MMMiii!

Core of Soul - The Spirit of this Place

Finally done with the University Graduation last Sunday, but only able to write about it today. I was so tired Sunday night and I went out yesterday.
Anyway, I’m finally done. I feel a little guilty because I’m not teaching and I do not want to teach in the classroom, like what I studied and graduated as. But… meh… In any case. I’m finished!

The day before I got a new SIM card and dropped by iBlog4 and I was only running with 4 hours of sleep since Friday, and then I had work that night. I was able to leave early that morning and I was so desperate that I might not be able to sleep so … I drank some beer. I drank 2 cans of Strong Ice. And then tried to sleep. I was able to sleep around 8 already and I woke up before 11.

Surprise! I had a hangover. The headache kind of hangover. I don’t usually have hangovers with beer. The worst hangover I get is feeling puke-y, but after puking, I’d be feeling better. That one I had I didn’t really feel queasy or nauseous … just… a pounding headache.

So… heat of the sun plus headache plus too long a wait time = horrendous day!

But not really.

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I graduated yesterday, actually. In UP Diliman (I’m not sure with other campuses. I’m ignorant, sorry), we graduate twice. The college graduation where we actually go up the stage and get our certificates (not the diploma) and shake hands with the Dean, and the university graduation where we watch only the students with the highest grades or awards go up the stage and get their awards. That’s probably the biggest difference. Both events have speakers, speeches and awarding of the best in the batch, swearing/pledging and so on.

The College of Education graduating batch of 2008 is a special batch. We’re graduating on the 100th year of the university and the 90th year of the college.

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I have a job now, though, I haven’t started. Some things came up, like they wanted to change the contract because they made a mistake.

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:D I’m only going to put this up for a day. XD

Tops wrote in his comment that I was brave to put up my grades here. I replied back that it just shows that even if you were a total failure at first, you can still succeed.

For those who don’t know, 1.00 is the highest, 3.00 is the lowest passing, 4.00 is conditional, 5.00 is fail. Inc is incomplete.

My first course or major was BS ECE (Electronics and Communications Engineering) at UP Diliman, College of Engineering. Out of the number of subjects I failed (did you count?) only 3 were not related to Engineering. I failed in PE because in the first one, my teacher disappeared for a while and when he came back, I got lazy to complete the requirements. In the second PE (FYI it was Walking for Fitness), I failed because I tripped and I kind of lost all will to attend the class which was at 8am, right before my Math 114 (Linear Algebra blah blah) which I had to take a Removal Exam for, and I got lazy as well, so my grade stayed conditional but I assume it has been registered as 5.00 by now.

A series of failures finally ended up with me getting dismissed from the College. There’s this rule that we have to pass 24 units each year. I could have easily shifted to Geodetic Engineering, but I knew that I didn’t want to deal with numbers anymore.

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Today was the last day of submission of grades. Today I submitted everything–my students’ grades, my journal, all my lesson plans, other random stuff.

I had so many plans after I finished my Practicum… In no particular order

• I’m going to watch anime until I drop
• I’m going to buy a new cellphone
• I’m going to chat all day
• I’m going to sleep for a month
• I’m going to clean and rearrange my room
• I’m going to soak in the bathroom for at least 5 hours
• I’m going to reformat my computer

So many things, right? I don’t even know where to start! I sat in front of the computer, telling myself, “Ah! Finally! I can watch anime!”

Then I stared at my Anime folder and … continued staring. What to watch? Where to start? I stopped downloading anime almost after my practice teaching started, about 5 months ago, so I’m sort of off the hook on what’s new, what’s over, and so on. I tried streaming drama from the mac but it buffers a lot.

So, from the list of things to do, what should I do first? Sleep? Clean? Bathe? Watch anime?

About the cellphone, I’ve kind of given up on it. It’s funny. At first, my goal was a laptop by the end of my practice teaching. Then when my cellphone broke, I figured that a snazzy cellphone would be cheaper, so I could just get one really good one, like a PDA phone or a smart phone. Then Mama ran away with my broken cellphone and had it fixed so I don’t need a new one anymore. And now that I was contemplating on reformatting but not having the space, I figured that getting a hard drive would be cheaper of all those.

Maybe I should invest in jewelry like some gold bracelets >_< at least those I could put in a pawnshop if I badly need money.

Well, anyway, for now I’m going to get a new hard drive and organize my files (and download more) and eventually reformat. And while copying files and so on, going to clean my room! The perfect plan!

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I attended the Bloggers Kapihan event at MonSay yesterday and I must say, it was very informative. It was called Bloggers Kapihan 2.0: Blog Ed 101. Before it started, I went to Cubao and met with Mama and I got myself a new wristwatch! And then I went to MonSay and climbed a mountain. With a not-yet-fully-healed sprain, it was really a high mountain to climb. I chatted with Mr. Lalon dela Rosa about the CEP, school stuff, future plans, what’s wrong with the Philippines and the Filipinos and a lot of other stuff. That was for about an HOUR (The event started late).  And then I asked questions… voiced my opinions… and stuff… The pancake donut thing of Mr Donuts is gewd!

I registered as “Mi” again. Maybe I should write Miii instead? Lalon asked me, “Why Mi?” maybe I should make up something prophetic… nanchatte :D (darnit! I still can’t figure out how to make wordpress accept japanese characters again T_T)

Oh. Ok. the forum.

The first speaker was Prof Danny Arao of UP Diliman and Bulatlat.com.

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Plan? What plan?

A couple of people have already said they have my support, that I should continue this dream. Sadly, I have no definite plan as of yet.

aaahh… I’ll try now.

Contents:

• Forum
• Lesson Plans and Activities
• Teacher Blogs (?)
• Education News
  • Local
  • International
• Resources, Links
• WebQuests

• Student Portal
  • Study Guides
  • Forum?

Shall I use the Wiki software?

And then… how am I going to divide it? By topic or subject area? I mean should I put each subject area below Lesson Plans and activities and so on, or should they fall under the subject areas?

Waaaahhh Ano’ng gagawin ko? Ni hindi ko pa nga bayad si bratyfly!!! Active pa kaya yung account ko sa pinoyhosting.net? May abandoned kasi akong webspace dun..pero… pero…. waaaahhh.. Nagpapanic na ko!

In short, what use are big dreams if you don’t have plans?
What use are plans if you don’t do them?

I HAVEN’T EVEN PICKED A DOMAIN NAME! AOMAI GAWSH!

PinoyTeacher.com
FilipinoTeacher.net
GurongPinoy.com

hmmm… WHAT!?

ok.

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This is an assignment I gave my students a couple of weeks ago. It was right after Erap’s final trial at the Sandiganbayan, wherein he was convicted of plunder and acquitted of perjury. While many teachers were checking student essays on this topic, there were also a lot of laughs. There were some kids who wrote forgery instead of perjury, and “pardon” being the one said when you didn’t hear something clearly and wanted the person to repeat it (”Pardon me, could you repeat that?”)

Being an English teacher, I have my own share of funny essays. Add to that horrendous grammar and handwriting… Anyway, I asked them to research on the events from 6 years ago that led to this event (objective), and their thoughts on this (subjective).

Guilty or No Guilty!

The result of the trial of former president Joseph Estrada, who was accused of plunder and forgery last 2001, was formerly sentenced by the Saligang Bayan last wednesday September 12,2007. But what are the affects on the Philippine people? what ever was decided of the Estrada plunder case would have agitated the still sharply divided nation on the former president. For me, I either choose anysides in many cases.

There are reasons to agree, which was the easier to explain and out of many people they were the largest people. Other says for stealing the nation’s trust. But for me, I think it’s efficiently right to have the suspect sentenced if he or she did what was accused to him or her. This explanations was usually given by anti-Erap’s rallies.

Few people dis agreed the decision because of many reason.

Some says the court which has not enough evidence and said to like to end the trial for the people to say they’re doing some thing. Few says he didn’t do it for he who waited for 6 years in jail agreed to face the court maybe because he has confidence in him. But for me he have confidence in knowing his inocence will win but no.

Whatever was decided if Erap who was sentenced for 40 years in jail, guilty  or not guilty it is decided. Maybe us people have different answers to the questions because of our different views in life and our values.

And for you what do you think? GUILTY?or NO GUILTY?

I know her grammar was bad, and her thoughts were unorganized. But she had some pretty good ideas, like the nation being divided and people having different views and values.

Still… I can only give her a passing score. >_<

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I have this big dream. It might sound a little too big, though, but I want to start a Teacher Resource website for Filipinos. In the wee hours of procrastinating my lesson plans and/or looking for what good activities I could use in my classes, all are resources for western classrooms.

The Filipino classroom is much more different. We have a quasi standard set curriculum for most schools in basic education. For example, in English, Music and Arts in high school, the first year focuses on Philippine literature, music and arts. In the second year, Afro-Asian. The third year focuses on Anglo-American or western, while the fourth year focuses on the world as a whole.

Well… What I’m saying is… You won’t really be able to find teacher resources on, say, Noli Me Tangere or Philippine History.

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Like a promised, here is the translation of my post, I Am A Filipino; Pilipino Ako.

This is a reply to a post pinoy? of irzh. My reply got a little too long so I just made a whole post about it. Here is a translation of that post as well:

This is a group for pinoys right? So why do most people here post using English? I’m going to post in Tagalog whether you like it or not. We’re pinoys for crying out loud! We have our own language, why do we still need to use English? What’s the use of our own language if we’re always using another country’s language? But I think if we’re really pinoys we should use Tagalog more because this is our language. I really don’t understand the minds of pinoys like me. Maybe they are ashamed because of our country’s poverty. Why won’t we be poor, when hardly anyone does anything. A proverb says, “Mercy comes from God, actions from men.” I’m just a little annoyed that’s why I wrote this. I don’t care if someone gets angry with what I wrote… If we all unite and work together, we’re going to develop right? *

It really depends
First, we shouldn’t limit the language of being a Filipino to Tagalog only. There are many languages in the Philippines, not just Tagalog. However you can say that Tagalog is the most widespread language of the Philippines because of the “Filipino Language.”
Second, it depends on which language the writer is more comfortable with. Some people might say that we may be writing the way we talk, but it really is different when it comes to writing and speaking.Third, our blogs will have more audience if they are written in English. Our languages don’t have an instant translator like others. It’s not about being ashamed or anything. For example, most of my readers are the people I chat with from other countries all over the world. How will they understand my blog if most of my writings are in Filipino? I don’t want to translate each and every post just so they could understand.

We don’t need to promote are being Filipino with just language. If we can get more readers we get around the world, if we can get our blogs to reach more places around the world, your blog itself could show that you are a Filipino, like putting the Proudly Pinoy logo. You should also have good content. Those are some ways you can show that you are a Filipino, right?

I would also like to promote that I am a Filipino through language, but I hardly have any readers, and if I limit it to just Filipinos, who will be left?
I’m not saying that we should JUST use English either.
We should admit though. Most Filipinos don’t have mastery in English NOR Filipino, and I think that we should practice each language well. I am not very good at Filipino, but when I get the chance, I try to use it properly.

Our development as a country IS affected by language. We can blame our Educational System for that. If you look at the curriculum, it doesn’t promote love for the country very much. Subjects like Filipino and HeKaSi/Social Studies aren’t given much importance. Then there’s this Makabayan subject which combined a couple of subjects which shouldn’t. Because of this, we don’t grow to love our country very much, and we are not united. We aren’t growing as a country because of lack of love for the country.
The above-mentioned are just my opinions.

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