Foot and Fire

The Promise of a Pencil: How an ordinary person can create extraordinary change Adam Braun with Carlyle Adler Scribner, 2014 324 pages I read this already many months ago. I just need to write something about it. This book tells of the journey of Braun from a promising wallstreet boy to becoming a CEO of a successful nonprofit organization which helps poor countries build schools as well as also engaging the community where the school stands. Braun is not only a dreamer but transformed himself as a dynamic leader along the way as he reach for his dream. He is also ready to learn from everyone he meets. Each chapter of this book is titled with a mantra. Among my favorites are “Do the small things that make others feel big,” “Tourists see, travelers seek,” “Focus on one person in every room,” “You cannot fake authenticity,” “If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough,” and “ Change your words to change your worth.” Just one warning: This book of kindness ...

On the left is my Aunt Imelda who inspired this story  while the woman on the right is my mother.  Both turned 75 and 65 this year.  Photo taken in Taoist Temple in Cebu City last year. I was so sure that my father's zest for education led me to my profession. Become a lawyer so that your signature turns expensive, he would say . But it turned out that I was only partly correct. I learned later on that my story also started from my maternal side through my aunt. My lola married my lolo, who was ten years her senior, at the age of fifteen. They begot her in 1941. Being the eldest to a stern uneducated farmer and a chinese-garter-playing teenager was a challenge. As parents, they were unorganized, dominant, and unreasonable. It was because they were uneducated . My Lolo finished just his Spanish alphabet equivalent to grade one while my Lola, her grade three. "Education in my family is a family history. It is worth retelling to a generation which neg...