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Showing posts from August, 2009

Major lesson of my lifetime 129,384

Also, never forget, there's your job and there's your responsibility. Never confuse both.

Major lesson of my lifetime 129,383

Because I can see clearly now. And because I'm 31 and know better than you:

It's not love just because you think it is. There's what you know or what you want to believe, and there's what is true.

Based on experience, these are some of the signs that it's not true:

1. You have to lie about it to the people who love you.
2. Your friends don't like him.
3. It doesn't bring out the best in him, nor the best in you.


English Trainer Chronicles: Error

One of my favorite things is when a student uses technical vocabulary to talk about everyday things. It reminds me of what my thesis mentor told me about my writing: Pay attention to your language register. I had written that the sofa was perpendicular to the kitchen counter.

Today, one of my learners said his wife ordered curtains in a color that he found too bright.

Me: So, what did you do?
Him: It told her it was an error. She called the shop to modify the command.

English Trainer Chronicles: Blah, blah, blah

Our lesson was on using phrases for interrupting politely. He spoke English quite well, but he wasn't sure how to use the phrases.

Me: Let's pretend I'm talking, and then you have to interrupt me. Okay?
Him: Okay.
Me: So, blah, blah, blah, blah--interrupt!
Him: Excuse me, but I have a point to add.
Me: Good! (Pause and wait for him to make his point.) And what is that point?
Him: Oh... (Thinks.) Blah, blah, blah, blah.

After I stopped laughing ...

Me: That's not really English, you know.
Him: Yes, I'm not sure I'm improving, but I made you laugh!

Yellow

Some days ago, on the cab to work, I noticed yellow banners hanging from the trees and lamp posts we passed. My thoughts immediately went to former Pres. Corazon Aquino, widow of martyred Benigno Aquino, opposition leader during the disgraced dictator Marcos' time.

Some days after that, on my way to work, I stopped by at the 7'11 outside our village. I bought MineShine (milk tea) and potato chips. On the counter, there was a plastic canister filled with free yellow ribbons, the kind you can pin on your shirt. I got one and taped it to my computer monitor at work.

Two days after that, I went online, and was met with the news that Cory had passed away, at 3.18 am of August 1.

August is a month of heroism in the Philippines. Benigno Aquino was shot, an airplane step away from setting foot on the land of his people, the Filipinos he was convinced were worth dying for, on August 21, 1983. It is an august month, even more so now.

I have to share this, as Cory was a devout Catholic and a Marian devotee, specifically of Our Lady of Fatima: She died in the Hour of Divine Mercy, on a First Saturday, while her children were praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. She was put in power by way of a peaceful revolution, with people holding flowers, rosaries and Marian images, empowered by prayer, overwhelming tanks and heavily armed soldiers. To commemorate this people power revolution, a giant statue of an Asian-looking Virgin Mary stands in the middle of the country's busiest highway.

I'm saddened, grateful, and filled with hope, seeing how my increasingly fragmented country can still be united, albeit in grief. The same heart beating yet again in all of us. Remembering.