M.O.B. (My Other Blog)

My back and neck have been aching in the past few days; work has piled up because I've cut down my time on the computer and my desk which I think caused my back-and-neck pains (this is actually a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma for me) plus the ever-growing list of things-to-do has prevented me from going to the gym regularly.  In short, I'm stressed.

I discovered this - 79 Instant Stress-busters.  Though not all of them are available in the Philippines or applicable to me, here are my favorites:

1. Virtual bubble wrap ... it's free and it's addictive.
2. Watch out for the quickie yoga steps given there.  Example:  While reading e-mail, breathe slowly and focus your attention on your breath. Make the out-breath two times longer than the in-breath.  (I also read somewhere that one of the easiest abs exercise you can do is to "press your navel against your spine while inhaling".)
3. Play any slow-paced song (I love cello pieces by Yo-Yo Ma ... close your eyes and recall the slow-motioned, choreographed scenes in The Wedding Banquet.)
4. Be thankful.  Here it says, "write down everything you are thankful for."  (I don't have to do that.  I just tell myself there is "too much and too many to be thankful for".  Nurture a spirit of gratitude.)
5. Indulge in some dark chocolate.  Tip no. 74 says that it is "by far the most potent endorphin-producing food on earth".
6. Pray.  Actually, this should have been no. 1.  Nothing can beat this: it's free, you can do it anywhere, anytime, you don't need a special reason to do it.
   
7. Forgive someone.  (I think this is one of the most powerful things we can do.)

And, of course, laugh, laugh, laugh!  The site gave some suggestions but sometimes I can't get American humor.  So I recommend what my cousin Antoine has written about in her multiply blog: Camera Cafe.  I watched past episodes in YouTube (search for Camera Cafe Philippine version because there are foreign versions).

Happy de-stressing!

I took time to smell the flowers and discovered this.

Now that everybody - well, almost - is scrimping and saving, we're back to old-fashioned values.  (Thank God.)

The other week, I was listening to some friends exchanging tips about how to save-more, spend-less, tighten-our-belts for the "even harder and darker days ahead."  (And I hate it when government people keep denying that we're already in recession.  Why, even powerful Japan and prosperous Singapore have admitted that they're "sick"!  The sooner we admit this, the better we can brace ourselves for tougher times.)

But we're not the only ones hanging on to our hard-earned money these days.  Here's a survey that shows how Americans are coping with the crunch:

• 61% - Eat out less often.  [Here, many of us don't just eat out less often ... we eat less often.]
• 50% - Buy fewer prepared meals at grocery stores. [Here, many Filipinos do not buy prepared meals.  They get these for free from garbage dumps. About 2 weeks ago, a public affairs program I regularly watch featured Filipinos who go to dump sites, garbage bins and trash cans early in the morning to "shop" for food.  Although this is a health hazard for most of us, a doctor explained these scavengers don't get sick from what they eat because "their system is used to it ... they've been fed this kind of stuff since they were babies."]
• 49% - Try to make cleaning products last longer. [This is easier to do.  Many of us don't clean at all. Dust is protective covering.]
• 45% - Go to spas and hair salons less often. [I can't agree more. :)]
• 43% - Buy fewer convenience foods/eat more from scratch. [As I said about "prepared meals", we're used to eating from scratch.]
• 32% - Do more at-home beauty treatments.
• 25% - Share more beauty products across household members. [e.g. shampoo, toothpaste]  Soap and toothbrush, too?  You'd be surprised but I learned many years ago that in some lower-income areas, they share even their toothbrushes.

So now it's back to home-cooked food (lutong bahay), walk or take the jeepney if you can (I do more often now but I hate people who smoke in the jeepney so I'd rather walk to and from school!), more TV than movies ... basically, we go back to old-style living.  Which I think is healthier.

One last thing.  We've forgotten how to plan ahead - tell each other orally where and what time we meet, what to bring, why we're seeing each other, etc.  We've gotten used to saying, "I'll just text (SMS) you later."  This is one friend's argument to people who insist that they can't live without their cellphones.  He says, "...but we survived without cellphones in the past!"  Less texting, less phone bills and no more pining for that brand new iPhone.

Back to the good 'ol days. :)

The post is here.

New post here.

Read this post here.  I didn't copy-paste it here because the post comes with two photos.

It's about how packaging can deceive customers.

As you may have guessed if you noticed that I have not updated my blog in over a week (two weeks in fact), I've been super busy in school again. But despite my backbreaking schedule, I made sure to set aside time to listen to my best friend pouring out her woes. (After more than 35 years of friendship, she's actually like a sister to me.)

She is an OFW. And although she is single like me, she has adopted children and it is because of them that she is now working her butt off, sometimes holding two or three jobs and working even on Sundays. I must say she has provided well for them but ...

About a month or two ago, she called me, obviously distressed and very upset. She said her son (we avoid using the word "adopted" because she refuses to make a distinction between adopted and biological and I heartily agree with her) has been giving his biological mom a big problem. This high school kid has taken to coming home always drunk. We laughed when I replied "Well, well, well ... doesn't that remind you of someone in our college days? It's payback time!" But, she said, I wasn't violent. That cut the laughter off.

Anyway, after several discussions, we decided to separate the boy from his mother for two reasons: the mother is hypertensive so the constant fighting wasn't good for her and she was unable to control the boy anyway. We looked for a good boarding house. That turned out to be a bad decision.

Last week, my friend said she now has a bigger problem. She discovered that the boy reported that he "lost" his allowance and money intended for his tuition. Of course, we knew better. But this so upset my friend that she decided to "return" the boy to his mom. She said it was the "last straw" for her especially because she doesn't like anybody squandering all her hard-earned money. "This is what I get after trusting him!" Well said. I applauded.

But, like all mothers, her anger was short-lived. Two days ago, I learned from her cousin that my friend had been trying to call her son but the boy has refused to answer her calls. Worse, the boy said he no longer wants to have anything to do with her when she decided to stop sending financial support because of something which, he said - and this one sent my blood pressure up! - "wasn't such a big thing anyway".

I was so angry when I heard this I didn't know what to say. Ingrate, that was instinctive reaction. But there are always two sides to a coin. This side - is this what my friend gets after all the things she has done for this boy? Is this the reward she gets when she could have just stayed here in the Philippines and enjoy a comfortable, carefree life if she chose to be single rather than raise adopted children?

And this side - Who spoiled this boy? The biological mother or my friend, his adoptive mother? Why is he behaving like this? How can he call my friend "mommy" and treat her like an ATM machine?

I don't think there are any correct answers to these questions. I think - maybe - I would have reacted differently (i.e., close the door to my heart till he learns to respect me!) but, well, I have no children of my own and even if I am known to be a very strict teacher, in the end, I have a soft spot in my heart for all my students. Perhaps it is like this for my friend too ... and for all other parents, OFW or non-.

But this is such a big heartache.

Monday was grade-giving time and, as usual, I had a hard time. Which simply means, I was disappointed with my students' grades. So after giving out their individual slips - I make one for each of them so I can write a short "love letter" and tell them what I think of their performance ("I am impressed!" or "Study harder please - there's no time to waste"), I told them to get a piece of paper and write what they want to tell me: why they got a low grade, what they think they should do to improve it and what I can do to help them.

Here are snippets of what I got and what I wrote back:
This subject is too hard. (My reply: "If you want to be a CPA, you have no choice ... and no time to waste. Stop complaining and study harder.")
I get more and more discouraged when I see my scores. ("Don't! Nobody's perfect. We learn more from our mistakes.")
I studied very well and I knew the answers to your quizzes and exams but I don't know what happened. ("I don't know what happened too. But I wish you'd be humble enough to ask for help. I am ready anytime.")
 I study hard but each time I am in the classroom I get nervous. ("I may be strict but I don't bite my students." When I read this, I asked myself: do I look scary? Hmmm.)
And my favorite note: "Miss, promise I studied for the quizzes but when I saw the questions, my answers went away." (I replied, "where did they go?")

In the next meeting, I gave back my "love letters" (see photo). I enjoyed watching their reactions. They were all surprised and they looked delighted to have gotten back a reply. Their proposal: let's meet on Saturday for a special class.

So we met Saturday afternoon for nearly 4 hours. It cost me 3 packs of hopia and 2 packs of dulce gatas but I enjoyed it because they were more relaxed, more candid, more interactive.

They asked to meet again next Saturday (so we can make up for Gloria's long weekends on the 18th and the 25th). Our menu: financial accounting plus dirty ice cream.

When I was in college, I listened to some friends tell me how they would eat meals consisting only of rice mixed with cooking oil and soy sauce.  Nothing else.  At that age, these stories didn't make any profound impression on me.  

Today, thirty-something years later, hearing or reading stories like this always feels like somebody gave me a forceful punch in the stomach.  Here are parts of this news item from The Visayan Daily Star, our local newspaper:

A 2-year-old boy is suffering from head trauma and is now frail and malnourished ... apparently a victim of the rising cost of living that has taken its toll on his family.

Because they had no viand for their meal, Wilfredo Labajo Jr., 2, of Barangay Makiling, Sagay, ate rice with vetsin (Monosodium glutamate) for lunch on Sunday.

Normally her children eat rice with salt because that is all they can afford, Jonelyn (the mother) said. But even the salt ran out last Sunday and her 9-year-old daughter, Jerelyn, used vetsin instead to make their rice more palatable, she added.

Jerelyn mixed water and vetsin with the rice, the mother said.

Jonelyn and her husband Wilfredo Sr., 39, have five children aged two to 12 years old and working together, they earn about P60 a day selling ice buko.

With rice now costing more than P30 a kilo there is almost never enough to buy viand to go with it. “We put salt on the rice to improve its taste,” she said. 

I am sure many of us will blame the parents (too many children, no family planning, blah blah blah).  I hear that too frequently these days.  I guess it's easier to do that than to ask ourselves: "So what have we done to help?"  Or, "Have we done enough to help?"  

I think it is not the story per se that makes me feel uncomfortable but the questions that inevitably pop on my mind when I hear or read stories like this.

Many years ago, when I was working as a fulltime teacher, I'd take lunch in school because my schedule demanded it.  I had only an hour's break so it seemed a waste of time to drive home and back again (the place where I live is less than a 5-minute drive from school; if there's traffic, the longest driving time would be 10 minutes).  

What I couldn't forget about lunchtime in school was when I passed by the desk of a colleague who was also my grade school teacher.  She was having one hard-boiled egg and rice.  Just that.  Nothing else.  I thought that maybe it was just one of those days when we tire of meat or fish and would just like to have something simple and fast.   Sadly, I found out it was a necessity.  Not a matter of choice but the dictates of economics.

When I started teaching again about a little over a year ago, I took the jeepney in the first few weeks.  But when my back and neck started complaining (I had to bring my laptop and several books plus some other things and it seemed my bag weighed a ton), I knew it didn't make sense to scrimp and then suffer in the evening when I came home from school.  I started taking a taxi.  Each trip cost P35.  Which meant that I spent P140 a day for taxi fare since I had to make two trips for my morning and afternoon classes.  It didn't seem so much then.  I still had enough (even if not much) left to do my groceries or buy cooked meals in the evening.

Today, I pay P40 for each trip.  I don't know why it seems the taxi meters have become a little faster but I no longer see P35 on the meter.  It's now either P37.50 or exactly P40.  But whether they've been tampered with or not, it's not a big deal for me.  Taxi drivers must be taking really hard blows with gas prices ticking up faster than their meters so an additional 3 or 5 pesos from my pocket is my way of sharing their burden.  BUT this also means, that if I go back and forth twice a day, I'll be spending about P168 a day (at an average of P42 per trip) for taxi fares.  So I now eat in school - leaving home by 9 a.m. and coming back at 6 p.m.  This time, even if I have to wait 3 hours for my next class, it's a necessity because, after taking out money for my fare, there seems to be nothing left to do the groceries (and even if I now buy only what I need, not what I want).

Buhay titser, talagang mahirap.  It's really difficult to be a teacher.