MARGIENARY

I have a few more reading assignments with deadlines that have come and gone and yet I still could not get myself to a point where I have the least bit of inclination to read and then write something about what I have read.  So what I have been doing was procrastinate by doing other less demanding (well, that depends on one's favourite thing to do) tasks in terms of brain energy usage; i.e. checking a written and an audio translation of books from an OT and a NT projects in the country and researching and writing Bible Study materials for adult Sunday School, teaching online seminars a few days a month.  Yet even then, I am barely accomplishing what I have set out to do this year.  Anyhow, things are getting done at a slug-pace but I guess I should thank my lucky stars (not that I believe in things like that) for the fact that my conscience still does a number on me every time I get into my most depressed, most sloth(y) season in life, which forces me to work for my daily...

No longer am I scared of the darkness The midnight blackness that you see when you look in my eyes Are just shadows left by years of sleepless nights And the ghosts of my past that used to haunt all of my waking moments. But now, I don't have to linger and play hide and seek with my demons Because you've kissed away my pain, healed my wounds, until Nothing is left, not even indiscernible scars on what had been my wounded soul I've shed all the tears I can cry; now, my eyes are dry. In these pages, I've poured out all my heartaches Written them all down in blood between these lines Bravely, I have fought my battles, and it's true, I did lose some But my goodness, you are my witness that I have won the war. I am here with you, after all, alive and real, red ink is zinging in my veins All set to write new stories, or even rewrite old ones if I get the chance To create new memories, or reminisce about the good old times, With you and our lives that the Heavens chose to ...

I grew up in the villages of Nansiakan and Mapayao Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines at a time when everyone treated each other like Family; everyone's mom was called auntie even if they were no relation. 👫 We were never carried in strollers but we had a better ride in the form of our mother's or grandmother's "kayabang" (basket carried on the back with an "oyon"). Our playground was the rice field, following along behind the water buffalo as our dad plough the field. As early as 7 years old, we were responsible little persons that our parents trusted us to take care of our baby brothers and sisters when they were gone for a whole day working in the farm a considerable distance away, and they knew we would make fire, boil rice and feed the baby with the rice-water or cooked porridge if our sibling is a toddler or take our baby sibling to the neighbour for breastmilk if the baby gets hungry before our mom gets home. At 10 years old, we were expected to ...

Not to sound cynical or arrogant, I've come face to face with death a few times already.  What happened last Tuesday was nothing new.  Given, it was the first time I almost had a heart attack because of a heart disease, but it was not the first time my heart would have stopped.  I am trying to reflect on what I might learn from the experience but my head is still too achy I cannot think at all with clarity. So this is going to be nothing but a nonsensical rambling.  I wasn't feeling too good at all even the previous day.  That morning, I almost wrote my team that we won't meet that day because I was not feeling myself but we have wasted one too many days already because of the typhoons that caused power outages and internet disconnections. So I sent out a message that we will have a checking session that day.  And we did, and because my mentee was new, I did most of the talking.  At a few minutes after 5, I said goodbye to the BT team, closed my laptop...

Who's got the perfect timing?  No one else of course but the one who created time.  I have been waiting to come home for the longest time and have been patiently waiting and waiting, but I have also set myself to a time frame of maybe first or second week of August, just to keep my mind from more disappointments; but lo and behold, when I least expected it, I received an email from the airline, saying that they have cancelled my August 2 flights but that they can rebook me to July 27th which was just a few hours away from when I received the message.  I had the other option of waiting until August 13th.  Of course I chose the one that was just 6 hours away.  So I told everyone that needs to be informed that I finally had a flight, then secured myself a transport to the airport, and started packing up my belongings. Most of my things have already been packed up in May but because of the many cancellations, and the fact that I had to still go to class, I have been...

Narrative and normative types of discourses involve some form of speech act.  It is, therefore, essential for a translator to be able to understand not just what form a particular utterance takes, but more importantly, what an utterance does.  A story is told that an Indian mother-in-law who met her son’s American wife for the first time was shocked and asked, “What kind of woman did my son marry?  She wants everything!”  The daughter-in-law, just being the American that she was, apparently kept appreciating a lot of stuff in her in-law’s house and telling the mother how pretty her saris were.  It so happened that in that particular culture, you offer to give whatever someone compliments you for.  As translators, we do not want to create misunderstandings like that.  Therefore, translators should have a considerable understanding of the speech acts involved in our source language so as to be able to translate accurately, clearly, naturally, and accepta...

In Kalanguya, we have an expression which we use in reply to almost everything, "Tawwey"or its variants "Tawwey ah!"or "Tawwey ngo!" Being the Full Blooded Kalanguya that I am, my mind automatically uses it to answer any question in any language, when my mind is not able to focus to think of something quick to say. It roughly translates to "I don't know or אני לא יודעת! in Hebrew, but it also covers instances when a person meant to say, "I don't have/want to give an opinion about that; I don't care to comment on that, or it doesn't matter to me." The most recent I used it was this morning while I was preparing breakfast, a young man asked me what was the food I was putting on the table at the time. My automatic reply was, "I don't know." After a few moments, I was thinking about it, repeating it to myself, and I thought it might have sounded a bit rude, even to my weird ears.                           ...