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To Introduce The Essays
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Encounters with the Pen About The Author
About The AuthorThe author is a Bicolano who hails from Binanuhan, Pilar, Sorsogon. Having lived half of his lifetime in the same locality, he devoted most of his time to learning practical things through observations and several failed attempts. Because of his ardent desire and persistence to harness, develop and maximize everything that he has to its fullest potential, he was able to achieve a certain level of mastery on matters which is of prime significance. He is passionate about a lot of things. He is simultaneously a carpenter, composer, inventor, mathematician, choir and acoustic band member, frequent user of Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets to solve work – related problems and, with the impending publication of this literature, an author. His acumen for writing was greatly improved due to his exposure to the legal parlance during the stint of her elder sister as a Notary Public and Municipal Councilor. Unconsciously, it influenced his literary style that would start taking
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen Storm And Sunburn
29 September 2009“To see the world in a drop of water and experience eternity before it subsides.”Herein narrator went on to live since to recount a fairly insignificant, almost common and entirely negligible story of being swept by the current, having wept due to guilt and being upset out of complacency for the inability to do something that would risk both life and limb.My brother-in-law was confined in the hospital for days suspecting and eventually ruling out Influenza A-H1N1 as the culprit. As a result, I have to stay in their home for two (2) nights until that fateful morning. Overnight rains resulted to sudden increase in the water level of the nearby river. The typhoon is about to begin.Even before finishing corn for breakfast around nine in the morning last Saturday (26 September 2009), water was increasing in an exponential rate. And since time is of the essence, I started transferring smaller objects to the second floor of their home
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen Reduction To Lowest Terms
01 October 2009Too often, we regret for neglecting something presumed to be useful in the future since there is no direct or immediate need for such at present. This defines how we evolved to date. How people became so dispensable and indifferent is an entirely different story.Let us take for instance the concept of parity which states that everything should be distributed fairly and evenly; giving to each what rightfully belongs to him. Justice then is a one-to-one correspondence. When one does not get his fair share, conflict arises.Life is a mathematical existence regardless of the existence, or contrariwise absence, of numbers itself. In fact, people designed clocks, watches and chronometers, both digital and analog, to tell time and later let it rule their lives. Consider ourselves as elements of this mathematical world and our lives as a subset of all the existence in this planet and from there, we will see the magnitude and expanse of the un
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen Almost Thirty, Nearly Bald
06 March 2010When I was a kid, people were so fascinated with the kind of memory I have. Since having tests for certain acumen or gift is a rarity in the provinces, (Binanuahan, Pilar, Sorsogon to be more specific) being considered special was already enough. I will try not to be too narrative of what I have been through for that would be totally unnecessary. What contributed much to this state is an actual rush of blood.It was one clear, Sunday morning that forever corrupted some of the files in my memory and no amount of re-formatting will ever restore everything in place. I was not fully aware of the impending danger on that fateful day otherwise I could have averted the ensuing predicament altogether. A portion of a 2” x 2” x 12” lumber is hanging near the roof of that house where a usual Sunday amazement is in town. Perhaps curiosity took it from there as I squeezed myself past the grown-ups looking intently at how an elderly man adroitly handled a cons
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen Of Death And Defying It
31 May 2010If death is likened to gravity, which we cannot absolutely defy, then living with it on a regular frequency is a state of partial weightlessness. Our daily existence is a continuing skirmish with death. For every moment that a life-form, however animate or lethargic, is sent to inhabit this earth, it is just a matter of time before finally the probability and likelihood of death becomes apparently a certainty. Chances are, nature has its distinct scheme of impermanence and turns everything in this world, regardless of significance or magnitude, into sub-atomic particles to restore equilibrium.Having lived in a nuclear family of nine (9) inclusive of parents and siblings, I have witnessed death more than twice. But since my memory seems to fail me in the retrieval of memories, I will stick to two most remembered losses. First was when my father died and once more when my maternal grandmother departed as well.The most vivid memory that I have of m
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen Ambivalence And Everything In Between
13 July 2010One of the basic realities in life tells us that no two objects, not even thought, can occupy the same space at the same time. Impenetrability applies to all forms of existence to create order, sequence or precedence. Not even our human capacity to love is spared from such a predicament. And whenever we find ourselves trapped in this labyrinth, conflicts arise.Truly, one can never be both definite and ambivalent about his feelings, at any given time and space about persons or situations. With the present, urgent and pressing circumstances, however, one is prompted to react in such a rational way, if not instinctive. And in this transitory world, decisiveness is a factor for survival.And perhaps the opposite of love is not hate but rather indifference and somewhere in between, in the spherical or planar intersection of chance, is where we find ambivalence. Ambivalence then is this betweenness that typically defines our inability to be definite. Once cau
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen From The Scars And Scares Of Discarding Credit Cards
20 July 2010As a consequence of one’s employment status, credit card offers will also increase promising a wide array of luxury and conveniences. And with the lures of the things and amenities one can avail of with this rectangular phenomenon, swiping becomes as involuntary as one’s impulses. Depending on the frequency of payment or the complete lack of it, credit card companies will try to increase the credit limit whenever there is an apparent inability, on the part of the cardholder, to settle their dues only to make them dig a much deeper grave of financial indebtedness.Credit cards work best for the banks. When they feel you are neglecting your financial obligations to them, they will start making endless calls to remind you, or harass you in disguise, until you are forced to settle your dues simply for reasons of avoiding litigation, legal suit or any further threats. Although it is not likely to make progress in court, cardholders are obliged to pay o
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Encounters with the Pen A Quarter Dose Of Half-Truths And Whole Lies
22 November 2013Telling the untruth is fundamentally a chronic human phenomenon. No other life-form comes close to simulating such erratic behaviour. Lies, of all colors and sorts, are merely mechanisms to avert otherwise precarious situations. It could be traced on our ceaseless resolve to save ourselves from disgraceful circumstances or to shield us from further nuisances. But just like a snow ball, a handful of lies that has gained enough momentum might just be enough to cause an avalanche and a succession of unfortunate events. It could instigate conflicts and hostilities then wars, sinkholes and landslides from earthquakes and even blizzards and storm surges from typhoons among others.We cannot be telling lies without exposing part of our truth. Somehow, in the space between falsity and truth, is the vast expanse of ocean of options waiting to be enabled, initiated or activated. There is, however, only one choice for every occasion. A prior false statem
Last Updated : 2021-07-12
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Encounters with the Pen About The Author
About The AuthorThe author is a Bicolano who hails from Binanuhan, Pilar, Sorsogon. Having lived half of his lifetime in the same locality, he devoted most of his time to learning practical things through observations and several failed attempts. Because of his ardent desire and persistence to harness, develop and maximize everything that he has to its fullest potential, he was able to achieve a certain level of mastery on matters which is of prime significance. He is passionate about a lot of things. He is simultaneously a carpenter, composer, inventor, mathematician, choir and acoustic band member, frequent user of Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets to solve work – related problems and, with the impending publication of this literature, an author. His acumen for writing was greatly improved due to his exposure to the legal parlance during the stint of her elder sister as a Notary Public and Municipal Councilor. Unconsciously, it influenced his literary style that would start taking
Encounters with the Pen To Introduce The Essays
18 May 2021Herein lies the greatest challenge of introducing a collection of essays written over a period of six (6) long years. A duration long enough for a child to be born alive, walk unassisted, speak fluently and think intelligibly. But after six (6) years of occasional writing, it suddenly stopped. Work took the better of it as if there was nothing there to strike a chord and tell me that I used to write as spirited as before.The years between this piece and the one prior to it was devoted mainly to writing using a different language and syntax. Sentences usually start with an equal sign to prompt the application to compute or automate something. Every little thing at work involving columns, rows or cells was solved using Microsoft Excel. Thus, the literary writing hiatus must have been temporarily called off and replaced with its numeric, logical or conditional counterpart owing to the demands of work.And because of the need to collaborate a
Encounters with the Pen Unmask Our Unworthiness, Oh Lord
25 July 2015Oh Lord, unmask us of our unworthiness that prevents us from experiencing your love in its entirety. Make our intentions congruent with your plans and our viewpoints your perspective. Make us always aware that our plan is merely a subset of your greater plan. Help us realize that influence is the seed that bears the fruits of goodness and change. May the goodness we do bring forth the change we ought to see.Protect our workplace, Oh Lord, for it is our means of dignifying and monetizing our toils. Let every denomination earned bridge our eventual future with our present realities.Protect our families and our loved ones, Oh Lord, for it is mostly for them that we are continually driven. Lead us always to the right path despite the uncertainties of our journey.Protect our wholeness, Oh Lord, for we are better than our broken, partial and individual parts. May our indivisible resolve to follow you enliven among us an even greater
Encounters with the Pen My Mother And The Father She Never Met
30 June 2015She was only two (2) years old when their father left and decided never to return again. Along with him is the music that should, on the very least, alleviate the troubles of the mind and spirit in the days ahead. In the company of other men, they journeyed to a place that soon cost their lives a lifeless cost.Her father joined the USAFFE in defense of our country during the Japanese occupation. Fate eventually prevailed and they were captured and forcibly brought to Bataan. The demise of their father was occasioned by incessant walking in the streets of suffocating dust, intolerable stench and punishing heat. Some survived, others escaped while some others were executed due largely to their inability to continue moving ahead. It was literally a march to their death.Not a tombstone, not even a grave could attest to his death or that he actually lived before that. He died along the way before reaching Capas, Tarlac where an encampment aw
Encounters with the Pen On The Inevitability Of Change
11 February 2015The ensuing averments were not directed at alleviating whatever pain one is experiencing at the moment. This neither has a palliative effect to the numbness of an already calloused heart nor a sedative result to induce sleep and eventually drown the misgivings of this life in the realm of our dreams.It cannot be quantified though that one’s pains or sufferings are greater than someone else simply on the basis of the streams of tears they shed or the ones they elicited from the others in sympathy and solidarity to their plight. This is not an assertion that the difficulty right now would prevent further or future hardships from happening for this existence is fundamentally a series of hurdles and obstacles meticulously placed in a labyrinth that only the maze creator could vanquish swiftly. If change is an essential constituent of this cosmic conspiracy, our optimism hinges on the possibility of the greater good that it brings consid
Encounters with the Pen Multiplication By Division: The Mathematics Of Generosity
03 November 2014In the context of arithmetic, whenever natural or counting numbers are multiplied, the product is either equal to one of the factors or higher than both factors. It is a multiplication fact. And because division is the inverse operation of multiplication, the quotient between counting numbers is either equal to or lesser than the dividend.Contrariwise, if the factors are proper fractions, then the result is the exact opposite of the previous illustration and it is all because a fraction is a multiplicative inverse or reciprocal of a counting number. Simply put, when fractions are divided, the quotient is higher than the dividend. And when proper fractions are multiplied, the product is smaller than the factors.This is where the miracle of multiplication by division takes place. It is such a wonder but its roots can be traced historically in the story of Jesus. The real miracle is not because Jesus was able to feed the multitude with
Encounters with the Pen Of Candies, Jellies And Swaps
04 April 2014This narrative is an attempt to recount the circumstances that took place almost a year ago during the author’s hiatus from gainful employment and momentary acquaintance with the uncertainty of joblessness. It was also during that same time that he entertained suitors, in the form of game requests, thus justifying the title explicitly stated above. The other reason is that, whenever he is in the game, he finds solace in the haven of candies that offers a palliative relief to the pains that are yet to come.The object of the game is to form a straight line having, at least, three similar items. Swaps are done by swiping the images on the screen. Jellies, on the other hand, would require a couple of explosions before it is completely removed and obliterated. A striped candy appears whenever a line of four, horizontal or vertical, is formed. Whenever a group of five is formed other than a straight line, a wrapped candy appears while a line of five s
Encounters with the Pen Marriage Is A Venn Diagram
7 February 2014After a couple of years into our marriage, I finally decided to write about the same issue. I am not, in any way, an expert on marriages considering my “youthless” age or ageless youth, my judgments or its lapses and my deceptive looks. But since this is a free and democratic country, let this gesture be an indication of our freedom and democracy at least for now. Besides, I have not missed payment of my corresponding dues to the government since I entered employment, taxes that is, exact to the nearest centavo based on my current tax bracket.It is only now that I realized how the rings are placed in a rectangular pillow during wedding pictorials. With the rings overlapping each other, it bears a striking resemblance with a Venn diagram with the pillow as its universal set.Let us say that marriage is the union of two (2) distinct individuals. Just like in any joint sets, there should be, at least a common element. This intersection can onl
Encounters with the Pen Excel Whenever The Circumstance Demands
24 January 2014Excel, in the parlance of a QWERTY keyboard running on Windows, is basically a spreadsheet with every individual cell as powerful and equally capable as the rest. Every single and unoccupied cell can contain concatenation of strings or numeric values even complex syntaxes or formula, commonly preceded by an equal sign, so that the desired result could be achieved. In some cases, error values occur to prompt us to rectify our inputs or check the agreement of the syntaxes of nested formula among others.The dynamics of human life is mirrored in the practicality, simplicity and complexity of the application MS Excel. Let us then try to establish the truthfulness of these assertions even if there is actually none in existence.Scrolling to the rightmost and until the bottom part of the spreadsheet should bring you to cell XFD1048576 when using Office 2007. Even at this depth of the screen, the same cell is still capable of handling the res
