A heartfelt student testimony

I'm currently enjoying one great perk of being a teacher: if there's no school, there's no work (well, reporting for work, anyway) and today, classes are suspended because of the storm.  Another joy of being a teacher is molding the next generation.  This country is a mess, but looking at the next generation always gives me hope, and I will do my part in making the Philippines' future better.  This is especially true for the particular school I work for, The Abba's Orchard.  Here, because we are so much more than teachers (we're mentors), we get to impact their young lives in a much bigger way than in a traditional school.

One of the tasks I had to do at work is to get testimonies from the alumni for the new website the school is making and also for the latest edition for the Orchard Buzz newsletter.  I enjoyed that task greatly.  Below is a heartfelt student testimony, one of the many I received, and here's the link to the Orchard Buzz to see several more.   Enjoy.

Never Less Than…
Evee Raypon, Class of 2013
Freshman, Ateneo de Manila University
AB Interdisciplinary Studies

The best thing about the Abba’s Orchard is that it is not solely a school where you get an education – it’s where you get a reality check.    It may seem ‘sheltered’ as people around me have said, but I would like to test that judgment by saying, “What is so sheltered about having to go to the wet market every Saturday to shop and then cook for the entire community that week because it’s your turn in the  kitchen? What is so sheltered about having to interact with people older than you every single day as opposed to seeing them in the halls for two minutes, where they hardly even recognize you? What is so sheltered about dealing with business where you have to face the possibility  of economic loss ? ”

Sleep deprivation: it’s hazardous to your health.

As I am writing this, I am home on sick leave.  I see great wrong in this, because I take great lengths to keep myself healthy.  I eat right, exercise (which hasn’t happened much lately because of the darn rain), and take supplements.  But why am I sick nonetheless?  There’s an easy answer to that: I have been violating another essential habit for good health.

I have been abusing my body in terms of sleep, or the lack of it being more accurate.  Sleep deprivation: it’s hazardous to your health.  In fact, the lack of sleep is one of the most epidemic health hazards today.  Even if you do everything else right, you will still be a wreck if you do not allow your body to rest.  It’s that simple…and this blog article will talk about that.

For a much better explanation on why we need sleep (or what is the effect of sleeplessness on the body) and how to sleep better, I suggest you visit this article here.  The article just nails it, and it made me realize how foolish I was (or still am, as I’m now paying for my sins) for thinking that skimping on sleep is no big deal.  It is a big deal, and you’d be wise to learn from my mistake.

In a nutshell, here are just a few of the hazards that sleep deprivation can bring to your body:

A look back at 2013 through Facebook status messages

Happy new year to all my readers out there!!  Thank you once again for staying with me for another 365 days, and it has surely been quite a year.  2013 wasn’t the best of years in my book, as there have been several personal setbacks, deaths of loved ones, and trials of every sort.  There have also been some great personal victories, a new venture, and some happy moments as well.

For the past two New Years, I traditionally have made a very reflective post to recap what happened in the year that was (here's 2013's and, my favorite, 2012's).  I won’t do that this year; and instead, I’ll do something a little different.

If you have Facebook (who doesn’t), then they have a feature where you get to recap your biggest FB moments in 2013 (I guess that means your posts with the most likes and comments).  I screen captured these status messages, and for this New Year, I will replace my traditional posts with these screen captured shots plus some commentary.  So, if you’re ready, let’s go…