4 Season in 48+ Hours

I was on my way to work, walking on the snow dusted pathway, slipping and sliding a bit from the frost that had formed, when I started talking to myself, asking, “Why am I living here? What am I doing in a place like this? How did I get so unlucky?” I felt so miserable going to work on a holiday, trying my best not to crack my skull or spine should I fall. Of course I didn’t mean that. I’m lucky to be here. We are!

We live in Winnipeg aka Winterpeg, Manitoba. We get snow at least half of the year and the total amount of time you can wear short-sleeved shirts and flip flops is at the very most 2 months. Horrendous, eh? Especially for us Filipinos who are from the land of four seasons: Hot, Hotter, Hottest, and Help-me-I’m-drowning. I miss the days when I can go to the mall in comfy house clothes. Really, wearing layers of jackets and pants and walking in heavy snow boots should be making me lose pounds but it proved quite contrary.

But we knew what was awaiting us from the (sometimes exaggerated, and yet frighteningly accurate) stories our sponsors, families, or friends have told us. There’s no use crying over something you should have expected and prepared for prior to arrival.

Four Seasons in 48 hours

This May Long Weekend was one of the Manitoban’s worst in years. All the torrential rain and howling winds followed by snow on the holiday itself sapped every one of the good holiday spirits.

Happy Victoria Day!

I hope you haven’t put away your winter gear yet. It ain’t over till it’s over.

We clearly have some of the weirdest weather transitions in the world. In a span of 48 hours, we’ve had the sun, wind, rain, overcast, and snow. To be honest, it’s interesting in the science perspective how this happens, and it’s a complete pain dressing for the occasion. We were warned of -50C wind chills and at least 1m of snow fall. Did I believe them? Yes I did. We brought and bought the correct garments for each season for we didn’t want to be on the news as frozen human popsicles.

Stereotype is that Canada is the land of Elsa and Anna.
Nope. The four seasons are clearly defined here but you’ll have to always check the weather forecast for the appropriate attire you’ll have for the whole day. One time, I dressed really nice for a sunny outing with friends and ended up shivering half the night. The next day, we had 10cm of snow.

New in Canada? Coming to Canada soon?

Don’t skimp on buying winter gear.

Go for the trusted brands that will keep you both warm and comfortable. Layering can help but a good winter coat can save you the stress of wearing 5 sweaters. Plus, they can last you many falls and winters. Until you have passed a winter and felt what real stone cold, ‘sagad sa butong lamig’ is, do not worry about looking frumpy and lumpy. Worry about keeping your nose, ears, fingers and toes intact. Don’t let the frostbites… bite and enjoy the new environment.

Welcome to Canada!

Latest update: It’s sunny again!!

Image from Google

Originally posted at pinoy-canada.com
Link: http://pinoy-canada.com/articles/4-seasons-48-hours/

Nosebleed

Filipinos’ English Phobia

Each of us has something we are afraid of and the only way to face them is to identify clearly what they are and accept these facts. We have to be honest to ourselves that we are vulnerable and that we may probably need another person to help ease the inner turmoil. Even the most confident of the Avengers, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark, has fears. And although he was afraid of saying it out loud, he did what he thinks was best to address the things he was most afraid to happen.

Filipinos have a very solid background of learning and living the English language in our everyday lives, tracing back to when we were babies where our family would most often than not teach the young ones “close-open” and “where’s the light?” instead of saying “bukas-sara” and “nasan ang ilaw?” Sounds awkward, right? We even talk to pets in English.

English is our medium of instruction throughout the whole education system. Sometimes, employers who interview you for job applications base your qualifications not just from what they see on your resume, but also on how good your English is in answering the questions. We practice so hard on perfecting our Fs and Vs and using words that are beyond elementary vocabulary. And Filipinos are used to watching American movies without Filipino captions proving that our listening skills are enough for a good conversation and even making a joke or two. And yet, we still are afraid of communicating with foreign people in the universal language. Why?

We are afraid of making grammatical and pronunciation mistakes. We are afraid of sounding like we don’t know the language too well. We try to sound how Americans and Canadians speak. We are afraid that our other kababayans would hear our English and think that we are not good enough. Because that’s how we see other people who are struggling with the language as. We are afraid that others will judge us the way we judge them. We know as an audience how we react to these mistakes and we are afraid being on the other side of the joke. We are used to seeing people get mocked on television for having poor English communication skills. I’m even putting myself out for writing an English article about our insecurities of the language.

Guess what? Foreigners don’t really care about your grammar and pronunciation as long as they get the gist of what you are talking about and the flow of conversation is uninterrupted. Communication is successful when both parties understand the messages sent to each other. They would even wait patiently for you to gather your thoughts because they understand it is not your native language. Sure, I had some troubles understanding them at first because watching Hollywood movies is quite different from real life communicating and expressing ourselves to native English speakers.

Someone from work even complimented me for speaking clearly without an accent and said that they envy Filipinos for knowing more than one language. They are astonished at how foreign the Filipino words and other dialects to them when they overhear a group of Pinoys talking amongst themselves. And here we are, worried that we mispronounced ‘forward’ and ‘verify.’ Joke on me, I said ‘crack pot’ instead of ‘crock-pot’ the other day.

Worry not. Filipinos actually know better grammar than them as we were so very critical about it in our learning years. We learned the language, studied its structure, practiced spelling of the most difficult words, and read numerous literatures written in their language. It just happens that we are more comfortable of using it in the learning and professional environment, that when we’re thrown into the socialization part of usage, we seize up and translate everything in our head. Relax, you can do it, you’ve had at least 10 years of ammunition, so fire away with your creative ideas and express yourself. Gather your confidence and speak out, you’ll be surprised at how much easier it will become the more you talk to these kind people.

But of course, never forget our beautiful Filipino language. No matter how fluent we become in whatever language we are using as an immigrant or worker of another country, we can still express ourselves best in our mother tongue. Use our language at home for the continuation of our culture through generations.

by: bautistamacy

Article originally posted at pinoy-canada.com

Link: http://pinoy-canada.com/articles/filipinos-english-phobia-scared-of-english/

Public Apology

Let it be known that I am cleaning my blog of the stupidities I have written in the past.
If you received a ton of messages about new posts, I AM VERY SORRY. Please ignore them and remove me from your watchlist if you wish to do so.


So I made a bit of a mistake republishing some of my previous blog entries. I have no idea when they're exactly posted now. Blogger is ever changing and so I didn't know how to hide the other entries I wanted gone. Anyways, since I didn't want to start exactly on a clean state, this will mark another 'era' of my blogging as I embark on my journey as a contributor to one of the pinoy websites.

Wish me luck!

Thank you.

i still can't believe how slim i was back when we were still in high school.

now i've gotta burn these UNWANTED fat. ugh

notice the shirt. i actually begged my mom to buy me that. got it the christmas before this shot was taken, date 20 jan 2006, school family day. fun fun day.

the now covered with unwanted fat,

macy

before i pass out of dehydration

i've been ironing piles of clothes in a time span of half the transformers movie and the whole of the lord of the rings.

weyn! i swear the next time you see me wearing this skirt you gave me will be with a hanging shirt showing off my hard earned abs. (para ndi sayang effort dun sa design sa ibabaw :P) i think i'm gonna start working on that tomorrow morning.

it just came to me that this would be my first december post. DECEMBER!!

what does december mean to me?

• birthday month - a lot of my friends were born in this month.
• christmas
• CHRISTMAS BREAK!
• end of the year
• family reunion
• food
• gifts
• money
• sleep :)

i blabbed this 2:41am. but since we have poverty internet connection, i couldn't upload the pics i needed. dang.

my ironing mountain. half way done. great.

forever house elf,

macy