Classes to resume Monday unless...

ABS-CBN

MANILA - Classes in pre-school, elementary and high school will likely resume on Monday except in schools that are being used as evacuation centers and in areas still flooded, according to Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus.

Based on the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) meeting on Friday, Lapus said classes should resume on Monday except:

1) where schools are being used as evacuation centers; 2) where local government authorities declare suspension of classes in their respective areas; 3) where schools are still inaccessible due to various reasons such as floods.

However, Lapus said this policy may still change depending on the impact of supertyphoon Pepeng, which was expected to hit Bicol and northern Luzon starting Saturday afternoon.

"We have to wait for what Pepeng is going to develop into as far as Metro Manila is concerned," he said in an interview with ANC on Friday. "Assuming Pepeng does not disturb the situation right now, we are inclined to localize the suspension of classes."

This means local government authorities will decide whether to resume classes on Monday.

Lapus said many believe classes, especially in private schools, should already resume on Monday in Metro Manila and other areas affected by Ondoy.

He expressed concern over the many class suspensions saying this has affected the minimum number of school days of 204.

"So marami na tayong mga araw na nawalan ng pasok. We cannot indefinitely be on regional suspension, dahil magme-make na tayo ng klase nito," Lapus said.

He suggested that schools may hold make-up classes on Saturdays or shorten the semestral break. Another option is home study.

"We have modules for home study. This is one way--to learn in the houses," Lapus said.

10 Boilerplate Phrases That Kill Resumes

by: Liz Ryan

The 2009 job market is very different from job markets of the past. If you haven't job-hunted in a while, the changes in the landscape can throw you for a loop.

One of the biggest changes is the shift in what constitutes a strong resume. Years ago, we could dig into the Resume Boilerplate grab-bag and pull out a phrase to fill out a sentence or bullet point on our resume. Everybody used the same boilerplate phrases, so we knew we couldn't go wrong choosing one of them -- or many -- to throw into your resume.

Things have changed. Stodgy boilerplate phrases in your resume today mark you as uncreative and "vocabulary challenged." You can make your resume more compelling and human-sounding by rooting out and replacing the boring corporate-speak phrases that litter it, and replacing them with human language -- things that people like you or I would actually say.

Here are the worst 10 boilerplate phrases -- the ones to seek out and destroy in your resume as soon as possible:

• Results-oriented professional
• Cross-functional teams
• More than [x] years of progressively responsible experience
• Superior (or excellent) communication skills
• Strong work ethic
• Met or exceeded expectations
• Proven track record of success
• Works well with all levels of staff
• Team player
• Bottom-line orientation

You can do better. What about adding a human voice to your resume? Here's an example:

"I'm a Marketing Researcher who's driven by curiosity about why people buy what they do. At XYZ Industries, I used consumer surveys and online-forum analysis to uncover the reasons why consumers chose our competitors over us; our sales grew twenty percent over the next six months as a result. I'm equally at home on sales calls or analyzing data in seclusion, and up to speed on traditional and new-millennium research tools and approaches. I'm fanatical about understanding our marketplace better every day, week and month -- and have helped my employers' brands grow dramatically as a result."

You don't have to write resumes that sound like robots wrote them. A human-voiced resume is the new black -- try it!