High School Reunions: A Centrifugal Force of Modern Life

          By  Vic Odarve    

High school reunions are actually a centrifugal force in modern life. It is a get-together affair that takes on a whole new meaning as we get older, a gathering to reminisce and to relive the fun and feel that we had experienced in high school, and a rare chance to spend some moments with our classmates who were a part of the story of our lives. With all indications, high school reunions are like a centrifugal force pulling our classmates to meet together. Yes, time passes differently as we get older, and class reunions take on a whole new meaning. As the person’s age is over 60, we are merely aging, both physically and mentally. In our long struggle with time, the get-together affair seems to be a clock to stop the aging process. The excitement and renewed camaraderie that could result from attending the reunion may bring us back in time. Singing at the videoke,  telling stories of bygone days, and going to the beach together may put the time to a standstill. Of course, some of our classmates are older than you would like them to be, and you, too, realize that you are also advancing in age and appearance.

The gathering allows us to reminisce and relive those thrilling high school days. It is joyful to reunite with the girls and boys with whom you shared your first love and first lusts. Some also retold stories about our teachers who were good, and a handful of teachers we never forget. We never forget the teachers known for having a scary stage persona during classroom lessons. But to the more serious classmates during our high school, they never forget those teachers that pulled them from the depths of abysmal academic achievement into one of the top-performing students.

 

Picnic time, Batch ’73

The reunions also offer us a rare chance to spend a moment with our classmates after many years of not seeing each other. It is just a way of revisiting your friends that you lost track of after graduating high school. Meeting them is more significant in our lives simply because they were part of ours and we were a part of theirs. This is the time to know that some are already gone while others are still living. The usual practice of giving a souvenir, such as a T-shirt, is simply a memento that once upon a time we had to share some moments with our high school classmates.

Although in our modern times we have several social media sites, such as Facebook, to find our high school classmates’ whereabouts at our fingertips, reunions are more powerful ways to reconnect, relive our memories, and see our classmates face-to-face. Nowadays, high school reunions are enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

Reunion is indeed a centrifugal force uniting our classmates. As our lives are journeys, spending time at a reunion is a moment to cherish before we finally reunite with the Holy One sitting on the throne.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eboY-Pe7G0M

The Twilight Years of our Life

 

      By  Vicodarve

We are all getting older, whether we like it or not, and the "elderly" period of our existence has two sides to challenge: a dreadful stage or rather comfortable living conditions.

In our sophisticated culture, it is common for poor households to have senior members in appalling conditions. Without assistance from their sons or daughters or from the government, they are left to live alone in their homes. On the other side, wealthy seniors naturally spend their golden years in the homes of their children, grandchildren, family members, and friends, where they are shown a lot of tender love and care.

Casimero Dagangon-103 yrs old
Village of Mayana

The first picture remains a dreadful one. Incapacitated elderly, who usually have a long decline in health, suffer most; they are incapable of continuing to live independently. In most cases, key members of the family or dear relatives simply abandon or do not extend the needed help. Some of them are bedridden and paralytic, and others are stricken with diseases that place them in very deplorable conditions. They clearly need valuable assistance, compassion, understanding, and kindness from a well-minded individual.

On the other hand, there are some elderlies who still enjoy life, living together with their children or grandchildren as they have done since the beginning. Of course, the majority are traditionally supported by relatively affluent families and lifelong friends. Most of them typically receive modest pensions and other potential benefits from governments. They are properly treated as members of their children’s families with basic needs in social life. This instantly reminds us to properly take care of our own dear children at the prime of our lives.

No one really knows how long a person lives. For those who are not fortunate enough, they typically end their twilight years in the government homes for the aged, away from their beloved children and legitimate grandchildren, relatives, and friends. As in most cultural traditions, parents who care about their children during the thick and thin of their lives and able to manage a knitted family, ending their twilight years under the affectionate arms of their children.

Despite notable advances in the modern medical profession, all of us are getting older with the passing years. The conscious thought of what might happen to us as we cross over to the dark side of old age is a real drama of our life. Recently, my neighbor living in a village received a cash award for having reached 100 years old.

Civilized mankind must return from dust to dust, but before coming out onto the world stage, an unspeakable old age presses people down, rendering them either living in a deplorable or well-cared-for stage in their lives. The fundamental fact is that most of us come to a frail stage, and whether we like it or not, that twilight of our lives is a reality that everyone must accept.

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Videoke Singing Makes People Happy and Healthy

        BY Vic Odarve

 Videoke singing is the ideal hobby one could have at a time when more and more people worldwide are searching for a better and longer life. It generates happiness because it makes people feel good, gives them a lively outlook, helps them forget about issues at work and at home, and has a favorable psychological and physiological impact on them. Additionally, it calls for deep breathing, which eases stress and anxiety and promotes a healthy lifestyle. People that participate in videoke singing do so while following a cursor as they sing along to the song lyrics that have been highlighted on a screen.

Filipino expats in Africa

This provides a unique opportunity for individuals to the tune to sing with less effort or know-how, thereby building confidence... at least when singing in front of a crowd. Furthermore, a score based on your ability to synchronize timing and pace with the lyrics, which the machine gives at the end of the song, makes you happy. Why not? Just singing your favorite song will lower your depression and immediately bring you happiness. It encourages people to socialize with the group.

Getting and singing along with the group with a bottle of beer helps combat the negative mood that often comes with their daily tasks in city life. Scientists found out that singing activates the pleasure center of the male brain; an effect that doesn’t take place when you are not singing at all. As you concentrate on singing, things like work or money or family problems are gone, keeping the brain active and fending off depression, especially in older people.

Moreover, videoke singing is highly entertaining and others consider it a pastime and nothing more. Constant practice may develop their innate talent as a singer and maybe even bring them to stardom. Thus, video singing brings fame and happiness. Health-wise, deep breathing and relaxation in controlling voice and other related actions as you sing along are components of meditation and physical exercise necessary for good health. Researchers found that the act of singing releases endorphins, the brain’s "feel good" chemicals.

Remembering their good old days

Singing also brings us a "lifted" feeling, which reduces stress, draws action, which promotes good blood circulation, and in the process brings good health. Researchers studied salivary cortical levels and other physiological responses and found that singing, especially music with a major (rather than minor) tone, is correlated with lowered stress as well as feelings of happiness; thus, singing promotes health. Indeed, videoke singing has a broad and long-lasting effect on people's well-being and unknowingly has the most dramatic effects on their lives.

Thus, videoke, as one of the mainstream forms of entertainment around the world, whether at birthday parties, class reunions, or in bars and restaurants, make people happy and healthy.

How Bad Friends Affect Your Life

           By Vic Odarve

Bad friends can have a bad impact on your life. They have the power to transform you into someone with an entirely different personality, alter your viewpoint of the world, and gradually influence your way of life.

Mapua University, MCM

Unknowingly, you make bad friends, usually at office work and social gatherings. People in the upper class of our society usually meet bad friends at parties, religious and civic organizations, political acquaintances, and other forms of activities among society’s bigwigs.

The influence of bad friends is powerful. It is more serious for the rich and famous. Take the case of Ruby, a beautiful woman in her early 50's who established her name by making friends and holding important positions in well-known social organizations. With her friends, she found a connection to influential lawmakers; amassed wealth and became famous; and acted as a conduit for graft and corruption. Aware of her impending arrest by the government for her role, she left the country without any traces. But things go differently for her. She was troubled. She could not sleep or eat well. A few months later, she returned as a government witness in a pork barrel scandal that implicated several senators and other famous personalities.

University of Immaculate Conception

Bad friends can also bring a tremendous change in your behavior, lifestyle, manners, and actions. You are strongly connected to their common objectives, likes, and points of view, as well as gossiping activities. You could not feel and sense the threat at the beginning because, slowly and slowly, you are engulfed in emulating your bad friend’s way of living in one way or another. Some of the effects are extremely disastrous to your future. You do not know that your constant companionship with these bad friends seems to program your way of thinking and develop into a habit.

The negative influence of bad friends knows no boundaries. Even for a short time in a company, the influence is great. It can change the world! Imagine what happened to the daughter of a certain newspaper magnate and publisher. The kidnapped of his 19-year-old daughter, after 3 months in the company of kidnappers, became friends and converted herself into a member of the terrorist organization. She sympathized with the cause of the terrorist group and participated willingly in the bank robbery. After just a short period of friendship, the daughter of a wealthy and famous family became a robber. It ruined her life!

Madonna University

There are many ways to avoid falling for bad friends. The best way is to look for, associate with, and surround yourself with only positive influencers. Hang out with those who support and enhance your life; filter their background and stick to those who share your mission and ambitions in life.

Indeed, bad friends have a far greater negative impact on your life than you realize. It can change your outlook on how you perceive the world and your behavior on the dark side. By putting yourself among bad friends, you are inviting a disaster. Bad friends, like a giant black hole sitting quietly at the center of our Milky Way, are waiting for someone who is about to destroy himself. The bible puts it at 22 Cor 6:14–15:14. Do not make unsuitable covenants with those who do not believe. Can justice walk with wickedness? Or can light coexist with darkness, and can there be harmony between Christ and Satan? What kind of union can there be between one who believes and one who does not believe?

Slowly and slowly, bad friends ruin your life. Be careful!

Nature Educates Us on Mathematics

By  Vic Odarve

 Not everybody loves mathematics! "I don’t like numbers. That’s why I did not take up engineering courses," said one student. This summed up everything about his schooling! Since kindergarten up to high school, he has performed miserably in mathematics. But one thing is certain: whether he likes it or not, mathematics is a part of his everyday life. Unknown to many, math already existed in nature the moment we took our first breath of life. What we do is simply marvel at mathematics!

Petals on math sequence

Also, nature teaches mathematics! Nature and math work in never-ending harmony. From the particle world to billions of stars spreading in our cosmic ocean, mathematical laws seem to work, keeping the universe in order. From Newton’s law to Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and Einstein’s law of relativity, math offers our deep understanding of things around us.

 Nature has its own way of expressing mathematics! Patterns such as hexagonal beehives, spiraling Fibonacci flowering trees, fractal flowers and plants, fruits, and leaves, and many more are mathematics!

 FRACTALS, BEEHIVES, AND FIBONACCI’S NUMBERS

 Fractals are repeating geometric patterns. They are rough, fragmented geometric shapes that can be repeatedly subdivided into parts and where each small portion can be viewed as a replica of the whole. These are geometric designs we teach in classrooms. In mathematics, this is referred to as iterations or algorithms. Newton’s method, simplex programming, Gauss-Seidel, Jacobi, and many more algorithms are among a few examples.

 

Mapua University, October 2022

Some plants exhibit simple recursive operations such that, after a few repetitions or iterations, their shape can be recognized as a repeated geometric pattern. It's mathematical! Fractals in nature are always pleasing to our eyes – clouds, plant leaves and fruits, galaxies, shells, and many more. Plants such as sunflowers, ferns, cabbages, and papaya leaves are among a few of them.

The honeycomb structure is also a natural mathematical exhibition. Look at its hexagonal shape. Its cross-section is made of the comb, a latticework of hexagonal cells made of beeswax. It is an expression of geometry in action. The design might be the most economical in terms of labor and wax, hence expressing the least cost in economics and linear programming in mathematics!

Leaves on Fibonacci's sequence

 The Fibonacci number is a simple example illustrating the existence of sequences in mathematics just like arithmetic and geometric sequences and progressions. But in the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21, etc. And these numbers are exhibited in various "family trees" and patterns of spirals of leaves and seeds. The image of a nautilus shell approximates the sequence of the Fibonacci numbers in nature. Once again, nature teaches math! Fractals, Fibonacci ‘s shells, and beehives are iconic images that capture the beauty of nature displayed in mathematical expressions. These displays are like ornaments to the eyes of mathematicians. This is a living math in motion for us to love and appreciate nature!

 

Indeed, nature educates us on mathematics!

 

Educators Are Changing Lives

             By Vic Odarve 

 Although parents shape their children's lives more significantly than teachers do, teachers nevertheless have an impact on children's lives while they are in school. Their future employment are frequently prepared for by the knowledge they gain from the lectures in the classroom. Students are subjected to disciplinary acts and their related procedures in order to shape them into better citizens. The moral and spiritual significance learned in the classroom has an impact on how they develop as a person as a whole. Teachers mold students' futures, therefore they have an impact on and influence their lives, whether it be for a short or lengthy amount of time.

Madonna University, Africa

The world inside the classroom is their second home. The teacher acts as a parent. It is in school that they learn the importance of advanced education to achieving their desired field of interest or discipline. Students acquire the necessary skills they need in the hope of landing a better and more decent job in the future. Recently, while inside the shopping mall, I ran into my former student, whom I did not recognize. "Sir, you don’t remember me?" he asked. "No, I don’t. What’s your name? " I asked. He gave me his name and explained that he was my former student in mathematics. After a few minutes of conversation before we parted, he said seriously, with a gratifying gesture, "I learned a lot of things in mathematics under your lectures, and most of them are used in our petrochemical plant operation. I want to say, "Thank you, Sir." Then he walked away and bid bye.

In the classroom, discipline is always in the making. It is like a nucleus, the center of an atomic structure. It is always a component in a teacher’s teaching strategy to promote peace and orderly management. Well-disciplined students mirror the personality of the teacher as well as the academic institution. Cheating, ranging from old-fashioned writing on the hands to high-tech spy cameras, is not tolerated. Penalties are well defined in the student’s handbook. Imposing good discipline will mold students to become better citizens.

African University

Students are taught how to share their knowledge and assist others in classroom discussions in order to prepare them to be responsible individuals. The topics assigned, classroom group activities such as laboratories and the like, build trust and camaraderie among the peers as well as develop their personalities. At one of the international conventions, one of the presenters was my previous student. He presented a paper titled "How to Learn Math Quickly." I could not believe it! After a short conversation, he confided that it was in my class that he was challenged and learned much about how to learn and love mathematics. In return, he wanted to share his experience of overcoming the fear of taking engineering mathematics at this university. That was it. He wanted to share and touch more lives among our students taking engineering courses; expound on his experiences, ups and downs; and show them how he conquered and shifted to a new paradigm. In my little way, I have touched their lives.

To my surprise, this petrochemical engineer and presenter at an international convention were not even on my list of the top classroom performers.

Today, while in the classroom, we cannot see the impact of our teaching on shaping their future. On several occasions, I was moved and touched. I was dumbfounded and could not say anything. Students expressing their success and gratitude is evidence that teachers are part of their future. It was a feeling of joy and fulfillment! I did not expect that I would touch their lives. Jesus once said,

" What you have done to the least of your brothers, you have done to me." Matthew 25:40.

Touching lives brings us to greater heights with the One who is sitting on the great and splendid throne, with a river of life, clear as crystal, gushing from the throne, and his kingdom will reign forever. Rev 20:11, 22; 1, 22:6.

Indeed, teachers touch and transform the lives of their students, and they have done it to the glory of our God the Father!

MCM-Mapua University

Simply Pursue Your Dreams

            by Vic Odarve.

Last year, she was one of my top math students. Because of this, I always checked her papers before checking the others after every exam and quiz at school. I enjoy reading over her answers, observing the processes she took, and observing how she presented her mathematical calculations to arrive at her solution. She consistently received a flawless score, with a few exceptions. I therefore considered myself to be one of the fortunate instructors to have this student in my class. Her performance becomes a gauge of how well my instructional approach is. There it was.

Madonna University, Nigeria

I am comfortable with her way of performing as a student taking up an engineering course... a course where some stupid ones failed to graduate because of math. On one of my visits to the university library to read some local newspapers, she requested me to consider some explanation of the math solutions previously discussed in the classroom. "Okay, what part of the topic?" I informed her. She opened her notes and described the steps where she perceived the problems. After some explanation and discussion, she was content. "Thank you, Sir; I understand already," she said. At that point, I said, "What was the result of your last quiz?" "I got a 90% score, sir," she smiled. "Good, and on the next quiz, you must get a perfect score," I replied. Then she leisurely walked and slipped away out of my sight. I gave little attention. She obtained an excellent score. So, nothing to worry about She may be just serious enough and want to do more work on her studies every day.

University of Immaculate Conception

Then, the next quiz came. Only 2 out of 54 students in a class obtained an excellent score. And she was one of them! It was then that I focused her attention. I noticed that during the class session, she sat at the end of the last row of seats in a packed and overcrowded room. She listened intently and focused on my discussion. She didn't have a friend, and she didn't even talk to her seatmates, as if she didn't know any of her classmates! She must be extremely shy.

The semester math course was about to finish. I gave a quiz before the final exam. "This will be the last quiz," I informed the students. Then what was the result? She got a perfect score again! She had done it! I told myself, "She is a good performing student." At the subsequent meeting, I returned the quiz papers and scripts. She was absent. For almost two weeks, I could no longer see her. Then I inquired of her classmates what happened to this girl. To my surprise, none of her classmates knew her. She vanished, and I received no word from her or her whereabouts!

Math Class

I was completely pushed to the wall. After two weeks, my phone rang. The girl informed me that she had a part-time job in an instrumentation company to support her schooling financially, and thus, she failed to attend the class. I was dumbfounded and could not believe it. Lately, I also found out that another student who was often absent during my class lectures was also doing a part-time job in a food chain restaurant. It was then that I learned that both were irregular students.

Two years later, I saw their names posted in the school as board exam passers. Their names reminded me how these students were struggling in pain to become engineers. Their sacrifices were paid off.

Math Books by Vic Odarve

Life is a journey and for these two students who did sacrifice to follow their dreams of becoming an engineer are exemplary. The Bible puts it, "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" – Psalms 126:5-6 (NKJV). So, be it!

Sometimes we feel life is a pain but, in the end, shall reap in joy. Simply pursue your dreams.

 

 GIDAMGO KO ANG BATHALA

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