Birthday

Everyone has a birth date, who does not? This date is just a simple remembrance that God gives us another year and we must be thankful for it.

I saw in my photo albums that my parents never miss a single party for my birthday. From one year old until I was 16, we celebrate it by inviting other people. I was used to that feeling that I was excited every birthday, my family will prepare for it and our relatives and my friends will be there. I miss those times. When I entered college, I did not get the chance to be with my family anymore because my birthday is on august and I can not go home. It was on my seventeenth birthday when I felt how sad it was to be away especially when my parents called. On my eighteenth birthday, my father was there and somehow his presence made me more than happy. Although it was my childhood dream to have a cotillion for my debut, I was still satisfied with our simple celebration.

Another birthday means an additional to your age, the thing that we are often afraid of because we are not getting any younger. When I was two years old, I wanted to grow old faster so that I could go to school just like our neighbors. Yet now, I wish I were young, carefree, and innocent. Wounds and bruises were easier to heal when we were kids but wounds in the hearts take time to heal. The older we are, the more complicated the problems become and the world expands more than you thought.

Your birthday can represent your identity through the year or zodiac sign you were born. It is up to you if you believe these things. But for me, those things are often true and happening. I do not know if those are just mere coincidences. I am Leo and born under year of the Dragon, what can you say about my personality?

Incentives

In economics, there is theory of incentives on solving social and economic issues like giving incentives to small size families to alleviate population problem, giving free green bags to shopping center customers to promote environment protection, and deduction on taxes to taxpayers who pay on time.

Incentives do not only work in economics. These are very effective in enhancing the academic performance of the students in class. When teachers give extra points for students with no late and perfect attendance, the students will be encouraged to comply to these requirements. In attending seminars and fora, without bonus points, there will only be few students who will have the willingness to attend such events. in that way, they will not only earn bonus points, they will also learn new insights and acquire more knowledge aside from what they learn inside the classroom. If the teacher announces beforehand about the forthcoming exam, more students will be prepared and their grades are better than the unannounced exam. However, there are times that these incentives are not good like when the student knows that the teacher will give bonus points, he will not study more because he depends on the incentives, that he will pass the exam because of the bonus points. Other teachers also give bonus problems related to the topics and those can not just be mere bonus problems because those need some effort. Another teacher, for the bonus questions, asked what is her full name, age, room number, and address.

Lastly, incentives are also useful at home. When parents motivate their children to do well in school, they use positive reinforcement rather than punishments. They will reward their children to inspire them to do well and to do more so that they will receive more and more benefits. An example of this is the parents will promise to their child that they will give her the doll she wants to have if she will get a high score in her exam. Or if the child is an adolescent, the parents may offer him for a new phone if he is among the top students in class.

Incentives are very useful. However, these must be use in a right way and right time for these to be effective.

Accepting and Loving

Sometimes, we are in a crossroad of loving someone whom you can not accept a part of his life. Our parents manifest the unselfish love for us that despite our mistakes, they still accept us. In friendship, we love our friends though we can not understand some of their principles. As long as we love the person, we are willing to accept the bad along with the good. There are cases when the guy is in love with a single mother and we can not deny the fact that not all men are willing to take care the child and wife of another man. Also, we often say that we accept his whole being but we can not erase in our mind what he has done or what has happened to him before. In relationships, it is not enough that you accept him of what he is, you should also accept him of what he is not. We can not expect him to be the person that you want him to be because that is not anymore him.