Let It Snow

It has been a yearly routine for Christians around the world to commemorate Christmas. Everyone has different unique ways celebrating the 25th day of December, the birth of Jesus.
When you hear children caroling on the streets, when you see decorated houses with Christmas decorations, when you feel the freezing air, those are the signs that Christmas is really fast approaching.
Just recently, here in the Philippines, devastating typhoons came. Different places were flooded and even experienced landslides that took many lives. But that disaster was surpassed still by a lot of Filipinos. We are survivors!
In that scenario, there were numerous people with good hearts who helped and pledged either in cash or in kind to help the typhoon victims. It only proves that the spirit of sharing and loving is not only true during the Christmas season. It's just that when the birth of Jesus comes, almost everyone gives something extraordinary or just a simple gift as a token of his or her love to someone special or to a friend.
It is also in this time that offers us an opportunity to forgive those people who have wronged to us and to ask for forgiveness to those we have wronged.
Let's not just make our Christmas meaningful but every day. Let's live our lives with the spirit of Christmas. Let's maintain peace. Let it snow with the spirit of sharing and loving all the time.
But, we have to celebrate still the birth of our Savior since it comes once only in a year. We have to make it very special as we express our love and care to our family, relatives and friends, and a day to have the very special thanksgiving to Jesus.

Value Values

Have you ever wondered why Filipinos are ideal working abroad?
It's because they carry Filipino values which are being adored by many. One of those is hardwork. If one employer has a Filipino worker in their house or in their company, you axpect that all works are to be done in due time, and one thing more, Filipinos also do chores or something else without being told.
When the month of November arrives, Ilocos Sur National High School celebrates the Filipino Values Month through Values Education Club. Different school level contests were held like sayawit, poster-making, kite-flying and others to strengthen such Filipino values. Those different activities were sponsored with the theme: "Pagpapatibay ng Pagkataong Pilipino: Tugon sa Hamon ng Panahon."
Unfortunately, we had not joined any of the contests because we had many works to prioritize during the month.
On the other hand, there were also other activities done. One was that, we had our farewell party to Mrs. Josephine Parel, our dearest adviser of IV-Maxell on November 13. Actually, it was a surprise event for her and we can't help but to cry hard. It was a very sad day despite the foods we had that day. We expressed our love to her in our very simple ways. But before that, I had my birthday on November 9. On November 14, we went to Immaculate Concepcion School of Theology (ICST) for our recollection. By that time, I came to realize many things in life. Thanks to the seminarians. I had also my duty with other CAT officers and COLT trainees during the Vigan City Division Athletic Meet at University of Northern Philippines (UNP) on November 27. I had a very good feeling offering my service not just for our school but in the whole Vigan. In the later days of November, we practiced THE CONGO - our piece for the school level speech choir competition.
It was indeed a busy month for us.
With the numerous activities we had, I have been very patient to do these things and it is one of the good values of Filipinos.

HTML Tags: How Did I Overcome Them?

After the history of internet, after all the stages that internet went through before it was known worldwide, I encountered and ascertained deeper cells of the internet.
During our second quarter in ICT IV, the functions and other facts about HTML tags were introduced to us. Personally, I was hard up typing different tags in every activity we had using the notepad. It's good that those html tags are not that sensitive, but I learned still to be patient enough doing such thing. Those tags are used to enhance a web page. Tags, when used, are enclosed by angle brackets. Honestly, I had not learned so much during this quarter. It was all about tags.
One of the problems I had was the way how to give a background picture in one of the activities. I never knew what tag is to be used for that matter until the periodic examination was over. But that was not our teacher's fault. During the times that we should've attended our classes, there were other scheduled activities in our school that disturbed us. And that's the prize, we had not learned many things.
Next time, hopefully, our classes won't be disturbed no more. I wish that our teacher would attend less official businesses this coming quarter. I expect that there will be more lessons to be tackled so that our minds will be nurtured more.

All in One

It’s a fact that without a teacher, there ain’t no doctor, nurse, engineer, lawyer, policeman and others. It only proves that a teacher is indeed a superhero.
Every teacher may differ in many ways, on how they teach. But either way, his or her main goal is to lend a hand every learner find the right route to a great tomorrow. A teacher may not always at the side of every student but she is the one molding everyone to a good citizen.
A teacher is knowledgeable on much stuff. She has many duties to do as well – “Jack of all Trade.” She sacrifices a lot just to accomplish all the responsibilities she has inside the school but still manages to do all tasks for every role she portrays in the country, community and in her home. The best!
Unfortunately, in a country that suffers different crises, sometimes, a teacher does not receive the right amount of her salary. Yet, she still devotes herself much to her profession and remains loyal. A teacher serves as a second mother and a father in school to many students. They share all the ideas in their mind just like real parents to guide their students.
Because of these, a teacher deserves everything in this world. She deserves to be loved, to be respected, to be praised, to be cared, to be adored, to be recognized, to be valued, to be admired and to be worshiped.

Adapting to Diverse Science: Culture for Development

There are things that come along our way every day. New stuffs to experience. New ideas to adapt. New challenges to overcome.
Yes. Every day, there are new inventions and discoveries because of science introduced in all types of media. Technologies we have at this moment are based from those of before. They are very helpful in the sense that many attain progress through these. They were developed and we need to adapt to these changes in this fast-paced world so that we won’t be left behind. This is one of the many science cultures.
As new gadgets appear, they also bring us good and bad effects. Though they make us do work easier, faster and more accurate, we need to be careful enough handling these. In a single mistake we may have, it might change the whole world. It might make the world get worse with the environmental glitches that are results of our activities. And global warming is one of the examples of environmental problems. We can still help everyone fight this through simple things. Stop cutting trees and limit the use of appliances that contain CFCs like refrigerator and air conditioners.
Save our mother nature. It’s a great gift God given us and it will cause for development.

Love Your Own

Adobo, pinakbet, sinigang – these are the popular foodstuffs when you talk about the Philippines. How interesting!
Mabuhay – and this is also a familiar phrase for foreigners who had went here in our country. This is only one of the many things the whole world must know when Philippines is the subject.
We must also take proud our own language – Tagalog – worldwide. We must use it because this thing proves that all Filipinos are nationalistic. Our products must not be the only things we are taking proud of.
If Filipinos will practice speaking in this language always, we will understand better our ideas and I believe that we can attain progress in a shorter period of time because of this. If all the officials of our government would also practice speaking Tagalog in discussing laws and other concerns of the country, this will also help in the development of our country.
Now, Ilocos Sur National High School celebrated the “Buwan ng Wika” (Month of National Language) on the month of August 2009 to convince students to use the national language – tagalong. It was very significant since they conducted many activities that molded the talents and skills of the students of the said school. In this celebration, the institution believed that they helped in the campaign of using the National Language all the time.

Program Your Mind With ICT

It has been two months when I entered the last chapter of my high school life, the senior life. This is another year for learning and discovering new things. It seems to be exciting since there is a subject, ICT (Information and Communication Technology), which will furnish us more stuff on the internet.
Before I will tell something about this subject, I want to tell you a story. When I was in my elementary years, my father introduced to me a gadget. It is called a hand-held radio. Maybe you know it; the more popular term is “walkie-talkie.” I got interested into this device. This device works like a mobile phone, it needs a signal. I earned many friends because many knew that I was a child and this gadget was used commonly by adults. My call name on-air is “internet.” So, the word “internet” has been familiar to me since my childhood years. However, I really do not know what this is until I reached high school.
So, now. . .
First, of course, during the first quarter of the school year, our teacher gave grounding on the history of internet. Wow! I learned how internet went through many processes before it spread around the world. I also knew that internet was used before just in military. But then, many countries got wired just like here in the Philippines that wired-up on it on 1994. Many used it as a means of communication, used for searches or researches, and others, and even now, internet is used in this ways. I also learned blogging. And you know what? This topic really grabbed my attention because I have been hungry for discovering new ways of expressing my ideas through internet.
I had just encountered two problems during the first quarter. Firstly, during hand-outs, it is so hard to connect on the internet. This is a laborious thing! Instead of finishing my work before the bell rings, I had to continue the next day. But, anyway, I believe that I can adapt to this glitch as the time passes by. Lastly, our teacher was very busy in the different obligations she has outside and inside the school. We did not have classes for several times. I could have learned more things. Nonetheless, I understand her. I wish that she won’t be that busy anymore the next quarter.
For the lessons we missed during the times that our teacher was not around, I just asked them at IV – Marconi, specifically to Ms. Samantha Gloria M. Singson. Thank you Sam!
Moving on, I will be having advanced readings for the topics we will tackle so that I won’t be hard up in encountering such problems. I will have also to focus more on ICT because it will surely help me in the future.

Let's Get Verbal

Communication is so essential especially when our loved ones are at a distant. We have now numerous techniques how to communicate to others because of the advancement of technologies smart people have created and we also use different languages.

We cannot blame people if they use different languages just like here in the Philippines. We are not all quick learners – let’s put this in our mind. But as we get older and older, it is natural for a man to discover and to learn more and more things. An instance is that we are learning to combine two (2) different languages at the same time like Filipinos commonly use, the “TagLish” – a combination of Tagalog or Filipino and English. Well, we can express our ideas better in this way.

In our school, Ilocos Sur National High School, we must speak to one another in pure or one hundred percent English and Tagalog. It must be always done inside the campus since it was one of the implemented rules and regulations of the school.

Despite the fact that we have a rule like this, honestly, a number of students, even I still do not speak Pure English and Tagalog most of the time inside the school. We used to speak using Ilocano. But during classes, our teachers do not allow us sharing and expressing our ideas or thoughts in Ilocano.

Why does our school promote communicating in one hundred percent English and Tagalog? In my own understanding, this program would serve as preparation for us for the different careers or professions we will have in the future. This institution wants us to acclimatize using pure English and Filipino so that we will not be hard up in communicating different people in our country and even around the world since English is the universal language. It would also help us especially when hunting for our jobs, specifically the time we will have our job interviews. And also in fact, many works now worldwide require workers to be speaking English fluently. Here in the Philippines, it is as well.

Yet, in communicating with pure English and Filipino, kindness is also requisite so that we won’t be misinterpreted by others that we are boasting.

Now I realize that our school really cares about us, the students, not just during the four years of our stay but also our future lives. Thank you so much ISNHS!

Mind Your Health

Celebration of Nutrition Month is done every July. This year’s theme was “Wastong Nutrisyon Kailangan, Lifestyle Diseases Iwasan.” But what could be the germaneness of this activity to us students, the youth? Would it contribute a great development in our life?

Different crises are being suffered this time not just in our country but in the whole world. The most common of these is on financial. Many had shut their companies down due to bankruptcy and because of this scenery, the rate of unemployment here increased. Surely, this will affect the shape of people because they won’t have money to buy nutritious foods. On the other hand, sharp-witted humans have invented and introduced new gadgets using the latest technologies. These would really help us in our everyday life. A common instance is our mobile phones that make our communication quicker. Nevertheless, there are also gadgets which are disadvantageous. Many cause pollution in our nature and this thing also affects the health of man.

Notwithstanding with these glitches, our school had still the guts to promote a healthy living among the students for they conducted different activities. These are the following: Nutri-quiz which aimed to test the students how aware they are in their health; Food Festival which made students be aware or know what the nutritious foods are; Cook Festival whose purpose was to inform students how such healthy foods are made; Nutri-jingle which intended to apprise students about ways of maintaining a good lifestyle; and many others.

With this kind of activity, we realized how important our health is. It is really true that health is wealth. But we must put in mind that not just in nutritious foods make us healthy.

In doing so, we must perform exercises which are best early in the morning or late in the afternoon. It helps us avoid such diseases. We must also have enough time to take a rest. We must sleep at least 8-10 hours. Visiting our doctors often reduces also the risk of acquiring illnesses. Maintaining one’s body clean makes us healthy either as well as taking vitamins. Another thing is not just using medicines or drugs without the prescription of a physician. Drugs must not be abused so we cannot ruin our health and our future!

So we should be careful enough when our HEALTH is the thing. Balance everything for us to possess a good health, a good lifestyle and to avoid diseases!