Trouble with the pork

There’s a growing interest in the Philippine politics now that will make the soap operas ratings go down.

It started with an exposé in the newspaper about a businesswoman, involving a scam worth 10 billion pesos ($230 million); then it got deeper; and there goes the dirty secrets of the Senate and the House of Representatives. We are in a big trouble. Something must be done.

Expressing your anger online is a good thing sometimes (and not all the time). It started with one musician who just wanted to express anger outside the streets. Then the date and place was set; good thing it’s a holiday.

More than 100,000 gathered in the National park.

I felt good that many are becoming more vigilant. Those who never went outside the street to protest joined.

I realized that this is democracy. We are the government and not those in power. As our President told us, we are the boss.

The People March last Monday proves that we can express our anger as a nation against the people seated in the government without wanting to oust the President.

Not all tomatoes are rotten; we just need to throw the bad ones away.

This is our stance: Unite against corruption!

Translating poems from other languages

Last Thursday night, when I stumbled upon a poem by Pablo Neruda, I was so inspired to write a love poem in Filipino. I was really proud of how emotionally charged my poem was. But when I translated it to English, when I read it aloud, it sounded funny. So when I woke up the morning after, I thought that maybe there’s art behind translating good poems and books into English. I’m thankful that because of them, the translators, I can enjoy the works of Haruki Murakami, Paulo Coelho, and even the works of our very own Jose Rizal. That is why even though I keep on struggling learning new languages like Cebuano, Spanish, or Japanese, I always keep coming back on how to improve my English since I am not a native speaker.

The effect of seating in the back row

While observing a high school class, I noticed students sitting in the back row looking somewhere else, some staring outside, some with heads bowed down, as if they were wishing that they were at home or in the mall. They’re not focusing in the class and they are probably spending more time daydreaming and not participating in their recitation. I’m now saying that daydreaming is not good but if this occurs more often, then it’s not helping their studies.

They remind me of my younger self in high school. With an above average height and with a surname near the end of the alphabet, teachers always arrange my seat either beside the wall or beside the window, always in the back row, sometimes near the trash can.

I heard from one of my college professors before that those students who usually seat in the back row are more likely to suffer from inferiority complex. I hope teachers will be aware of what’s happening in the minds of those seating in the back row and I hope they’ll consider to shuffle the seating arrangements more often.

To the readers, did you share the same fate of seating in the back row? Did you enjoy it?