For me, the best tasting Kropek was cooked with palm oil. Compared to the ones cooked with canola oil and butter, the Kropek cooked with palm oil had a better taste. The one cooked with canola tasted a bit bland while the one with butter was just bad. One thing I noticed was that Kropek cooked with butter was hard meaning it was a bit uncooked. I think this shows that Kropek is cooked best with oil.
I think those foods are weird because it is something we don’t usually see or eat. I myself have never seen tuna eye before and I do not plan on trying it, but I think that one of those foods is not that unusual because I usually eat it and this is durian. Every time I go back to Singapore, I make sure that I eat durian because I rarely find it here in the Philippines.
For me, food is something that enables us to carry out our daily routines. It gives us energy and essential nutrients and without it we wouldn’t be able to do what we love doing.
Normal food is something that is commonly eaten by people, while food that isn’t normal is the exact opposite and is something that isn’t commonly eaten by people. Although this is what I think, for other people what is uncommon can be something common for them. For example, tuna eye may be weird for me, but for people in Japan they see it as a local delicacy. This is also for durian. My siblings find durian weird and something they wouldn’t eat, but for me I would eat it anytime of the day because it is something that I consider as normal food.
5 weirdest food:
1.) Cow testicles
2.) Silkworm
3.) Sea snake
4.) Balut
5.) Pig’s heart
Last December 7, 2011, our group had a video conference with students from St. Joseph school in Lebanon and I must say, the video conference turned out to be a great learning experience. The most important learning that I had was that despite coming from a place that is so different from the Philippines, the students from Lebanon weren’t so different from us. Christmas played a special part in their lives as they too celebrated this. Aside from this they also had community service wherein they are able to share their faith to their fellow brothers and sisters. During these outreach activities, one of them mentioned how they were able to teach kids about the Bible and it isn’t so different from what students from Xavier do as we have a club called YCLC wherein they engage in religious activities.
This video conference really opened my eyes to the power of faith and religion. Despite coming from two very different places, there weren’t really much differences with both schools. This helped me in seeing how faith is able to join people together as a community without having to judge others based on different external factors.
The VC that we had with St. Joseph was very enthralling as both students from Xavier and St. Joseph’s gave very insightful answers as well as very good questions. At the beginning of the video conference, everything was proceeding smoothly as there were no technical difficulties in establishing a connection with St. Joseph’s. Although this was the case, at some points the group wasn’t able to clearly hear the questions and answers of the students from St. Joseph’s. This made it hard for us to understand what they were trying to say, but thankfully Mr. Agtarap was able to understand a bit of what they were saying so he was able to tell us what the question was. For me what wrong was that I didn’t really ask that much questions as well as answer the questions that the students from St. Joseph’s gave. This is definitely something that I have to improve in as the video conference is for us to be able to ask and share our ideas and thoughts with people from different countries around the world. Despite this, I felt that the video conference really opened my eyes to the similarities that we have with people from other countries.
The 3 most relevant lessons/topics in CLE during the first semester would be the epistemological world views, reading the Bible as literature and also social injustice.
The 2 most important skills developed through the sessions/assignments are first, looking at different statements/ideas/beliefs and analyzing these by using the epistemological world views. The second would be being more aware of the things that I share with others as what I think is right might not be seen as good for others. They might be insulted by the things that I say.
The most significant insight from my first semester CLE experience would be on social injustice and a great lesson I learned was that the poor are not poor because they are lazy, but rather they are poor because of the lack of opportunities presented to them. We often think that these people begging or selling stuff in the streets are poor because they are lazy, but we don’t take into mind that it is because they weren’t presented with the opportunities in life that we have. This is something that all of us have to learn because all of us are made equal. Sometimes we come to think that because of our social class, the people out there that are living in poverty are less important than us, but that is something that we should remove from our minds.
1.) When I stabbed myself with a pencil when I was around 4-5 years old: I honestly don’t know what was wrong with me as looking back when I was at that age, it wasn’t a pretty good idea to stab myself with a pencil. All I remember was that I had a very sharp pencil in my hand and without knowing what I was doing I stabbed my shoulder with that very sharp pencil and the rest was just a blur. (Level of pain: 6)
2.) When I hit my lips on a table and there was a hole in my mouth, so I needed stitches: I was at home in the tv room and I was trying to balance on a chair when suddenly I fall off and hit my lips on the table. My lips felt numb after and I went to the bathroom to check what was that weird numb feeling on my lips. When I checked my lips, there was a small hole inside so I needed to go to the hospital to get some stitches. (Level of pain: 2)
3.) When I fell off my bike and needed stitches on my knee: I clearly remembered this day. I went out with my brothers and we rode our bikes around our village. When we were going back to the house my bike got caught on something and I lost my balance and fell off my bike and landed on my knee. I must have fallen pretty hard on my knee to have required stitches. (Level of pain: 4)
4.) When my PS3 died so all my files were erased: I love playing the PS3 and one day when I tried to turn on my PS3, it suddenly made this weird sound. I kept on trying to turn it on, but each time I tried to turn it on, it would just make that weird sound. My dad sent the PS3 to be repaired and the day that the PS3 came back was a great day for me, or so I thought. Before giving back the PS3, my dad told me that all my files were erased. It was like my heart got ripped off from my chest and it was a really bad day for me. (Level of pain: 6)
5.) When I was going out of the house to the garden and I thought the screen door was open so I started running towards the garden, but then the screen door was actually closed so my face hit the screen door and both my nose started to bleed. I fell down and there were actually parents behind me and I could hear them laughing. (Level of pain: 7)
Why does the Christian faith encourage solidarity with the poor and the marginalized?
When I went through the key principles of catholic social teaching, while keeping in mind this question that I chose, the principle that I chose to be very helpful in understanding this question in solidarity. I chose solidarity because basically, solidarity means unity or agreement among individuals and I believe that just because some people are described as poor does not make them any less different from us. According to this key principle of catholic social teaching, we are one human family, whatever differences we may have and yes we can see that between the well off people and the poor, there is a clear difference, but that doesn’t mean that the poor are of a lower class than us. We are thought to love our neighbors and the poor are also counted as our neighbor and that is why the Christian faith encourages solidarity with the poor and marginalized, mainly because the poor are also children of God and in God’s eyes we are all equal so we too should treat the poor and marginalized like family and with respect. But even when I say this, we must face reality and in real life it is something that isn’t easy to do because I think that well off people are not used to interacting with people living in poor areas of the country, but despite this this is something that isn’t impossible and if people find inside themselves the heart to treat the poor as equals and not as individuals that are of lower position, then I believe that we can all call ourselves one big family.
This experience has really opened my eyes to what the employees of SM go through everyday. When I walk to the canteen I see some employees just staying and sitting along the hallway and maybe its just because of the renovations, but I really feel that the employees deserve a better resting area. The canteens don’t even have fans and it’s really hot there so they should really place some fans for the employees. The experience has showed me how hard the employees work because it’s not an easy job being a bagger. Even those jobs in the meat section, vegetable area, and fruit areas aren’t easy so I’ve learned to really appreciate the amount of work the employees put in everyday. I also really feel that the customers shouldn’t always complain sometimes when it comes to the no plastics day because if they can spend thousands of pesos on stuff, why can’t they just pay 3.50 pesos per plastic bag.
I was also sad to hear that the employees only get short-term contracts and they can’t work at SM for a year after working at SM. It’s really sad hearing this because after 5 months they’ll have to search for another job and it really doesn’t offer them any job security. Hearing this, I wish them all the best.
I really felt nervous during the first day before i started bagging. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I could only think of what to do if ever I screwed up and at one point, I was really afraid. When our teacher asked one of us to go to the senior citizen lane, none of us wanted to go because we heard that the senior citizens are really strict when it comes to bagging so I didn’t volunteer to go to that area. I was assigned to lane 27 and the cashier there was really nice. When the first customer appeared, I didn’t have to use a plastic bag because he brought a bag for the stuff he bought to be placed. It was no plastics day so I guess the customer was prepared for it. I looked at the stuff that he bought and tried to think of where to place each. At first I was nervous while placing the stuff he bought in his bag, but after awhile the nervousness started to disappear as the supervisor was telling me that I was doing a good job. When I finished placing each stuff the customer bought in the bag, I told myself that this is pretty fun and I started to enjoy being a bagger. When the day ended, I was actually really sad because I didn’t want to stop bagging, but I told myself that I still had tomorrow to be a bagger. The next day was a great one for me. I really felt excited and I even befriended two of my cashier buddies. I started to interact with my partner and she was really kind. There were some moments of laughter and I really think that my cashier buddy was having a great time. When it was the lunch break of my cashier buddy I told her to go back to lane 27, but I guess she couldn’t because another cashier would be stationed there. But that was alright because the cashier that took her place was also really great. My partner bagger was Liam and at first we had no customers. Because of this, Liam started to joke around with our cashier buddy and said that we don’t have any customers because they’re afraid of her. When Liam said this she started to laugh and we started laughing too and during that day, we kept on joking around with the cashier and that was one of the emotional highlights of my SM Immersion.
The 3rd and 4th day, me and Liam were at the Magnolia Chicken Station. We both sold a lot of chicken and even made chicken siomai, chicken longganisa, and chikcen lumpia. The Magnolia employees were really nice and I really enjoyed working with them. But this experience wouldn’t last forever as we all knew that this was only a four day activity and this was really the emotional low of my immersion. I really enjoyed working with the employees of SM Megamall and hope i’ll be able to see them one day when I go to the supermarket.
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