It’s Your Day and You’re Not Here

If only you were here today,

Our day would be complete.

To celebrate and honor you,

For being a dad and a mom to us.

We grew up and you stayed by our side

Most of the time…

To laugh, to sing, to dance

And advise.

If only I can turn back time,

I would not let you out of my sight.

But tis’ God’s will you’re home

With Him,

I sighed… I cried… in my sleep.

Yes, it was eight years ago when

God called you home…

But it seemed only like yesterday—

When you laughed, sang, danced

And gave advise,

To a daughter who just turned 18.

Daddy, thinking of you makes me cry,

I shed tears of joy and sorrow—

Joy—for you are home at last

Sorrow—for the trauma of that dreadful day.

—

But I want to remember those

Happy days I spent with you—

I Love You Dad

REMEBERING DAD 2

Fathers have an important role in the family, According to our Filipino values; they are the “haligi ng tahanan”. I cannot help but remember him after reading Animated me: Father’s Treasure (Dec. 28, 2003). I cried so much that I wanted to visit him and hug him tight. As I am writing my thoughts, tears fall as I remember the last time I saw him. I miss him.

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Remembering Dad 1

It’s been four years since the last time I saw my dad. I miss having him around from time to time. My dad worked as a forester so he was out in the field most of the time. My dad would have been 43 years old if he was here right now.

When I was younger, I did not really understand why my dad had to be away from home at times. He had to see the projects implemented by DENR in far flung areas.

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second home

“College… College…”

I got off the bus and i was happy to see the familiar jeeps I once took rides from. Yes, I am in College, Los Baños, Laguna right now…

I took the 1:30 am bus ride from Baguio to Cubao (supposedly)… but I alighted from the bus in Buendia because I over slept hehehe … so I decided to have my breakfast in one of those mini stop stores then proceeded to my aunts place at hv dela costa to leave my stuff and freshen up…

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I have Two Hands

Yeasterday was one of those “busy days at the university”. The graduation souvenir programs arrived at 10am— and we had to put some addendum. Our student interns and I, together with other students and co-workers, spend the whole afternoon at the administration to collate and fix the program paper for today’s graduatation rites…

While doing some pasting and cutting, I was at the same time blurting my thoughts out loud. I was telling the people in the room that “God should have given us more than two hands so that we could accomplish more today.” Some laughed and said that they were contented with only two hands… On the other hand, I was imagining myself with four or more hands doing the cutting and pasting.

Again i blurrted out, “the monkey can use his feet to hold things, we should have feet like that of the monkey.”

I smiled– (more…)

Summer Load

This summer (april-May) is supposed to be teacher’s leave for me and others who have been teaching for the past school year… This is a priviledge that is given to teachers only…

It’s really a blessing that teachers get to have summer vacation with pay…. other jobs do not have this kind of benefit. Vacation— hmmm I would really love to have ny whole summer devoted to my son and myself but… I committed to handle one of the classes for summer internship… Aside from the addtional compensation (that is a given) that I (teachers) will receive this summer when I (they) teach… it really is an opportunity to network with other agencies…

I broaden my horizon by meeting other people from partner agencies. I really look forward to a fruitful internship this year. We will be sending student interns to DA-CAR, Bureau of Plant Industries, Offices withing BSU, Child and family Services (NGO) and to radio stations in Bontoc and Buguias.

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Love song for a Savior

I want to sing... here's the song i'm singing right now... From Jars of Clay

In open fields of wild flowers 
She breathes the air flies away 
She thanks her Jesus for the daisies and the roses 
In no simple language 
Someday she’ll understand the meaning of it all 

He’s more than the laughter 
Or the stars in the heavens 
As close as a heartbeat 
Or a song on her lips 
Someday she’ll trust him 
And learn how to see him 
Someday he’ll call her 
And she will come running 
Fall in his arms, the tears will fall down 
And she’ll pray 

I want to fall in love with you 

Sitting silent wearing sunday best 
The sermon echoes through the walls 
A great salvation through it 
Goes to the people who stare into nowhere 
Can’t feel the chains on their souls 

He’s more than the laughter 
Or the stars in the heavens 
As close as a heartbeat 
Or a song on her lips 
Someday we’ll trust him 
And learn how to see him 
Someday he’ll call us 
And we will come running 
Fall in his arms 
The tears will fall down and we’ll pray 

I want to fall in love with you 

Seems to easy to call you savior 
Not close enough to call you a god 
So as I sit and think of 
Words I can mention to show my devotion 

I want to fall in love with you

Reasons why you should not drink with friends

got this in my e-mail (forwarded by emai f.)

 Reasons why you should not drink with friends

You’ll end up like a baby with banana pacifier

or a friendly skunk (head) ready to attack

a practice for balance

or better yet… an ash tray hehehehe

 So take precautions…

grrrr

It’s sooooo cold right now. I do not know the exact tempterature— but it really is cold…

But then during the day, you can really feel that summer time is here. It’s a good thing that it doesn’t rain in the afternoon… as reported earlier, we will be experiencing la nina during this season.

hmmm students have started internship for this summer. We gave them an orientation about  activities they will be doing and also asked them about their expectations from others— MOST ESPECIALLY from the self.

Some of the students mentioned that they expect (us) their teachers to supervise them all throughout the internship… one of my co-faculty member commented that, (we) will be around for the intenship, but they should not expect us to be with them while they are in different partner agencies.

This issue raised brings me back to the time I had my internship…showing.

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GRADES! GRADES!

Everytime a semester ends, one thing that takes most of my time— is computing for students’ final grades… I used to compute grades just using the calculator beside my class record… It would take me about two days to imput grades on the classcards.

Last month, while surfing on the internet, I was able to come across a web based gradebook! I got curious about it so i created my teacher profile and read about how to go about it. 

I was able to follow instructions and— like magic! the grades of my students appeared automatically on the gradebook.

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REMEMBERING DAD (PART 1)

It’s been four years since the last time I saw my dad. I miss having him around from time to time. My dad worked as a forester so he was out in the field most of the time. My dad would have been 43 years old if he was here right now.

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Technology in Education

            We are in the information age where almost everything we do concerns a microchip. Gone are the days when students would often go to the library to open books to feed their brains (at least there are still a few who go to the library).

With the fast evolution of the different kinds of technology, most of it has become more affordable even to the “common tao”. Eight years ago when I was in college, I often went to the main library to research and look for answers to assignments our professors gave. I had to walk about 1km, under the sun, to get to the library. At times I got lazy because of the distance and the warm weather, but still I had to get myself inside the library to be able to complete my research, assignment or term paper. The library was fully air conditioned and one could find many reading materials from the thousands of collection it kept.

            There was internet at that time but only two computer shops offered internet services at P60 to P120, depending on the time that one has logged in, to more or less than 8,000 college students. It was a luxury (then) when I am able to research over the net. An hour flies so fast and I am overwhelmed by the millions of information the search engine retrieves. With that, I sit for another hour trying to scan if the information retrieved is relevant. Students at that time considered internet surfing expensive and not everybody could afford to use the World Wide Web on a regular basis. Unlike before, a lot of companies offer affordable internet services today. You can even have free internet access during off peak hours (when almost everybody is fast asleep on this side of the world)

            (At present) As I sit here in one of the computer terminals of the library in the university where I teach, my memory brings me back two years ago when I used to monopolize one of the computers to do my research over the internet. Back then, there were limited users. I seldom saw students who would search through the internet. But just this week, I observed that more and more students are already using the internet for research, unlike the students then.

            During my first year of teaching, I often asked– “who are the students with email addresses?” There were about two to three students who raised their hands (out of 40).  But now, there are more students who usually access the internet than those who do not or seldom log to the internet.

            Students nowadays are more exposed to technologies that are essential for learning. Although some just watch their companion do all the searching, I can really say that there are still those who are techno phobic. In my photography or video production classes, students are afraid to handle the manual camera and video camera during the first exercises but when they get used to using the equipment, they get excited to performing the next exercises. 

            From the research and readings I had had in the past few days, I learned that there are a lot of updates regarding the use of technology in education.

LESSON 1: I learned that there are a lot of softwares that teachers can make use to make learning more fun. We do not need to buy pirated or expensive software because there is what they call“open source software”. There are several web sites offering the use of the software they develop for FREE. One can even change the settings of the software to suit the needs of the user.

LESSON 2: There are different kinds of free software from open sources. There is software for making an online class or course, lesson plan organizer, puzzle maker, quizzes, visual aids developer, etc.    

LESSON 3: For me, the traditional classroom mode of teaching and learning is not out moded but rather, some or most of our teaching styles are. Teaching styles we learned way back may not be applicable to all of our students now. Especially that they are exposed to a lot of gadgets and simulated games in the computer. There will come a time when children will no longer carry heavy and big bags (that break their backs).Laptops and PDAs will replace their notebooks and the books they used to carry will be in CDs. As teachers, we have to learn how to turn on the computer and use it—meaning, computers will be part of one’s learning experience and we have to adapt to that kind of learning environment.

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it’s 2am

My insomnia… keeps me awake till dawn— makes me productive too. I have created two different blogs in less than a week.

oooopppsss… what’s that noise! (a sec please)

—–

Goodness! my lolo slipped! He was on his way to the bathroom.Thank God no major injury but I can hear him say “aray”… my lola woke up to see what happened.  I can’t rush over to his side— because their doors are locked anyway.

—–

anyway, I hope i’ll be able to manage my blogs with all the things I am doing evryday.

:-) 

Stroke identification

Got this from my email today… 

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm, Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

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