My academic journey at the Dansalan College Foundation is a colorful one. But I believe, that I was destined to be who I am now and what I have achieved so far, with the guidance, grace and mercy of the Almighty.

When my parents enrolled me at the Pre-School department of the Dansalan College Foundation, I made an impression on my teachers on my first month of attending school that they informed my mom that I was a fast learner and one of the potential achievers of our batch.  My parents were so happy with the information and they bought all sorts of goodies that a child of my age would want.  I was five years old then, when I entered my formal schooling at the pre-school department. 

My recollection of my pre-school experience was not quite bright.  I only have some sort of flashback memories whenever my father would play the videos of my pre-school days.  Yeah, I have lots of them.  Those videos, I mean.  My parents made it a point that whenever we, together with my brothers and  sister have school activities or programs, they would always be around to video the event and with lots of pictures too, thanks to the invention of the Sony video and cyber camera.  My father would always say that those videos and pictures he took would come in handy someday.  And it just did.  When I graduated in my senor kinder, during my celebration, all my videos and pictures were played via a power point projector.  All my guests were amazed on my achievements and all of our activities including our rendition of the playlet, Rapunzel.

My experiences in the elementary department was quite different from my pre-school days.  All of our academic curriculum went a notch higher.  The subjects were difficult and were quite complicated.  But I endured and challenged myself to be always on top.  That was my goal.  We were always reminded by our parents to always aim for the top.  So that our study habits would be focused on aiming high grades.  But actually, the rationale behind aiming for the top grade would be to be able to stay focused on studying our subjects.  Aiming for the top grade have its benefits, for if you don’t get the top grade, you would definitely land in the second top grade.  Our eldest brother, are now reaping the benefits of focused study habits.  He survived the Institute of Science Education-Science Training Center High School of the Mindanao State University, Main Campus.  He passed the scholarship entrance examination of the Mindanao State University and landed into the realm of Academic Scholars.  And due to their rigid academic training in the science high school, he passed all of his college subjects with flying colors, particularly the subjects that many college students hate, math and chemistry.  They are his favorite subjects and Physics too.  Hope to follow on his footsteps. 

Due to that training we have with our parents I was also able to have my own achievements. I am a consistent With High Honor pupil since grade 1.  I am now in the grade 6 level and hope to maintain my With High Honor status or better.  I am a math Olympiad of our school having won many Math Olympics competition.  

One of them is the MetroBank-Math Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP) Math Challenge competition held annually.  The other one is the Mindanao State University- College of Science and Mathematics, Math and Science Wizard Supremacy quiz Bowl.  Our school is the defending champion for two consecutive years and we are going to defend our Championship title this year for the Grand Slam title. 

In order to improve on my confidence, My father adviced me to join the Pupil Government Organization when I was in my 4^th grade which is the equivalent to the Student Body Organization in High School and College.  I won as a 4^th 4^th Grade Representative.  In my 5^th grade, I was elected as the PGO Vice-President and now on my 6^th grade I was fortunate enough to have been elected as the PGO President.  Only one of my party mates did not make it during the election. 

I was also fortunate enough to be a member of our school paper, The Collegian as its Senior Columnist.  Started as a contributing writer when I was in my 4^th grade.  Became its Associate Editor in my 5^th grade and now a Senior Columnist.  My membership in the collegian did have an impact on my writing skills.

Last August 2014 we started to attend scholarship and entrance examination to various high schools in Iligan City for the 7^th grade.  I was so happy to have qualified as a scholar to the Philippine Science High School Scholarship Qualification Examination.  Out of the 23,606 grade 6 pupils who took the exam nationwide, only 1,303 qualified as scholars for the prestigious Philippine Science High School.  In Marawi City, my hometown, only six (6) pupils qualified.  In our school the Dansalan College Foundation, I was the only passer of our batch.  I was humbled by the result of the examination, but was thankful to the Almighty for the guidance and to my parents who trained us well to remain focused on our goals.

I am glad that my parents were able to capture all those moments which would form part of our colorful memories of our school.  The opportunity to watch our past activities in school would always have that funny feeling watching ourselves awkwardly.  There would be times during weekends and holidays that our parents would buy our favorite flavor ice cream and lots of chips and would engage us to a whole day marathon watching all our videos starting from the eldest down to our youngest sibling.  We had so much fun time together as a family, laughing at our bloopers and funny moments caught on cam.

Those were the most memorable journey, moments for me, bonding together as one strong family through our life’s moments caught on camera.  Hope my high school journey would maintain my focus on my goal to become a successful Medical Doctor someday someone that will be of help to all. 

Thank you for taking the time reading my blog.  May the Almighty bless us all.

Why Do We Have To Speak English?

by: Princess Monera Lumina Bacarat Indol

My father once told us a story that was also narrated to him by his paternal grandfather relative to why many individuals in southern Philippines are conversant to the English language, particularly those who were in their pre-school years when the Americans formally colonized the country.

In the island of Mindanao, Southern Philippines, historically, we were made to believe that speaking the English language would do us better in the future. Well nowadays it would really be an advantage if you speak English. This was the legacy that was left behind by our colonizers, the Americans. When they attempted to educate the locals to the schools that they have erected many of the members of the Royal families (Royal Sultanate system was the form of government at that time in Mindanao). and the well to do locals sent the sons and daughters of their slaves. Slavery at those times were a common practice. They were in fact mandated by the colonizers to send their children to schools to educate them in their ways and customs to make them better persons. The Royals and the locals, hid their children from the colonizers. To make the long story short, the sons and daughters of the slaves were educated properly by the American colonizers and they were in fact given scholarships to be educated in high schools and were encouraged to pursue higher education. Islam was the predominant religion of the people of Mindanao at that time and the locals have declined the opportunity of free education fearing that their children would be Christianized and have made their children ignorant and have remained as such as the time goes by.

The once child of a slave has now become educators themselves and are now teaching the children and grandchildren of their masters. They were appointed into government for they can communicate well with the colonizers. That’s the reason why nowadays, our parents are sending us to school to learn the once feared language in order to learn and become a better person someday. They don’t want to commit the mistakes of the past for ignorance would do more damage than good. This one of the reason why we have to speak the language of our once colonizer to make us better persons who can communicate better with the world.

English is spoken in many countries in the world. Filipinos are now conversant to the language and are being preferred by employers worldwide for they can communicate properly in English. That’s the reason why many “call center” companies are now sprouting like mushrooms all over the country preferring to employ Filipinos for we have a good command of the English language. Many English speaking tourist prefer the country for the ability of the locals to comprehend them and be able to communicate back. For employment purposes, if you have the proficiency skills in the English language you would be preferred among those who are not fluent by big companies.

Now that we are a free country, why do we still have to speak the language of our colonizers? We still have to for we are now engaged in dealing with other countries and many of them are using English language for communication purposes. The language has now became a tool for better understanding one another and transacting business ventures among multi-national companies. The English language is here to stay and we should better learn the art of communicating well with it to become a competitive person in your own simple ways.

Despite the bashing that the religion of Islam receives nowadays relative to the ongoing violence in the middle east and in other conflict areas, it is but timely to remind everyone that the conduct of a person in the name of his religion should not be blamed to the religion itself but to the person who have interpreted the teachings of his religion in the wrong way.

This blog would like to share the following important contributions of Islamic art to the world:

1. The Dome of the Rock, located at East Jerusalem of occupied Palestine built on 692. It is believed to be the first great work of Islamic architecture. It was built on a rock from which the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) made his miraculous journey to heaven as described in Chapter 17 of the Glorious Qur’an;

2. The Malwiya Minaret located at Samarra, Iraq built in the mid-ninth century. This 50 meter (160’) helicoidal tower of sun dried and baked brick was probably modelled on ancient ziggurats. It symbolizes the power of Islam at the zenith of the Baghdad based Abbasid caliphate;

3. The Mughira Pyxis of Cordoba, Spain built on 968. This small, exquisite box, carved from a cylindrical section of an elephant tusk, is the most beautiful of the handful of known Islamic ivory carvings. It is now on display at the Louvre museum at Paris, France;

4. The Minbar of the Kutubiyyah Mosque located at Marrakesh, Morocco and was built on 1137. It is a wooden pulpit, nearly four meters (13’) tall, was carved in Cordoba by the descendants of the workmen who carved out the Mughira Pyxis. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of wood and bones are carved and fitted together;

5. The Mihrab from the Maydan Mosque located at Kashan, Iran which was built on 1226. A mihrab is a niche in a wall of a mosque indicating the direction of the Ka’bah in Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The mihrab was composed of glazed ceramic slabs fitted into a complex, harmonious ensemble of calligraphy and arabesques, this is the peak of the difficult luster techniques of overglaze decoration perfected by Persian ceramists. The mihrab is now on display at the Islamic museum of Berlin.;

6. The Baptistere of Saint-Louis built last 1300 at Cairo, Egypt. This hammered bronze basin, inlaid in silver and gold, is decorated on both the interior and the exterior with marvelous figured scenes showing hunters, servants and warriors. It was believed to have been used first to catch water after hand-washing before prayers, it was later used as a baptismal font by the French Court. It is now on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France;

7. The Qur’an Manuscript of Ahmed Al-Suhrawardi which was made last 1307 at Baghdad, Iraq. This is believed to have been the first display of the Calligrapher’s art. The paper is polished to an impeccable smoothness, allowing the pen to glide effortlessly across a pearly surface. The colophon is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City;

8. The Carpets of Ardebil which were made in Iran on 1539-40. These two enormous carpets were worked in 10 colors of silk and wool. Each has more than 25 million knots, making them one of the most splendid examples of the weaver’s art;

9. The Selimiye Mosque made in 1574 at Edirne, Turkey. The breathtaking interior of the mosque is the masterpiece of the Ottoman architect Sinan, who created a huge and uninterrupted space under a towering dome;

10. The Taj Mahal located at Agra, India which was built on 1647. It is considered the biggest mausoleum in the world made by the ruler of India Shah Jahan for his lovely wife Mumtaz Mahal who died while giving birth to her child. The Taj Mahal has always been considered as an example of high caliber of Islamic architecture.

sources:  The Junior Islamic Encyclopedia

               Saudi Aramco World Magazine

Goodbye is not the end...

Remember that feeling some of us had when we are saying goodbye to our best friends after the end of every school year knowing that they will be transferring to another school in another town?  It felt wretched to let go and yet down the road, we remained in touch with them.  Though things are different and one another's circumstances may have changed but the friendship never ended, those tearful goodbyes were not the last. 

Or that painful break-up with your first ever true love or the end of any relation you held true in your life?  Those relations may have ended with your goodbyes but it changed you forever.  Every kind of goodbye in this ephemeral world leads to a transformation either on a personal basis or on a relationship basis, it leads to change.

There is only one final goodbye in this lifetime and it is death.  Yet even in death as we bade farewell to our loved ones to their last resting place, the love and memories we shared with them lives on within us.  The love did not end, the memories live on in our persons.

Goodbyes are never the end, each goodbye leads to a new beginning, a new start of something new but always transform us.  It ought not to end our existence or desire to live, audhubillah.

Goodbyes are transformative tool on the human soul.  Let each goodbye be for the good, let it be a reason in becoming a better human being.  After all, we are here only for one lifetime.  We are spiritual beings in temporary bodies, all goodbyes converges with the Creator, The Living and Eternal, the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and The End.  With Him, we begin and with Him is the only end.  In shaa Allah.  Alhamdulillah.