When the sheep goes black: World of a rebelling teen

          Teen rebellion is a problem that has been around ever since an individual is reaching its puberty stage. Almost every teen goes through some rebellious stage in or after certain years of puberty. Sometimes they are the one who are doing mistakes without thinking many times and they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Being dishonest, going late because of a party, going anywhere just to have a cutting class, being with someone, girlfriend or boyfriend just to have a one night stand with them, turning to teenage pregnancy and being a teenage mother and being disrespectful to his/her parents are some of the major signs of a teen having a rebellious act.

             Not all teenagers are doing those said signs or rather possess those signs. There are some teens that are good and being respectful to their parents. They are also a follower not only to their parents but also a follower of God. They are the one who follows the rules and the right path. They didn’t know how to disobey their parents in all the aspects of their life since they were a kid. Often, they are also called a child of Christ or a good child of his/her parents not only because they are kind, but they possess the right attitude at the same time, making their parents proud to them. In addition to that, a good teen like them has the ability of being sweet to their parents, so it turns out that they gain more money for their allowance even if they’re not expecting it.

             There are good influences that a good teen has the power to give. Teenager that follows or obeys the rules and going straight to the right path has the right to be loved, in terms of school they may excel and perform well on the class, they gain a lot of friends, get a good grades and most especially they are more loved and cherished by their parents. Opposite of that, a teenager who does not follow the right path may lead to the occurrences of their wrong doings and habits that a teenager should not possess. They are often called “black sheep” of the family. Because they possess a kind of attitude that was also different from their other siblings. Mostly, having a “lack of attention” that is given to them is one of the cause on why do they rebel against their parents.

             Teenager rebels not only because of having lack of attention given to them by their parents but also because they are always hurt physically, mentally and emotionally. These factors may also be a cause on why a teen is having a low self-esteem or self-confidence.  A lot of our self-image is based on interactions we have with other people and our life experiences. They are more often scolded by their parents and some people around them like their professors on the university because of some reasons. They are also bullied by their classmates on school maybe because of their appearance and because of their behaviour outside their home. Teenagers who possess those signs stated must be treated equally and normally like the other teens and like his/her other siblings that they have. They should also be more loves and more given importance because they may be the one who’ll pursue the dreams of their family.

             Being a teen when we reach our puberty and adolescence is not so easy. Adolescence is the period between puberty and adulthood. It can be characterized by two main trends. There are times that we’ll experience different and a lot of things that happened to our body physically, because we are experiencing monthly period for women, mentally and emotionally because as a teen we learn how to love the people on the opposite sex. Being a teen is also being the hope of the nation, we have our role in building our nation, not only building our big dreams but also building ourselves, our buddies, family and our friends. Teenage rebellion is not the solution to fix our problem. It only wastes the time of our lives when we do rebel to people around us. So let’s just start improving ourselves, let’s start the change on ourselves and let a teen be an inspiration not only to their teen mates but also to other people. There’s no such real thing as black sheep. But there are individuals who make themselves black, being different to others.

Real Life Enthusiast

          “In school, we must learn the lesson first before taking the test. But in life, we must take the test first then learn the lesson.” That’s right. Because we cannot survive and pass the exam if we did not listen to the teacher’s lesson. And we cannot survive life if we did not take the test. We should learn how to make each and every day of us great, because every day is full of tasks and every day is a surprise. We do not know what situation will going to happen next. Yet we must fall down and learn how to survive. This was the personal profile of one of my good classmates. She is a leader-type of person I really knew. She’s a great leader. But even if she says that if she’s given a task then she cannot meet the standards of those tasks, I actually do not believe that she can’t, because I believe she can do those tasks if she kept on doing and trying. It’s quite difficult to understand but I believe she would. Actually, she’s the former president of our good class. She’s great in terms of leadership. So, guess who is she?

          She was a 4^th year high school student when she rode on Star City ride, which was her first time. The Starflyer and Surf Dance, which I also considered as quite wild and “nakakahilo” to ride on. She said that, “It was scary pero challenging”. As what I’ve seen, she overcomes that scariest part of her life. She’s not that scared too much, when the time comes that she would want to ride on Starflyer and Surf Dance.

          The silliest moment of her life happened when she was still a high school student. She was also a 4^th year student that time when she has done this silliest part. It was her and her classmates who bullied their CAT adviser because it was being biased to them. They removed the muffler (or “tambutso” in tagalog term) of the motor vehicle of their adviser. As a result, they have the consequence of detention for a period of time because of what they’ve done. She had many silly moments but she chose this one to share on me.

          “Never get discouraged when things go beyond your expectations. Always remember that the greatest glory in life is never falling...but rising every time you fall.” If there was an assigned task to do, she feels down most especially when the said task is quite difficult. There are times that she cannot meet the standards that people around was expecting her to do. This situation happened during her college days, in their organization which is CMAS. Every time that she could not comply with the standards, she feels disappointed to herself and at the same time she feels like having a low self-esteem. Although she feels discouraged sometimes, she still managed to stand every time she falls.

          “When one door of happiness closes, another door opens...but often we look so long at the closed door that we don’t see the one which has been opened for us." Year 2008, when her 47-year old mother was diagnosed having a breast cancer. Particularly, she and their whole family felt sad when they knew the news. It was some kind of a heartbreaking news when you knew that your loved one especially your mother, is suffering a disease that may cause to have a short life to live. Her mother undergoes chemotherapy after they knew that it has a cancer. But as the saying stated above goes, another door opens for her and their whole family. After years that have been passed when her mom was diagnosed. For the following time, they found out that her mother survived its disease. Recently, her mom is still surviving cancer for five years. It only needs to have a check-up for its maintenance. In addition to, her high school friends/barkada also fulfilled her happiness. Another one is that, she is an athlete for table tennis of their school then they won most of the championship games during different competition. They were all proud on each other and at the same time they are proud to themselves because they gave each other’s best to play the game.

          “There’s no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.” To reach our goals is a relief, that we did our best by not engaging with wrong doings and keeping ourselves on the right path. As a student, her goal is to finish her studies and to graduate at the right time. In five years, She dreamed to have a job that will establish her skills and mostly on what she learned during her school days. After that, she also aspires to go on other country, not for the sake of having a great job there, but for pleasure. Other than that, she wants to go Korea, Japan and Europe including their family and her mom. She also wants to join in an organization for advocacy against any issues like violence against women and animal cruelty. That’s all for her goal in five years. I can see that there’s no harm on dreaming, as long as you’re not just sitting on a chair, waiting for your dreams to come true.

          Let’s encourage one another as we seek to stay in track. If we keep our goals before us, we will not be looking back. In life, there are five balls to juggle—Family, Friends, Health, Work and Spiritual Life. Only Work is made of rubber, the rest are made of glass. So, don’t drop them. Life is not a matter of extent but it’s a matter of content.

          This was a feature story of our good classmate, Ria Elizabeth Langi. She is an 18 year old woman, studying Communication Research at Polytechnic University of the Philippines and an aspiring person to reach her goals in life.

Leaves among the rest

Why do leaves change color? It's one of those questions. Like, why is the emotion of a person change? And like the question, why is the sky blue? So let's answer the question. Every human has an emotion of happiness, madness, guilt, doubt, sadness, etc. Ask yourself now if you possess those kind of emotion. If not, then you’re not a normal human being. Think of it, “No man is an island”, he need a person to lean on. He’s afraid of being alone on the corner, thinking of what would be the next situation that will going to happen.

Articles may not only be intended literally, but also emotionally. We knew that every person has their own strengths and weaknessess, some are jolly, some are shy. Some are always happy, others are sad. Some are good thinkers, while others are not. But somehow do we think of the reason why the negative side occur? Maybe because the people was hurt by someone, some times its because they need more attention. And sometimes, they need more love, care and affection. Those are some of the reasons why people change, like the color of the leaves. It changes when the time comes that they’re tired of making themselves attached to the branch, so it become dry and will fell down out of the tree, and when they fell we see it on a brownish color. Like some person that changes when they are tired physically, emotionally and socially.

However, in a real literal type, trees survive the rainy season, deciduous trees need to store nutrients in their roots, which means they must absorb the nutrients in their leaves which serves as the human to their world. The changes in the color that we see on the leaves are triggered as the trees absorb essential nutrients. “Plant growth can have a considerable effect on the climate,” there are several ways in which plants can alter the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. They use energy from the sun to draw down carbon dioxide using it to create the carbohydrates they need to grow. Those are the real changes that happens on a person and its environment. Considering that if there’s no emotion, there’s also no individual. And having no leaves, is also having no trees.

Crowning Glorifier

Have you ever wonder why the thing that we called “tanzan” is called crown cap in english? You may not be, because it was just a little thing found on beer or soft drink bottles. Maybe because the shape of tanzan is circular then it has a pointed edges like a crown of a queen or king. Have you also ever think of who owns that real kind of crown? He gives us glory and wisdom not only every time we need it but always, without asking His permission. It was God, He has all the right to give us what we should deserve to have.

He has plans for all of us, and those plans are really alloted for us to have if we learn to wait. Maybe some of us have asked Him on why some certain situation happen to us? Which we are not expecting that it would happen. We should not asked those kind of question to God because there’s no such reason to blame Him and put all the burdens on Him. “Everything happens for a reason”, believe it or not, every situation has its own time, place where it would happen. So, there’s a meaning why God given us the time place and a person in each situation. It will never happen for no reason at all.

Literally speaking, some inventions appears small at the first glance, such in the case of crown cap. God is the real King to all of us and He has the right to wear the crown. If we put a closer look, it proves that a simple device can have a revolutionary impact. It was God who has a big impact to all of us people. He is the crown that glorifies us on every situation we have, and we will be having Him on our entire life.

Stick with it: Meat, Banana, Camote and others

Sticking stick. Like Barbecue stick, Banana and Camote. All of those are foods that we eat on merienda or dinner. But why would it be so radical to use wood — and nothing else — for barbecue? We all knew that Barbecue is a real meat, and people say it’s always possible to smoke the real way in the city. “It’s not impossible. There is a lot of regulations, but you can do it.”

Unlike those other sticks that were used to make barbecue, wood is the best tool to use. Wood is often on making barbecue products. Those behind so many contemporary barbecue restaurants, particulary in big cities like Manila, they use charcoal putted on a grilling pan. It taste like an imported meat in an old city. It’s like a province when we smell a grilled meat. It smells not fishy but it smells great that makes us crave for another one and encourages us to eat more meat.

Eating more meat and food on stick is not too bad. It is also not dirty to use wood on making barbecue, banana cue and camote cue. So we should not act like a sosy person because there’s no need, especially if the food is cooked clean and right. We should be observant on what food we’ll going to eat. Be wise and make sure that those foods are healthy and make us energized when we ate that. In grilling barbecues, we should maintain the cleanliness of the grilling pan and enhanced ovens for better cooking. And to turn out a good product, we should reach the depth of flavor of wood-only cooking strategy.

Small but terrible: A great citrus fruit to know and grow

Have you ever experience drinking the different flavors of juice? The apple juice, orange juice, mango juice, avocado juice, guyabano juice and some other flavor of juices. Mostly, there are many types and flavors of juices nowadays, some juices and also shake comes to an exotic flavor like amplaya, durian and many other exotic flavors. Sometimes it’s from the unexpected, where the juices came from. On the other hand, have you ever drink a juice that comes from a bearing fruit that was small but terrible? It’s called Calamansi juice.

I know you have try it not less than three times on your entire life. Calamansi is as sour as some of the life of Calamansi juice drinkers. At first, Calamansi is green in color and most of us people starts the day on a good mood and also starts their day with a smile and colorful as the color of the Calamansi when it grew. Growers see the Calamansi as a tiny decorative oranges, and mostly it’s a kind of fruit that is ornamental. There was a trivia that when you plant a tree of Calamansi, these trees are problem free and so easy to plant and cultivate both the indoors and outdoors. Literally they thrive inside the house in containers, as well as planted in the ground in tropical areas and zones with occasional mild frosts.

When it comes to our emotions, we are the Calamansi type of person because we are able to cope up to sour moments of our life after we finish the sweetest part of it. We are still able to survive any challenges and obstacles we encounter on our life even if it is on a good situation nor bad situation. Although the feeling is bad because you are hurt or you are feeling down or whatever painful situation you have, always remember that drinking Calamansi juice can cast away your problem, emotionally and physically. These fruit has several medicinal uses. It can be a good source of cure physically, treatment to itchy scalp, to heal insect bites, remove freckles, clear up acne and pimples and deodorize underarms. It is also a popular home remedy for cough. In addition to these, maids and mothers are awed by its power to remove heavy stains on fabrics as a substitute on bleach that we often bought on stores.

Happy, Healthy and Long-live

“I hate green leafy vegetables mom”, that was the phrase that children used to say, rather the younger age used to say when they will be having lunch or dinner including vegetables on their plate. It is not considered as a good stuff there. I think that kids nowadays should eat more fruits and vegetables instead of eating too much junk foods. Our grandmother used to cook “Tinolang Manok” since we’re just a kid and up to the present. I want it to have more “Malunggay leaves”. The good thing is that it was a source of some added vitamins and energy that we need to do our daily tasks wisely. But still it was just like nothing happens when we eat malunggay because it has no taste. Before, we considered it just as green leafy veggie.

We all knew that eating the right kind of food like fruits and vegetables makes our body healthy, most especially our digestive system. Malunggay is also considered as “body sweepers” because they contain a lot of fibers which taken into our system that makes our body clean. Even though these kind of leaf is considered healthy, on the first place, kids do not really like to eat a lot of it, they think that eating too much veggie could kill them. However, some kids and most likely toddlers have their taste on eating these kind of vegetable, because at those age, they have the ability to eat soft food particles that was easily dissolved into substance although they have no complete teeth to chew the food well. Some children are amazing because in terms of food, they are not choosy on what they want to eat.

Malunggay, known as Moringa Oleifera, is a popular plant known for nutritional value as well as a herbal medicine. Malunggay is commonly and widely used as vegetable ingredient in cooking, as herbal medicine for a number of illness and other practical uses and mostly our grandmother helps us to cure illness when it comes to their grandchild because the want to protect us. The Malunggay plant can grow to as high as 9 meters with erect white trunks as I see through our owned malunggay tree outside our house. It also has white fragrant flowers that produces long pods with 3-angled winged seeds. It has been used as herbal medicine in many cultures for hundreds of years, Malunggay is known as a very nutritious plant where it is used to avoid malnutrition in third world countries like our country Philipines, especially for infants and nursing mothers.