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<DIV>Thank you, Jaime. Beautiful piece, as usual. I'll miss your columns. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Did you get all the maps you need?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Blessings,</DIV>
<DIV>Jann McGuire</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 12/27/2012 12:20:03 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
svesjaime@aol.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial><FONT
color=black size=3 face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><FONT size=3>Our last
Saipan Tribune OpEd.</FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=3><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the
bend.<BR></FONT><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both; FONT-SIZE: 16px">j'aime la vie
<DIV style="COLOR: black"><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: white"><FONT color=#000080><B>Yesterday,
appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,
Celebrate!</B></FONT></I></DIV></DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV
style="FONT-FAMILY: helvetica, arial; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">-----Original
Message-----<BR>From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031@aol.com><BR>To:
jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera@saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago
<mark_rabago@saipantribune.com>; editor
<editor@saipantribune.com><BR>Sent: Thu, Dec 27, 2012 12:29
pm<BR>Subject: Last OpEd from Jaime<BR><BR>
<DIV id=AOLMsgPart_1_45d6c457-c2cf-4085-a3e1-4db21346b13c><FONT color=black
size=4 face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>Editorial,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>Here it is, the last one, for December
31.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><B><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></B></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><B><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></B></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal><B>The Way We Are</B></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>Whitney Houston's </FONT><I
style="FONT-SIZE: 18px">One Moment in Time </I><FONT size=4>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 18px">It was a marvelous
t</SPAN><FONT size=4>hree-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!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>This is our last reflection as a
regular opinion writer for the <I>Saipan Tribune.</I> 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.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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!</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 18px">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 </SPAN><FONT size=4>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>The class is only too polite to
ask why the crazy <I>(shen jing ping) </I>teacher does this regular
routine.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>"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.)</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>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!</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 18px" class=MsoNormal>Thanks, y'all.</DIV><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both; FONT-SIZE: 18px"><A
style="FONT: lighter 10px Verdana, Arial; COLOR: #000000"><IMG border=0
align=absMiddle
src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></A> <FONT
color=black size=2 face=arial>j'aime la vie
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I><FONT class=Apple-style-span color=#ff0000><B>Yesterday, appreciate;
tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In
all, </B></FONT></I></DIV>
<DIV><I><FONT class=Apple-style-span
color=#ff0000><B>Celebrate!</B></FONT></I></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV><!-- end of AOLMsgPart_1_45d6c457-c2cf-4085-a3e1-4db21346b13c --></DIV></DIV></FONT><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>OE
mailing
list<BR>OE@lists.wedgeblade.net<BR>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>