Our kids go to Cradle of Joy at 11th Jamboree St, QC. I really recommend it for many reasons which deserve a longer post.

You may have heard or experienced children having trauma when first brought to school for a variety of reasons. I think that most of these would have been prevented if the kids were properly oriented and prepared. Some of them were overwhelmed with the new surrounding.  Others have difficulty with new people and routines. Whatever the reason, the first day of school should be one of the most joyful experiences in a child’s life.  You just don’t take them out of the house and put them in a class.
If you have toddlers (aged 2 - 4) and want to prepare them for preschool here is a program tailor made just for this.

Cradle of Joy Center for Learning’s Monthly Specials:

July 2-28             My Healthy Body
Aug. 4-29            My Five Senses
Sept. 3-29           Nursery Rhymes & Fairytales
Oct. 1-27             Pets Parade
Nov. 10-Dec.5      Jesus is Born
Jan. 5-30             God made Plants and Flowers
Feb. 9-Mar.6       Hearts of Love

Each SPECIAL is a 12-day course, including a field trip and age-appropriate activities integrating Math, Reading, Science, Music and Movement, Art and Social Studies.

Classes are three times a week (MWF) from 2:30 - 4:30 PM.

Contact details:

Cradle of Joy at #14 11th Jamboree St.,
Brgy. Sacred Heart, Kamuning, QC
921-0602 or 494-6342
coj_foundation@yahoo.com

Go to the Naga City market. On the level (is it second or third) where the chapel is, something smells fishy. It reeks, it stinks.

But in a weird kind of way, you’ll like it. It’s called “badi” in Bicol or “tuyo” in Tagalog.

Dried fish.

Some of them can really get slaty, though there are unsalted variants. When you do get the more salty ones, I would advise you to wash them (that’s what we do) to lessen the salt strength. I’m willing ot bet soaking them in vinegar would also do the trick, specially with the dried squid. I suppose frying them and adding sugar would give you a sticky, pungent but tasty provincial fare.

Does that make you salivate and want to reach out for sinangag and suka or kamatis?

The smell is not as bad as it seems. Just imagine yourself eating breakfast on a drizzling cold morning. Goes well with black native coffee.

Pan - entire; Gaea - also spelled as gaia - meaning earth. Pangea Day, literally Entire Earth Day.

This is not about the Earth Day celebrated some weeks back (though I’m all for that too) where we turned off our lights for one hour. This is about a dream come true about a dream. A dream shared by everyone on earth.

Her dream: World Peace, like you, me and the beauty pageant contestant. It is really our desire, right. But we ask ourselves “But what can one person do?” I think she asked the same question and she came up with a first step: To meet together. I agree.

From Pangeaday.org

In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. Watch Jehane Noujaim’s 2006 acceptance speech now.

Pangea Day, the day the world comes together through film.

Pangea Day is over and many Asian countries, including the Philippines, as Technogra.ph blogged, missed the four-hour event because of the time difference. Though we didn’t get to participate actively, it was just the beginning. There is still a lot to do.

Am just wondering if any Filipino film maker submitted, or any Filipino was part of any film or organizing the event, or if there was a Philippine representative in any of the seven cities where the event was. It would be great to hear (or read) first hand info with a Pinoy perspective.

If it’s any consolation, we could trace Pangea Day to a Filipina who had an influence on Jehane. In her 2006 TED talk, she mentions a certain exchange student named Donna from the Philippines.

From the TED talk video:

“A long time ago, about forty years ago, my mom had an exchange student named Donna.”

(Note the Rosary, Missal and “Belo”)

(Donna eating ice cream.)

“And this is Donna teaching my Aunt a Filipino dance.”Unmistakably Filipina, either an Igorot or Muslim dance.
Anybody who knows her? Where is she now, the Filipina behind Pangea Day? Might be a great story for FilipinaImages.com.

Images captured from the TED.com talk.

In the weekly email I send as a supplement to MabutingBalita.net, I mentioned that Pentecost, (the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and Mary) and Mother’s Day fell on the same day this year.  It must be because mothers receive a special grace from God to do what they do, and to love unconditionally and without limit.

A woman becomes a mother once life is conceived in her womb. For men, it is impossible to understand how it is to carry a child inside your body for nine months. The changes, anxieties, pain and discomfort are quite difficult to fully explain. Yet, mommies bear this burden. It does not end there.

When we were born, there is the feeding, bathing, waking up in the middle of the night, worrying when you are sick, teaching how to walk, talk and get toilet-trained, etc. This lasts for around 10 years (sometimes more).

When the teenage years come, the mothers work continues. There is still the feeding, guiding, relentless worrying, waiting up, advising and a whole gamut of ings.

Even when the baby becomes an adult and has a family of his or her own, mothers continue to be mothers. Even if they are now called lola or granny or mamita (as my officemate’s children call their grandmother), they still are mothers. Caring, giving, guiding, praying for us.

A mother is forever. Because she loves.

Mama, Mommy, Nanay, Naynay, Nana, Inang, Ina, Mom, Mamu, Momsie, however you are called - you are loved.

Thank you for everything.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mama, to Gina the mother of my children and to all mothers.

5 AM. Along the road towards the highway. We are heading home, back to Manila after a week of vacation.

The farmers are already up and about. A few jeepneys and trucks have begun their route. The day has begun, we have a long trip ahead of us.

Five hundred meters from the railroad crossing is a stretch of several fields. On ther right, a majestic sight greeted us.

What a beautiful going away gift God gave.

A new dawn. I feel it empowering me with renewed energy and vigor. It was as if my whole being basks in the glory of a new day.

Life is awesome.