Book Series: SENIOR MOMENTS ARE FOREVER

4th Moment: Training, book marketing, daughters and pets

Education vs. Training: I remember a training workshop where I asked the participants the difference between development and progress. One sleepy participant answered; “development means to develop and progress means to progress!” Asked what the difference between education and training is, the same participant proudly claimed, “development is DepEd while training is TESDA”. I declared a recess before the workshop turned into a riot. -------------------------------- Culture vs. Values: In one tri-people workshop I conducted in my peace and development project in Mindanao the topic was interfaith tolerance. I asked the participants what the difference between culture and value is. One participant gave a structural answer: Culture is like raising pigs in pig pens, while value is when the pigs don’t have cages but allowed to roam around the village disturbing the neighborhood. ------------------------------- Book publishing: In my periods of lunacy I plan to publish this book so I can become a multi-millionaire and put up a social media company that I will call BB or ButtBook! All of my present BFF in FB will be invited into a lifetime of posting for free. I hope I can make a fortune with from advertisers who hate FB. ------------------------------- Book marketing: Aside from writing a book on how to deal with post-trauma experience, I also did a social research. I conducted a study on how many of my FB Friends like me, how many are just laughing at me, and how many just read my posts and do care. I planned to use the result in deciding what to do with each of them. But I was planning to block those who are just laughing at me. Joke only! I was doing a marketing strategy for this book through Facebook. --------------------------------- Favorite subject: When I took my 2-year technical-vocational education course my favorite subject was Spanish. But I was not the favorite of our teacher. One time our subject was syllabication. Our teacher was asking the class how many syllables there are in the word LEON. Some say UNO sylaba, some say DOS sylaba. I was not sure of the answer when she called me, so I stood up and answered;” Ma’am, UNA Y MEDIA!” That was the first of two instances she asked me to step out of her class. The second was when our topic was in translation. She was asking the class the Spanish word for thunder. Nobody was raising their hands. Then she called my name: “Senior Baldemor!” I stood up and with all the confidence in my voice I shouted: “CARAMBA!” Out I went, but at least this time she used my term: “Get out Senior CARAMBA!” --------------------------------- Of Daughters and Pets: How time changes. When I was a boy, I had a dog I called Jack. When he died of old age, I cried but just buried it in our backyard. Lately my youngest daughter had a pet dog she named Poche. When it got sick it was hospitalized but was not saved. My daughter cried for one week, she called me overseas just to tell me her sorrow. She would not stop until I told her to stop and cautioned her that she might not cry like it when I die. She stopped. She bought a wooden box, decorated it with ribbons and made it the dog’s coffin, then she and her friends had a funeral of three cars and buried it in our vacant subdivision lot with a wooden tombstone complete with epitaph that read: here lies Poche, sorry she died young! The following day policemen were all over the place inquiring from people about the funeral. -------------------------------- My eldest daughter, who lives alone in her condo unit in Manila is not fond of cooking – well, she does not know how to cook. My constant prodding was not enough; her alibi is no time and no tools. So, I bought her a cooking appliance that can be used to cook anything. She was forced to and learned it the hard way. Most of her first menu was without salt or vinegar – her alibi is they are not in the recipe!

But at least she learned how to buy cooking stuff – her cupboard has been turned into stockroom of a grocery that she doesn’t use! ------------------------------- More on Ukay-ukay: And you think that Ukay-ukay is only here in the Philippines? My favorite leather travelling bag and leather driving shoes were bought from Ukay-ukay stores in Liberia, West Africa! Ukay-ukay is a global industry where old items from rich countries are shipped to third world nations to be given to the poor but are sold for profit by well-connected entrepreneurs!