One of the joys of teaching is seeing your students blossom long after they leave you. As a college communication major, Eleanore had the basic skills that would help her build a successful career wherever she went later on. And yet, like most diamonds in the rough, there were the youthful writing slips that we all go through. Eleanore can’t seem to forget that I once scribbled on a paragraph in one of her class paper submissions “slightly redundant,” as young writers allow their passions to fly and forget that they had already said what they wanted to express. I was one of her first editors who wanted to make the depth of her insightful messages clearer and more precise.

Eleanore has own out of my classroom into the larger sky of the public domain and this collection of anecdotes and lessons from a life she knows very well reveals her storytelling skills that will make you really understand people you thought you knew. There is that honesty in her writing that I discovered long ago and will continue to enjoy as she writes even more.

—Severino R. Sarmenta Jr., PhD
Department of Communication chair,
Ateneo de Manila University
Veteran broadcast and print journalist