Courage

I WAS on my way to the sports clinic at the Ateneo de Manila University for my regular physical therapy on my pinched shoulder (rotator cuff issue—yes, I know, it’s taking an extraordinarily long time to heal) and told the cab driver where to go and the route to take. 

He said, “Ah, Ateneo...eskwelang pang-mayaman ’yan ano ho?” I answered, “Opo, manong.” Then he went, “Ang panganay ko sa UP [University of the Philippines]. Kaso tumaas na ang tuition. P1,000 per unit na.” 

(I always find chatting with cabbies an enervating learning experience. They are an indicator of the pulse of the masses, and makes more privileged people like myself aware of the conditions and times the rest of population live in.) 

I asked him if his child was still studying in UP, and he said no. Manong said his son got “kicked out” after failing a few classes. “Kasi tight-guarding ang girlfriend. Lagi na lang nasa bahay namin, kwentuhan lang sila ng kwentuhan, imbes na mag-aral.” I was amused. Manong certainly wasn’t shy about his feelings about his son’s relationship. 

Manong said he agreed to fund his son’s college tuition again on condition that the latter wouldn’t goof off anymore. “Sabi ko sa kanya, last chance na ’to. ’Di lang naman s’ya ang dapat makatapos...paano pa ’yung iba niyang kapatid,” the cabbie stressed, adding that he has five other kids. 

The son agreed to his father’s condition, and after looking for other universities he could enroll in, he finally settled on Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Manong was pleased that his son and his girlfriend had separated. His son actually finished his degree, this time in computer programming. Aside from his present job in a computer firm, Manong’s son teaches computer programming to college kids. 

Other than his eldest, two other children of Manong’s were able to finish college, largely through the income he makes from driving his cab. One child is now an electrical engineer, and Manong’s eldest daughter works in a call center. (The older kids now help out their father in paying for bills and other expenses with their monthly family contributions.) 

What Manong has accomplished is no mean feat. It takes a lot of courage for people like him to just continue working diligently, and keep pushing his kids to succeed—be it at their studies or in their respective careers. (His wife, Manong said, doesn’t work outside the home. When I pressed him on this, he insisted, “Aba, marami pong gawain sa bahay!”) 

I was to find out later that his wife also keeps a tight watch on the younger children, and Manong again proudly told me his son in Grade 6 has just taken the exam for Philippine Science High School—often referred to as “Pisay”) and Quezon City Science High School. “Sinugal ko na po at nagbayad ng P5,000 para sa review classes n’ya. Nung tinanong ko naman at kinumusta ang exam n’ya, sabi ng anak ko nadalian naman siya.”  

I told Manong that Pisay is an excellent school—I have quite a few friends who graduated from there, and most of them are successful in their career. I told Manong if his son passes the Pisay exam, he should allow his son to go there. “Ay oo, ma’am,” he was quick to interject, “libre po lahat doon. At saka may stipend pa binibigay sa mga bata daw.” 

Manong was especially proud of his youngest, now in Grade 4, who he says is the perennial candidate representing Quezon City to Science Quiz Bee contests. “Ang tatalino ng mga anak ko...lalo na ’yung bunso,” Manong said, the pride in his voice, evident. 

As we had already arrived at my destination, I was no longer able to ask Manong about his other child. But it was quite evident that he put a lot of priority on his kids’ education. He wanted nothing more than for his children to go to college and graduate with a degree. 

It was an extremely exceptional cab ride that day. On most days, my cab rides are insufferable as my ears are tortured by loud uncouth radio commentators the cabbies listen to, or schwang-schwang Inglisera radio jocks who ask the most inane questions of their guests. For a change, I had a real conversation with an amazing courageous man. 

Manong Driver didn’t complain about the cards that life had dealt him. He just played them. No government dole-outs for him...he just drives his cab, brings his passengers to their destination and deals with them honestly. Most of all, his entire existence is driven by the desire to give a better life for his kids. He was inspiring. 

*** 

Most people think that courage is best exemplified by a soldier going off to war to fight the enemy. 

But really, it takes on so many forms and manifests itself in many areas of our lives. 

The wife finally walks away from her 20-year marriage to an abusive husband. 

An employee leaves his comfortable cushy job, to set up his own business. 

A woman asks a man 20 years younger than her out on a date. 

A devoted daughter leaves the family home to stake her independence.

Despite his cramping calf, a basketball player joins his team to defeat their opponent. 

The courage to say, “I love you,” or “I’ve had enough of the insults from this boss,” or “I’m giving up sweets forever because of my diabetes”—these may be tiny examples but they are courageous acts nonetheless.

With courage, anything is possible.

(My column, Something like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. This piece on 'Courage' was published on Nov. 2, 2012.)

Big bad books

WHEN my siblings and I were growing up in the ’70s to ’80s, we were surrounded by books.

We had all kinds at home—from encyclopedias like the 20-volume The Book of Knowledge and 10-volume Popular Science—to reference books like Renato Constantino’s A Past Revisited and The Continuing Past (big help during my high school and college Philippine history classes), and novels that ranged from the intelligently written and spiritually moving like Herman Hesse’s Siddharta, to the popular “trashy” erotica penned by Harold Robbins (my mother’s books, for sure, hahaha).

I’m glad that I grew up in such an environment with a love for learning and the written word. I would remember waking up every morning, and seeing my father already seated on his favorite chair in the living room turning the pages of the morning paper. I would later “copy” him as soon as I was tall enough to make it to the sofa without help from my yaya, and read the newspaper as well. (In hindsight, I suppose this was my own beginnings as a journalist.)

I think it was Papa’s fervent desire to make us, his children, literate geniuses (the latter, a failure on my end; for the record, Big Sister is the genius in the family). So he bought books and subscribed to Time, Reader’s Digest and Life magazines. He also bought us a slew of Complete Bestsellers—popular novels published as magazines, containing illustrations (e.g., Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale and John Le Carre’s The Looking Glass War.)

While studying at St. Theresa’s, I just loved spending my free time in the library. Aside from the fact that it was the only air-conditioned room in the premises other than the audio-visual room, there were even more books to be read!

My literary diet as a teenager consisted of the Nancy Drew series, a stream of metaphysical and philosophical dissertations that came in 10 volumes, science fiction (the Dune series by Frank Herbert), and I’m pretty sure I was the only one who read The Pentagon Papers and All the President’s Men then.

Of course, what young female adolescent in the ’70s and ’80s didn’t have her share of romantic novels from the Mills and Boons and Barbara Cartland collection (my Lola Pepay’s influence), and the Silhouette/Harlequin Romances, where all the female leads where virgins before being deflowered by their knights in shining armor? It’s no wonder I have such a screwed-up sense of love and romance, and am currently unattached. I’m still waiting for my muscular hero with his hair long as Fabio to take me away, riding on a white charger, into the sunset! LOL!

Now, among my parents’ stash of course, were the so-called big bad books—risqué or erotic adult novels that were on book shelves far up high in their bedroom, and away from the prying eyes of young, impressionable children like myself.

My first big bad book was Harold Robbins’ Stiletto, which I sneakily read page by page while standing on a stool, in my parents’ bedroom, while they were out. Every time I would hear someone passing outside their door, I would hastily put it back on its space on the bookshelf, my heart racing fast in fear of being caught with the “illicit” item in my hands. It was actually a quick read and the steamy sex scenes awed me—of course they are tame by today’s standards. But what attracted me more was the suspense that surrounded the killing of various witnesses who were supposed to testify before the mob. And I mean, of the Mafiosi kind.

The other “big bad books” I ended up sneaking off with were Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel of seduction and, well, pedophilia, Lolita; and D.H. Lawerence’s swoon-worthy example of illicit romances among the married, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I even wrapped the cover of the latter in gift-wrapping paper so I could read it in school without being hauled off to the principal’s office. (Of course, by the ’80s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was no longer considered obscene, but still, I was afraid the nuns wouldn’t understand if they caught me reading it, thus the fake cover. I was also sparing them the agony of blaming themselves for their failure of influencing me to read “better” literature, like, uhm, Shakespeare’s classics?)

Toward my 20s, I graduated to the works of Erica Jong, Arthur Miller, Anaïs Nin, etc. And in my young 30s, I collected anthologies of erotica whenever I traveled abroad. (Sorry to say this but National Book Store was never the local torchbearer for the genre.)

With this background in mind, can you blame me if I am shocked that the apparent erotic novel of choice among bored young housewives and twentysomethings these days is something called 50 Shades of Grey? I admit I haven’t read it, but the reviews I’ve perused so far are enough to make me wince.

So when B., my 25-year-old friend who introduced me to the hilarious Confessions of a Shopaholic (to be fair, it was entertaining), tweeted she too had “jumped on the bandwagon” and bought 50 Shades, I almost died. For those who still don’t what the fuss is about, 50 Shades of Grey started out as a re-worked fan fiction based on the Twilight series, but with S&M scenes. (There are two sequels: 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed.)

Incidentally, due to the alleged pornographic nature of the first novel, some public libraries banned it from their bookshelves. But a public outcry has reinstated it in libraries. Most readers of the novel, I gather, are thirtysomething housewives, thus earning it the title “Mommy Porn.”

Many respectable literature reviewers have panned the e-book and the eventual paperback written by E.L. James, because of its “clunky prose” and being “treacly cliché” (watch Charlize Theron and her co-stars from Snow White and the Huntsman read from the book here).

Jong, author of the controversial Fear of Flying, and one of my favorite feminist novelists, says of 50 Shades: “The problem...is that it is just bad writing. That and the fact the heroine is subservient, allowing her body to be abused in order to ‘get her man.’ Is this what we’ve come to?”

Indeed. On the other hand, I suppose I was hoping that my young friend’s first foray into the erotic/bondage genre would be something reputable, like Pauline Reage’s The Story of O. But holy cow! what do I know, right? 50 Shades did make the New York Times best-sellers list. (Again for those who don’t know, “holy cow” is the favorite expression of the novel’s protagonist, Anastasia, when she sees a naked man or has sex. She also says, “holy crap” and “holy shit”. Lovely.)

From “50 Shades of Grey”: “He's going to kiss me there! I know it! And part of me is glorying in anticipation." Another one: “Inside me! I gasp, and all the muscles deep in my belly clench. My inner goddess is doing the dance of the seven veils.” (Hahahahaha! Sorry, I couldn’t help laughing while typing those idiotic lines.)

Compare those lines to “The Story of O”: “O felt her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it, since he deigned to discharge in it. She received it as a god is received, she heard him cry out, heard the others laugh, and when she received it she fell, her face against the floor.” See what I mean?

But as my friend and reading guru Fabia counseled me when I was complaining about my nephew’s obsession with Anne Rice’s vampires, “At least he’s reading.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with Anne Rice—I just wish he read more Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, Lord of the Flies, you know?)

I know I should be pleased that B. may have finally outgrown her chicklit Shopaholic phase. I suppose 50 Shades can be compared to Jacqueline Susanne’s Valley of the Dolls in terms of the kind of popularity the latter also reaped, and the dismissives it also garnered from literary reviewers.

And I guess every generation needs their trashy novels or guilty pleasures. We just have to cross our fingers that that kind of trash doesn’t become the standard reading fare for the “Y” and “Z” generation. Holy crap.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror...unless it gets bumped off by an ad. :-) This piece was originally published on June 8, 2012. Still photo of the film "The Story of O" from www.listal.com)

Celebrate International Chefs Day!

...with what else? more food! And help send a worthy student to culinary school!

FROM Chef J. Gamboa of Cirkulo (and co-owner of Azuthai, Milky Way, and Tsukiji):

Greetings from Les Toques Blanches Philippines!

Once a year, in October, Chefs around the globe celebrate the World Association of Chef's Societies International Chefs Day. A special day to recognize the many men & women that work in the culinary profession and an opportunity to give back to the communities the chefs belong to.

This year we celebrate this special day on 20 October with a special Asian inspired dinner prepared by Chef Alex Chong of the Heritage Hotel.

All proceeds from the dinner will benefit the LTB Culinary Scholarship Program which together with the International School of Culinary Arts and Hotel Management (ISCAHM) and Enderun Colleges has provided free training to over 75 hotel and restaurant instructors from Baguio, Cebu, Laguna, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao and Cagayan de Oro. These instructors continue to teach and improve the culinary education in the provinces. Our beneficiaries for 2012 will be instructors from Pampanga, Batangas, Iloilo and Cebu. (For more details, click LTB Phils.)

Click the link above to read the mouthwatering menu of dishes that will be served at dinner, only P2,011 per pax, pero ang daming food! Yum! Yum!

Call LTB at 840-3771 to 82 for inquiries. Only 80 seats available.

UPDATE on the STC Swatch

OK, ok, so I did say that it was easy as pie to get an STC Swatch-I just walked in a store and bought one, without any prior reservations made.

It seems the demand had increased after I posted this on my blog and so, the watches have all been bought. I went to Swatch TriNoma two weeks ago to pick a watch for my friend and was told there were no more stocks in any Swatch store. Sigh. Oh well...the perils of success! ;p (Apparently, not only Theresians from QC had bought the watches, but also those from the old STC-Manila w/c used to be located along San Marcelino St. where Adamson University now stands).

But take heart fellow Theresians, I have just been informed that a new batch of STC Swatches qill be making their way to your Swatch stores, hopefully by December. What a great Christmas gift to friends and family of the Theresian mold, no?

Doc Ria, an old grade school batchmate, sent me this note w/c was posted on the STC-QC '83 FB page, updating everyone on the status of the STC Swatches. Doc Ria's sister, Millet belongs to Batch '87 w/c sold the watches.

From Fayne Rivera-Alvarado, batch 87:

SWATCH UPDATE: Swatch has finally approved the re-order. The 2 options that we have is to reserve through STAA or through the Swatch stores. We will announce the date when the stores will officially accept the reservation. It's easier cause if done through us or through STAA it goes like this:

You fill out a form, pay the 2k.
We take your form and bring it to Swatch along with your payment.
They issue a claim receipt and send it to STAA which you have to pick up.
This receipt will be presented to the store to claim the watch plus the balance of P1,5k.

If done through the Swatch store: You pay the 2k, and keep the receipt, and claim when it becomes available.

Just let me know how I can further assist you.

Thanks!

Expected delivery is by December 1, maybe. There is no official announcement yet from Swatch but it would more or less be around that time, or earlier.

STAA, of course, is the St. Theresa's College Alumni Association.

Anyhoo, there you have it. So make your reservations, now na!

Proud to be a Theresian!

GOT my STC Swatch last Friday, and I loveeet!

I'm not a member of STC-QC Batch '87 (I'm so much younger than that...joke!), but congratulations to the gals who thought up the project. The watch is a beaut. And accdg to Big Sis, who is half a Theresian, it's the best looking school watch out there. I tend to agree! (No offense DLSU! I wuv our Animo 100 watch too!)


It's not so evident in this photo but it has a bubble top dome. Cute no?!

It's P3,500 and great for everyday use. You don't need to reserve at all. I just walked into a Swatch store last Friday and bought it. There are a lot of stocks on hand. Buy na!

(UPDATE): As per Millet Abesamis, from said batch, they are selling the STC Swatch to raise funds for their alumni homecoming next year (Jan. 2012). A portion of the funds raised through the sale will also go to the St. Theresa's Alumni Association "to finance scholars and other causes," representing batch '87's donation. Good for you girls! Keep up the good work.

For a good cause

GOT this from my friends over at the Discovery Group. Hope you guys can attend. This is for a good cause:

Discovery Suites has been raising funds to help Dynamic Teen Company of Efren Peñaflorida (CNN Hero of the Year 2009) build its Kariton school - Kalingain Batang Mahirap Learning Center in Cavite City. All proceeds will go to Dynamic Teen Company.

Wednesday, 10 August 2011, 5:00 PM
P100 per bingo card, 2 games per card

Hosted by Jose "Chiokla" Bunag III

Grand Prize: Three-day, two-night stay at Discovery Shores Boracay inclusive of airfare from Zest Air

Sponsored by: Chelsea, MoMo, Mr Jones, M Cafe, Zong, BusinessWorld, Mossimo, Corporate Travel, Jan Patrick International, EMI-Polyeast, Zest Air, Fabio Salsa Salon, Terra Wellness Spa, Balance Lifestyle Fitness Gym, Discovery Country Suites Tagaytay and Discovery Shores Boracay

For inquiries, please contact (63 2) 719.8888 - Rowena Gulle local 6910 / Laurice Landicho local 6772 or email us at marketing@discovery.com.ph

Congratulations to the Discovery Group for choosing to focus its CSR efforts on education.

Little people

KIKAY, my eight-year-old grandniece-slash-goddaughter, is visiting over the weekend. Most of the kids in the neighborhood annoy me, especially the screamer behind my home—the bratty monster—but Kikay is a delight, and I’m not just being subjective here because we’re related.

Like when I went down this morning, I found her “reading” the front page of the newspaper. (Yes, we are one of the very few families that still subscribe to a hard copy, since my Mama doesn’t care to go online to read the paper the way I do.)

So I sat down beside Kikay on the red sofa and asked her to read the headlines aloud (never mind that they were scary...“N. Korea readies missiles,” etc.), as well as some paragraphs in the stories. I just wanted to make sure she was at the appropriate reading level, and correct her pronunciation of some words if need be. Except for the confusion over “readies” which she pronounced like the “e” in “read,” everything checked out...yes, we have a bright one here! Woot-woot!

But our girls really have been fast learners in reading and are astute. It reminded me of a niece, Boo-Boo—now all grown up and in her 20s—doing the very same thing every morning. She, beside my Pop, who had started all of us on the newspaper-reading habit, would open to the business news and look for the peso-dollar exchange rate, while the grandfather was perusing the front page.

Boo-Boo was only about six years old then and still living with us. Maybe she heard us talking often about the foreign-exchange rate, or exclaim how the peso went up or down while we watched the news on TV. As fate would have it, for a time she did work as a forex trader, and is the math genius in the family.

Her older sister was the talker when she was a toddler. If she wasn’t telling stories about what she had read in a book, or what activity she recently did with her parents, she was always asking questions about every little thing that fascinated her. I remember that even our driver then, who would try taking over answering questions she had thrown at my Mama and me, would also give up, exasperated at her stream-of-consciousness questions. Not surprisingly, now pushing 30, she is also a writer and sells bank products.

Kikay isn’t as sophisticated as her titas yet, but with a little more training and more weekends spent with me, hah! I’m sure she’ll turn out just as clever. (Or be a freak and scare the living delights out of her classmates just with a killer look! Mwahaha! Cue in evil witch laughter here.)

But it’s interesting how these little people have personalities all their own already. One would think that at such young ages, they still have no minds of their own, and are just blank slates absorbing all what’s being said to them, or the other things happening around them. However, it’s their reaction to the outside stimuli that indicates what kind of personality they have and how they may eventually turn out. Portent of things to come, I always say.

My friend Cassie’s precocious daughter Koolits, for instance, has always been such a drama queen even before she went to pre-school. She dishes out lines like she was a 25 year old and is seemingly impatient with her mom when the latter doesn’t get her. I can’t help but laugh out loud when Cassie posts Koolits’ latest spiel on Facebook.

Here’s a typical conversation:

Cassie (on the phone): Hi, Koolits!

Koolits: Hi, Mom.

Cassie: Whatcha doin’? Have you eaten merienda already?

Koolits: Yes, I already ate. Uh, Mom, I HATE TO SAY THIS, but I’m having pancit canton again.

Five years old going on 25? You bet! Hahaha!

With Kikay, except for the occasionally difficult feeding time—she can be a picky eater—she has always been a joy to bring anywhere. She hardly raises a fuss and is well-behaved even at Church, for instance. She certainly is not one of those who will chase other kids down the church aisles, and be a constant embarrassment to her parents trying to listen to the priest’s sermon.

I remember the time we had to hurriedly go home to our province because my brother, her Lolo Daddy, had passed away. It was the first time for her to ride a plane and she was only five years old. She quietly just observed what was going on as all the other passengers filed into the plane.

As the plane started taking off, I just told her it was like riding a car as well, but faster because it would bring us to a far away place, across big bodies of water and cities, and not just to SM or The Podium, which were very near to our home. Adults have to explain these things sometimes just to try to allay whatever fears the child may have. But I don’t think I actually needed to explain it to Kikay. She was fearless.

But I knew she would be bored soon enough, as kids most often are these days. In our haste to get to the airport, she wasn’t able to bring her favorite toy, which probably would not have fit in her small backpack anyway. So I espied a magazine in the seat pocket in front of her and took it out for her to read. Turned out to be Forbes magazine.

I thought she would lose interest in it soon enough—I had no glossy magazines with me, and was just reading a newspaper—but Kikay kept on turning the pages, then stopped at some pages, seemingly reading them. I wondered what she was thinking about when her eyes fell on words like gross domestic product, junk bonds, or a stock’s P/E ratio. (Well, we got to start them early, why not?!)

But typically, her eyes would linger the longest at the slick gorgeous ads of high-end clothing and shoe brands. And I thought, “Dear God, not another kikay in the family!”

Kikay has always been the quiet type, I suppose she gets it from her dad, as her mom has an attitude that can’t be mistaken as anything but coming from our side of the family. When Kikay’s visiting, and everyone else is out or I’m busy writing, she plays by herself with her own toys, as she waits for her playmates at the park to come out. She knows how to amuse herself with her coloring books, story books, and, when the TV is switched on, the cartoons.

In other words, unlike other children these days who can be such a pain to hang around with, hindi siya mahirap aliwin. And as often as adults do, I was hoping at the back of mind that when Kikay grows older, she would apply the same resourcefulness and self-sufficiency in her work. (Oh, but please, God, don’t make her a corrupt government official!)

Having kids around can be a joy. You observe them and see how they react to other kids or to adults, and more often than not, you marvel at how God is so smart to have created such wonderful creatures. It also gives you hope that perhaps, despite the tremendous amounts of crises the world finds itself in these days, the future is still going to turn out fine.

(Originally published on Dec. 3, 2010. My column, Something Like Life, is out every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photos and images from the Internet.)

SMX welcomes back Manila Int'l Book Fair*

Something big is happening at the SMX Convention Center on September 15-19: the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF), the biggest and longest-running book fair in the Philippines, which turns 31 this year.

For three decades now, MIBF has been a one-stop shop for local and foreign publishers, wholesalers, retailers, book lovers and collectors, librarians, authors, and publishers’ representatives. It has also continuously contributed to the reading awareness of the Filipino by being the venue for book launches, dialogues with readers, and other book-related activities that reach out to a wide audience.

MIBF showcases the largest and most varied collection of literature, textbooks, educational supplements, general references, religious and inspirational titles, self-help books, management books, Filipiniana, coffee table books, popular novels, children's books, art books, graphic novels, rare and hard-to-find titles, magazines, audio and e-books, multimedia, teaching supplies and services, publishers' technology, and travel materials.

Students can avail of books at lower-than bookstore prices, while teachers and school administrators can compare offerings from various exhibitors and get the best prices for bulk purchases.

Youngsters can look forward to story-telling sessions, puppet shows, reading-related contests, robotic demonstrations, a parade of exhibitors’ mascots and cosplayers of their favorite book characters. Classes can also enlist in special seminars and workshops available round the clock at the Manila International Book Fair, while the young and old alike can enjoy mini-concerts or meet-and-greet sessions with well-known and up-and-coming authors and illustrators. (PR)

*This was sent by a friend. Hope you guys can go. (Photo from FalconLit.com)

Leading the change

(Rina, in pink, with students in Languyan, Tawi-Tawi. Photo courtesy KCFI.)

MANY of Rina Lopez-Bautista’s classmates in high school (Assumption College) and college (De La Salle University) will probably remember how good she was as a guard forward playing in their varsity basketball team. “I was just playing basketball,” she giggles, “and just having fun with my friends.”

She then turns serious: “But I’ve always wanted to do something to help the less fortunate.” So in 1999, while working at the Lopez Group’s SkyCable, Rina, along with Carlo Katigbak, spearheaded the creation of Knowledge Channel (Channel 49), the country’s first and only curriculum-based TV channel, on SkyCable. (Click Something Like Life.)

Because I hate ending the week on a down note...

I just wanted to post this video of a former drug user whose life was touched by Efren Peñaflorida, CNN Hero of 2009.



I believe in my heart that for every Andal Ampatuan Jr., there are 10 of more Efren Penãfloridas amongst us, just selflessly trying to serve others. Be the change.

Things I learned from Sesame Street: (UPDATED)

• "C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
• Tweedlebugs live among plants and will take their car to the zoo.
• Brrrring! is the sound that aliens make when they come to visit your home.
• Two males can live together and that's okay.
• The world is composed of white Americans, black Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, monsters who live in garbage cans or eat cookies all day, green frogs who sing, birds as big as a house who may have imaginary (or not) elephantine friends.
• It was always sunny on Sesame Street, except when the Count finishes counting and then there would be thunder and lightning.
• It was normal for celebrities to hang out with monsters and muppets.
• We will all die eventually, as Mr. Hooper did.
• It's okay to sing at the top of my voice, when I'm happy, or rant and rave when I'm mad or grouchy.
• That it's great to run with the sun and wind in my face. Preferably with balloons.

Happy 40th anniversary Sesame Street!


(One of my favorite episodes on Monsterpiece Theater.)

* * * *
SNUFFY REVEALED!
I've never seen this episode before but apparently, Mr. Snuffalapagus was finally met by the adults on Sesame Street in 1985. Accdg. to the YouTube poster, the writers of the show felt that it was not a good message to tell children that adults would never believe them.

Well, I always thought Snuffy existed in Big Bird's imagination and it was okay that the adults didn't see him. That's what made Snuffy special. Now he's just an ordinary muppet like the rest, only bigger.

Another inspiring story

BULLIED by teen gang members as a child, Efren Penaflorida and his team of youth volunteers help kids move away from a life of violence and bullying through education.

"For the past 12 years, Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom.

Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump." (This is his story.)

Pls. vote for Efren to help him win CNN Hero of the Year award.