What's Da Buzz?

Normally I would submit to you a phrase common to the English language to demonstrate what it means and a tidbit of wisdom behind it. However, the number of weird things to have happened to my husband and I in the last few days has us just needed to post examples of unwise choices or lack of wisdom.

The first one comes with this picture of a “yo-yo” like product sent to us to indicate support in celebrating the United States’ Independence Day. There is just a little detail with this. If a company is going to send an “Independence Day” package, it would be best if the products did not have the words “Made in China” written on the USA patriotic stuff and especially the flag. Look in the middle between the stars.

Next is a bizarre action taken that just defies all logic, wisdom and intelligence. As I mentioned, we disconnected cable TV last week. We did not replace it. We do not use any form of satellite dishes either. So to our surprise and anger, we came home to finding the Direct TV technicians stuck the satellite dish and post IN OUR FLOWER GARDEN for SOMEONE ELSE’s account and trampled our Asiatic Lilies. (Puga, mga walay batasan!)

Their instructions were to put the dish and post near the corner of the building. But these dimwits chose to plant the satellite dish and post inside our fenced off, landscaped flower garden!! See below.

Okay, done venting for now.

Anah

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In this entry of Family Matters, I am going to cover something that we are doing to help our daughter overcome a small fear but not quite phobia she has.

When we were visiting some friends in a different area, my daughter who was a few years younger reached out to pet a dog someone had. It was a young bulldog who did not want to be petted at that time. The bulldog responded by biting her hand and leaving bite marks but did not break the skin.

Needless to say, that traumatized my little one who became very jumpy around dogs ever since. So how does a parent help their child overcome such an understandable fear?

As we attend our Bible Study group, we have had exposure to 3 different dogs which she has had a variety of reactions to. For all of them, it started off as shying away from any contact.

The first dog is a kind of pitbull dog. Now this dog is far from the nasty dog fighting kind we hear about. He is a very kind dog but you can tell the dog is a he raised around a batch of men. He likes to play rough at times. Since he is only a little over a year old, he is very playful. It took my daughter several months of weekly contact to get the courage up to even pet him. It did not help that petting him triggers his desire to play by catching your hand in his mouth.

So it was back to the drawing board until this past weekend. We stumbled upon the answer though. Visiting a friend’s house introduced us to a friendly poodle. The poodle never bites anyone and loved to play. It did not take long before my daughter and the poodle were chasing each other and playing hide and seek throughout the sizable house. What a relief and a find!

Then a few days later she met the dog of another friend. This dog is a Teddy Bear breed that is only a few months old. Again, the dog and my daughter bonded again and were having fun with the dog playfully chasing my daughter and both had smiles on their faces.

So that is our answer to this fear. Start small and the fear can be broken!

Anah

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In the past, I have written about how the English language can trip a person up with just an example of Horses & Geese. I have also written in the past about the need to Train the Filipina Tongue to avoid miscommunication especially on simple topics that turn out very wrong when pronouncing the American English words with a Filipino accent.

Well, I have to revisit this topic a little bit from a different standpoint.

When a foreign born individual visits or immigrates to the Philippines and tries to speak Tagalog or whatever the primary dialect used, we naturally get a giggle or two when they completely butcher it. We do respect their attempt at speaking our language. However, there are times when the attempt is butchered so badly that they end up saying something either with a terribly wrong meaning or a completely nonsense meaning. Of course, we are all human and have a very hard time refraining from solid laughter. No disrespect meant.

Now that I’m here in the USA taking client at customer support calls, I have been exposed to a slightly funny side of Filipinos here in the USA. After an incident with the Philippine Consulate office in Chicago, my funny bone was already tickled. (Thanks Goryo!!) What put me over the top was after we got done chuckling about some English mistakes on the Philippine Consulate’s directions; I got a call from a very polite Filipina with a heavy accent. (Ako super guilty din minsan with my accent!)

Without disclosing details, here are two lines that just got me in our conversation (spelled like she pronounced it):

“Plez hilp me mam, I ned u two find out if long’s located close to the hill is covered. The gasoline cannot afford me.”

And

“I cannot greatly appreciated you madam. You help me save gas for the trip is so long if I cannot go to long’s pharmacy”

Why does that tickle my funny bone? For one, I still have a hard time with getting the right version a verb correct. When do you use “ed” or “s” on the end still messes me up when I talk, MS Word helps me with the written part. But you know what, I would rather talk with someone who is very polite (like the Filipina lady I spoke with today) but with broken English rather than someone who has better English but a horrible attitude!

But what really got me was calling the “mail-in” department with questions regarding a passport renewal process that is listed as “Personal Appearance Required … Application by mail will not be accepted.” Then when you read the directions on Passport Requirements it gets real funny on the Requirements for Pictures section F.

“straight frontal shot (no titling of head) & “medium” smile is allowed”

What is a “medium” smile? Did they realize what the typo of the word tilting actually spells and sounds when you say it out loud?

Oh well, it should make for a fun trip for a day. Hopefully I’ll be able to read those driving directions correctly this time and not look for step 8 when I’m supposed to be on step 6. It is so easy to get hopelessly lost when you do not read the directions correctly to your hubby as they drive. LOL!

Proud to be Pinay,

Anah