MagandangBalita.com

Ranting or Raving

Jun Asis — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:50:08 +0000

You could tell if a person is inclined towards a positive or negative mental attitude if they are mostly raving or ranting during normal conversations.

If you’ve been through a conversation with a friend who just spent the whole time complaining about his wife, you are more likely to feel drained afterwards. On the other hand, if a friend bubbly talks about how good his project is going, you would immediately sense a strengthening of your own resolve.

I’m not saying we must not complain. There are times that we should but it should never be the norm for positive people. On the other hand, we should just praise and talk about how great things are going, to the point that we turn a blind eye to wrong things and miss the opportunity to make things right. But that is splitting hairs.

Ask yourself:

Are ranting or raving now?

Are you ranting or raving mostly?

There was a local FM radio program who aired phoned in comments from listeners. The question was just: Are you Ranting or Raving? Students, office workers, stay-at-homes just call in and just let it out.

Some rant about the exams they just took or will take. Another one will do the same for the document their boss wanted yesterday.

A girl will rave about seeing her crush that made her day. A young mother will jubilantly proclaim that her baby is growing his first tooth or took his first step.

I did not keep tally on which side had more, but the lesson I get there is that we have a lot of reasons to complain or thank about.
Rave more, okay? It will do you tons of good.

Money-Saving Tips When Using Mobile Phones

Jun Asis — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:13:27 +0000

Everyone wants to save money. Especially during these times when the price of commodities, oil and every other thing we use our hard-earned income for, we turn to money-saving tips that would help us cope with the current situation.

These practices are based on personal experiences and thoughts, or learned from others or through reading. Disclaimer: They have worked for me but are not meant to be professional advise. You decide how to use them, if at all.

What better way to save than with the ubiquitous mobile phone.

Don’t Use It. If it can wait for later when you see the person you need to reach, postpone calling or texting. If you can make a free landline-to-landline call, don’t spend your talk time. Even if or just because you can. If your plan allows you 100 minutes worth of calls and you only get to use a portion, the tendency is to use up what’s left and “it would go to the telecoms coffers.” Anyway you’ve paid for it, right? Having a mindset like this just promotes a spendthrift attitude. Pretty soon, you’ll end up using more than your subscription minutes.

Use Missed Call as a Signal That You Are Near. I used to fetch my wife when she was still working. I’d let call her when I am near but would let her phone ring once or twice. That would be her cue to pack up and wait. It save us a few minutes and a few pesos. But done regularly.. you get the picture.

Missed Call Equals “K”. One thing I have not tried yet is equate the missed call with “k”. You know, just to say we got the message or we agree. If you think of it, if you sum up all the k’s for one day from the three telecom giants, I think they would amount to a several thousand pesos or so. If you translate that into the local economy, that might be a million pesos saved per month, at least.

Pause and Read. One of the mistakes I make is respond immediately with one liners, or answer what my texter asks. Then, after seeing the “Message Sent” on my screen, I realize that I could have included some other details that might be asked, or some question that I would like answered. Or in my haste, not responding would have been okay, too.

Communicate Clearly. When you do call or text, make sure that your message is clear. Thought there are widely used contractions and lingo for texting, never assume that everyone understands or “speaks” it. Your recipient might ask for a re-send. Think also of the potential risks that a wrongly-understood message can cause: botched business deals, relationship strains, missed appointments, and so on. Be clear. Be concise. Get your message across clearly.
A personal choice that I made was to get a mobile phone that would suit my needs to call and text. It would be great if it had other fancy stuff like a camera, mp3 player, radio, bluetooth and the works. But if this would come with a price, I’d pass up that model and end up getting the almost out-of-production phone. So up to now, I still have my Nokia 2600. I will replace itwhen it fails to do what it’s supposed to do: Call and text.
Some other things I didn’t get were accessories, casings, ringtones, etc. While I would like to retain my “individuality,” I’d rather do it in my work and actions and not spend for it. I don’t see the need to get my own personal message alert or designer casing. Those are not the reasons why I got a cellphone. Call me a utilitarian, a function-before-form kind of person - but hey, it’s money not spent and directed to better use.
While the money-saving attitude goes on high alert during hard times, the trick is to make it a habit whatever purchasing power the peso or dollar or might (or might not) have. Saving is a habit that can be inculcated with everyday routine such as using your mobile phone.
I hope to follow this up with some other tips with commuting, daily work and even food.

How about you? How do you save?

The Filipino Worker

Jun Asis — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:56:20 +0000

Ladyshwalla, the bride-to-be, twitted a link from a Saudi online paper entitled “Imagine a World Without Filipinos.” Initially, I thought it was the email that circulated where hospitals, oil tankers, the IT industry, call centers and many other sectors plunged into chaos when Filipinos suddenly disappeared.

To my pleasant surprise, it was an article by a Saudi national. It spoke of how dependent they have been on Filipinos. And the clincher:

We should pay respect to Filipino workers, not only by employing them but also by learning from their valuable experiences.

Wherever the Filipino worker maybe, in Saudi, Canada, Singapore or Makati, Tarlac or Naga - you are held in high esteem.

Coincidentally it’s the birthday of Jose Rizal today.

Preparing Your Toddler for Preschool

Jun Asis — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:21:23 +0000

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

Father’s Day

Jun Asis — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:05:51 +0000

Here’s what I got for Father’s Day.

Priceless.

Oh and let freedom ring by focusing on what we can do to make things better.

School in a Flash (Disk)

Jun Asis — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:20:02 +0000

How about a school that you can take anywhere? As long as there is a computer that can read a flash disk, you can.

In a post about a big dream, several ideas were presented for a free elearning school. A commenter wisely asked what I have been doing since that time. Though there were some advances made in the areas of networking and knowledge build-up, there were significant manifestations of progress.

Until now.

Last Saturday, I made a presentation about entitled e-Learning: Open, Free and Portable. Here is a short summary.

About 10 years ago, e-Learning existed. The main problem then was the use of expensive software and proprietary content. Almost always, budget was a constraint.

Fast forward to 2008.

e-Learning is Free. The proliferation of free and open-source software has benefited all sectors of society, including and most specially education. While commercial tools are also available, dependable and arguably affordable, there exists a whole gamut of no-cost applications downloadable and free. Even support and help can be had from the forums and communities. The following “suite” can already create engaging content.
Moodle - Learning Management System
GIMP - Image Editing
WINK - Screen Capture
Audacity - Audio Recording and Editing
Though varying degrees of expertise and skills are needed, the mere availability of the software is an enabler to developing countries like ours.

e-Learning is Open. The internet has made available an abundance of knowledge never before seen in our history. With a click of a mouse, millions of pages worth of information is freely available. With MIT leading the way in sharing their resources through the MIT Open Course Ware project, many universities have followed suit. There are some projects that I know of commissioned by CHED which will be released through a similar vehicle. The people behind Wikipilipinas are to embarking on a repository of OER (something I wanted to do with eLearningport.com, which will now become a connector of sorts).
With content being open and shared, education can now be a distributed faster, better and more efficiently.

eLearning is Portable. Internet access, or rather the lack of it, is one of the barriers to eLearning. While doing eLearning online clearly has great benefits, it may be necessary to develop courses that do not need connection to the web, or at least constant connection.

School inside!

eLearning is portable, Now, you can put your school in a flash disk.

The point that I wanted to get across was really the last one. Instead of using a presentation software for by visuals, I used Moodle in a USB drive. I got StickyMoodle from VLEMiddleware which packaged all the requirements for a Moodle installation.

A portable school. School in a flash. Education in your pocket. Learning with a stick.

What a concept!

Wouldn’t it be great if those who couldn’t go to regular school be able to have the chance to get an education too?

Hope

Jun Asis — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:24:00 +0000

Last Saturday, I spent some time with the board members of a progressive school in Quezon City. We all had our woes and were discussing the situations our people were facing. Life is hard and prices have risen. The topic then turned to what the meeting was about in the light of these crises. If we were to think about it, working for the school pro bono, spending our time and money for something we are not paid to do seems illogical. If we were to use this line of thinking, what we were doing (school improvement) was a waste of time if you think in terms of personal revenue we’d get from the time we spent there.

We asked ourselves if we can think of more profitable ventures compared to a non-profit school and the answer was an easy affirmative. It was prime real estate. Residential or business units can be put up in no time. And that’s just for starters.

But then, we returned to our grounding. We wanted to make better lives for our children, for society - no matter what common sense might dictate. If we surrender what little hope we have, then God help us. We were not ready to just give up. Logic may dictate that what we do will not put our country (or world for that matter) and situation where we want it to be. But Hope prevails; that we can make it better, no matter how samll. We have hope in other people with like minds, that they are doing the same, to transform the present to a much brighter future.
It is the same with all people who work and strive to make their lives better. We have to have hope in a better future, no matter how bleak the present is. We must seek to rise above our current state and look to a brighter tomorrow.
We have to have hope. But it should be accompanied with action. The real question then becomes

“What can we do in times like these?”