CELEBRATING NEW YEAR'S EVE AT HOME

To celebrate the new year at home is celebrating where the heart is. You can make the evening special even though the surroundings are familiar.

1. Decorate the house with streamers, stars, and confetti.

2. Invite some of your favorite people over for an end-of-the-year meal. Make sure you give them
    advance warning.

3. Prepare most of the meal before the evening begins. You don’t want to be cooking when you
    should be celebrating.

4. Explain your resolutions and have your guests do the same over dinner.

5. Discuss or think about why you have chosen these particular goals.

6. Light a fire or candles as the clock ticks down.

7. Open and pour champagne or sparkling wine.

8. Toast each other when the clock strikes midnight.

9. Provide noisemakers to ring in the new year.

10. Make sure your guests have safe transportation home.

NEW YEAR'S EVE TRADITION

Filipinos are by nature a superstitious people. As New Year’s eve is nearing, be sure to observe the following (most are Filipino in origin, and some borrowed from the Americans.)

1. Kiss your loved ones at midnight. You are not just celebrating but starting the year with affection
    which will be maintained throughout the year.
2. Stock up your pantry, rice bin, and water jars/jugs. You don’t want to be lacking for a year.
3. Pay off bills before Jan 1st, but avoid settling debts on New Year’s Day.
4. Have thirteen kinds of fruit which are round or roundish in shape to bring in good luck for the new
    year.
5. Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s eve will bring prosperity.
6. Eat a sticky rice delicacy (bibingka, suman, patupat, tupig, etc.) to make good fortune stick.
7. Avoid having chicken or fish which are associated with scarcity of food.
8. Wear new clothes so you will have more new clothes throughout the new year.
9. Wear polka dots. Anything round signifies prosperity.
10. Turn all the lights on and your incoming year will be bright.
11. Clean everything, but not on the first day of the New Year.
12. Jump 12 times to increase height (meant for kids only).
13. Make loud noise at the strike of midnight to scare the evil spirits away.
14. Eat pansit (Filipino rice noodles) for long life.
15. Put grape(s) in your mouth at midnight. (Anything round denotes prosperity.)

16. Scatter coins around the house — on tabletops, inside drawers, window panes, etc.

A SON'S TRIBUTE TO HIS FATHER

(Kevin, a college sophomore, gave this remarks before the school staff during a surprise reception for his dad as the campus teacher of the year in 2008.)

“A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others.” - Buddha

I may be a bit biased, but I believe there is no more deserving of such recognition as Mr. Rivera. Speaking as lifelong students of his, my brothers and I believe he is very qualified. I would first like to congratulate my dad. We’re very proud of you.

A quote from Buddha says that “A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others.” I think this applies perfectly to my dad. I reflect on his life and his journey through what he has shared with us over the years and it makes me the more certain of his ability and competence as a teacher. Out of nothing, he has built life with such profound resilience and dedication that, at my best, I could only hope to attain. When he tells stories of his childhood in the Philippines it’s difficult sometimes to comprehend the hardships he had to experience. After all, he has made an adamant effort to make a life for his sons so that we don’t have to go through them.

I apologize if this becomes too personal, but I feel like it has to be for me to express how much having my father there affects my life. Sometimes with my faults and shortcomings, it’s easy for me to feel like this apple has fallen off a tree, rolled down the hill, and then carried off by the river. But my dad never lets me feel that way. Sometimes all a teacher has to do is to make his students believe in their own potential. Incredible things will happen.#