[Oe List ...] Fwd: Last OpEd from Jaime

Thu Dec 27 15:50:54 PST 2012

Jann, (an anyone else in this listserv within US mailing distance) -

There were three good responses to my previous request who sent me something in the mail to my Honolulu address.  I will visit my Mom the last week of January, so if you still have maps, send them to me at:

Jaime Vergara
91 2059 Pahuhu Pl
Ewa Beach HI 96706

Thanks, y'all!

j'aime la vie

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

-----Original Message-----
From: LAURELCG <LAURELCG at aol.com>
To: oe <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Fri, Dec 28, 2012 3:18 am
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Fwd: Last OpEd from Jaime

Thank you, Jaime. Beautiful piece, as usual. I'll miss your columns. 

Did you get all the maps you need?

Blessings,
Jann McGuire

In a message dated 12/27/2012 12:20:03 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, svesjaime at aol.com writes:
Our last   Saipan Tribune OpEd.   

The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the   bend.

j'aime la vie   

Yesterday,   appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,   Celebrate!

-----Original   Message-----
From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To:   jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago   <mark_rabago at saipantribune.com>; editor   <editor at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Thu, Dec 27, 2012 12:29   pm
Subject: Last OpEd from Jaime

Editorial,

Here it is, the last one, for December   31.

The Way We Are

Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time was our song with   40-some graduate aggies lassoed to apply their learned skills in watershed   resource management projects in three Visayan provinces in the Philippines in   the late 80s.  We caught the spirit of the song from the 1988 Seoul   Summer Olympics.

The song solidified the groups   resolve to expend their individual and corporate lives on a task perceived   critical to devastated upland agriculture, deforested tropical hills and   plains, overly chemical-laden fields, and depleted mangrove and nearshore   fisheries.  

It was a marvelous   three-year intervention, our city shoes trekking through   island interiors.  We even had the staff of one site sue us in court for   falling short on our vaunted support promises.  We trained them too well.    I was in agreement with the suit brought against me since I was the   President of the sponsoring NGO for the projects.  I moved back to the US   before the case was resolved.  I found out later that our charity   foundation lost, and I was not too unhappy!

This is our last reflection as a   regular opinion writer for the Saipan Tribune.  We shall not make   the "thank you" to the publisher, staff, and readers, a long process.  We   did have a special niche for Ruth Tighe's brand of social commentaries.    We consign our literary output, as is, into history, in her name.

We shared on the day before   Christmas our curriculum vitae from womb-to-tomb.  Not your regular CV,   we took the "one moment in time" metaphor to describe a lifetime - in our   case, all 86 years of it - charted in five life stages, projected as witness   to our description of every human soul that comes into this earth.  "I   am, like each of us, one, unique, unrepeatable gift of life into human   history.  There has never been one like me before, and there will never   be another one like me ever again."  That whole but single journey is my   one moment in time!

Most of our university classrooms   are designed for lecture deliveries, and students expect that format in all   their classes.  When they come to mine, where pedagogy follows the "kill   the teacher" motif in order to make the classroom a student-centered affair,   they encounter structured time/space/role/story sessions where students meet   themselves ("its a pleasure to meet me"), bump into their classmates "again   for the first time", get mentally and gracefully assaulted by a teacher, and   gnawed at their awareness by printed speeches and writings of prominent   persons. 

Maps plastered against the walls   broaden perspectives.  Aired songs engage the neglected receptacle of   hearing and listening, and repeating.  We go for the ease and comfort of   sounds becoming familiar before we divert attention to words seen, then seek   out how they are used.  We let students read out loud what others had   written before we invite them to write their own.  Many encounters occur   at many levels of consciousness.

One of the rituals I go through   before each start of the class, after chairs and desks are rearranged so that   the focus is on the center of the room while clusters of four students are   around one of eight or nine squared tables, is to put on a table cloth on a   single desk in the middle of the room.  

The cloth is a scarf not   unlike what Yasser Arafat's Palestinian head wore.  I place a broken   coffee cup at the center with rice strewn around it in a circle.  The   cup's broken handle and rim chip are added, with shards of very old pagoda   tiles mixed in.  A Chinese hand fan leans   against the chipped lip of the cup.  A couple of whole walnuts sit atop   the rice while local conch shells from Bo Hai guard the sides.    Chopsticks stay by their lonesome at the edge.  Once in a while, a   paper rose protrudes from the cup.

The class is only too polite to   ask why the crazy (shen jing ping) teacher does this regular   routine.

At the end of the semester, I   finally talk about the centerpiece.  "The decor is not to make the room   more beautiful", I say.  It is an artform to represent who I am and how I   live.  It is way of telling my story.

I am like the broken cup, well   crafted but fragile.  In this case, broken.  The rice looks inviting   but it is useless unless it is cooked.  That entails heat.  The   intricate shell takes a lot of mullusk saliva to create but the cask is   casually cast away after the content is consumed.  The fan reveals how   unfair life is.  The Chinese worker who makes it gets paid a minuscule   amount for time and talent compared to what Korean, German, and Japanese   counterparts make to assemble electronics.  The walnut has to be cracked   to be of any good to anyone.  After 6 decades, I have to learn to use a   chopstick to survive.  On top of it all, sometimes a fake rose gets to   preside.

"That pretty much tells the story   of my life," I say.  But it is the only life I have.  I can live it,   or throw it away.  (Then it dawns on the class where my listen-repeat   start of each session comes from.)

So, for the last time, the class   repeats after me: "This is the day we have.  We can live this day, or   throw it away.  This is the day we have."  It's the way we are!

Thanks, y'all.

 j'aime la vie   

Yesterday, appreciate;   tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate.  In   all, 

Celebrate!

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