Gabriel's Turn

Gabriel graduated grade 6 with three honors: scholastic excellence award, best in conduct and best in juventus,  a Don Bosco sodality award.  With us at the ceremonies were Gab's cousins Karla,  who's home on vacation from Canada, and Aya. This year Don Bosco did away with the traditional ranking of students in exchange for recognizing students who garnered a minimum grade like the Latin honors in university. The scholastic excellence award is the highest award for students with a minimum average of 96. Gab really worked hard for this award  because it was only at the end of the year that he rose to this rank. 

Real proud and glad for his achievements. The scholastic excellence award had a cellphone of his choice for a prize,  a challenge I gave Gab since the start of the school year. 

Ma'am Angelica Dizon,  Gab 's adviser was also Miguel' s grade 5 adviser. 

Dinner was simple burger and fries at  Villa. 

Nakakita na ba kayo ng usa?

For the Buwan ng Wika celebrations at Don Bosco, Gabriel was chosen as their section representative for a fable reading contest. All contestants were to tell the same story and the contest piece was the fable of the stag who prized the beauty of his antlers. Since there was a single character in the fable, I rewrote it in the first person for Gabriel. For his "costume" Gab wore khaki pants and a light cream shirt. Nai sewed on a tail made of white flannel and made a bib of the same material for his chest. We modified those Christmas deer headbands to make them more stately. Fortunately, classes were suspended some days of August allowing Gab to spend more time memorizing his piece. All our efforts however were rewarded by his winning first prize with a perfect score of 100% from the judges.

Nakakita na ba kayo ng usa? Ako 'yooon.
Hindi ba't ang ganda ng aking mga sungay?
Hindi ba't napakakisig ng aking hitsura dahil sa aking mga sungay?
Kaya lang tingnan ninyo ang aking mga paa at binti.
Ang pangit. Maliit. Payat pa.

Pero alam ninyo, minsan, ako'y nagulat sa gubat.
Nakarinig ako ng kaluskos at nakaamoy ng tao.
Mangangaso!
Dali-dali akong lumundag.
At halos lumipad sa bilis ng takbo.
Takbo dito! Lundag doon! Takbo pang ulit!
Oops! Sumabit ang aking mga sungay sa sanga ng puno.
Nandiyan na ang mangangasa. Naririnig ko siya.
Pinilit kong ulit batakin ang aking sungay.
Aray! Masakit!
Pero salamat, nakawala ako.
Nagpatuloy ako sa pagtakbo.
Hinihingal na ako. Hah, hah, hah.
Sa wakas, ligtas na ako sa gubat.
Hindi na ako matutunton ng mangangaso.

Nang uminom ako sa batis, nakita ko ulit ang sarili ko 
sa mala-salaming ibabaw ng tubig.
Hmmph! 
Muntik na akong ipahamak ng maganda kong sungay.
Mabuti pa ang pangit kong binti na siyang nagligtas sa akin sa panganib.

Kaya mga kaibigan,
Pahalagahan at pangalagaan ang bawat bahagi ng katawan.

Maraming salamat at magandang araw po.

Congratulations!

We're so proud of Miguel's Rank 5 finish and
Juventus leadership award.

I keep telling Miguel and Gabriel that they are so
many times better than their dad. So thankful
to God, happy and proud.

The boys with Ma'am Raia, their English teacher and
English Club adviser. Ma'am Raia's been instrumental
to the boy's emceeing assignments at school programs.

 After ranking second in his class for the last two quarters of the school year, Miguel graduated ranked seventh in their batch. The commencement rites were held Saturday, March 23. It started off with anticipated mass for Palm Sunday at 4 pm during which Miguel read the part of the crowd in the gospel reading of the Passion of Christ. There was a break before the candidates marched in again for the graduation ceremonies. By the time we finished it was already 9 at night. Dinner was courtesy of Jay who celebrated fellow Bosconian Best friend Ige's graduation with a buffet meal at their home.

The boys with DBA Pampanga Rector Fr. Ditto S. Gueco.
Fr. Rector congratulated us and complimented Miguel's
part in the gospel reading.

Busy Christmas

I used to just read about it, but now I live it. This past Christmas for one reason after another tired me out completely that going back to school felt like the break compared to the two-week Christmas vacation. Not that I'm complaining. I LOVE Christmas. It's the most exciting time of the year for my family and me. But let's see. There was the scuba trip to Batangas and overnight at Tagaytay; of course the novena masses (missed 3), some of which I sang for with the Holy Angel Village choir; midnight mass with Miguel playing Joseph; the midnight drive to Cavite; my in-laws' trips to the hospital bookending Christmas week; the extended Nacpil New Year's eve; Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bataan; and on top of all that, stress from our very trying maid. Fortunately I had my "annual" bout with colds early November (when we were in Hong Kong, but that's another story) if not I think I would have gotten  it worse.

Putting a different spin on it, I guess I'm just getting old and my body's starting to creak and groan. As a friend commented: time for weight training, cardio, and diet. Zip out of three's (not) bad.

Finding St. Joseph

Ma Hilda asked Nai on the first day of Simbang Gabi if Miguel could play Joseph for the midnight mass Christmas eve at Bahay Pag-ibig. To this, Miguel refused outright. I told Nai I'll talk to Miguel later but she beat me to it one lunch when she brought it up again. On a stroke of genius, she offered a month's worth of the Kiddie bundle (Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel) over cable if he would agree to be St. Joseph. You could tell by Miguel's eyes that the bargain was a very good one so I piped in to say that if he says yes that very moment (I was done eating) I would drive over to Nepo Mall and pay for the cable service at ACCTN. And so we had St. Joseph.

A trip to the palengke after consulting with Ma Hilda and asking  the tailor if he will still accept the job produced the required material. This was Sunday, the 19th. After bringing them to the tailor, Wednesday was promised as the due date. Nai got busy that day and so we went to the tailor Thursday only to find out that the costume was not yet done because both the green  and cream cloth were kulang. This was around 10 in the morning. So braving the traffic, we went back to the market to get the extra material and returned to the tailor 11:30. He promised he'd be done between 1 and 2, which of course he wasn't when we got there. It was 2:30 when we finally drove off with the costume. Choir practice was scheduled at 2 while the kids' practice was at 3. After freshening up a little, it was off to the chapel for rehearsals. When we got back after 5, Nai gave the bad news that Ma was in the hospital due to hypertension. "Midnight" mass was at 9 where Miguel played Joseph remarkably well. This after all involved sitting on a stool by the altar for the duration of the celebration, and this he did with nary an extraneous movement for over and hour and a half. (Imagine for example Gabriel in the same place).  And so we went to the hospital after mass when visiting hours were over. The guard did let in visitors three at a time so Nai went with Miguel and Tang, for the first round, while Aya and Stella took the next round. Aya played an angel over at the Lord's Transfiguration in L&S. Both she and Miguel went up to Ma in their full costumes. Noche buena followed at Villa where Stella had cooked lengua, spaghetti and salmon belly. By the time we were off to Cavite it was 1:00 in the morning. At 2:30 a.m. we pulled in to the driveway of Auntie Cording's to find Ate and Mom still awake. We finally went to bed 3 a.m. Christmas morning.

After spending Christmas eve in hospital with Tang, Ma came home right next day, to everyone's relief.Christmas 2010 photos