Partial Rights

While the population of some countries carries a net decrease, the overall global population is increasing exponentially. And, it is positively growing in less-developed countries. Along with it is the continued depletion and degradation of our natural resources. Say, animals. Since the end of the dinosaur age, biologists estimate more or less 5,000 species go extinct every year. On that list, we have bears, wolves, mountain lions and sharks. The cause? Human activity. Humans have either hunted them down for sports or poisoned many if they threaten livestock. But even livestock is not free of abuse. If you heard of the McDonald case, egg-laying hens are packed into wire cages so small, they cannot even lift their wings. Their feet never touch the ground. Frustrated, they peck on their cage mates. So the farmers slice off their beak and sometimes a part of their tongue or faces.

Rene Descartes and others believe that animals could not feel pain. Critics call it the Bambi syndrome to label those who get emotionally involved instead rather than being intellectually engaged in the management of wild species.

I say, animals are sentient. They have the capacity to experience both pain and pleasure as Singer concludes. The chimpanzees not only share 98.3% of our genetic make-up but they also have similar brain structures with us. According to him and I agree that there can be no moral justification for REFUSING to take this suffering into moral consideration.

According to Roderick Nash, the whole idea of animal rights may be a human construct. We can assign them God-spirits, partial or complete rights or something in between. The goal should be some place on the continuum that works for us and for the planet and its millions of creatures.

May I take our own savages who brutally beat up and kill dogs that we consider as man’s best friend? If we continue to eat dogs, our country will soon be the number one dog-eating country in the world. If we continue to eat dogs, rabies will get us. If we continue not to act for the welfare of animals, by all means we show how we have not progressed as a nation.

Or we can choose that our cattle, from where we get our hamburger, be injected with painkillers before they are castrated and butchered. Or choose to humanely trap and transport animals elsewhere when a mountain is bulldozed or a farm is converted for commercial reasons.

Please choose to take a stand and stop the maltreatment of animals.

The references I used:

Insomnia may lead to depression

Today’s post is a newsletter copied verbatim from Wendy Owen and 20 Tips to Ensure Good Sleep by Michael Smolensky. Both are received via email and posted with permissions:

We’ve always assumed that a troubled mind equals troubled sleep, Friend.

But, is it the other way around?

If you’re depressed and have trouble sleeping, the cause of your depression could be your insomnia. Medical science is now leaning towards the idea that insomnia may lead to depression instead of the other way around.

I’m talking about clinical depression. The type that lingers on without any obvious cause.

However even minor bouts of depression can be linked to sleep problems. It’s now accepted that there is a definite connection between insomnia and depression. In fact one of the symptoms of depression is the increase of REM (dreaming) sleep. This is thought to increase negative thinking in those prone to depression.

This may be because the quantity of deep sleep is reduced due to excessive REM sleep.

What we do know is that both complaints should be treated separately. People who have recovered from depression may still have poor quality sleep which can lead to the depression recurring.

It’s most important to seek medical treatment for your depression. If your doctor recommends sleeping pills for short term relief from the insomnia, just make sure he/she doesn’t prescribe “Ambien” or “Stilnox”. These drugs simply aren’t safe for anyone prone to mood disorders.

And make sure you don’t get hooked on the wretched things! Always seek a natural alternative such as reducing your stress levels and making sure you’re practicing good sleep habits.

Speak to you soon, Friend.

Email to Wendy

The Marvelous Land of Oz

Everyday, a bookworm asked if I had read The Marvelous Land of Oz that she emailed so I had to read it =D. The book I could tell was written by a male species, I could tell from its tone since The Wonderful Wizard of Oz where I related more to the scarecrow =D than all the Dorothys who fell in love with the story and encouraged the author to come up with this second book. The scarecrow, as well as Pumpkinhead, was served to frighten but Dorothy and Tip befriended each. Hurrah, I am done reading the Ebook! I am teasing a friend (My turn now. =D) to read Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that I lent to her which I have bought from M/V Doulus’s last voyage to the island. Where am I today in real life? Dorothy has found me and I still am traveling with the rest of the gang to Emerald City; excited to meet the wizard who will bestow me some brains and unaware that he will leave me the city that will be overturned soon by Jinjur and finally replaced by its original successor, Ozma.

Diary of a Madman

Required to read short stories (If they have been full novels, I don’t think I would have finished the course last semester), the Diary of a Madman is one of those. At the literal level, it is about a man suffering from a delusion–people are going to eat him; even the dogs connive. Who could describe a personality disorder better than the author Lu Xun who is a medical doctor himself? It is interesting to note from the readings of others that the intent of the short story is to ridicule traditional China morphing the Confucian ways as a cannibalism that is eating a weak society. For all people including his own family who are into that system already established, the diarist is seen as deranged to be against it. Reading this interpretation before coming to the ending, I agree that getting well and obtaining a job is a lost cause–a devouring up by a society of cannibals to become one of them but then hope is expressed in the last page of the diary. It reminds me how others have written in disguised themes during a revolution to further a cause.

Learning Romanian

This semester we got individually tasked to report on a language that was not offered in the university. I especially chose Romanian because of the one night Dracula came to my window and I had trouble comprehending his language. Joke =D. Where Koreans and Kenyans outnumber all other aliens, I was not really sure if I could find a Romanian student in any of its campuses. I was thankful to get the basic information including a downloadable audio device that rates on how well one can imitate it. I only researched and do not speak it. For a foreigner to learn how to speak and use it, one needs six months to a year of studying Romanian.

GENEALOGY

Romanian is the easternmost member of the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. It developed from Vulgar Latin during the 5th-6th centuries when the territory which is now Romania was part Castle of the Roman Empire. During the 7th and 8th centuries, Romanians came into contact with their Slavic-speaking neighbors who exerted a great deal of influence on their language, religion, and culture. Other influences included Hungarian, Turkish, and Greek (Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian).   Romania, a country located in Eastern Europe, shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south Geography of Romania HSW 2). The word Romania entered in the dictionary in 1868 to mean a native or inhabitant of Romania or the Romance language of the Romanians. Rumanian is a spelling variant of Romanian (Merriam-Webster Online). Like other languages, it has evolved.

From Portal Romania: The territory’s recorded history encompasses such eras as the Dacians, Roman Empire (leading to the development of Romanian language), Kingdom of Hungary, and Ottoman Empire…At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Moldova) were occupied by USSR and Romania became a member of the Warsaw Pact. It joined the European Union in January 1, 2007.

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population among the European Union member states. (Wikijunior: Europe/Romania) Romanian is spoken by around 24 to 28 million people primarily in Romania (where it has its official status and spoken by about 20 million speakers. The language is used in school from elementary through university and read in magazines and newspapers ) and Moldova (where it is spoken by about 3 million); in Moldova—a former Soviet republic, where it is called Moldovan for political reasons; and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. Up to an additional 1 million speakers of Romanian live in Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Moldova Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece. In addition, there are Romanian speakers in Canada, the United States, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, mainly due to post-World War II emigration. Furthermore, they are scattered across many other countries, notably Italy, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom and France. (Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian). As a foreign language, Romanian is taught as a foreign language in 38 countries around the world—mostly in neighboring European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, as well as the Netherlands, and elsewhere, like the USA. It is one of the syllable-timed languages, along with other Romance languages—French, Spanish, etc. (Information about Romanian Language).

PHONOLOGY

In general, Romanian is a fairly phonetic language, with a written word corresponding to the spoken form, and vice versa. Like any language, there are some peculiarities between the written and spoken forms (Wikipedia).
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet. Currently, it has 31 letters (Romanian Alphabet):

А а, Ă ă, Â â, B b, C c, D d, E e, F f, G g, H h, I i, Î î, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, P p, Q q,R r, S s, Ş ş, T t, Ţ ţ, U u, V v, W w,X x, Y y,Z z

The letters Q (read kü or chiu), W (dublu ve), and Y (igrec or i grec) were officially introduced in 1982 although they had been used earlier. They occur only in foreign words, such as quasar, watt, and yacht. The letter K is relatively older, but it is still perceived as foreign due to the fact that it appears only in borrowings, many of them still neologisms (Wikipedia).
It is made up of 28 basic phonemes, 21 consonants and 7 vowels:

CONSONANTS		Stop	Affricate	Fricative	Glide	Semi vowels
Labial	-voice	p	-	f	-	(w)
	+voice	b	-	v	-
	nasal	m	-	-
Dental	-voice	t	ts	s	-
	+voice	d	-	z	l, r
	nasal	n	-	-
Palatal	-voice	-	tS	S	-
	+voice	-	d3	3	-	(j)
	nasal	(ñ)	-	-
Dorsal	-voice	k	-	h	-
	+voice	g	-	-	-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOWELS		Front	Central	Back
High	-round	I	ï	-
	+round	-	-	u
Mid	-round	e	ə	-
	+round	-	-	o
Low	-round	-	a	-

Note that the three sounds in parentheses are reflexes of other sounds, but are listed because they are morphophonemic. There are also several diphthongs (vowel units in groups of two) ai, au, əu, ei, eu, ïi, ïu, oi, ou, ua, ui > and other orthographic diphthong and even triphthongs. (Romanian Orthography and Phonology). No need for memorization, just put the two vowel sounds together to make the diphthong sound (Lesson 1: Pronunciation).

Letter	Phoneme	Approximative pronunciation
A a	/a/	a in “father”
Ă ă (a with breve)	/ə/	a in “above”
 â (a with circumflex)	/ɨ/	like the unwritten vowel between n and t in “rant”, but slightly longer
B b	/b/	b in “ball”
C c	/k/	c in “cat”
	/ʧ/	ch in “chair”
D d	/d/	d in “door”
E e Letter	/e/	e in “merry”
	Phoneme	Approximative pronunciation
	/e̯/	(semivocalic /e/)
	/je/	ye in “yes”
F f	/f/	f in “flag”
G g	/ɡ/	g in “goat”
	/ʤ/	g in “general”
H h	/h/	h in “house”
I i	/i/	i in “machine”
	/j/	y in “yes”
	/ʲ/	(palatalization)
Î î (i with circumflex)	/ɨ/	like the unwritten vowel between n and t in “rant”, but slightly longer
J j	/ʒ/	s in “treasure”
K k	/k/	k in “like”
L l	/l/	l in “lamp”
M m	/m/	m in “mouth”
N n	/n/	n in “north”
O o	/o/	o in “floor”
	/o̯/	(semivocalic /o/)
P p	/p/	p in “post”
Q q	/k/	k in “kettle”
R r	/r/	(trilled r)
S s	/s/	s in “song”
Ş ş (s with comma)	/ʃ/	s in “sugar”
T t	/t/	t in “tip”
Ţ ţ (t with comma)	/ʦ/	zz in “pizza”
U u	/u/	u in “group”
	/w/	w in “cow”
V v	/v/	v in “vision”
W w	/v/	v in “vision”
	/w/	w in “west”
X x	/ks/	x in “six”
	/ɡz/	x in “example”
Y y	/j/	y in “yes”
	/i/	i in “machine”
Z z	/z/	z in “zipper”

OTHER IMPORTANT PHONOLOGICAL RULES:

• Speak and p in peak are not the same sounds: The second is aspirated. Romanian /p/ is not aspirated. The same holds for /t/ and /k/.

• While in English they are alveolar, pronounced by touching the alveolar ridge with the tip of the tongue, in Romanian and other Romance languages they are dental, obtained by touching the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth with the flat of the tongue. The same remark is valid for consonants /n/, /s/, and /z/, although the difference is not as obvious.

• Consonant /r/ is an alveolar trill, informally also called “rolled r,” present in a number of languages such as Italian, Spanish, or Russian. Romanian phonetics sources classify this sound as dental. It is sometimes compared with the consonant in the middle of “get up” in informal American English (spelled “geddup” to mark the changed pronunciation); this phrase could be transcribed phonetically in Romanian as “gherap.”

MORPHOLOGY

The number names from 1 to 10 derive from Latin. The table below gives the cardinal numbers in Romanian and its three dialects, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.

When counting, the number names for 1 and 2 change according to the gender of the noun they modify or replace. It is worth noting that the two adjectival forms of the cardinal number for 1 (un and o) are identical with the corresponding indefinite articles.

* un băiat (one boy, a boy),

* unul dintre băieţi (one of the boys),

* o fată (one girl, a girl),

* una dintre fete (one of the girls),

* doi băieţi (two boys),

* două fete (two girls).

The numbers 11-19

Unlike all other Romance languages, Romanian has a consistent way of naming the numbers from 11 to 19. These are obtained by joining three elements: the units, the word spre (derived from Latin super = over, currently meaning towards), and the word for ten. For example, fifteen is cincisprezece: cinci + spre + zece which literally means “five over ten”.

The number name and the noun it modifies must agree in number and gender. The gender agreement is somewhat complicated by the fact that the Romanian nouns are classified into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Specifically, the neuter gender is a combination of the other two: A neuter noun behaves like a masculine noun in the singular, and like a feminine noun in the plural. The gender has implications on the morphology of some of the grammatically connected words, including the number names. When the units digit of a number is 1 or 2, its name has two distinct forms, masculine and feminine. The only exception is unsprezece (eleven) which has only one form used for both genders.

Plural Formation

Like the gender, the plural formation is an intrinsic property of the noun, and is acquired by native speakers one by one together with the respective noun. The tables below show the plural formation modes for nouns according to their gender, in the non-articulated nominative/accusative case. The asterisk c(*) indicates irregular plural formation, requiring the insertion of consonants belonging neither to the stem nor to the plural ending, the deletion of stem consonants, or some unusual vocalic shifts.

 

 

Depending on gender, otherwise similar nouns will inflect differently. For example, the nouns “câine” (dog, compare Latin canis) and “pâine” (bread, compare Latin panis) have phonetically identical endings in the main form (nominative singular), but the former is a masculine noun, while the latter is feminine. For this reason, when inflected they behave in very different manners.

• Definite article: “câinele” (the dog) – “pâinea” (the bread);
• Plural, with definite article: “câinii” (the dogs) – “pâinile” (the loaves of bread);
• Genitive/dative: “câinelui” (of/to the dog) – “pâinii” (of/to the bread).

Also, the gender of a noun determines the morphology of most determiners, such as articles, adjectives, demonstratives, numerals. The two nouns taken as examples above will give:

• masculine: “om” (man, human being), “copil” (child), “bou” (ox, bull);
• neuter: “ac” (needle), “drum” (road), “ou” (egg), “lucru” (thing, job);
• feminine proper nouns of foreign origin or diminutives: “Carmen”, “Corinuş” (diminutive from “Corina”), “Catrinel”, “Lulu.”

Nouns ending in a consonant or in vowel or semivowel u are almost always masculine or neuter with some feminine exceptions::

• masculine: “ochi” (eye), “pui” (chicken), “unchi” (uncle);
• neuter: “unghi” (angle), “ceai” (tea), “cui” (nail), “nai” (Pan’s pipe);
• feminine: “zi” (day), “tanti” (aunt).

SYNTAX

As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, mood, voice. The usual word order in sentences is SVO (Subject – Verb – Object). Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns. Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected for the person (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four impersonal moods (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle).

Simple Sentence (James E. Augerot):

Am păzit palatul.

I guarded the palace.

Clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction (Laura and Radu Daniliuc):

Ana este o fată şi Ion este un băiat.

Ana is a girl and Ion is a boy.

Syntactically, Romanian nouns can be in any of five grammatical cases:

* nominative, when the noun is the subject;
* genitive, when the noun shows the possessor;
* dative, when the noun shows the receiver of an action;
* accusative, when the noun is the direct object, often also required by prepositions;
* vocative, when the noun shows the (usually animate) addressee of what is said.

The short definitions above are only an approximate indication of the actual usage. Here are some examples with the noun “băiat” (boy) in the various cases:

Nominative is the case of the subject and of the predicate nominal. Here are some examples:

Subject:

• • Apa trece, pietrele rămân. (Water passes, rocks stay.)
  • Poştaşul sună întotdeauna de două ori. (The postman always rings twice.)
  • Mă doare capul. (I have a headache. – lit. The head hurts me.)
  • Îmi plac merele. (I like apples – lit. Apples are likable to me.)

Predicate Nominal:

• • Fotografia este o artă. (Photography is an art.)
  • Ochii sunt oglinda sufletului. (The eyes are the soul’s mirror.)
  • Roma a devenit un imperiu. (Rome became an empire.)

CITATIONS

“Geography of Romanian.” Discovery Communications. c1998-2008. Sept 24, 2008. <http://geography.howstuffworks.com/europe/geography-of-romania1.htm>

“Information about Romanian Language.” Ipedia.Net Free Information Center. c2008. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.ipedia.net/information/Romanian+language>

James E. Augerot, “Romanian / Limba română: A Course in Modern Romanian,” Center for Romanian Studies (2000) referenced by Wikipedia. 10 Sept 2008. 24 Sept 2008.

“Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian” National Virtual Translational Center. c2007. 24 Sept 2008 <http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/january/Romanian.html>

Laura Daniliuc and Radu Daniliuc, “Descriptive Romanian Grammar: An Outline,” Lincom Europa, München, Germany (2000) referenced by Wikipedia. 10 Sept 2008. 24 Sept 2008.

“Learn Romanian for Free.” <www.byki.com.> Transparent Language, USA. c2007. 8 August 2008. Note: This website offers free downloadable software.

“Lesson 1: Pronunciation.” 6 Dec 2005. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.romanianlessons.com/Lesson1.htm>

Merriam Webster Online Dicationary. 12 September 2008. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romanian>

“Portal: Romania.” Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 3 March 2008. 24 Sept 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Romania>

Pronunciation of the Romanian Language <http://www.linguata.com/romanian/Romanian_Pronunciation.html>

Romanian Alphabet <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Romanian_alphabet>
The Purdue Owl Family of Sites. “Web Sources.” Purdue University. Sept 15, 2008. Sept 24, 2008. <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>

Romanian Vowels <//www.101languages.net/romanian/vowels.html>

“Romanian Orthography and Phonology.” 28 Dec 2004. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.unilang.org/wiki/index.php/Romanian_orthography>

The Leading Online Romanian Course <http://www.easyromanian.com/>
Romance Language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Romanian_language>

“Romanian Phrasebook, ”http://www.ravenglass.com/vlad/romania/romphrase.html> 19 Aug 1997. 3 October 2008.

“Wikijunior: Europe/Romania.” Wikibooks. 31 July 2008. 24 Sept 2008. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Europe/Romania

A Few Basic Notes on Subject-Verb Agreeement

I am ambivalent about descriptive and prescriptive grammars. When someone communicates, I am rather tolerant over subject-verb agreement and almost always consider first the intent and message that the other person wants to convey.  I amaze myself at how the person can use the language to express and be understood. O’Grady in his co-edited Contemporary Linguistics Analysis: An Introduction notes that such will not earn a scholarship but is OK at some point in modern linguistics. However, when I read from someone who uses Standard English, immediately that person earns my respect. Writing, as I had thought so before having confirmed it from an online course at Harvest Christian School International is more rigorous than spoken English. What are acceptable in spoken English like the word, gonna or the phrase, between you and I, are not in formal writing. The standard as defined by Kelly and Lee Brandon is conventional among educated people, used in school assignments, in most published writing and in most important public speaking situations; although people can shift language between formal and informal occasions. Below are what I have derived from:

• Kelly and Lee Brandon “Sentences, Paragraphs, and Beyond” 4^th ed. Houghton Mifflin Co. USA. c2005. 130-132, 159.
  
• Margaret L. Benner. “Online Writing Support: Usage-Subject-Verb Agreement” Towson University. c2008. 27 Sept 2008. http://www.towson.edu/ows/sub-verb.htm
• “The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation” cited in Jane Straus. Subject and Verb Agreement. 27 Sept 2008. http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp

Text and Work Book

1.  Do not let the agreement of subject and verb be affected by:

• words that come in between them:

-phrases (e.g. as well as)

-clauses (e.g. who went to the market)

• inversions (of word order)

2.  A singular verb agrees with:

• a singular indefinite pronoun (e.g. someone)
• a singular antecedent (e.g. the word the pronoun his refers back to)
• a collective noun that is considered as a unit (e.g. Congress)
• a title (e.g. Star Wars)
• a name of a business (e.g. Warner Bros..)
• money, distances and measurements when the individual elements are considered ($10)
• some nouns ending in –s (e.g. Economics)
• the phrase “one of those___who,” where the antecedent is usually the plural noun that follows
• the singular noun in the of-phrase (e.g. Fifty percent of the pie)

3. Take a plural verb for:

• a plural indefinite pronoun (e.g. both)
• when the nearer subject actor of compound subjects joined by nor or or is plural and closer to the verb (e.g. Neither the producer nor the actors)
• usually, two or more subjects joined by and (e.g. Sue and John)
• the nearest of two alternative subjects (e.g. Either Theresa or her children)
• some nouns that only have a plural form (e.g. scissors)
• a collective group considered as a number of individuals (e.g. Congress)
• the phrase “only one of those ___who,” where the antecedent is usually the singular word, one
• the plural object of the preposition modifying a portion (E.g. Fifty percent of the pies) 

What better way to keep pests from eating my piles and plies of notes but save and review it online?  

Achieving Emphasis and Variety

(Condensed to less than 300 words from my 4-page report.  Both teasers and guidelines use the same set of references.)

Teaser

• Place the subordinate clause before the main clause–that’s one way of emphasizing.
• Avoid stringing together a number of short independent clauses. Either connect them with subordinating connectives thereby making some depending clauses or making some clause into separate sentences.
• Eliminate unnecessary words and avoid the pile up of prepositional phrases that can make reading very difficult.
• To emphasize, deliberately repeat and do not overdo.
  
• Put the most important idea first or last, or in some conspicuous place.
• Use punctuation marks and standard text devices. These prompt the reader to give a word or sentence more than usual emphasis. On a computer, you may also find other ways of emphasizing, such as using shadow, double underline, etc. Consider the computer on which it will be read. If you are using graphics on a website, for example, it could make the reader with a slow modem give up waiting before they’ve even set eyes on it. One word causes a slight tension; a whole section amplifies and sustains this. If you use emphasis a lot, it will lose its effect and is likely to make the other person rather annoyed!! So be conservative.
• Prefer verbs to noun and verbs of action to verbs of being.
• Don’t think that the longer the sentence, the better it is. Short sentences often pack the most punch but the best essays contain a variety of sentence lengths, mixed within any given paragraph.
• Don’t use too many short sentences successively to avoid sounding choppy.
• Vary a sentence by using a question after a series of statements.
• Use a variety of sentence beginnings.

REFERENCES:

• Writing Connections: You, College and Careers by Lee Brandon c2004
• Strategies for College Writing by Jeanette Harris and Ann Moseley c2000
• The Bedford Handbook for Writers by Diana Hacker 4th Edition c1994
• Let’s Write English by Wishon and Burks c1968

Other sources (Viewed July 5, 2008 and may no longer be there):

• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/style
• http://www.erraticimpact.com/cyberedit/lf_variety.html
• http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/modifying_meaning/emphasis_writing.htm
• http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/sentences.htm
• www.owens.edu/writing/addemph.pdf
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/609/01/
• books.google.com/books?isbn=0764126903…

The last time I dialed a hotline number.

I was at church when call cards of a telecounseling service were distributed. Inside a cab, I saw a poster carrying the same hotline number. What a blessing to be in a dilemma and invited access to such a free service!

Apparently, I called the hotline. A woman I judged from her voice to be older than I was, answered the phone. As we conversed, I noticed she was leading me back to myself. It was opposite to my expectation that she would tell me what it was that I had to do. Like one of Oprah’s studio guests who talked about mirroring I saw years after, the lady acknowledged my feelings. On the phone, it was like talking aloud to myself as I tried to clear the cobwebs in my mind. As I let her trod with me, I felt like I had an invisible guide, shedding light to one path after another. It was clearer to see where each turn would lead to. I thanked the counselor profusely before I hung up.

When I dialed the hotline number again, a lad answered the phone. I was rather disappointed to hear him admit meeting and making out with his counselee; although, I was in fact the one who talked him into admitting it. I questioned the legitimacy of their service and the qualifications of people providing it, forgetting my first near-perfect encounter with a counselor.  What did I expect out of volunteer work?

Counselors were humans too who struggled, get tempted or committed mistakes.

Guidance in the Classroom Setting

Below, a quote shared to us in 2003 by our teacher of Guidance and Counseling, who introduced herself as a parent-teacher experienced with counseling the juvenile delinquents. I remembered the heartwarming smile she would readily give to our class:

GUIDANCE CREED

I believe in the essential goodness of human heart.

The student who is disciplined is merely misunderstood.

I shall strive therefore to understand my students, to befriend them, to win their confidence and trust so that I may be fit to guide them towards the good and useful life.

I believe in the subject I teach. But I believe that over and above my subject is my student. I must know him as a boy so I can make him a better man. I must understand her as a girl so I can make her fit to mother the future race.