"Dad, how was I born?"

I have two boys who are of an age where they are curious and inquisitive. I am now half-expecting them to ask THE big question anytime soon.

How will I answer it? Should I be straight to the point and bore them with biological terms they can hardly understand? Or should I be creative and indirect by talking about the birds and the bees?

I suspect I will use the latter option above. But, how do I say it in a way my kids can relate to? I have to use words to which my sons can understand.

I did not have to wait long. I got a timely advise from my former university professor in the form of an e-mail. The language it uses is definitely something my kids can understand.

How was I born?

A little boy goes to his father and asks, 'Daddy, how was I born?'

The father answers, 'Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!

Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo.

Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.

We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.

As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall!

And since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:


Scroll down...You'll love this ..



































'You got Male!'

Vote for Efren Penaflorida as CNN Hero 2009

I have cast my vote for Efren Penaflorida, which I am proud to call my fellow Filipino, as my CNN Hero 2009. Please support Efren with your vote!

Click on the widget above and you will be led on to a CNN webpage showing all nominated heroes. Click on Efren's picture and you will be able to read on his heroic story that is very much worth reflecting on and emulating especially by our youth.

The Philippines national hero Jose Rizal described the youth as the hope of the fatherland. Efren's story makes you still believe in Rizal's words.

Turn back the clock

British Summer Time ended yesterday, which means we have turned back the clock by an hour and goes back to GMT time.

I am now used to the concept of daylight saving time (DST), popularly known in the UK as British Summer Time (BST). I now consciously turn back or move forward (in March when BST starts) all our clocks (including watches and computers) at home a few hours before it effects.

It was not always the case in the past. As a result, we have had embarrassing moments because of BST. Thankfully, as it happens on a Sunday there were only two that I can think of.

One that is still fresh in my mind happened a few years ago when our eldest son was still a baby. As it was a Sunday, we went to church. As usual, we have to rush as we are getting late. But to our amazement, we arrived at a church that was still almost empty save for some elderly parishioners. I thought to myself, this is good at least we have enough time to find a good seat.

As we are about to enter, we were greeted by the elderly parishioners. They were closing the church, they told us. Sensing our confusion, they explained that the Mass was finished a few minutes ago. And in a nice way reminded us that we should have moved our clocks forward by an hour. It was the start of BST!

How my wife and I laughed at our embarrassment as we headed to our local supermarket to buy food instead.

The other experience involved my wife. As a staff nurse, she normally works long shifts on weekends. Once, having forgotten about the time change, she went to work an hour early! As a result, it is now a joke in her ward to remind her of BST as it nears.

My first experience with DST was in 1991 in the Philippines. It was the height of a national power crisis and DST was implemented to save on power. That year, I took summer classes in UP Diliman. It was a very hot summer in Metro Manila (it usually is) and power cuts are regular. Once, I was having a shower and was about to rinse the shampoo off my hair when the scheduled power outage happened! Grrrrrrrr!

On a positive note, Philippine time is now back to 8 hours ahead of UK time. At least, I do not have to stay quite late in the night if I want to call my parents in Bohol first thing in the morning.

Time to change

Photo: BBC

The European Union as a whole uses summer (or daylight saving) time from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. The change between the two takes place at 01.00 GMT.

In October, just when you get used to it getting dark at around 5.30-6.00pm we change our clocks from following British Summer Time (BST) back to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This means it will be dark an hour earlier, and don't we all notice it! It seems as though suddenly the nights are substantially longer.

Subconsciously, many of us will feel winter has dawned. Most of us will be travelling to and from work in darkness, so perhaps it's not surprising that so many people, up to one in every 20 people, suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) during the UK's long winter days. This is a specific type of depression that experts believe is related to a lack of exposure to daylight. It affects people at the same time each year - during autumn and winter.

Read more at BBC Weather.

Peterborough's Filipino Catholics joined One Mass celebration

The small Filipino Catholic community in Peterborough contributed to the One Mass celebration held in Peterborough last July.

Graphic Tees thanked me recently for sharing the story of Filipino Catholics from the eyes of a foreigner. Then, I remembered the SMS or "text" my kumpare sent relaying to us our local parish priest's message of thanks to all Filipinos who joined the One Mass celebration held in Peterborough Cathedral.

The One Mass was held to mark the rich cultural mix of the Catholic religious community in the city. More than a thousand people of 50 different nationalities attended the celebration. In particular, the small Filipino community was asked to provide the choir. Apparently, the parish priest was impressed with our singing during a mass he celebrated for the local Filipino Catholic community a while back. Unfortunately, our family was unable to attend One Mass. Still, I was proud of the others who attended and provided some of the angelic singing during the mass.

There is a news article from the local Evening Telegraph that reported about this event, which you can read here. In the main picture, the Filipino girl holding a red and white flag is my son's classmate at his primary school.

Pardon my French

The phrase "pardon my French" is uttered or written when somebody is about to use profanity to a crowd.

I have just read the above phrase again today while reading a newspaper article. It is not the first time and I have always presumed to understand it well. I did observe the use of obscene words before or after the phrase is said.

Although correct with my observation, I don't know the reason involving the French. I did a Google search as to the origin of the phrase and found several interesting answers, all related.

Here is the answer I chose (source: Yahoo Answers), which seems to me sums up the best description as to the origin of the phrase:

This phrase, in which French refers to "bad language", is employed when the speaker feels compelled to use an obscenity despite having listeners who might be offended. It's a late 19th century euphemism which first appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1895.

It is thought that the term French is employed in this sense as it
already had a history of association with things considered vulgar.

As far back as the early 16th century, French pox and the French disease were synonyms for genital herpes, and French-sick was another term for syphillis. The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] also equates the adjective French with "spiciness", as in French letter for "condom", French kiss (1923) and French (i.e. "sexually explicit") novels (from 1749).

Filipino Catholics from the eyes of a foreigner

(I got this story through my college Yahoo group. This is a positive story about us Filipinos that I would like to share in this blog.)

Here's something very positive written by a foreigner named Steve Ray, about Filipinos. Steve Ray authored many best-selling books, among which are, Crossing The Tiber (his conversion story), Upon This Rock (on the papacy), and just recently John's Gospel (a comprehensive bible study guide and commentary).

STEVE RAY'S OPEN LETTER TO THE FILIPINO CATHOLICS:

We stepped into the church and it was old and a bit dark. Mass had just begun and we sat toward the front. We didn't know what to expect here in Istanbul , Turkey. I guess we expected it to be a somber Mass but quiet and somber it was not - I thought I heard angels joyously singing behind me..

The voices were rich, melodic and beautiful. What I discovered as I spun around to look did not surprise me because I had seen and heard the same thing in other churches around the world. It was not a choir of angels with feathered wings and halos but a group of delightful Filipino Catholics with smiles of delight and joy on their faces as they worshiped God and sang His praises. I had seen this many times before in Rome, in Israel, in the United States and other countries.

Filipinos have special traits and they are beautifully expressed as I gazed at the happy throng giving thanks to God. What are the special traits which characterize these happy people? I will share a few that I have noticed - personal observations - as I have travelled around the world, including visits to the Philippines.

FIRST, there is a sense of community, of family. These Filipino Christians did not sit apart from each other in different aisles. They sat together, closely. They didn't just sing quietly, mumbling, or simply mouthing the words. No, they raised their voices in harmony together as though they enjoyed the sense of unity and communion among them. They are family even if they are not related.

SECOND, they have an inner peace and joy which is rare in the world today. When most of the world's citizens are worried and fretful, I have found Filipinos to have joy and peace - a deep sense of God's love that overshadows them. They have problems too, and many in the Philippines have less material goods than others in the world, yet there is still a sense of happy trust in God and love of neighbour.

THIRD, there is a love for God and for his Son Jesus that is almost synonymous with the word Filipino. There is also something that Filipinos are famous for around the world - their love for the Blessed Mother. Among the many Filipinos I have met, the affectionate title for Mary I always hear from their lips is "Mama Mary." For these gentle folks Mary is not just a theological idea, a historical person, or a statue in a church - Mary is the mother of their Lord and their mother as well, their "mama."

The Philippines is a Catholic nation - the only such nation in Asia - and this wonderful country exports missionaries around the world. They are not hired to be missionaries, not official workers of the church. No, they are workers and educators, doctors, nurses and housekeepers that go to other lands and travel to the far reaches of the earth, and everywhere they go they take the joyous gospel of Jesus with them. They make a somber Mass joyful when they burst into song. They convict the pagan of sin as they always keep the love of Jesus and the Eucharist central in their lives.

My hope and prayer, while I am here in the Philippines sharing my conversion story from Baptist Protestant to Roman Catholic, is that the Filipino people will continue to keep these precious qualities. I pray that they will continue loving their families, loving the Catholic Church, reading the Bible, loving Jesus, His Mother and the Eucharist. As many other religions and sects try to persuade them to leave the Church, may God give them wisdom to defend the Catholic faith. As the world tempts them to sin and seek only money and fame and power, may God grant them the serenity to always remember that obedience to Christ and love for God is far more important than all the riches the world can offer.

May the wonderful Filipino people continue to be a light of the Gospel to the whole world!

Giraffes 3 and 4

I submitted 2 more giraffes for the One Million Giraffes project last Monday morning, making it a total of 4 giraffes we contributed so far.

I've gone primitive on giraffe no. 3, which I made out of pebbles from our garden.


Cean created giraffe no. 4 out of Lego bricks, another of his favourite playthings.


I will talk more on these giraffes on a later post.

Story behind Sunday's giraffes

The two giraffes we submitted for the One Million Giraffes project last Sunday was a family effort by me and my sons.

We brainstormed a bit before we created the giraffes. I wanted them to make some drawings to submit to the project.

But the boys have other ideas. Cean wanted his giraffe created out of his Hot Wheels toy cars. He did not agree to some of my ideas on how it will look like, so the giraffe I submitted last Sunday was all Cean's effort.

Here is a photo of Cean proudly standing beside his obra maestra.


The giraffe I created out of bowling pins was for my younger son. He didn't want to participate as he was busy playing with his bowling pins at that time.

I convinced him to let me borrow the pins for awhile to create a giraffe for him. After I finished and took a photo for the project, JP was eagerly waiting to bowl it. But before that, I took a picture of him beside the giraffe.


It was great fun creating the giraffes with my boys. And we plan to create some more for the project.

One million giraffes

OneMillionGiraffes.com aims to collect one million giraffes by 2011.

It started out as a challenge between two friends, that one of them can collect one million giraffes in two years time. The giraffes can be created in any way except from a computer or store bought objects like stuffed toys.

I knew about this site through BBC Click last Saturday. It seems fun and interesting especially for the kids. This is an opportune time since it's summer where you need to come up with something interesting to occupy their time.

I encourage my older son to draw a giraffe so we can send it. He didn't, instead, created one out of his toy cars. Of course, why didn't I think of that? He's crazy about his toy cars.

Here is the giraffe he made, which we submitted to the site yesterday.



I created a giraffe from my younger son's bowling pins. I asked him to do it himself but would not. He had fun bowling it though, after I took a picture to send to the site.



There are two rules to the One Million Giraffes project:

1. You have to tell your friends about this project (otherwise it won't work)
2. Your giraffe(s) can be created in any way and form, but not on a computer.

I've been faithful to both rules. I have already told my friends in Facebook yesterday. I wrote this post so that you will know; later, I'll post a link to my Friendster account. My high school Yahoo group will be able to read this post later on.

I've submitted two giraffes yesterday. I have just send another two but it was not accepted yet.

Why don't you join and support this project? It's all for fun especially for the children.