light with me

hey friends and countrypeople.

please send me mail or a private message if you want to get together and do the “light for life 1/25″ it can be as simple as staying in some coffee shop and lighting one candle together (para matipid or just creating a text-brigade structure to make sure that we all remember to light our candles for peace am open to suggestions.

as i see it, this candle-lighting is not just to end the war in gaza. as the event-description says, it’s to remember, in our silence, those who suffer because of war. i think it’s safe to take that to mean war WHEREVER. and war OF ANY KIND.

dito sa ating minamahal na pilipinas, napakarami nang namatay, nasaktan, natapakan, nagdusa o nabilanggo (at hindi lamang sa kulungang bakal) dahil sa pakikipaglaban para sa kapayapaan. let’s get together for peace, in whatever shape or form. we need to do something.

b

Check out the link: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-185643

______________

The reignited war in Gaza is entering its fourth week. The decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict has yet to be resolved, and the protracted war has caused the loss of innocent lives. It is not an easy war to understand, and each of us has political and religious beliefs and biases. We may not agree with other people’s stands on the war. Perhaps the one thing we all acknowledge is the fact that there has been unnecessary bloodshed on both sides, blood of women, of children, and of those who fought in the war. 

On January 25, 2009 (Sunday) at 8:00pm local time, people around the world, regardless of political and religious belief, will participate in Light for Life. It is not promoting any stand, nor is it advocating any political action. It is a call for solidarity with a simple goal: to remember victims of the war. We invite you to light a candle and spend two minutes in silence. 

What else can you do? 

GET COUNTED 

If you would like to participate in Light for Life, send an e-mail with your name and location to lightforlife125@gmail.com. If you have a Facebook account, confirm your attendance to the Light for Life event. 

SCATTER THE LIGHT 

Tell your family and friends about Light for Life. Forward this e-mail, invite them to the sign up to the Light for Life event on Facebook, send a text message, leave a post-it note. Organize your own get together (perhaps dinner, movie night, an open discussion on the war) on January 25 at 8:00pm so that you can participate in Light for Life as a group. 

LET OTHERS SHINE 

Take Light for Life to your school or workplace. Encourage your schoolmates and co-workers to join the event on January 25, as well as the off-shoot Light for Life which will be participated in by schools and offices on January 26 (Monday) at their own convenient time. Please also let us know if your school or office will be participating by sending us an e-mail with your school/ company name and an estimate of how many will be joining.

CREATE AN AFTERGLOW 

Share with the rest of the world how you, your family, and your friends participated in Light for Life by e-mailing photos, reflections, or anything about your experience. These will be put up on our page (lightforlife.multiply.com) to show everyone around the world one of the many creative, non-violent ways we can work towards peace. 

SHARE THAT LIGHT BULB MOMENT 

if Light for Life has inspired you to come up with other ideas for peace initiatives, whether on the individual, community, national, or international level, let us know about it. Send us an e-mail or share it on Facebook! Who knows, your idea might just spark other light bulb moments across the globe! 

Remember, this is just the beginning. We hope that Light for Life serves as a starting point for discussions and other civil actions that advocate for peace not only in Israel and Palestine, but also in all our own countries and the rest of the world. 

People around the world still believe in peace. Light for Life, and speak for those who do not have a voice in this conflict.

___

you may email/message me through

beepsie.m.28@gmail.com AND

beepsiemay@yahoo.com

*this is just a small thing i want to do to help in our campaign for peace. i also encourage you to do your own thing and make a diff in your side of the world.

Thank you, Lord, for everything you have given me — just the right amount of some things to make me worthy to touch these lives. Such a gift, this responsibility of taking part in their formation (however small). Thank you for the gift.

b

December 13, 2008 – Saturday.

After weeks and weeks; entries upon entries; cajoling, encouraging, coercing, bribing, and downright threatening — the BloGame of the second trimester 2008 was finally done.

The boys stayed on one side:

allergic to girls

While the girls stayed on the other:

allergic to boys

 First came the announcement of the winner.

Teacher proudly announces…

with a grand total of 93%

(Thank you so much to the three teachers – who may be unnamed, but not without our utmost gratitude…)

THE WINNER IS…

Gale Palillo for her sketch blog!!!!

Gale wins: bragging rights choice of activities for the “field trip,” and a treat from teacher.

Time for bonding!!!! Let’s have some pictures taken.

hmmm. maybe we need to warm up a little bit more

maybe we need to take another one… just one more shot (thanks for taking our pictures, Teacher Jai!)

that's more like it!

You guys will bond, if that be the last thing that I do… Grrrrrrrr!!!

Off to the Alabang Town Center we go! After the toy store – Time Zone here we come!

Of course it starts off slow… people whom you’d expect to stick together indeed did.

The girls:

hit it!

Playing all sort of games

hit it real good!

just sticking together

driver sam and driver gale

even playing games that teacher never thought they would

ya! ya! yeeeeee-ya!

and winning, of course!

they may just be candies to you, but they sure were hard earned

The boys: Sometimes together, a lot of times alone. But never with girls.

teacher really doesn't know what it is about guns

Pow! pyowh! pfffpffpfff!! ratatatatatat! 

scares me no end!

These boys seem to like it, though.

They spent quite a while there.

nothing to it!

This boy, especially.  

even from another angle, still cool as ice

Just shooting and aiming; shooting and aiming.

Wait! Isn’t that aiming and shooting? 

See? Teacher will never understand guns.

Sometimes driving…

vroooom! vroooom!

Teacher is STILL 

QUEEN OF THE ROAD! Yeah!!! 

crash and burn!

Swerving and careening…

How many times can I die in this thing?

wani clobbered teacher on this one

Shooting hoops… 

last two minutes!

alone, or together. It really doesn’t matter.

tanananan-tanan!!!!

what matters is…. how many balls go into the basket!

jetski wani is cool

They also tried out a whole host of things.

yeehaw!!!

like being a bronco dude.

Then, slowly – these young people got over their allergies.

wani vs gelay

The magic of air hokey

wani vs sam

while Gale hams it up for the camera

gelay vs mark

The competitive spirit takes over…

tux vs sam

and everyone gravitated towards the air hockey game

tux vs wani

they played in different permutations.

tux vs wani again

sometimes, in the excitement of things… there’d be table-climbing, puck flying… even paddle soaring.

wani vs gale - with teacher as cheerleader

they even extended this spirit of fun unto other games.

And then — HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY…

They all decided to…

race

all together now

teacher was just about ready to cry

they race, i take pictures

such is life.

People DO come together and have fun in spite of themselves (and their initial discomfort, uncertainty and fear). After all — that’s the natural course friendships take.

stolen

And so teacher DID cry when they all got together  (leaving teacher on the bench — drained and gratified) – deciding as a group to find out who can beat the scary gorilla kong. I stole a picture of that scene to share with others.

My heart took its own – just for me.

Anyway – teacher, exercising some authority over the brood, COMMANDS them to troop into the cheesy (but much fun) photo booth.

one-two-three CLICK!

We didn’t even know where to look! It’s a good thing these things give you several choices.

It was all easier (and harder) from then on.

Easier because they were finally comfortable with each other – realizing that the others are people, just like them. 

yum, yum!

Just like them, these people eat…

shakey's!

 make fun of teacher…

just a little. =b

Also harder (for me!!!!!!!) because they were soon comfortable enough to go off and explore.

"so, what are they doing?' you ask

what else?

... you saw me standing alone...

playing “blue moon” in tandem

while mark finally found what we were looking for

you so deserve the bakugan!

his prize for being the all-time highest scorer in the jeopardy game (for end-of-trime diagnostics).

some corner INSIDE hobbes

WAIT! where are my other boys?!

busy doing their own thing

oh! to be so cool and unaffected by all the color and excitement surrounding you.

hmmm. if this trance can be psp-induced…

i am sure i can find a way to make it book-induced soon (hmmmmm)

it took a lot of glaring and foot-stomping to finally have them pose – right before we went to our final destination

by hobbes

yes… it is what you think it is. 

i think it was mortal combat

life is full of compromises. a trimester of hard work… social interaction smoothly put in play… they deserve 15 minutes, me thinks

scary how serious they could get

and strictly 15 minutes (I made sure; made arrangements with the counter people out front. not a second longer).

After a few hours of indulgence…

the unwinding after a whole trimester of grueling toil and drudgery with teacher beepsie

the friends finally troop to the car for the ride back to wordlab.

back to reality for me.

now, back to wordlab, friends!

we got to wordlab at 2:30pm (on the dot!).

Thank you very much to all the parents, for entrusting their children to my care for a few hours. 

Special thanks to Atty. Gentugaya for agreeing to take care of our transportation.

Thank you, Manong Sonny, my new non-textmate — for patiently waiting for us. And for bringing us to and from Wordlab  safe and sound =b

Thank you, Mrs. Palillo – for the response you gave: “a promise is a promise.” I know how hard it is to fulfill every promise given. Thank you! I am so happy for Gelay.

AND.

Finally.

Thank you, my beloved ones.

For teaching me so many life-lessons.

In just a few hours.

Truly – in each of us is a teacher.

And a student.

God has made us so.

Perfect.

Haaaaay! MERRY CHRISTMAS, INDEED!!!!!

b

People have asked me (with lots of head-shaking and tsk-tsk-tsking) why. How can I be so….? When all we see around us are pain, suffering, terror, greed and self-centeredness. 

This is why: because you and I can choose to see the beauty, instead of the ugliness; choose to believe the good, instead of the evil; believe in the ideals, instead of what seems to be the reality that we all live.

The funny thing about this “reality” is that people forget how we have the ABSOLUTE POWER to make our own reality. “Because things are just the way they are,” is not an excuse. We have been given the graceful gift of choice. 

I am smiling because people seem to be making that choice now. 

The nation that has been seen as the bastion of capitalism, of every-man-for-himself, of money-talking, of entitlement — is seemingly choosing to cast their vote on behalf of real ideals. It is showing that it IS POSSIBLE to go for the acknowledgment of the responsibility — to go beyond the narrow-minded emphasis on entitlement. It seems to say, “ok- this is not about how much we can get, but how much we can do.”

In a few hours, it will be official. The most powerful nation on earth will declare that we CAN go beyond what we are, to journey to what we were meant to be. 

We are at the verge of our evolution. 

If it can happen there. It can happen here.

Choose to believe.

Change. Hope. New day. Sunrise. Happiness.

b

(Lord – let it all be real. Let it not be some dream from which we will have a very rude awakening. Be with us.)

This is for the future. This is for all the children. Remember: we can choose to believe in what is good; we can choose to hope for what is honorable. Even better – we can choose to uncover the nobility that is within us. Live with that knowledge.

Embedded video from CNN Video

That’s when I seek the solace of those links

For those are where the answers are found

in their photos

in their accounts of their daily lives

in their sketches

in their reviews

in their poetry

And that’s when I see.

And smile.

Yeyeyey!

Yey.

My teaching load is solid-full on that day: from 8am until 5pm. This, of course, was my choice – having begged for certain students to be given to – and/or retained with – me. I know my bosses have also bent over backwards to allow me my “whims.” Therefore, this teacher cannot even claim any maltreatment – at least not from anyone else but myself. =b

See, I have mostly older students, with such full schedules – leaving each of them just a little window to accommodate fitting me into their schedule. I so totally stand by this decision. Still- my body (and, I am ashamed to admit, my spirit) sometimes just wants to give up.

Another big adjustment for me is the fact that I only have Sundays now to earn what I call my “pansustento sa bisyo ng pagtuturo.” (I host children’s parties on weekends.) This effectively cuts my earnings in half. That is, when I am not lucky (or masochistic) enough to  have 2 parties in a day. This, I tell you, is a killer. It takes a toll on my body. It drains my creative juices. It makes my voice so hoarse at the end of the day. It makes me dip into my “happiness” reserve, which is on a steady dwindle. And, most importantly – it takes away from my time with my God… to praise Him and love Him, and bask in His love.

But that is how the cookie crumbles. So I accept. After all, I cannot indulge in finger-pointing when all all of them point right back at me. =b

So, with such a full plate (work responsibilities plus all the drama of the telenovela I call my life) – and financial emergencies upon emergencies (I never realized how much I took Kuya Binch’s financial help in our household for granted), I have been finding myself, once again, running on empty. (Yes – I mix my metaphors. But there’s poetry in having a full plate and running on empty at the same time, wouldn’t you say? =b)

THEN.

Today, I find myself full. Yes, my plate is still spilling over; but, so is my tank. 

See, yesterday, I had a double treat. In the morning, I got (indirectly) affirmed by a parent of one of my kids. She was marveling at how much her hitherto non-reading, averse-to-writing son has grown in the past months. That acknowledgment gave me such a boost – especially because it came from someone for whom I have immense respect.

Later in the afternoon, I got a call from another mom. At first, the call filled me with trepidation. This mom has been filled with frustration for a long time (mainly because their family, my student included, has been doing everything they can to make sure the child copes with the current school’s academic demands; and yet all the efforts still seem to fall short)- and she just came from a meeting with my student’s adviser in school. Here is the report: from D’s, my student now has mostly B minuses, and a couple of C’s (for Math and Science, which the adviser said were difficult for ALL the students in school). From D’s to B-’s… WOW!

I am so tempted to get all the glory; to claim the accolade. Yet I know that, in both instances, none of this is my doing. These are all my kids’ achievements (yes, I claim all my students as MY kids; their parents just have to live with the knowledge that I love their son and/or daughter). I am just blessed enough to have been privy to their slow unfolding: the realization that they CAN, indeed do it. Nope – not only cope, but THRIVE. That the negative notion of self, that which had been hammered into their psyche most of their lives, is indeed untrue. They are not “slow,;” they are not lazy; they are, most certainly, not under-achievers – some substandard issue of a person who is less than their peers.

They just learn differently; and it is OUR oversight, not any deficiency on their part, that makes them fail to perform at par with others. They just have to get over some “humps.” Once that is discovered – the growth is so turbo-charged that I have to fasten my seat belt.

With each kid that I have been privileged enough to encounter – whether my student or one of my co-teachers’ –  this journey of growth has been so replicated that I can easily claim it as a truism. 

With such immeasurable gratification – how, then, can I ever claim to run on empty?

God! I so love the workplace – and the job You have given me to do. It is an honor to do it with all that I’ve got. 

Thank you, Mighty One. With all my heart, thank you.

b

(PS: So, I just mentioned 2 students here. Basically because both incidents happened just when I needed the boost. But ALL my kids have been showing such great and steady growth. It’s the easiest thing in the world to just make sure that their persons are nurtured into the fruition of their true selves. =b I SOOOOOO LOVE MY JOB!)

Here are the criteria:

OVER-ALL THEME: 25%

• What is your blog about? (Is it about your day-to-day life? About your school? Postings of the songs you like and the songs you wrote yourself? Is it a book review? Is it a collection of your sketches? Is it like an album of photos telling us about your life?) – REMINDER: photos, sketches and/or music SHOULD BE accompanied by WORDS! 2-3 sentences per picture, graphic or song, please.
• Are you consistent with your theme? (This is a good exercise in focusing. It would also lessen your confusion. THERE ARE a lot of things to talk about.)
• Can you be creative while working within the theme? (So what if you’ve told teacher what your theme is already? If there’s something you REALLY want to say on your blog, I am sure you can think of a way to put it in!)

QUALITY OF CONTENT: 30%

• Does teacher always need to help you edit capitalization and punctuation? NOTE: It is totally fine for you and teacher to edit together – but I would much rather edit the thought and how it was said; it would be agony for me to sound like a broken record, asking, “how do you end your sentence?”
• Does your hard work show? Remember, boys and girls: I am just like you guys. And since I have at least two decades head-start, I would know when you guys are slacking off. =b
• Does long = good? You know the answer to that! Of course not. Not always. It can be short and sweet. CLARITY is the secret. What do you have to say? How can you best say it?

Let’s all blog together and see what happens. 

We may end up sharing something magical — maybe the gift of exchanged learning?

One day – teacher Beepsie will officially be declared a nerd!

Yey!

b