margii shutterbugs

a rare opportunity with advocates for teacher's right,
senator allan peter cayetano and other dignified teachers

The Teachers' Dignity Coalition gave us the honor to be part of their national convention. Event collaterals, multimedia, documentations, photo/video, we were there for three days,

...in November, 2006, Beavan launched a year-long project in which he, his wife, his two-year-old daughter and his four-year-old dog

went off the grid and attempted to live in the middle of New York City with as little environmental impact as possible.

noimpactproject.org

I have always been an advocate for local language use. August is National Language Month and my favorite columnist decided to write his column the other day in Pilipino. Here you can see how a writer could easily and graphically show his true feelings using his mother tongue, more than he ever did writing in English the whole year- the reason why people should use their mother language. 

Basahin at damhin - May Araw din Kayo

In my career as a multimedia artist, I never lectured to more than 300 people. Our Toni just did it in Cebu City, in Sta Theresa College, an all girl Catholic institution that offers all levels of instruction from preparatory to college. He presented a 30 minute lecture on health and the environment, complete with flash slide.

His mom was soooo proud. Me? I felt some kind of professional jealousy. I know I should not, knowing it was me who thought of that idea in the first place. When Ma'am Irish Amores invited me to give a talk to their grade 5 and 6 pupils for the school's culminatng program for the Nutrition Month, I excitedly told her if it is possible to have instead an eleven year old boy present the lecture. She too became excited. Toni's mom remained cool, confident Toni WILL do it ... "easily", she added. 

She has her point as Toni already watched her once presenting a similar short lecture to his high school class. She was sure Toni has it in his young brain. If I could make the lecture simpler for an eleven year old to deliver and make the slide show a little livelier, hmmm, maybe it will work. With the idea and the outline that I'll make, I might even take credit for it!

But Toni grabbed all of it! The attention, the teasings, the questions, the interviews ...  it was all offered to Toni. Well, it's not that he doesn't deserve it. He actually did deserve it. His delivery was, as he put it himself, near perfect. His jokes right on target, his pauses, even his smiles and blushes! Did I tell you I was jealous?

There's one little blemish I found in his presentation, ha, ha: at the start, there was a one minute stage fright where he just stared and blushed and just stood there not knowing what to do. But realizing now, that's not a moment for me to declare victory over him. The audience felt it was cute of him to do so - to them, he became a real 11 year old boy instead of THE unreachable precocious god-angel from heaven.

Anyway, that day might be totally his. But in his whole life, I will always be his proud dad.