Mass Media- What Have You Done?

I had an ordinary childhood. Most of the time, I spent it with my friends in our neighborhood playing piko, hide and seek and football to name a few. Come night time, my siblings and I were glued in front of the tv watching cartoons like Voltes V, Daimos, Astroboy and others, But there is one vivid detail that I will never forget and that is, all those tv programs that we watched were spoken in English.  News on tv was said in English, and imagine, anybody can understand it regardless of his educational status!

The people I knew when I was a little girl were so adept in speaking the language. They were not native speakers mind you, and they occasionally used it but, oh boy, when they speak, it was with such an ease! I suddenly remember my grandfather. When the balikbayans would come over and visit our family, he would impress them by conversing with them in English.

As I grew older, I became so engrossed with Macgyver, Airwolf and Knight Rider, then eventually, with Doggie Howser  M.D. and Beverly Hills 90210. I still remember that the first Princess Sarah, the cartoon, was spoken in English! So you see, any kid at that time who loved her character will be forced to learn English to understand her story. It was a good motivation.

Gradually, networks started tagalizing cartoons and soap operas became so popular; before we knew it, the primetime slot was flocked with soap operas of different genres and the English TV programs were moved to cable channels. Take note, not everyone can have access to cable channels and so, the masa are left without a choice.  They now have a lesser exposure of the English language.

Could this be one major reason why English fluency is slowly deteriorating among our student populace?

Where is the Writer in Me?

In 1998, I was asked to teach Creative Writing to a bunch of fourth year kids in Ednas School Dagupan. I knew  I had no inkling in writing, but I accepted the challenge. I thought, hey this could be a learning experience for me!

And so the ordeal started when I was asked to make a syllabus. Whew, it was just good that my board mate was a graduate of Creative Writing  in UP, and that was how I pretty much started. She handed me a prospectus on Creative Writing and gathered all the books that I needed. And lo and behold, I was able to finish it in a jiffy.

But the problem did not end there- teaching it was the most difficult part in the process. As days passed, to my disbelief, I started loving the subject. I discovered that I could be one hell of a writer too. What really inspired me was the article  written by Salvador P. Lopez entitled "The Making of a Writer."  He said "Good writers are not born; they are made." As a result, I became the coach of feature writing during press conferences (inside ESD and outside jeje), and out of my four- year stay in Dagupan City, one emerged as a national winner. What could be more gratifying than this? 

It also provided me an extra income because other schools would come to me for speech making and other writing tutorials. So for the whole time that I stayed in ESD, that subject was not taken away from me.

Eventually, I became interested on pursuing my MA in the year 2001. So, I together with a friend, went to UP Baguio to take up Master of Management. This experience exposed me to another kind of writing- a more formal and business type like, of which I was not familiar of. The first paper that I submitted was graded 2.25, and I was so broken-hearted! I poured my heart out to my late brother- Jeffrey (a graduate of MBA at ADMU- Rockwell) and taught me the secret of Management Case Studies--SPADE! After that, the next paper that I submitted was already a 1.0, and the rest was history......

Those were the days. They were like ten years ago, and I hadn't done so much writing since 2004. When I browsed all my articles before especially those that I submitted in UP, I would ask myself- DID I REALLY DO ALL THESE? Before, it will only take me a day or two  to finish one case study, but now, having a case study is one major problem. This realization made so much impact on me last Saturday when we had our midterms in Discourse Analysis. I had difficulty starting a composition. It was like a point blank and I didn't know where to start. I couldn't even answer directly on the bond paper because I wasn't confident with my first set of answers. I got scared. This is really something to be worried about considering that I have a grade requirement to meet and a contract to fulfill.

When my husband and I were heading home that day, I told myself  I have to bring back the writer in me again. What ever the cost, I am determined to relive it and rediscover that part of myself-- one more time.