Licensure Exams

I have taken the teachers licensure examination last Sunday, September 28, 2008 and I found the test so difficult that I don’t know if I’ll pass the test. A lot of people prayed for me and I prayed that God would answer all our prayers according to His will

I am grateful to ate Chayay and her mom, ate Violy, for giving me a copy of their reviewers. These reviewers helped a lot, and I was amazed because there are many questions (rephrased, of course) in the reviewers that popped up in the examinations.

Though I can’t remember the answers to these questions, I think the instantaneously-superinductive-recall (like a guess based on an educated guess) may (or maybe not) helped a lot).

This is how I did my review. Three days before the examinations, I answered all the reviewers and then I asked my daughter to check them. I could tell if I did well on the exercises because my daughter smiles when I got good scores and she shakes her head and tsk,tsk,tsked me every time I got a failing score.

The reviewer helped a lot; in fact, the test items in the reviewers are more difficult than those in the actual examinations.

But the torture of answering four hundred test items under time pressure is something I am not prepared for. After answering the first one hundred questions, my brain was already protesting. I was looking at the test booklet and I was thinking, this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy…how can the government do this to me and the rest of us…they are torturing us!

Anyway, the problem was that after the first hundred questions, I was already stressed and bored to death! My gulay, the little imaginary ants in my scalp were making me scratch my head too often that the proctor (a soon to be retired school teacher who can’t help sharing the story of her life) was giving me a kindly, sympathetic and an amused look. (She told us that when she took her Board Examinations it took more than a year before the result was released. I was smiling because I was imagining the number of people who manually checked the test papers of all the examinees during those days. Judging by her age, I think the fastest computer during those days were the mainframes with the punched cards.)

I was curious about the philosophies of education test items in the examinations. I cannot divulge the contents of the examinations because I signed a promise not to tell anything about the examinations but I’ll rephrase some them in a safe way.
There are a lot of –isms that I cannot understand!

For example:

1. A teacher from Mars is a Lobotomist. How should he/she/it plan his/her/it lesson plan.
I. Bring a set of hardbound Encyclopedia Britannica and eat them.
II. Bring a CD/ROM of Encyclopedia Britannica and eat it.
III. Kidnap your pupils
a. I and II is correct
b. I and III is wrong
c. I,II and III not sure of anything
d. I only shows nothing and the rest is also

2. How can you tell if a teacher is an existentialist?
He/ She shouts:
a. "Hey! Grade ones! Existence precedes essence!"
b. "Hey! Grade ones! Essence proceeds to nonsense!"
c. "Hey! Grade ones! Existence proposes convergence!’
d. "Hey! Grade ones! I am dysmenorrheal today!

I mean, no teacher nor does anybody hold on to one philosophical (or even theological) system all their lives, nor does any teacher ever, ever, ever asks what philosophical doctrine he/she adhered to in preparing lesson plans and most of all in teaching! Who cares about progressivism, pragmatism, existentialism a—who cares!

A lot of questions are too abstract to be considered knowledge at all.
Naaahhh….I’m just feeling a little nervous.

What if I fail the licensure examinations?

Here are my options:

I could commit suicide to avoid facing the humiliation of failing.
I could move to the mountains, also to avoid facing humiliations.
I could take an M.A. from a university that sells M.A. degrees. This is a good solution; most board failures do this—get an M.A. or an MBA. Its like if you can’t get a license to drive a motorcycle, learn to drive heavy equipment! You may not have a license but you can always bulldoze (or bully) them…I mean…

Or if I fail, I’ll just do what I do best…don’t care what other people say or think!

But if I pass the licensure…hmmmm…I'll be cook spaghetti!

Off for a while

I miss blogging. I have a lot of things on my mind like the my upcoming teacher licensure examinations, church stuff that I thought I would be rid off (or free of) but things are not that good. There are things too sensitive to discuss here about our church, so, instead of blogging about it; I'm now praying and at the same time trying not to think about it.

Maybe when all the pressures and the stress are manageable I'll be able to think and write a littler bit about what's going on with my...hmmm...work, life and a little about the ministry.

For the meantime...review!

Kaori Muraji - Danza Del Molinero Fall

My gulay she's so good with the guitar and she's so cute!

Birthday and x-rays

I had my 36th birthday last July 27. Although I try to keep my birthdate secret for fear of being surprised at not being surprised on my birthday he, he, he,he. Not really for that reason it’s just that we (the family) all grew up with the thinking that birthday is an ordinary day especially if you don’t have any…hmmm…resources to celebrate it.

I received many blessings on that day.

1. My pupils and my co teachers gave me a cake and a birhday song that I will never forget. I beleive one of my (and our) pupil was teary eyed when she was greeting me. (Maybe she was nervous that I a going to eat her!)

2. The praise and worship team members did a testimonial on how patient I am as a music teacher (Hmmmm….if they only knew how many times I kept myself from committing seppuku in front of them…), and they gave me a long sleeved shirt that I will wear on my next sermon.

3. Our church choir cooked spaghetti and they gave me a gift, a framed picture of me preaching.

4. I was surprised because close friends of mine that I thought I had lost (because I’m a errrr….part time preacher now, they felt, and I sometimes do too, that we are drifting apart—drama here) came to our home and brought a cake. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t drink now (though I have nothing against drinking) so they celebrated my birthday drinking light beer without me. (I could hear somebody or something whispering in my ear, “Hmmmmm…yummy San Mig Light!”)


A couple of weeks ago my blood pressure rose to 150 over 110. I immediately went to the doctor to check if I need medication to control my high blood pressure. The doctor told me to have my chest x-rayed, to have an ecg, blood analysis (or laboratory) and a urine test. Due to lack of funds, I first had a chest x-ray. I was shaken when the clerk told me to have another x-ray because it seems, according to the radiologist, that I had an enlarged heart. So I was x-rayed again but this time they did a left lateral shot of my chest.

I waited for two days, until I had fund for all the laboratory tests before I got the results of all the tests. I was so relieved when I found out that all my tests were normal. I had no problem with my heart, my ECGs are okay, my blood is okay, urine is okay…I was so thankful to God

Those two days tested my faith. I was surprised with myself, though I was afraid and I doubted, I was fearful for my family yet inside theres that voice that kept assuring telling me the results does not matter.

No, I’m not mystic nor do I hear voices but its something more powerful than a literal voice-it’s the voice of the serenity of being with God. (To think that I am not dying, yet!)

Dog bites and anti-rabies

Our dog Shancai (named after the leading character in the Japanese TV Novela “Meteor Garden”) gave birth to five puppies last Friday (June 27). I came home from work and I found four puppies scattered on our balconahe. It is rule that no one, even the owner, should touch a new born puppy when the mother dog is watching. It is a rule that every Filipino teach their children. So, when I saw that Shancai was not wagging her tail at me, I immediately understood that as a sign that she was did not want any help. I smiled at her and entered the house.

I did not want those puppies; we already had three native dogs and a Labrador. I was planning to bury the puppies so that I would not have to feed them. (The price of rice here in the Philippines doubled in the last few months.) I was thinking of a plan to get the puppies out of Shancai’s sight so that I could grab them and put them in a plastic bag and bury them or throw them away in a river. I know that when these puppies begin to look like puppies, I would not be able to do my plan; my conscience will prevent me. So, I waited for the opportunity, but it did not come. I know now that I will never be able to carry out my plan.

The next morning I found two puppies being eaten by ants. Well, nature took care of what I was planning. But it’s pitiful, heart breaking, really, to see a mother dog licking a dead puppy. It’s almost human, too human. I knew that if I did not do something, the other puppies will be killed by the ants too. So, when I saw Shancai wagging her tail at me, as if begging me to do something, I gathered her puppies and put them in a batya (washbasin), safe from the ants. Then I put the washbasin in the far corner of our balconahe. Then I put my daughter’s tricycle as barrier so that Shancai and her litter will not be disturbed.

But my gulay, my goddaughter, was bitten by Shancai. It was afternoon and my wife and I were both asleep when it happened. Though she did not admit and she lied about it, the neighbors saw that she went alone to our balconahe and then she came out with a bleeding finger. Our dogs, as most dogs in the neighborhood, are not vaccinated with anti-rabies because it’s expensive. So, I ended up paying a share in the anti-rabies shot of my goddaughter and my gulay, it’s a lot of money!

I cannot blame Shancai, though I was tempted to euthanize her because I am afraid she’s rabid, when I found out the neighbor’s version of the story, I knew that Shancai was innocent and the one to blame was the one who could think, in this case my goddaughter.

But I cannot blame my goddaughter too because puppies are irresistible.

My gulay, bad things happen and I’m having headaches.

Gasoline Blues and the Good Samaritan

I was riding my motorcycle when I noticed that the gas meter was blinking. I didn’t pay any attention because it always does that, blink. Gas is so expensive that I only fill my motorcycle twenty or thirty pesos worth of gas, and that’s about half a liter, so it barely touched the sensor in the gas tank, that’s why the gas meter is always blinking. (Half a liter of gas usually lasts about 16 trips to and fro my wife’s work place and to and fro the place where I take my afternoon walks.)

I saw the gas meter blinking but I continued on, I was thinking that the fuel was enough to bring me home. Suddenly I felt the engine choking, I revved it up and I got no response, I began to shake my butt (I could only imagine how funny I looked riding a motorcycle while shaking my butt). I was shaking my butt because the fuel tank is under the seat, hoping that drops of gasoline will get to the fuel intake hose to feed the engine, but it didn’t work, the fuel tank was dry as a dried fish. The motorcycle’s engine died. I was stuck in the middle of the road.

Then I saw a man with his wife and two children riding on a motorcycle. They approached me and asked what’s wrong with my motorcycle. I told them that I ran out of fuel. I recognized the man; he was my high school classmate. They were on their way to take their afternoon walks. He introduced me to his wife and children. “Ma, this is George, my high school classmate’” he said to his wife. I smiled and said hi.

Out of kindness and the old times, my former classmate unloaded his family and asked them to guard my motorcycle while we go buy gasoline. Of course Filipino modesty dictates that I decline the offer. I told him to go on his way and that I could manage, but he insisted. So I rode with him on his motorcycle to the gas station, and while we were riding we reminisced about our high school days, we talked about our classmates and how they are doing now, we talked about his family, about my family, I found out that he has a steel works shop, I told him that I am a teacher now and so on. I felt good because the spirit of friendship is still there.

It took almost an hour to buy gasoline because I had to look for a container. I found a used milk can and bought thirty pesos worth of gasoline. We got back to my motorcycle and I was so embarrassed to find his wife and children sitting on my motorcycle while they should have been walking and playing and bonding. It was already dark. I was so guilty that I apologized profusely and thank them with all the sincerity I could muster. My high school classmate and his wife told me that its ok because he can’t bear to see me pushing my motorcycle and that his conscience would kill him if he did not help me. I was touched by what he said. I said goodbye to him and we parted friends forever. I will never forget him.

The thing was all the time we were talking and up to now, I can’t even remember his name!

Rain in and out, Classical Guitar etc.

The rainy season is already and it’s beginning to rain and cats and dogs and acid and smog and curses in our town. (The citizens and the permanent denizens of our municipality are hoping that because we now have a supermall, our small town would, in the very near future, finally become a city. Now…what would happen if our small town become a city…better services for us the small town folk or better pork barrel for our small town politicians, higher real estate tax for our small lots or better rackets for the living dead, corrupt asses-sors…).

Back to the rain... It rained so hard that I thought it would flood again but thanks to (I dare not say God because this article (?) is…err… ungodly) the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astrological Security Agency or PAG-ASA the inter tropical convergence zone and the prevailing cold front was left behind and the convergence did not occur because the weather was controlled by an anti-Gloria Macapagal Arroyo old man living in Pampanga who always reverses what the Pro-Gloria government agency says. So if NEDA or the National Economics of Destruction Authority (through a machine called “the lotto number machine”) churns out figures for the GNP or the Gross National Poverty and GDP or the Gross Domesticated Animals saying there’s an increase in both of these meaningless acronyms, this little old man in Pampanga would use his/her power (I don’t if this old man is a transvestite) to reverse everything…

Hmmm….back to the rain…it rained so hard last night and because I haven’t fix our roof (money man, I need money!) it also rained inside and I can’t blame anyone except President GMA. That’s the price of being the president of this miserable republic.

Anyway to relieve some stress what I do is play the guitar. This is one way of relieving stress but…hmmm…sometimes when I wanted to play a difficult piece like this recuerdos de la whatever by Mr. Tarrega (the technique used is called “tremolo”, sounds like tremor to me) instead of being relieved from stress, I get depressed because, man, for someone who didn’t study any classical guitar, this piece is difficult. Except for the pinkie in my right hand, all the fingers are moving and it’s difficult to coordinate each one of them.

Work hard to play a piece and work hard not to forget them…haaaa…practice is the key.

Day to day

When our church’s choir held a prayer hike in Angono,Rizal, I was, thanks to the absence of the devotion leader who did not make it to the prayer walk (for reasons I know that only God understands) I, on the spot, led the devotion. After the devotion, there were singing and sharing. I am blessed because here I found people who know faith at a deeper and more personal level than I.

They shared how they were thankful for the blessings that God had given them; they were tearful because one of them was sorry because she felt she had not given God her best. These sharing times, I, and I am sorry now, I consider these as emotional encounters. I consider these activities as a necessity for faith in a psychological sense, therapeutic may I say.

What made me think this way? Maybe its because of the orientation of the theology I hear and read, eschatological—pointed towards going to heaven and to the second coming of Christ. Somehow the theology preached and written about (in my experience as a lay teacher and preacher(?)) has forgotten the day to day need for a theology especially for the Filipinos. It is concerned more with sanctifications and edification than daily survival. To the western this eschatological orientation may be well suited for their sense of history is linear, but to the Asians and the Filipinos whose world orientation is organic and the time perception is circular and hence everything is thought of as interrelated and interconnected and cyclical, its problematic. (Fr. Mercado)

So, I am, usually, dumbstruck, when I hear a church member testifying that he/she experience miracle because it did not rain, or when it rained, or when a son was not bitten by dog, or when accidents did not happen etc. little things that (for me) should not be attributed to God but to the laws of gravity. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way and sometimes people who live and experience their faith this way, encountering God in day to day activities in small details, is looked upon with a “shrug my shoulder reaction” to more often than not, contempt. I for one, more often than not, even feel that they are sometimes being blasphemous for attributing to God’s hands even the minutest details of their daily existence. Here is Calvinistic Determinism at its worst! I say to myself.

Of course I am wrong, I am not going to talk more but its obvious that, in order for the Christian message to be concrete to common Filipinos this attitude of daily Christianity, this “Christian fatalism” had to be accepted and a theology that should respond to it must be formulated. Dr. Rodney Henry writer of Filipino Spirit World is warning that unless this is done, Filipino Christians will continue to live with a Christian belief that addresses their ultimate concerns (death and heaven) but is aloof when it comes to the daily spiritual needs of the Filipinos, hence animism and spiritism will continue to live side by side with Christianity.

So instead of daily occurrences being controlled by nuno sa punso, swerte, pagkakataon, matanda why not attribute these events directly to God for what does the Bible says:

For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Mat 10:29

Yes, even the bad occurences in our lives.

CR Books

I was rummaging through used books at Booksale when I found a short story collection, “Sudden Fiction: International Edition.” The book is a collection of short short stories (2-3 pages) and for forty pesos; I did not think twice, I immediately bought the book because it’s the perfect book for our comfort room.

I read whenever I am on the throne depositing to mother earth all the processed fertilizers that I have accumulated in my stomach. It’s a habit. So I had books lined up in a makeshift bookshelf near the toilet. Usually the books that I put there are books that I had to review once in a while, there’s a book about logic, bible doctrine (yes, and this is not blasphemy) and sometimes especially, when I have LBM, I take with me, on the throne, classics like Herman Melville’s short (I wonder why they call these short stories in the first place when they are, in theory and practice, all epically long and I am talking about mere descriptions here!?) story collection.

The problem with reading books on the toilet is that when I become engrossed with a story or an article, I can’t stop, so I read on until my…hmm…dries up and when it’s time for me to wash my rect…rectifier… (We Filipinos wash, we do not wipe) I found it difficult to do because the thing is stuck dry on my…hmmm…rect…rectifier that I had to re-hydrate it to soften the hmmm… thing stuck on my hmmm…

Anyway, this book, “Sudden Fiction” is the best toilet book because the stories are long enough to complete the transaction and avoid dehydration through exposure to air of the…hmmm…

I have read some of the stories and although the collectors brag that they’re the best collection so far, for me there are good stories and there are some stories that are simply unintelligible…maybe it’s because of culture, language, subjectivity, relativity and the lack of motility in my stomach. Ehehhhhee..hhhheeeeee….

My Gulay there it goes again!

I know, I know. I know being a preacher (?) I should be circumspect with my doodling on this blog because I preach. But hey I am a human bean, subject to the laws of gravity and the laws of economics and the theories of Freud, such I require an outlet for my suppressed dyspepsia.

Anyway I sometimes wonder why do I have to explain myself, ahhhh…yes, it’s because there maybe people who may take this blog seriously that it may drive them crazy.

Focus…my daughter was watching a local TV series called “Joaquin Burdado” and as usual I treat local TV shows like these with my innermost contempt (hey, its super exaggeration) because these TV series are mind numbing in their lack of sanity, unity, coherence, structure, originality, plot, conflict and even if these TV series are meant for children, still these TV shows are deleterious to the intellectual and moral as well as supernatural development of the children in the Philippines! (Calling on the CBCP and its Evangelical counterpart CCBP to pray over these matters. I mean, they pray over a lot of things these days why not include this one.)

I was watching Joaquin Burdado (yes I watch it too and can’t you feel its effect in my doodling) when I noticed that the supervillain possesses the power of Peter Petrelli and Xyler from the TV series that I love, “Heroes” and I said to myself, there it goes again, even the plot is starting to transmogrify into a poor poor10 imitation of “Heroes.”

This blatant and shameless and immoral and all the negative words in the dictionary and out of it, piracy of ideas in Philippine TV is getting in my nerves and tissues. We have an agency that catches video pirates and we have intellectual property rights people protecting the rights of people and their patented ideas and we have the Philippine National Police and the NBI raiding small stalls for selling pirated videos and necklaces, and yet, oh, in the name of Zeus and all the mythical classic gods including the giant sequoia trees and all the nuno in the punso, why don’t they raid these thick faced TV networks who blatantly copy foreign TV series.

Every time there’s an American hit TV series shown here in the Philippine expect a poor clone.

These Filipino TV shows that boast budgets amounting to millions of wasted pesos are the true and worst kind of pirated pirates for in pirated movies and TV series and videos sold in the streets, the credit is still there at the end of the movies but in these local TV shows the credit is stolen and given to writers who lack the creativity and the basic intelligence to understand that there are people who know what they are doing.

Benediction of a Jedi Master: “May the farts be with them.”

Tutorials and Reading Problems

The flurry of summer activities in the church were finally over. The last one of these major summer activities is the VBS in Daraitan Baptist Church in Tanay, Rizal, currently in progress, where a team of teachers from our church was sent there to help in their VBS program. I love to be there with the teachers but unfortunately I had commitments, I am tutoring four pupils (thank God it was only four, it was supposed to be five but then I had to turn one down because I want to have a semblance of a summer vacation too).

I don’t know if I would be flattered because I had four tutorials, compared to some of my pre-school teacher colleagues who have less than me. I felt guilty about me looking like a swapang that I had to ask the head teacher if I had to share some of my pupils but my boss told me it’s ok because they have different rates (or fees), which is a little higher than mine (unfortunately the tutorial fees are so minimal compared to other tutors from other schools that to avoid having depression about money, which I badly needed, I try to comfort myself into thinking that these tutorials are my ministry or more appropriately a pseudo-ministry.)

I am an avid reader, so I said to myself that tutoring reading would be the easiest thing in the world for me to do. As an elementarily education graduate, I had more units in teaching reading and reading remediations than the secondary education graduates that I thought I would be well equipped in tutoring reading (I don’t know if I am making any sense here!)

Anyway, I didn’t have any problem with my grade three pupils because their problem is comprehension which can be easily remedied with Q and A discussions and a little lecture here and there on noting details and predicting outcomes. But I was not prepared when I encountered a grade two pupil (not from our school) that read some word in reverse! This wonderful and gentle hearted pupil of mine (I could see the determination in him to learn to read) read words like “to” as “ot” or “for” as “fro” and he kept forgetting the correct way to read these words though I tried to remind him of it all the time. Anyway it’s a text book case of (mild?) dyslexia and it’s the first time I encountered it and a little understanding about dyslexia made me aware that I was not dealing with an unintelligent pupil but a pupil with a reading problem and it made more aware of how to deal with him. Anyway I believe that he will be able to overcome the problem because he has focus unlike my other pupil…

I had another pupil who could barely read. This time the problem is attention. I cannot get his attention, his eyes are always wandering off, he is always scratching his legs, arms, head, he jumps up and down, and if I did get his attention, it usually lasts for about ten seconds only. Anyway I already diagnosed the problem and I don’t know if I’ll be able to help this one. My Older sister told me that cases like these needs medication to balance the chemicals in the subject’s brain…The difficult part is telling the parents about it.