Extending a warm virtual hug to all the teachers all over the world.

May we all bring with us a pocketful of patience, fortitude and sunshine-y smiles as we deal with the children (and their families) whom we share our knowledge with.

Teachers for Gender Equality is a good theme for this year’s celebration. This is one topic I discuss with my older students, along with bullying, social media ethics, and good socialization skills.

Who would have thought at this day and age, there are still places where gender equality is not practiced nor recognized? I know it is something we can’t imagine especially with us who enjoy privileges that other women in other countries don’t enjoy.

To the many teachers who still continue to teach despite their struggles with meager salaries, inadequate facilities and big class sizes, my hats off to you!

To my aunt Letty Tapado, may you inspire teachers to follow what you selflessly do in the name of helping others because you are a teacher.

To the wonderful teachers of my eldest child who are now the teachers of my homeschoolers no more children, I am blessed to have you in our lives as you have helped me teach my children good values in a matter that is not too stressful for them.

Had a talk with my eldest daughter’s classmate’s mom yesterday at a supermarket.

Details of our chit-chat made me think about how my students will be in the near future, especially now that a few of them are in college. Being me, I still worry think about how they will be able to deal with the reality of hard work in college and looking for a job after that.

Will they be able to be pursue their dreams of doing what they do best? One said he’s bound to enjoy having Travel Jobs while another said he hopes to be a good photographer some day. One former student is now studying to be a chef which was only a natural thing to do because he is a good cook, even without proper training.

I also used to have a student who underwent “office skills” training from me: encoding documents, using small office supplies like stapler, punchers and calculators as well as collating documents depending on what is required to put them together.

It’s all up to us, parents and teachers to encourage and support our children to do their best.

September has a been a very busy month in terms of activities in the children’s school as well as with my teaching load.

September was also a month that I missed a lot of deadlines and I know my ever patient editor must be clenching her teeth and slowly losing her patience with me (huwag naman please, ).

I even promised a dear friend an article about sun showers but I failed to deliver. I just visited one of the  blogs I own and saw that for last month, I only got 6 entries because the posts are still in the drafts. IN the drafts for several weeks already.

I still have the passion to write but after all these weeks, the writing muse is still nowhere to be found as of this moment. Or maybe there is hope because I was able to sit down to write this piece because the article before this was in the drafts for almost three weeks. Egad!

For the month of September( please don’t ask what happened to the daily gratitude journal, let’s not get into that, haha), I am grateful for:

• my family’s love, support, hugs and kisses

• mini-struggles that keep me on my toes day in and day out

• friends who make me smile and who give encouraging words whenever I feel the need to share my “load” of emo moments (if only I can afford to give you gold necklaces with pendants engraved: “I am a Patient Friend” I will do so)

• I am grateful to moms/readers of this blog who sent me emails about their children, trusting that I will help them in any way I can. I am deeply sorry for not answering your inquiries because it was only the other night that I got to read emails as far back as 2009. With that, thank you hubby for finally figuring out what was wrong why I can open these web mails: our ISP servers.

• I am forever grateful to my Papa’s cousin, Auntie Angie, for giving my parents a place to stay because our home’s roof has damage from previous typhoons. The roof is now completely damaged after Pedring came and went. I worry about how to help them financially but I know we will be able to find a solution to this.

There are so many things to be grateful for and I know just counting my blessings make me feel even more blessed. Now excuse me while I wipe away my tears first.