How to make Akapulko ointment

Last June 27, during in our Related Learning Experience (RLE) 20 class, our teacher taught us how to make Akapulko Ointment. This ointment as what they have told us is good for skin itchiness, skin infection and even scabies.

Our group, Group 1, is so excited to make this ointment. Actually, it is our first time and we are like in an unstoppable ignition of feeling excited because we would like to know the process in making this ointment that really cures skin irritations.

First, we prepare all the things needed. They are:
240 ml. chopped in small pieces Akapulko leaves
240 ml. finely scraped Esperma candle
240 ml. palm oil
Cooking clay pot (kolon)
Denatured alcohol
Match
Wooden laddle

After preparing the equipment and ingredients needed, then we go to the main thing of making the ointment.

1. Wash your hands.
2. Wash the fresh young Akapulko leaves.
3. Chop the washed fresh young Akapulko leaves.
4. Prepare the Esperma candle and scrape thinly.
5. Prepare one glass of Esperma (240 ml.) candle, one glass of chopped, fresh young Akapulko leaves and one glass of palm oil.
6. Pour one galss or chopped young Akapulko leavs and one glass of palm oil into a clay pot and boil.
7. Mix and stir the leaves using a wooden spoon or ladle until the leaves become crispy and golden brown.
8. After cooking, strain and pour the boiling extracted juice in oil into the container with one glass of Esperma or thinly scraped pieces of candle.
9. Let it cool, and then pour it into a clean container.

As we were done making the ointment, we were glad that such an activity would give us an idea that we can indeed utilize to make ointment from Akapulko leaves that will serve to help us heal and even cure our minor skin problem.

Appreciate the availability of herbs in the surrounding would make us knowledgeable that in order to find alternatives in directly not resting yet for medication especially when the illness or disease is not deep, we can get the right option from nature's available and approved by the Department of Health (DOH) herbs. 

The call to become a leader

Everyone has the potential to become a "leader", but this precious word is the one that people often thinks they can't.

People are born as leaders. I believe that everyone is called a "leader". In fact, the presence of himself alone stands out that he is a leader, a leader of himself.

Depriving too much of the philosophical explanations out of it, a leader is not simply to lead. Everyone is called a leader. He is responsible for all the agenda and businesses that form the ground out of his role.

But why is it that when just an utter of the word, "leader", everyone shatters to neglect and even discards this persona in them?

I have been a leader ever since when I was in my elementary years. I know that the task of a leader is diverse and even hard. It is like so much harder as if I am the role of all roles. The responsibility that my teacher vested on me, implanted me to really lead my classmates on the direction that would always bring happiness to many. And there are those times that I fail because of the state of my body that I was not able to deal in leading due to sickness. Good thing that I lose no battle.

I understand that not all can take the leader in them. The kind of neglectful reactions that people answer when it comes to the pinpointing of "you are the leader" or the "you should be the leader" thing understands me that people do have various attacks and approaches in life. The kind of attitudes, the exposures, the perceptions and even the personalities one has always are the ways in mind that obviously can't be erased when pinpointing "who's who" to be the leader.

The call to be a leader is not vested on the experts nor on the exposed individuals whose "thick" faces are the main actors and actresses always in the scene. The leader in each person should prevail to bloom so that the person could always bring out the best in him.

It is obviously not an exemption that in the process of forming groups, various attitudes are displayed by each member. On the other hand, the task to become a leader is so wide that in order to cope with the rising demands or approaches in time, he needs to be flexible in all angles of life.

Thus, no one is not a leader. Everyone is a leader. The kind of pursuance of the leader in a person needs to be bursted out.

It is unhealthy for a person to neglect responsibilities when it comes to leadership. The best way in order to build self-esteem and to make a difference in this world is to be a leader in many ways and in our own ways.

Trusting oneself and defining the real essence of what defines life is in us. It takes the leader in us to bloom and be able to cultivate. The calling is always going eternally.

As we further stride to walk in life, still, the calling of being a leader lingers on. 

Thank you so much, Kuya Cliff!

I owe my education right now to my Kuya Cliff, my brother-in-law and I would like to greet him, a Happy Father's Day! This is a lifetime act of gratitude for him for helping me attain one of my dreams come true.

I am not expecting the gift of education that I am enjoying right now. It has been shouldered by Kuya Cliff. He is the husband of my younger sister.

Ever since as a child, I always would like to be a nurse. I want to serve the people by helping the sick and the dying and it was only this time that I got the education for nursing. This time that dream of pursuing my ever-dream in life to have a nursing course is now at my hands. My brother-in-law pays my tuition and finances in school.

Nursing is so expensive. And I take gratitude always to Kuya Cliff. This course that I have taken right now is what I really love and I am doing my part to not waste every cent nor dollar that Kuya Cliff sacrificed just to send me in school.

This is an opportunity that I choose not to miss because when I graduate, pass the board exams and have a nursing job, then I would be able to help everyone and them as well.

To my Kuya Cliff who I owe my education, A Happy Father's Day!

My friends always ask me this question.....until now.

Last Thursday while we had our Orientation, this very most, always-repeated question again do I encounter, and of course, I answer them - "Why I am still single at this time?" Now, it reminds me to go back into my past memories again. It comes back like flashes of thunder, so quick and transcending. I then answered them, "It is not my priority at this time."

Basing from their questions, it would always keep me track of my past. The hurt that I have experienced before of my best friend and who is my boyfriend clings me that I never want to get hurt again at this time and I am not really ready for a relationship.

If they just only knew my love story, then they would surely understand. But I keep them for myself because I know in my heart that sooner I will be happy then as he is also very happy at this time with his own family. Maybe I could say that I am scared to open my heart to a man this time. In fact, I always pray to the Lord that if someone will come, I hope that he will surely be the one who will never try to hurt me.

I am just taking calm when it comes to that aspect because it is never too easy to be hurt. I know that all comes and sets in for a reason. But for me, I am very happy of myself this time, being single and I know time will come that I will be happy and more happier with the one that is set for me by the Lord. I am not in the rush this time. I know time will always really come and if, my stay in this world defines marriage is not for me, then acceptance is the only way that I can take pride on it.

I don't really blame my friends for asking me that kind of question, but everytime they do ask, it always draw me to my past.

Inspirational message from my Instructor

"In order to understand life, you go back to the place where your parents live (hometown)."

Until now, this line always coming back and forth on my mind. It is like a ghost that would drive me always again and again, to this line. I just love what my instructor in Maternal and Child Care told the class about something that would keep us reminding that in order for us to better understand life (I can't perfectly get the correct line of this inspirational message from my instructor), we need to go back to the place where our parents live.

This would mean that when in growing old as teenager or so, in order for us to understand why our parents' upbringings are like these or why the kind of culture we have in our family is like that, we need to go to the place of where our parents originally live before when they were still young so that we could fully understand their life as we form realizations, learning and even connections in their past to our present as their children.

It is very much important for parents to guide their children in a way of making their life story before, an "open book" for their children so that there is a solid understanding why our parents are like this and that. Why we have practices, beliefs and traditions at home. That, in our stay in their lives, they bring culture to home. What our parents' upbringing of their parents before would always reflect the kind of home that they also want to learn to their children and it could pass from generations to generations.

Values, morals, teachings, etc., these inexpensive things, our parents are masters of them. Probably, we don't understand why they are so strict and overprotective. It surely boils down to what they are before. It could be that they don't want us to experience the "lack" of teachings they have before in their family. It could also be that they don't want us to get hurt and be harmed, that is why, they are doing things that would oftentimes label for some as "over" negatively, but it does not in real sense.

It is so good to always bring back the experience of one's parents alive always in the house of a family. This would always make a good and happy home.

I will miss the Section B.

B is for laughter. We do have a lot of fun in spite of life's uncertainties. Even if we find schooling hard, but there is the spirit that makes us smile even though how overly laden we are with school assignments, projects, super-duper hard quizzes and "out-of-this-world" examinations. That is the spirit we have as B.

B is for seriousness. I can say that out from 100%, we share, probably 10% of laughters and of course, 90% of studying. We are serious when it comes to classes. We listen attentively and help each other out in times that we find the subject confusing. I take time to inform everyone about what to do and where to search, when to do this and how to get that.

B is for confidence. There is a kind of unique "stand" that B has. A kind of confidence that would shine. It is the kind of extraordinary "guts" that we have, the "igniter" to pressures, challenges, ideas, and worriness. We leave no room for anxiety and fear because we believe that we can do things as we have this kind of unity that would make us responsible at all times.

B is for unity. Even though hectic schedules crashes our way out, we are solid, united as one. We do have for each other. Though there are tests of attitudes that we sometimes experience, settling them can easily patched things up.

B is for a happy family. We are family. We have the "Ate", "Kuya" and "Bunso" in the family of B. We take the role of helping and learning from each other. One's presence in the B signifies the kind of role he or she donates in order for us to shape of what we are right now. Though, there are various personalities and attitudes each role display, we meet at the point where understanding, love and concern for everyone are the shining star of our mark. We are indeed a happy family.

B is for love. What we have for each other is incomparable. We help each other because we love one another. It is the act of sharing and giving. It is about the "concern" that we have for each other.

B is a lifetime treasure. I will surely miss the B. It has been a part of me. But no matter where we are, it is still the B that would always shine in me.

I love you, Guys! I will surely miss the Section B!

The pain is gradually gone.

It is so good to feel okay everyday. At least, out from my rise from every pain, I am able to gradually say that I am okay right now. The pain is gradually gone.

It is a hard feeling to carry a kind of a sackful world that is hard to bear especially in the midst of the moment of it. But as time passes by, I was able to gain myself from a rise that I know would bring me to whole again.

People do undergo the kind of feeling that needs them to wake up from life's reality and it is so hard that out from that reality, pain is part of it. One can't form what a person he is right now unless he has gone through the downs of pain.

Life is so queer that in every struggle, one must muster himself to cling to a kind of instinct that drives him to follow what he believes. This kind of determination reflects who he is and what is on his mind. But in totality, out from our plans, there are some changes that significantly brought us back to our feet or will bring us to face the so-called "life".

Life is a lesson and it is where our world revolves. No one is a "direct winner" unless he surpasses the pains of life.