Misay nga Mambanon -- A Waray Parody of Mocking Bird Hill

Here's a Waray song I learned from my father. In the early 1970's he was assigned in San Antonio, Northern Samar as a PACD (Presidential Assistant on Community Development) officer and it was there that he learned the song.

Image source

I became familiar with the Mocking Bird Hill (by Patti Page) tune because of Misay nga Mambanon (Spotted Cat). I'm posting here the lyrics of the song. You may play the youtube video -- audio actually, because except for that static photo there's nothing else to see -- while singing Misay nga Mambanon.


MISAY NGA MAMBANON

Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika
Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika

Misay, misay, misay, misay nga mambanon
Sinaka kagab-i an suga ginparong
Dayon ko la buhat ngan panginanuon
Salbahis nga misay kinupkop la dayon

Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika
Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika

To the "Warays" out there, I hope you'll include this in your list of favorite Waray songs. 

You might also like:
Misay: A Waray Folk Song (with voice clip and English translation)

How to Change the Title of your Blog -- A Beginner's Guide

Changing the title of a blog is easy. Once you learn how to do it, you can change it anytime because it can be done swiftly without using any complicated codes. You can do it in just three steps. Here they are:

1. On your Dashboard, click SETTINGS.



2. On the TITLE, write the new name or title of your blog.


3. Click SAVE SETTINGS.

How to Start a Blog at Blogger.com -- A Beginner's Guide

So, you finally decided to have your own blog, but you don't know how to go about it. In this post, I'll do a step-by-step guide on how to set-up a blog at Blogger.com. You may 'right-click' the pictures to better  understand this tutorial.

• Type www.blogger.com in the address bar of your web browser, and click "CREATE YOUR BLOG."

• Click "More options."

• Create your Google account by filling out this form.
  
  
  

• After accomplishing the form, click "Next Step." Don't forget to read the Blogger's Privacy and Terms [formerly this was Terms of Service (ToS)] before clicking "I agree."  (I have heard about bloggers who were suspended from using Google Adsense because they violated some items in the ToS. Blogger operates in this manner -- you violate its stipulations and your account gets suspended.) Click "Continue to Blogger."

• You will be asked to confirm your Google+ profile.  For this demo blog, I'm choosing the limited Blogger profile option. 

• Click "Continue to Blogger," and click "Create new blog."

• Write your desired title and address.  The title is the name of your blog, e.g., Student Interns. The address is its Uniform Resource Locator or URL, e.g., http://studentinterns.blogspot.com.   

• Choose the theme of your blog, and click "Create Blog!"

• Now, you're ready to write your first blog post. 

• Write the title of your first blog post in the title bar. 

• Click "PUBLISH" after you have written everything you want to say in this maiden post.

Related Posts:

How to Add a Gadget on Blogger -- A Beginner's Guide

How to Change the Title of Your Blog -- A Beginner's Guide

Socialgo.com: No Longer A Free Webhosting Site

Socialgo.com once hosted the two websites I made for my high school students. I liked it because of the many features that it offered to its users, specifically my students.

About a month ago, I prepared a Powerpoint presentation for a group of Education students where I talked about the advantages of integrating technology with classroom activities. I was able to access the two sites and to take several screenshots of their pages.


As of this writing, however, the VSULHS Literary Minds and the VSULHS Budding Writers can no longer be accessed. They completely disappeared from the world wide web. I checked Socialgo.com's home page and I didn't find the familiar "Login" button. Instead, there's that "pricing and sign-up" button: that means we have to pay before we can avail of Socialgo.com's services.


For classroom teachers who want to build websites for their students, you may try team blogging at Blogger.com or at Wordpress.com. It's not easy setting up a team blog especially when your students are not tech savvy, but this is the only option that I can think of at this time. Why Blogger.com and Wordpress.com? Both sites allow publishing without any fees; hence, you need not worry about the possibility that your posts might suddenly disappear without any trace.

Two Waray Words -- Ohataw and Ipo

Ohataw is a food container. It's a concave vessel with a round shape. In some parts of Samar and Leyte, it is called yahong. An ohataw is typically used as a soup bowl.

tabatchnik.com

Ipo is another Waray word for misay/misai. It’s also called iding, iring, misay, or uding by other Waray speakers. All these five nouns Waray terms for cat.

carricaturesbysusan.com

I know my mother tongue very well, yet I haven't come across a specific Waray word for kitten. Whether it's a cat or a kitten, it's always called ipo. To refer to a kitten, Waray speakers -- especially those from Northern Samar -- usually say anak sa ipo (a cat's offspring).