Rédaction D'un Essai

French for "essay-writing," you'll understand soon.

Today's post is quite different. Since I slept at five o'clock tonight (a while ago), my mind is all mixed up, so I couldn't think properly. To cope up for that, let me share with you instead my PERSEF essay that I wrote yesterday.

Note: I'm sorry if you ever get bored reading these long, wordy paragraphs.

How can we become good citizens? One thing we can do is by changing our country. How can we change our country? The answer is by improving on some things which we may consider as trifle and unimportant in our daily living.

Firstly, we have to follow traffic rules. Traffic rules are the most commonly applied of our laws. We are confronted with them every day – from morning until evening. Thus, whether to follow traffic rules or not is a question that we all face daily. It is a challenge that confronts us every day. We can try today, the next day, the third day, and all subsequent days. And if we succeed today, we may also succeed tomorrow, and on the third day, and the days thereafter.

Someday, our repeated act of following traffic rules could become a habit, and hopefully, a national discipline, Someday, our repeated act of following traffic rules, which are the most ordinary of all laws, can lead us to follow the more difficult and more important of our laws.

Secondly, whenever you buy or pay for anything, always ask for an official receipt. Whenever we buy a product or pay for a service, the price we pay already includes the tax. Under the law, the seller is obligated to remit or forward the tax to the government.

If the seller does not issue an official receipt when you buy a product, the seller may or may not remit the tax to the government. Since you did not ask for an official receipt, there is no record of the sale transaction and therefore the government has no way of knowing it. If the seller chooses not to declare the sale transaction to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the tax that you already paid for the product will not be collected by the BIR. In short, the tax that you already paid for the product will just be pocketed by the seller.

Thirdly, do not litter. Our human acts affect our environment and nature, although always slowly and imperceptibly, but when nature reacts, it could affect as all in devastating ways, including typhoons, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, fuel shortage, water supply and food chain degradation, skin cancer, and global warming due to the depletion of the ozone layer.

We are part of the environment; the environment is part of us. Whichever way we look at it, the environment and we, human beings, are linked to each other in a powerful sense. That’s why we have to dispose our garbage properly. Segregate. Recycle. Conserve.

Lastly, we have to pay our taxes. Of the many duties of a citizen under our Constitution, paying taxes is one of the most crucial, because taxes are the lifeblood of our government and of our nation. Taxes are what we use to buy the basic textbooks for our millions of children in our country, or to build additional classrooms in public schools nationwide. Taxes are what we use to buy the most basic of medicines, often generic and cheap, that our Department of Health officials distribute to 34 million Filipinos nationwide who live below the poverty line. Taxes are what we use to pay all our government employees nationwide – our soldiers, our policemen, our public school teachers, among many others.

This government, whether we like it or not, is our government – its cost is a burden we must all share. The task of building this nation is a task we must all share. We all must contribute to build the nation we dream for ourselves. Each one of us has a role in it. Each one of us has a responsibility to it.

Well, that was my PERSEF assignment. After the clock struck five, I went to bed.

Had anyone noticed that I have not used elipsis points (three periods) yet in my entry today? Well, you better believe it. Today, I am working on a formal entry - no abbreviations, no elipsis points, et cetera.

Oh yes, this post would be short enough to read in one sitting.

I woke up at eight-forty in the morning and headed to school twenty minutes after. After alighting from Quirino Avenue, I searched for a jeepney to drive me to La Salle, but unfortunately, there was none to be found. Suddenly, a side car driver approached me and offered me his services for ten pesos. Being a quick thinker, I quicky agreed, since side car drivers normally charge at least twenty pesos every time they drive a certain passenger to a specific location.

I arrived at my classroom and waited for our professor. I was quite disappointed when I saw Ms. Shirley coming inside our classroom without bringing anything with her. Rochelle was right again, I thought, for she had told me not to anticipate for anything in INTRPRG.

We ate at La Casita. My order for the fourth consecutive time was sisig with egg and a cup of iced tea. I saw Jillan afterwards, and after I finished eating, I bought three packs of Fruit-Tella Crazy and shared some with my blockmates.

We had our ALGTRIG class. Our professor revealed to us his favorite cartoon character. It was Tweety. Unfortunately, he slashed out the "y," and he would not accept answers other than "Tweet."

We had our SCIENVB class, and it was interesting as usual. We submitted our essays to the professor - I won't post it here to conserve space. Our topic today was about corals, invertebrates, and the other specimens than can be found in the vast realms of the marine society.

We also had our PERSEF class, and we submitted our collages and essays to the professor. We had a lot of verbal-knowledge games, but in the end, Team Two managed to overtake us. We will catch up, somehow.

I met Dianne Tiffany for the first time since we entered college. She wanted to borrow some episodes of Naruto and Bleach from me. She also asked about Fruits Basket and Prince of Tennis, but I told her that she was talking with the wrong person.

My mom met me at the Light Rail Transit station in Bambang and drove me to our store. I met Brother Joevir, Elvin, and Jan Timothy outside, and we chatted for a bit. Afterwards, I checked on my cute little bunny. And, oh, I forgot to tell you readers that my other rabbit (also known as Joanie's rabbit), Congo, passed away two days ago after living a life of vanity and hatred.

Here I am now in front of my computer monitor ending my blog post for today.

Yours truly,

Solomon Lim