. Without faith, we cannot endure and we cannot overcome or prevent failure. When we keep on failing, we might fall in the trap of no longer persisting to succeed.

He who is full of hope, never fails anyone who trusts Him. He pours out persistence to the weary-hearted and guides them to His glory. We can only trust in Him whose hope never fails.

There is nothing too difficult to accomplish in life. There is no problem unresolvable. There is noting impossible for everything is possible in our perfector of faith. I can say this boldy, because my life is living witness to this certainty that comes in faith.

There is a saying that the body is weak but the Spirit is strong. It is definite the the body which is formed from dust is weak. It's very nature will not last. But it is that Spirit which resides in the body that makes our spirit strong. We should then let the Spirit takeover our body to give it strength and endurance to persist in faith.

Today is Ash Wednesday, it is a symbolic ritual to remind us of where we came from. From dust we were, from dust we shall be. But that is just about our physical body. We should see as we belieive that we are brought to life from the dust with God's breath of His Spirit. Without his Spirit and our faith in Him, we can not persist.

Hence, we can endure all this world's troubles in faith, if the latter persists in our hearts and minds, and in our words and deeds.

Life Burn Out

2011-03-07T22:37:00.004+08:00

How could you manage to still blog when you have so many other things to do?

I myself is fascinated because I am keeping two blogs, writing reflections from our lessons in my PhD, doing two or three researches, glossing on 10-20 books, checking papers, preparing lessons and updating my Facebook account.

I am not superhuman, I am just an ordinary guy like anyone else. Honestly, I really don't know how I can do so much with the little time I have for my self. To others, they may find me burning both winks of my candle.

I could be doing so many things, but I am not burning both winks of my candle to waste. It just so happen that I know my priorities and I am passionate in doing all those things.

Frankly, I have no financial gains in doing all of them. I just enjoy doing them because they are meaningful to me. What drives me are intrinsic, so what would burn my wink out is also intrinsic.

I could stop myself from doing all those things, and just sit lazily in front of the TV, or browse the Internet for nothing, read tabloids or just gossip with my colleagues. I could just ignore the fact that I have students who would like to learn from me. I could miss my PhD classes and just get an incomplete grade.

With all those many things, it would be easy for me to get burned out. But life for me only has meaning when right things are done for the right purpose. I believe things unfold in their right time. My time to do so many things may be so little, but if I can do them so I must do them.

As I understand that I chose to do these not just for myself but for others, then I must also understand that I have to find the best ways so I can accomplish them. Life is not so cruel to burn someone out.

Life is the most beautiful thing that has ever come into this universe. We must live it meaningfully. Those people who feels burnt out in their lives are not really enjoying their life, rather it is the circumstances in their world that master them and not them in their lives.

The Unconventional Value of Filipinos for Assertiveness

2011-02-27T00:08:00.001+08:00

"Mataray" is one impression some people have about me, when I happen to express what I feel or what I think of something that doesn't really sound good or works well for me. My audacity is often construed to being tactless.

"I won't relent being audacious or bold with my ideas, when I can justify them to be sound, practical and reasonable. I'd rather assert my thoughts than keep them to myself if they are worth expressing to promote a good cause."

I am really opposite of being mataray. If I were, I should have the guts to be confrontive. I am not even quarrelsome to fight others because I feel I deserve more. When I am hurt, I'd rather keep that to myself, and release the pain in solitude. Casting my worries to the air really works best for me.

On Speaking my Mind

One time, I sat in a teaching demo. I got really annoyed with the clanging sound of the bangles the teacher was wearing. Afterwards, we were given the chance to ask her questions. First, I asked the usual essential questions. Then I asked the applicant, how she felt wearing those bangles and hearing them clang.

Smartly, she retorded that she felt alright with them, and then she asked me if I were annoyed with it. My reply was, "I could bear with it, but it might be distracting to some students". With that she jolted to one of my colleague how she was pissed with question and my katarayan. She told another teacher, that I was being too nosy.

Last night, I tagged along with my friends to eat in this new restaurant near the campus. The queue was a bit long, and the service was slow. Visibly there are two counters, so we all ligned up to one where there were no customers on queue. Only to be redirected to another counter to place our order, because that first counter was just for payment.

So we placed our order, and I was so famished. Then I moved to the next counter, and the crew asked me, what my order was. I asked "Do I have to memorize my order and repeat it for you, don't you get the information in your POS? I thought this counter is just for paying!?" I stood there, without repeating my order. She went to the first counter and got the receipt.

There have been many instances that some of my friends and colleagues are surprised as to how I could speak boldly about my ideas. Some even say, my trait in so un-Filipino. I get into arguments with other teachers, with staff in malls or restaurants. Sometimes, they are scared that I could get into a fight.

Again, I am not quarrelsome. In words, I just want my ideas heard so that appropriate actions will be taken. That is assertiveness.

Thinking with Our Conquered Minds

For many Filipinos to be assertive is uncoventional, because we operate in a socio-cultural system where we are constrained to be in social accord with others.

To many of us, we don't have the courage to tell another that we are hurt by their actions or words. So we wallow on the pain and then just avoid those who hurt us, as long we could. That is if we could. If we could not, we extend our tolerance for pain. But this allows a leeway for others to use and abuse us.

Most Filipinos see assertiveness not only unconventional, but socially unfitting. Those who assert their views are even branded as mayabang. Those who are able to ascend and grow because they are able to assert worthwhile ideas that contribute to the decision making process and development in any organization are tagged as walang pakisama.

Assertiveness, I believe, is one universal value. Highly effective people who have found thier voice, speak in the same tone and is able to evoke and inspire others. Apparently, it is one among the traits of many great men in history, a cultural value common from the Northern and Western hemisphere of the world.

In successful multinational companies, it is one trait that is highly valued. Those who have it, moves up in the ladder of carreer success. Those who don't remain in their cubicles wishing that someday they will succeed.

Timidity is the opposite of assertiveness. Timidity is not meekness. We must have been conquered because of our warm hospitality, but we were colonized because of our timidity. We won our independence from our colonizers because the great few who were assertive of our rights to liberty, evoked the people to revolt.

Now we see assertiveness negatively. This is a post-colonial mentality. We don't want others to speak up and speak out because their assertiveness is unconventional. It is not easily acceptable because we feel that it violates our value for timidity. Worst, we find assertiveness as being tactless.

Of Peoples and Revolutions

2011-02-25T00:00:00.000+08:00

Twenty five years ago, I was able to take part in the historical Filipino people's revolution in EDSA that overthrew the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. I was just ten years old that time. From the news we saw Ramos and Enrile deflecting from the government, over the radio we heard the call of the Archbishop of Manila to support the two political figures and Corazon C. Aquino.

The silence of the Filipino people was broken. A woman in yellow led the Filipinos into a peaceful revolt to oust Marcos: "Tama na! Sobra na! Palitan na!" those where the very words of Aquino who took the post that Marcos left. There should have been no EDSA revolution if Marcos did not cheat in the snap election that would have seated Aquino in Malacanang at an earlier date before the People's Power.

It was called People's Power by the media, and it lasted for three days. Those were uncertain nights for my family. During those nights, tanks coming from Villamor passes by our streets going to EDSA via Kalentong and Shaw Boulevard. Figthing tanks and army carriers keep on passing. To my mind, I asked: "What was going on?"

My aunt who was a union leader, explained it to me in simple ways, that the "Philippines was about to change through a revolution". She tagged me along with my sister and brother unto EDSA. From Guadalupe we walked towards Camp Crame and Camp Auginaldo. EDSA was not divided that time by the MRT line.

It was a long walk, and people are coming from every corner of the road. People with yellow banners and other paraphernalias, with posts calling for Marcos to step down. Religious groups with the icons of Our Lady of Fatima also walk towards where we were heading. Nuns, priests, mestizos, chinese walk with ordinary people like us. Young, old, rich and poor. Just about anyone and everyone were going there.

The mood was jubillant, as if Marcos' ouster was anticipated. There were barrackades of uniformed men and barbed wires. People would stop for a while until soldiers would allow us to go forth to our direction. Food was a plenty and drinks were overflowing, and they were all free for everyone. There were no political paraphernalias sold, everything was free, shirts, arm bands, ribbons, caps, flowers, religious items like rosaries and bible and others.

At some instances the mood swings to a nostalgic nationalism. People are singing "Bayan Ko" and other political and nationalistic songs while marching. The walk was a risk, but the people seemed to find strength in their number and in their cry for freedom from the Marcos dictatorship. The roaring cry of the public were like drumbeats that thrill the heart of the people in an imminent victory.

After the long walk to Ortigas Avenue, we settled to rest for a while. We joined the praying of the rosary, while tanks from Crame and Aguinaldo keeps on moving little by little to ward off the crowd. Women and men stood still, in front of those tanks unafraid. As tanks moved, people moved closer until, the military is just so close to the people to recieve from them rosaries and flowers and food and drinks.

That was the second night of the revolution, and more peole came in to join the mass on the third day. People stayed there, pray, sung songs, joined hands and told the world that the Filipino are peoples of peace, that we are capable of bringing change in our society without bloodshed.

On its last night, as there were people in EDSA, there were also people building up in Mendiola, breaking the barracades of the Malacanang Palace. Even though others believe that Marcos would not have stepped down without the US intervention, the Filipino people who stood for our freedom, who were there in EDSA and at the Malacananang were the true heroes of the People's Power revolution.

Then, I learned that the phenomenon of a people's revolution is not necessarily coercive, brute and fatal. It is not a protracted war and it does not require an arms struggle. It is spontaneous and social, and disregards political color, religion, ethnicity, economic status or ideology.

Ears and Mouth Disease

2011-02-21T22:06:00.007+08:00

I coin this term ears and mouth disease to refer to the communication pathology of mishandling what has been shared to only one by sharing it to another. It is rumor in the same sense, but without the malice of gossiping or badmouthing. It is viral in a sense that it passes into the the veins of an organization's communication system or its grape vine.

Who can get the disease? Anyone, who is opportuned to have been made aware of someone's situation, experience, thoughts or feelings, about another person or anything that is within the organization, particularly within the context of hot issue where everyone is affected.

It manifests when the ears hear something that the mouth can't hold, to be kept for along time. So the carrier is the first to experience something related to the hot issue, the one affected by the context, and the one opportuned is just a medium or channel.

The medium will have no interest to mouth what the ears heard, not unless it is tuned to speak. What tunes the medium in is when context or issue is brought to the discussion. The medium then gives the lead, through a blind item. In the item the facts are laid bare, but the essentials to protect the primary carrier are kept for ethical purposes.

The other interested ears would continue to tune in the medium so they could get the foggy message clearer. The medium makes the signal clearer, because the main carrier did not put a gatekeeper to hold the message from being transmitted to another. The medium has its own filter. It selectively chooses the next opportuned ears to hear what has been mouthed in its listening ears.

The message will be passed on and on, because it simply can not be held. It is too hot that the receiving ears send it to the mouth to extinguish, but it is too hot even for the mouth to keep. It can not be swallowed for it is a waste deposit, it can not be spat because the earth is not worth of it. It can't linger as a thought, because the smoke will get through the ears.

The carrier catches ears and mouth desease from someone or something that gives him a bad experience from an unconventional situation arising from the hot issue. It is like being burned and to get the fire out of the skin, the carrier wags it to someone else.

When it is passed on, it relieves the carrier, and that medium must passed it on again to another to be relieved as well. The transmission is not perpetual though. It dies off naturally, when the hot issue is put off. But, it would have not been tranmitted, if the first to acquire it had the natural instinct to put the fire off as is where is.

Single's Awareness Day

2011-02-14T21:48:00.005+08:00

I didn't know there is this special day for singles to be aware that they are singles. Gosh! It's celebrated during Valentine's Day. I realized this contemporary phenomenon when I greeted my students this morning, a happy valentine's day. One replied, "Sir it's single's awareness day".

It makes sense really, because this commercialized occasion points to the face of those who are not into dating, that they are single. But, does that mean they should be finding some ways to get into a relationship?

My status is kind of complicated. To some people, when they learn of my age, they would ask me why am I not married. I would ask them back "why? or "what's the matter with being single?". Then, they would reply that I ought to get married so I can be happy.

Non sequitur! In this world, there is a rising statistics of divorce, annulment, polygamy, bigamy, infidelity, adultery, marital rape, domestic violence between partners. I do not advocate the aboliton of marriage, but marriage is not a guarantee to one's happiness. There are also those in monogamous relationship who regret engaging into such commitment.

I am convinced that the sanctity of marriage is in the commitment between partners to love each other as long as they live (or as long as they can)? The commitment to love, fidelity, loyalty and support to each other only manifest in grace. That's the mystery in a relationship, but not everyone is designed for marriage.

Happiness in life is not also guaranteed in getting into a relationship. It is not in the relationship, but in the love that you share with a partner. Happiness is an experience not limited to human relationships. Happiness is making the best of who you are, where you are and what you have at any time and state of your life.

Consider the celibates. They relate with so many people and find happiness in their life. Consider the eunuchs, who in their celibacy also find happiness in life. Consider those who committed their lives into serving God, as brothers, nuns, and priests, or monks. They find their happinesss beyond human relationships bound by marriage.

Relationships are important, socially, physically and psychologically. Perhaps, happiness is also found in the relationship of one's person to himself in the context of living with the many others, and to that Eternal love.

To get into a relationship because you want to be happy is, for me, selfish. But to be in relationship with others because you want to make that person or persons happy is selfless, and that is love. Single people are capable of this and deserving to be happy in the state of life that they choose.

Why did I want to be a teacher?

2011-02-12T01:28:00.004+08:00

Honestly, I had never thought nor seen my self being a teacher. I studied to work in the media, any media because all I needed was a job. But, working a short-stint in an entertainment magazine bored me in its routine.

When I felt I mastered the operations in the office, I lost the zest to continue. Aside from that my college classmates, according to their bragging, were so doing well and financially satisfied with their jobs. I needed a job that would pay higher, and I wanted something that will pull me off my feet and challenge me to become more competent.

I didn't look for a teaching job. It found me. A college classmate informed me of an openning for a teaching position where he was already working. That computer college was at its peak before the Y2K bug, because IT was the thing in the coming millenium. I forwarded my resume, and the college called me for an interview with their Human Resource Director.

I passed the initial screening and the examinations. I was scheduled for a demo lesson with the dean, a group students, and some teachers, including my 'friend'. The students and teachers were satisfied enough with my demo teaching. They applauded after it, like as if I was an actor. Then the panel interviewed me.

The dean asked why I wanted to be a teacher. My honest answer was that I share with others who wants a job, but I furthered, I thought I had what a teacher needed to have. I believed then, that I had knowledge that I could share to the students. My 'friend' who was pursuing then his masteral studies, put me in the hot seat.

He pointed to my face, that I didn't have the qualifications and that I didn't have any masteral units. I replied that I was willing to learn and pursue further education. That was my humble and humiliating beginning, which I thought I just wanted to try, but later on I learned to love it and give more to it with passion. After then, there was no other vocation that I entertained except teaching. Now, do I still want to be a teacher?

Teaching found me, and I found my self in it for through it I am able to share not only knowledge but my self. I will be alienating my self to who I am and who I want to be in any other field. No matter how difficult it could get, I will find my way through it because I know what I do is not just for my self-gratification, but for bringing transformation in the lives of many others.

Celebrating 50 Golden Years

2011-02-05T23:49:00.002+08:00

Ana, the eldest of us seven siblings celebrated today her 50th birthday, and with that celebration was also her 3-storey mansion's blessing. Coming from work, I went to her house to join the celebration, but I missed the fun because all my other kins have left for home.

She is 50 though, but she doesn't really look that old. It must be in our family genes that we don't look our age, we physically mature gracefully and gradually. As the eldest among us, she married first. Hers was the first and the last marriage that my father attended. I guess she's happy in the life she chose for herself.

She took after my ancestors Chinese business instinct, that she was able to her husband in his machine shop, then they were able to put up three paint stores and car accessories store. She wants the best for her kids, and the only thing she feels a little sad about is that among her three kids, only the middle child had finished college.

She would often ask me as to how she would convince my nephew and neice to pursue their degrees, because she feels that having education is important for them. Like any other parent she believes that education is a treasure that they can give for their children. I told her, that they have given the treasure already and are still willing to help them, but let them be because they are not ready to take the responsbility for that treasure.

She took some years in college, but she was not able to finish it. She had to work to help my parents, then got settled with her family. But as a sister she was very supportive of me. She was the one who encouraged me to take the exam in Manila Science, even though I did not pass. She told me to go to UP for my bachelor's degree, yet I was just in the waiting list.

She bought my first branded rubber shoes when I was in gradeschool,from her husband's bonus. When I was in highschool, she would ask me to take care of her first born, my neice, during weekends so she can give me money for school when I go home. She never told me to study hard or focus on my studies, because she knew I can manage on my own.

I wrote my first MA thesis in her house, because I didn't have a computer then. She lent me the money I used to process my papers for my first international teaching job. She lent me money again for my first research paper presentation in an international conference.

When I came home from working abroad, t told her of my need for a sponsor because I wanted to study in Ateneo, and she agreed. But I recoursed to completing my unfinished MA studies in Pamantasan. I guess she wanted me to study in Ateneo, because our father studied there for high school.

My eldest sister has done so much for me, her appreciation for my efforts, her support in my studies and my dreams, her confidence that I can make a difference in life -- all those have made me a better person that I am. I wish her all the best in her life that all the desires of her heart be granted, and that her life be filled with joy. May the Lord grace her health, length of years, wisdom and all the life's bounty.

Good Life Comes with Hardships

2011-02-04T15:40:00.008+08:00

I was not born from a wealthy family, where everything that I might possibly need or desire can come to me on a silver platter. I do not have an option to stay off from work because my family does not have other means to sustain our needs. I have to pick and carry my own cross, more so carry the crosses of others because they see that I am able to do so, and they feel that they can't carry their's on their own.

"Good life comes with hardships" that's an idiom in our culture. I believe that there are truths in it, but it can also be a truism. It is both motivating and uninspiring. The idiom is also wise and contrastingly idiotic. It also charges a ridicule to those who fail to value hardships and those who are idle.

A good life is a pleasant condition and it is possible for everyone to attain. It is that state of life that everyone one surely desires. Our personal vision of this pleasing quality of life drives us to commit our mind and body unto it. So it is wise to see and capture all opportunities that will get us there. Then we push and strain our bodies and mind because we want to have a good life.

The wise says good life comes with hardships. So in my younger years, I studied hard, and in my working years, I worked hard. But, then I realized we don't really need to be doing things hard. Our masochistic tendency is justified by the seemingly truthful idea that hardships are necessary for a good life. On the otherhand, our sadistic tendency drives us to bring upon our hardships to others who enjoy a good quality of life because they are able to manage it so well.

Hardly do we understand that a good life is possible without hardships, without exhibiting masochism or sadism. The classic Socratic philosophy says that the end of sorrow is joy. This should inspire us to see that there is an end to hardships, but this does not say that we should be sorrowful in life to have joy. Those who are afraid of hardships never really get a good life, just the same as those people who can't find the best tools and strategies that will make their life easy.

Those who squander in a pitiful state of life believe that it is their destiny and so they accept they have to live with it and be happy with it. This thinking undermines our potential to be great, to excel and to succeed. A good life is a reward for hardships. But not all hardships end successfully rewarding, more so if life is so hard on you because others only think of what would be easy for them and not for you.

I associate the win-lose thinking to the id of the saying that "good life comes with hardships". Life can be more enjoyable and easy if we think win-win instead. This should translate to our behavior of being happy with other's successes and helping other's succeed in their life. To our personal state, we should be looking for the best means to overcome our hardships, by being responsible and committed to our own success but not to the detriment of others.

Born in the Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-02T23:09:00.008+08:00

I was born in the year in the Rabbit, the chinese calendar say's so. The Chinese zodiac can be understood in hermeneutics, that is considering constructed realities based on traditional beliefs of a cultural group of people.

Chinese hermeutics believe that Rabbits are playful, creative, wise, agile, competitive and clever. I have subjected myself to believe that horoscopes are but coincidental. But taking into consideration the labor of men who brought all these together, I could not just ignore it because it is so rich as a cultural text.

Psychology also has its own system of classifying and describing individual personalities. Sociology also takes from science in understanding social and cultural diversity of groups of people.I don't have big pair of ears, no whiskers, no paws, and no furry skin, my tail isn't that up always. Rabbits too have big sexual appetite, which I've lost years ago.

But I am fascinated with the knowledge in this cultural texts of Chinese Zodiac, many of the descriptions that they have for those born in the year of thre rabbit just fit my personality traits. It's amazing for me, that I suspect that this had been a product of research, like maybe they are the earlier versions of psychological differentiation of human personality.

I remain cynical though. However, again I am to consider that astrology in the history of human civilization is part of metaphysics from which physics and other sciences were brought forth. The knowledge of ancient astrology can not simply be totally debunked.

Now, considering my faith and my humble understanding of human nature, I am affirmed that we are creatures of varied traits. Those traits that one possesses may be inherent to anyone or maybe everyone. We just don't notice, because we only pay attention to what we really want to look at and we are influenced so much by the desire of esteeming our self.

As an individual, I am a product of what nature brought me, what I brought upon my self and what others even those before my times contributed to my development. I am created, therefore, not by the alignment of the stars, but with how I put those stars in the alignment I want to so I can see my life path better. Now, the people around me, whom I share my self also have their share in recreating me, and I too in them.

I am who I am not because the calendar says it so. I haven't stumbled upon a scientific research yet, that our personalities are determined by year or date of our birth. I'd rather consider genetics, social interactionism, constructivism and cultural learning as more fitting perspectives to understand our individual uniqueness.

MRT or LRT?

2011-01-30T00:54:00.006+08:00

I have two options en route to UP for my PhD, from Taft Avenue. I can go north or south, but both have its advantages and disadvantages, and from a commuter the difference between the two are clear, simple and even stupid.

South-bound, I have to take LRT1, get off at EDSA station, do some window shopping or snack at MetroMall if I have time. Since, I am most often in a hurry, I skip the latter in my itenerary. Besides, in peak hours taking the MRT even from its first station is a struggle. I get used to it though, because its the same thing in LRT1 at peak hours.

Rarely, that I can get a seat in LRT1. It takes one to be swift, alert and sturdy as a wrestler to aboard the train. One should be ready for a literal face off, and switch off his nostrils to avoid the pungent breath, arm pits and body sweat from other passengers. Body to body, its like mixed martial arts being sardined inside the LRT1 coach. There are more passengers than the space could take.

The worst things one could experience in this commute, aside from delays are faulty air conditioning and being sexually taken advantaged. Humps and bumps go with some forms of ass rubs and ball grabs. Another thing is the chance of losing your valuables from snatchers and pick pockets. My commute from LRT1 to Quezon Avenue via MRT takes a lot of time, but I learned to enjoy what it feels to be human inside a heavily packed train.

North-bound, I have to take the LRT and get off at Doroteo Jose. From Vito Cruz to Central Station, I get to enjoy scenery of Manila striding to progress, and a lot of greens especially over the Rizal Park area. From Carriedo to Doroteo, my mood swings to despair, as I see old buildings unattended and vacated if not condemned. The walkway to Recto Station of the LRT2 is a sourly open irony that pinches my heart.

The Manila City Jail seats there around a thick population of informal settlers, and in the background the FEU building, some other commercial buildings and the tall structure of the LRT2 Terminal. The commute from here to Katipunan is much smoother and I have higher chance to get a seat. Here, I learned of the difference between the MRT and the LRT.

Reviewing my notes from the class, I was interrupted by the loud conversation of two passengers who stepped in from Legarda station. One man bolsters to his companion, "You know this LRT is like the train in Singapore, it's big unlike the MRT". The other guy was surprised to know that trivia, and probably must be proud of what he heard. The first man continues: "Because the LRT means Large Rail Transit, and the MRT is Medium Rail Transit, that's why the MRT is smaller".

Huh!? I would have believed him, if I don't get squeezed in LRT1 and if LRT2 has guranteed seats always. I must be wrong to learn that MRT stands for Metro Rail Transit and the LRT as Light Rail Transit, or had the government changed its name to go with the fare hike?

Happy Catholic Teacher's Day!

2011-01-26T23:29:00.004+08:00

Aside from celebrating the world teacher's day, so there is this Catholic teacher's day. But what differentiates a Catholic teacher from other teachers?

In the trainings I gave to some school teachers, I left them with a Bible quote "Many are called, but few are chosen". Jesus' apostles are no way different from a Catholic teacher. Jesus called many, but few were chosen to become witnesses to Christ's love, mercy, kindness and self-lessness. They took the narrow road and they too were persecuted.

Many heeded the vocation of Catholic teaching, but few stands out to live up the calling. Those who remained devoted to their profession continue to burn their wick to be light unto others, that they may know where they are going.

Seven years of my teaching here and abroad were spent in non-sectarian schools, the other seven were spent in Catholic schools. I appreciate the latter because I feel I make myself vulnerable to Christ's teachings and that I sense more intimacy with God. I feel that Catholic school as a community is a fertile ground where my faith will grow.

A self-made crisis helped me realize that teaching is where God wants me to be. Likewise, I have had discernment that teaching is not different after all from evangelizing. One protestant friend who is also a teacher have always convinced me to devote more of my time to becoming full witness to God's word. I remained with my position that I can be an evangelist as well even if I am in the classroom. With all my heart and mind, I sensed no conflict that teaching is the ministry where Christ wants me to be.

Even if I serve in the Liturgical Ministry in our parish, my ministry still calls for me to share my core gift of teaching others in the group. One can stand a witness to the Gospel by living up its teachings with integrity, through having passion for teaching without being lorded by its yoke, incentives and authority. Teaching that inspires life transformation, positive changes in behavior, excellent motivations to succeed, acceptance and respect for others and all other virtues are not only rooted in the philosophies of education, but in the Gospel of Christ.

Teaching is demanding and the demand is most often not justly compensated. It can be stressful especially when the teacher needs to deal with difficult students, colleagues and superiors. Some of those students even scorn their teachers for not submitting to their whims. Those are the teacher's persecutions. But we are at ease and our faith keeps on burning when we notice that our students are able to learn from us and in everything we do together in the course, amidst the storm and temptations.

What I learned is that Christ evoked us teachers to embrace everyone in love. Find the lost and bring them back into flock. Teach the astray to look up to what is great and virtuous. Tend the sheep. Teach men how to fish and not just give them fish. Feed those hungry for life learning more than knowledge. Embrace the lepers, and take good care of the sick and the needy. These are the apostolic work of teachers. To others, these are not clear, they just don't see the value of Catholic teaching.

Catholic education has long played a vital historical role in the formation of societies. Many were canonized saints who lived their life as teachers. Catholic teachers, you are Christ alive, and your works are witness of the Gospel. Wasn't Jesus called "Rabbi" which means teacher? Happy Catholic Teacher's Day!

What's Your Motto in Life?

2011-01-25T00:59:00.008+08:00

A group freshman students approached me in the office for an interview regarding an assignment in their communication skills class. They wanted to get a profile or personality sketch of a college professor. I could not deny the request, because one of the group's member was clever to hold me up by asking her aunt (my colleague) for that interview.

They came more than half an hour late as to the schedule I agreed with my colleague. Yet I still entertained them. They observed the interview protocol by asking some factual questions, like the subjects I handle, my age, my previous work experience, number of years in teaching, etc. But they got so many questions, that I blunted if they would like to read my resume, instead?

They said they had other more important questions. The first one of which is: "What's your motto in life?"

That made me think spontaneously. I answered: "Life is like a rosary that's full of mystery". They laughed and replied, sir a serious motto please. I retorted: "Ah OK, love is blind", and I really hoped that would do them a favor. They laughed again, but oblivious of my replies.

"Sir, I mean like what is your teaching motto? Because your answers are so funny and not serious."

My mind went blank. She got me there! I said "If you asked serious questions, I would have answered seriously. You're getting the wrong answers because you are asking the wrong questions." I explained to them further, that a motto is not anymore important to me at my stage.

Motto's are for kids experiencing puppy loves and enjoying the doodles in a slum book. There is no teaching motto either, but teaching philosophies. Motto's in life are immature not so rationale. Life philosophies are. So they changed their question to ask what my life philosophy is. My answer...

"Who you think you are is who you become."

Collaboration and Working Together

2011-01-23T23:07:00.004+08:00

There is more to collaboration than merely working together. To work together may be demonstrated by doing things that seem related to and needed to meet a goal. Tag teams are a form of working together. Helping a co-worker finish her work is also working together. But neither of these signifies collaboration.

According to Friend and Cook (2003) in their book Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals, collaboration is a voluntary act of coming together to achieve a mutual goal by sharing of resources, treating partners with parity, sharing responsibility and accountability towards meeting the learning needs of students. At the core of collaboration is personal commitment followed by communication skills. Of both I feel, treacherous to the idea of collaboration.

I guess I have never been good in conspiracy that I did not develop the skills of authentic collaboration. Or, was I stricken by pride that I believed I know what I am doing and I can do it? Well collaboration is voluntary, so it does not require me to conspire nor coerce anyone to cooperate with me. But realizing how it could affect the students' transformation, I am compelled otherwise.

Why don't I collaborate? When I was the lead teacher, I had this assumption in mind, that my partners know what to do, especially if they are seasoned ones. When I was a laboratory teacher, most of my partners didn't really mind of what I do in the laboratory. There must have been mutual understanding and respect between teaching partners, but there is no mutual goal set for us to collaborate with.

So we just work together without collaboration. I am a communicator, so I openly share my ideas to other teachers who sincerely come for advice. I also share my resources, like worksheets and activities that I have for my use. But I got a bad experience from this. My materials spread and get to the hands of students even if they are not in my class. Worst, their teachers removed my name from those handouts that I prepared through some sleepless nights.

Regarding sharing of responsibility and accountability, the only thing I know is that we are guided by the course outline. We may reconfigure the flow of the lesson from any given time, and because of our pregorative guaranteed by academic freedom, we can change the order of the lesson. I am human, I seek rewards and avoid punishment. Normally, I would seek that which are convenient for me, before anyone else. It is inconvenient and way too tasking to be teaching so many different things to be able to satisfy partners' requests.

So am I selfish? No, just a normal human being with some shortcomings. I know who I am to my students, and I know my role. But like anyone else, I can't break my back for my own detriment by acting like a superhero taking all the inconveniences, that should be shared between teaching partners. Then I am not committed to my profession? But, that's another thing.

As a teacher handling a course with lecture and laboratory components, I am guilty of not collaborating. I must have been working well together with other teachers, but not genuinely in collaboration with them. Now that I realize this, the best thing that I should be doing is to -- collaborate!

Overcoming Speech Anxiety

2011-01-21T17:19:00.006+08:00

Speech apprhension is that anxiety or fear of the prospect of facing up the public to deliver a speech (Lucas, 2001). It is primarily due to the lack of preparation, but other factors contribute to that apprehension such as unreasonable fear or fear of the unknown, fear of making mistakes and the lack of self-esteem.

Dealing with speech anxiety depends on the cause. But preparation stands out as primary factor to affirm and assure the speakers that they will do well in the speaking task. Preparation is so essential in the process of speech making and presenting one's self to the public.

F-E-A-R, according to Zig Zigglar (1993) is False Evidence Appearing Real, and it is a powerful emotion that influences our emotions in many negative ways. Psychologist understand the power of fear, that it may alert us to prepare, take caution and really put our mind and heart on what we have to do, but it could also affect us to stay out of the risk and suffer more negative emotions.

Having self-confidence does not mean being free from experiencing speech anxiety. That apprehension is normal and there's no assurance that one who has self-confidence will never be anxious in speaking up on stage. Anxiety results from various factors. One can be self-confident, yet still experience some level of speech anxiety.

The more you experience public speaking, the less anxious you become when you face up your audience. To overcome your speech anxiety, consider the following: 1) examing your feelings; 2) changing your mindset; 3) picturing your success; and 4) doing what is needed for the speech act. Going through these four steps will help you deal with your speech anxiety and gain confidence in communicating with others.

Examine your feelings. Fear is an emotion, instead of denying it, acknowledge its presence. With that you will be able to control it. Determine where that fear is coming from. Gain more understanding as to its cause and resolve them reasonably. Freaking out will not get you anywhere but into disaster. Emotions are a product of our senses and thoughts. Acknowledging what you feel and understanding about how you think about them will get you to cognitively reconstructing the negative into positive emotions or thoughts.

Thinking positively is a streetsmart knowledge and it works as you change your mindset or reconstruct your cognitions about the speech act. What you think and how you think have implications to your behavior and your senses. If you dread speaking for no reason at all, you will not likely find yourself ever engaged in it. But if you think of the incentives or gains you will have in it, you will be more eager to learning and experiencing it.

You are probably afraid in your first major speech because you lack the experience. So avoiding the engagement will not really help you gain the experience. You might also be afraid of the unknown. That is just irrational, so just be objective in looking at the speaking situation as an opportunity for you to personally grow as a speaker and really learn from the experience. You may be afraid to make mistakes that's why if you can avoid it, you will do everything to do so. But, everyone makes mistakes, even those who you think are great speakers.

Related to changing your mindset is picturing your success. This is mental visualization exercise that you can integrate in your preparation. As you try to relax and deal with the symptoms of anxiety, you might try creating positive images or scenes in your head of your success in public speaking. Create and watch your own public-speaking success movie in your mind. See yourself as how you would deliver, stand, move and even what you want to hear from the audience. That will help be more confident as you create an imprint of your speech act prior to the event.

Lastly but most importantly, do something about it. Even if you are delivering an impromptu speech, where you are called to speak about something or someone, at the moment. In seconds you can actually organize your thoughts. For major speaking events, you will never be called unprepared because you will be informed of it few days before that.

Speech anxiety that is caused by the lack of preparation is a lame excuse. Fear is inevitable, but you can be in control of the situation including your emotion. Overcoming stagefright or communiation apprehension requires a conversion in thinking and taking positive actions. Start it by believing that you have the ability to be the best that you can be. Don't let self-doubt sabotage you and prevent you from becoming an eloquent and confident speaker.

Anxious about Public Speaking?

2011-01-18T17:29:00.006+08:00

If you feel scared to go up there on stage to speak in front of the public, that is what we call speech anxiety. This nervy feeling to some others is also termed communication apprehension or stage fright; at the most it is but a normal feeling that will leave you as you have begun your speech.

At the lighter side, you should be encouraged by the fact that even those great and well-known speakers experience speech anxiety every time. They just don't appear so from afar. Those who are humble enough to share how they advanced from being a lousy speaker to an excellent one would admit they too still feel anxious in speaking in public.

Speech anxiety is that shrinking feeling which dwarfs you amidst terrifying monsters and giants. When you can not resolve it or control it is a sure way to your failure in your speech delivery. To deal with it, you need to know what it is, where it is coming from and how it manifests.

To better our understanding about speech anxiety, we need to consider that it is an emotion. Hence, we all feel the same way because it alerts us to prepare for the speaking situation. It makes us conscious that we need to be in control of the situation and of our self-presentation.

Stagefright has physical manifestations or symptoms, like sweating, wet palms, trembling knees, cracking voice, heavy breathing, and faster heart beat. You will need to address these symptoms as mere manifestations of your anxiety, but you can not ignore them. They will stop only as you have approached the stage and got through the first minute of your speech. So deal with these symptoms as necessary.

Practically, you should wipe your sweat off, and be reminded that it even shows in the oiliness of your face. To stop your tremors, take slow breathing exercises until you are composed. Instead of cracking your fingers and jumping off your trembling knees, just seat or do some slow walk while you tame the tempest in your chest with relaxing breath of fresh air. Drink warm water to sooth your drying throat and relax its muscles. Those things should do the trick, but they will fail if you pay much attention on the symptoms rather than on what you should do in your delivery.

Preparation reduces the tension, but the lack of it is the main cause of speech anxiety. In the surface you get anxious, because you are nervous. But you are nervous because you are afraid. You are afraid because you don't want to be in shame. You think that you will be in shame because you actually did not do anything before the time of your speech delivery. That fear is also heightened because we do not know the situation, or we fear the unknown up to exaggerating levels.

But when you have actually done all the needed preparations, including getting some background information about the audience, the topic and the event, things tend to lighten a bit, and your anxiety is reduced even prior to the speaking event. It's easier to say to yourself just be confident, but there is much needed work to be just confident in any speaking engagement. The first step is to go up there and face your audience with a smile.

Forgetting my Mom's Birthday

2011-01-13T16:48:00.011+08:00

Yesterday, while I was crossing the street to take the LRT going to UP, I felt really really guilty. The thought that I forgot to greet my mother on her 72nd birthday got into my nerves. It rang to my head, that would be the gravest mistake that I could ever do in my entire life.

She woke me up three times from bed, because I left a note on the dining table for it. I had coffee with the water she boiled. I wore the clothes that she folded and hang in my closet. I woke up from the bed that she makes everynight. Yet, I just left to work without a memory of her birthday and not even greeting her.

Before I left the house, she even asked me some money because some of her sisters in her charismatic group are going to have their prayer meeting in the house. Well I gave her 500 pesos for their snacks. Then I just hurried to work.

Guilt got into me. I had been preoccupied thinking of celebrating her birthday in a restaurant over the weekend, yet I failed to greet her that day. That afternoon, I wanted to call her over the phone, but I didn't for no reason. My mind was just drifting about what I would tell my professor as an option for our class project.

I wanted to call my sister to buy cake and some food which I would pay later, and greet my mom for me on her birthday. Yet I didn't. After the class, I was held by two classmates for some chat while smoking. In between the folds of my brain is the thought that by the time I get home, my mom would be sleeping.

How cruel would that be to my mom, who has been caring for me ever since I was born? My classmate offered a ride but I asked if she would be passing by a bakeshop for me to buy a cake. She even asked why a cake. I replied it was "mothergoose's birthday". My other classamate said, that we could stop somewhere in Quezon Avenue for the cake, so I rode with her home.

I did not see any bakeshop, by that time. Most shops are close at half past ten. I got home and it was silent. My sister was having her dinner, my brother in-law was washing his face already. My cousin was on our sofa watching TV. I asked: "what's the food for the party?" They asked, "What party? It's just January 12."

"Thank God for delivering me from the sin of forgetting my mom's birthday", I murmured. I checked the calendar as reality check. Today is my mom's birthday. She is the most wonderful woman I ever have in my entire life. When I woke up at half past 2 this afternoon, before I drank the coffee I made out the water she boiled, wearing the clothes she washed and folded, I greeted her: "Happy birthday mother goose!"

She uttered back: "Thank you even if that's coming from your nose!" With a smile I sat outside and sipped coffee.