Category: Odds and Ends

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The THEN and NOW of Homework

Our daughter C2 posted this on her blog (something she must have picked out from the internet):

A Prayer for Homework

Now I lay me down to study,
I pray the Lord I won’t go nutty.
If I should fail to learn this junk,
I pray the Lord I will not flunk.
But if I do, don’t pity me at all,
Just lay my bones in the school hall.
Tell mr blackwell I did my best,
Then pile my books upon my chest.
Now I lay me down to rest,
And pray I’ll pass tomorrow’s test.
If I should die before I wake,
That’s one less test I’ll have to take!

It’s reflective of just how burned out young teens are today.

I don’t recall that I had to study as hard as they seem to study these days.

I don’t recall working on papers till the sun came up — at least not till graduate school.

I did not become dependent on coffee to keep me going the whole day.

I wonder why they seem to study all the time when I had less tools to help me with back when I was a student like them….

There was nothing to distract me from homework other than TV and maybe, the phone.

Now, they surf the net, YM their friends, Ipod headphones in their ears, and study (all at the same time!!!!

I did research with index cards, typed on a manual typewriter with several layers of carbon paper. One mistake and it meant re-typing the whole thing all over. The library was my haunt. Encyclopedias were a MUST!

All they have to avoid these days is plagiarism. The encyclopedia collection I scrimped and saved to buy? HARDLY OPENED!!!! They cannot imagine a life without word processing. Almost everything else can now be researched from home or on the road via wi-fi on their laptops. (info at their fingertips!)

I had REVIEW WEEK.

They call it now HELL WEEK (and from the looks of C1’s 7-days-a-week-in-school lately, you can change that to HELL MONTH!).

They should be having it easier with all these technology available to them…..and yet it doesn’t look like it’s any easier now than it was for me back then.

Sometimes, I wish I could take on some of their burden and study for them. But I just have to be around, listen to them rant about the list of projects they have to do, and just be a listening ear.

One good thing about all these is that they have strong, friendship bonds in school. And when they cram, they cram together. Hindi sila nag-iisa! And the beauty of technology nowadays is that they never feel alone even when they’re the only ones at home still up and studying during the wee hours of the morning since their kadas (their lingo for ‘barkada’) are similarly still awake and…. just a YM away.

What’s your experience with your kids?

 

 

 

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Vacationing

Cathy tagged me on this and it took a while to buckle down to thinking of my answers but finally, I am getting around to it today….

Vacationing

1. What is your favorite vacation spot?

Any place with a fantastic sea view. The sea has a magnetic attraction for me. I am not really an inland person. I love the sea, the breeze, the feel of sand running through my toes, walking on the shore with the waves lapping at my feet.

Continue reading “Vacationing”

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Pinoy Inmates Rock to “Thriller”

Last Friday, I was unwinding and watching TV Patrol when the newscasters featured a YouTube video posted just last July 17, 2007 by Byron Garcia, prison supervisor of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRV), Cebu, Philippines. Byron Garcia himself was interviewed by TV Patrol as he explained that he simply posted this video on YouTube to share his innovation with the rest of the penal community, not expecting the international hit that it would become.

You may ask — what’s so unusual about this YouTube video?

* It features about 1,000 neon orange-clad prisoners from CPDRC doing their morning exercise

* These inmates all dance, without missing a beat, to the song of Michael Jackson’s Thriller in amazing choreographed moves

* As of this posting, this video has had over 2.3 million views (talk of a video epidemic!)

The video got its share of positive and negative reactions from viewers and media around the world.

Continue reading “Pinoy Inmates Rock to “Thriller””

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Internet-less for 2 Days

Can I survive 2 days without checking my email, surfing the web, blogging, twittering?

My daughter C1 was amused yesterday when I related to her that I had called the hospital where I will be for these next 2 days. I asked the Information person there if their hospital had Wifi, to which she answered “Ano ho yun?”. I think that meant NONE.

So here I am in the midst of packing a gym bag filled with stuff for the hospital. I am putting in the chargers of my cellphone and PDA (loaded to the max with my favorite music), got “The Secret” book and will pick up another book that Cathy is giving me (bless her sweet heart) to while away the time, and maybe logic and crossword puzzles.

So 48 hours, minus my sleeping time minus the medical procedure (to blast my kidney stones) minus the hours when I would still be in a stupor…..hmmm, that stay may not be so bad after all!

Sometimes, it is good to be weaned from too much technology to enjoy the simple things we used to have in our low-tech childhood.

But, as I commented in a post on Deedee’s blog, I still can’t do without my cellphone beside me all the time.

So it will be silence from me for the next 2 days. All my commenting on friends’ blogs will be on hold. Please pray for my successful medical procedure (warm hugs to all those who left comments/email/texts/twitters promising prayers). And in 2 days, I will be back (with a vengeance!).

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How to Fold A Shirt (video)

Following on the heels of my previous post on wrapping books, here is a how-to video on folding a shirt. This is for all my mommy blogger-friends, especially Cess, who just conquered a pile of laundry the other day. On second thought, those who are still single will also benefit from this video…

The first time I saw this video was when our son M1, who had just come back from a China trip as part of their school curriculum, showed me a video he captured on his digicam. His China program coordinator had shown this to them while they were abroad and the boys thought it was just so cool. Unfortunately, the video was NOT in English and I have seen versions of it in Japanese as well.

Whenever hubby traveled, my role in the packing involved folding all the shirts he would bring. I think I did a pretty job of it though sometimes I could not align the shoulder folds equally on both sides and had to re-do the folds.

Thankfully, a quick search on YouTube produced several home videos done in English. This was the best I could find so far, more so since the guy who produced this showed both a short-sleeved and long-sleeved version.

Thanks to Screeners Choice for posting this.

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The Art of Wrapping (without climbing the wall)

There are 2 seasons I dread: school opening and Christmas — and it all has to do with WRAPPING!

Being the “shopper ng bayan” in our immediate family, I do the Christmas shopping AND wrapping. It used to be fun when I was newly married and even more fun when the kids came. Somehow, wrapping a toy or book you knew they’d immensely enjoy added to the fulfillment of wrapping. However, it got to the point where wrapping gifts now already includes the classmates of the kids (I have 4 kids multiplied by an average of 20 friends each), the village guards, the hospital doctors (and their secretaries), the tutors, and the ever growing list of inaanaks….

Then, as classes are about to open next week, here I am again — on the floor — with a 5-meter roll of gauge 3 plastic and a pile of books and notebooks to wrap. It has become an art — measuring the books’ dimensions on the plastic and arranging these in portrait or landscape format — to maximize the number of items one can wrap with the least amount of plastic wastage). Then there is the art of folding the plastic around the covers so that the line mark made when you folded the plastic in half hits the spine of the book dead center. The covers also need to look very firmly wrapped around the front and back. Wavy, loose plastic is a no-no. Continue reading “The Art of Wrapping (without climbing the wall)”