The third thirty-six

Here I am still addicted to Flickr obviously having completed another pageful of favorite photos.
Included in this new set of favorites are a couple spectacular photographs (third row, fourth and fifth thumbnails) from the equally impressive "The Mysterious Dutch Light" set by mjmourik. It's a wonder how she captures or achieves the lighting and warm tones so reminiscent of classic landscape paintings.

Another favorite set of mine is the one featuring everyday items posed and arranged to form humorous scenes. I picked the photo entitled "Run for Your Life!!" as one of my favorites (bottom row, fourth thumbnail).

It's a limeberry!

My family has had this shrub/bush for as long as I can remember. It started as a small shrub planted in a 12" clay pot. Then when we moved to our new home, we got some cuttings to plant around a coconut tree in our front yard. Together those cuttings grew to form an immense thorny shrub nearly nine feet tall and who knows how many feet around. (The original plant sadly dried up during a heat wave. Sniff!)

We didn't know much about it but would just refer to it as "lemoncito". Sometimes we would harvest the fruit and cook them in sugar and water to make a sweet dessert/preserve. I've asked around to find out what this plant really is, trying my best to describe the waxy leaves, tiny red fruits that grow to no more than half an inch in diameter and thorny branches, but to no avail. I also searched the web for more information about "lemoncito" but got nowhere. The term "lemoncito", it turns out, is used in various parts of the world to refer to all sorts of fruits belonging to the Citrus family.

But the good news is, the mystery is now solved. I took some photos of the tiny fruit some months ago while testing the macro mode of my brand new camera and posted the photo recently on my Flickr account. Then I came across this "What Plant is That?" group and posted the photo there yesterday hoping somebody could identify this plant whose real name has been long a mystery to me. Lo and behold! Tony from Sydney posted a comment today saying that it belonged to the Citrus family and is called Triphasia trifolia. I checked the webpage he included, and yep, on the page were pictures of "lemoncito" whose common name was, after all, limeberry.

Addicted to Flickr

I finally created my own Flickr account the other Saturday (I didn't have my Harry Potter book to read, remember?) and uploaded my favorite homemade Federer wallpapers into a set called Tennis Wallpapers. Of course, I applied for a free account as I can't afford to pay the annual fee of US$24.95 to avail of more features. I did this more as a trial just to see how it is to use Flickr, to create sets, to edit photo descriptions, tags, etc. I even found out how to make a badge so that I could display a random wallpaper on the sidebar of my Federer blog. Then to try more features available on Flickr like, I slowly began to upload some of my favorite photos organize them into sets and add them to groups. (I found out that I could have just three sets and no collections with my free account. Sigh!) Since I made my photos viewable by the public, it was amusing to see which ones people would take notice of, which ones people were likely to view and tag as their favorite or even comment on.

I began to also browse other people's photos based on "interestingness" and as soon as something caught my fancy, I would tag it as my favorite and continue browsing. Eventually I began to realize that whenever I would tag a photo as my favorite, the owner of the photo was likely to browse my photostream and tag a few of mine as his or her favorite as well. Quite a friendly community. I also found out that adding one's photos to pools of other similar photos increases the chances of your photos getting viewed by others.

Anyway, it was really so addicting in a way to see all those beautiful photos other people had taken and posted on their accounts that I quickly accumulated 72 favorites by yesterday evening:
Most were made by professional photographers or else serious photo hobbyists who maintained pro accounts on Flickr. How I envy those people! I wish I could pay for a pro account to be able to see not just my most recent 200 images but all images that I could upload into my account, to have more than three sets, to organize my sets into collections...

The lame pigeon

This is a story from my sister has a soft spot for animals just like me.

Last Saturday, she went out to watch the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at an IMAX theatre in downtown Toronto. Since she went to the 12:30pm showing, she had no choice but to have a late lunch. So after the movie, she bought a slice of pizza from one of those little shops that sell authentic wooden stove baked pizzas and walked over to a small nearby park with a fountain to eat her lunch.

As in most open spaces in Toronto, this particular spot had its share of pigeons hanging around waiting for people to drop them some crumbs. My sister wasn't in the mood then to share her pizza so most of the pigeons eventually left her alone--except for this one pigeon who refused to leave. Knowing that giving just one morsel would encourage it to wait for more, my sister still didn't give it anything. But then she noticed that the little thing had some missing claws/toes on one leg so that it was practically standing on one leg most of the time. Ah the poor thing. (It probably stayed around because it can't perched on branches like the others.) My sister eventually took pity on it and gave it a bit of the crust of her pizza that didn't have any of the pizza sauce. The little pigeon eagerly ate it up. Of course, many other creatures in the vicinity showed up soon after: a little maya, then a squirrel, then finally the rest of the pigeons came walking back. She gave each of them a bits from her pizza making sure that the lame one got more than its share. The poor things were probably so used to being fed by strangers who stopped by.

Reading the last book

I did mention that I wasn't feeling well enough last weekend to go out and pick up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, didn't I? Well, yes, I was sorely disappointed not to be able to get it right away and start reading it during the weekend. I so wanted to beat the articles or reactions with the usual spoilers that surely would be popping up all over the Internet and other media. Last weekend seemed to be the best time to laze around and read a good book as I wasn't feeling too well to do anything else and had no class-related things to catch up on.

But I got a surprise yesterday (Monday) morning. A friend lent me his copy of the book--if you know what I mean. Naturally, I thought I could put off reading it til I got home that evening but I made the big mistake of reading the opening chapter. The trouble with J.K. Rowling is like any other brilliant author she makes sure that once you start reading her books, you can't let go until the end. Just like peanuts... or Pringles: "once you pop, you can't stop" sort-of-thing. And so there I was reading Deathly Hallows--it was around 10am--just stopping to have lunch and to go my hour-long lecture class at 1pm. It was a miracle nobody came by to interrupt me that afternoon when I resumed reading. By the time it was time for me to get going home around 6:15pm, I had read until the beginning of Chapter 20. Of course, I began reading again soon after I got home and only managed to tear myself away from it after finishing Chapter 30 at 1am. You see, I had to make sure I got enough sleep for the next day (today) when I'd have my three lecture classes, the first of which starts at 8am.

So this morning, after my 8am class, I began reading from where I left off the night before, then broke off (I was in the middle of Chapter 31 then) to go to my 10am lecture after which, needless to say, I resumed reading. I was thoroughly enjoying a most crucial and intriguing Chapter 33 when I had to leave to buy lunch. I managed to complete the next chapter before I had to leave once again this time for my 1pm class. I had a meeting as well to attend after my class, unfortunately, so I had to patiently wait until just past 3pm before I could get back to reading. I finally finished the last three chapters (including the epilogue) about an hour later, sat back, took a deep breath and thought, "Wow!"

Right now back here at my laptop, I just feel drained and think I will make it an early night. Reading Deathly Hallows was like going on a journey myself. It was exhausting physically and emotionally and a good night's sleep should help me recover after a total of 15 hours of reading. I suppose I'll just have to write about my reactions to the book --with spoilers, of course--next time.

Google Notebook improvements

I was clipping articles from the web and saving them into my Google Notebook as usual yesterday when I noticed changes in the interface of Google Notebook:

• There is now a button to change the background color of (or highlight) selected text.
  
• There are buttons now for creating lists.
• The left panel now lists sections created within each notebook making navigation through the notebook easier. Now instead of having to manually scroll down the right panel in search of a particular section, one can just click on the section link on the panel and voila! you've scrolled down to the section.

Hooray! That option for changing background color was on my "wishlist" of improvements for Google Notebook. The next thing I'm waiting for now is the incorporation of tags. Keeping my fingers crossed for that one!

P.S.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to the Refresh link? Now I have to click on the name of the notebook/section on the left panel to refresh the contents.

Pluto at its brightest?

I've just received one of the most ridiculous chain text messages. It was forwarded to me by my aunt who I've already said is rather ignorant of things on science and technology. (Though come to think of it, she lent me her book about the night sky when I was in grade school.) The text message goes like this:

Planet Pluto will be brightest in the night sky starting July. It will look as large as the fullmoon to the naked eye.

It will culminate on July 27 when Pluto is 34.56M miles near earth.

Be sure to watch the sky on July 27 at 12:30am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.

The next time Pluto may come this close will be on year 2287.

Share this with ur loved ones n friends. No one alive today will ever see it again.

Isn't that the stupidest thing? Anyone with grade school knowledge of astronomy will know that Pluto is the farthest planet--oop, one of the farthest minor or dwarf planets--in the solar system. I don't think you can see it with the naked eye; one will need a good-sized telescope to see it. And even then, it would still look like a "star" instead of a disc. Even Venus, Jupiter or Saturn don't appear as discs to the naked eye but rather as "stars", albeit bright ones, and certainly not as large as a full moon even at their smallest distance from earth. Hmmm... that distance from Earth thing doesn't sound right either. Sounds more like the distance between Mars and Earth.

Anyway, it just goes to show how one simply can't believe all that stuff being forwarded through email or text messaging. One thing's for sure: I'm certainly not going to make a fool out of myself by forwarding that chain text message about Pluto to my "loved ones n friends".

P.S.
A horrible thought just came to me. What if somebody did go out to check the night sky on 27 July, see the full moon then (near full moon at least--full moon will be on the 30th) and think it was Pluto?

Happy wishlist

On one of my so-called forays into the world of the wide web, I came across this guy's blog where he posted his wishlist for 2007.

And boy, was it some wishlist! Mostly the latest gadgets and accessories: an LCD monitor, a smart phone, lots of camera accessories, a bluetooth headset, and a watch. The total cost of all the 25 items there must be nearly half a million pesos. What's more is that he's been able to acquire 16 of the items listed by this time of the year. I'm not completely surprised though seeing that the fellow is an alumni of ______ here where the filthy rich send their kids for a college education. I've also noticed that his last item was savings of at least Php50K by the end of the year because he doesn't want to "become a not-so-happy man that has a massive headache." Imagine that? Even if he had all that stuff but zero savings, he still wouldn't be completely happy? This guy doesn't know what he wants. And hello, it's either you spend your money or have savings. Got to pity him.

I made my own wishlist years ago but it's nothing like the rich kid's list. In the first place, it wasn't a wishlist for a particular year and I ended up buying some items over the course of a few years. I'll have to look for it among my papers or files somewhere. All I remember of it (if I remember correctly) was that it was mostly books, audio CD recordings (classical music, of course) and some music sequencing software.

The most expensive item there was a portable digital piano with 88-keys (and not just 5-octaves which is standard in portable keyboards). Happily for me, I was able to buy a Yahama P-80 way back in 2000 at the sale price of Php55K. I just love its genuine wooden piano keys with "graded hammer effect" and beautiful grand piano sound. That was the only major purchase I made--forking out more than Php5K for a single item is a major purchase for me--until I bought myself a laptop (a necessity for graduate studies there) and a digital camera in Singapore sometime in 2003. The camera was a Fujifilm FinePix 2600 Zoom which was the best I could get within my budget. I had to make sure it was the best by doing a lot of research online, checking out reviews and people's experiences with that particular model. Then last year, I got myself a Sony Bravia 15" LCD tv (of course, also at a sale price) for my room which came with a DVD player for just an additional Php1K. The LCD tv wasn't on my wishlist at all but I just took the chance when I saw an ad about the major sale. (They were probably phasing out the model because all I see nowadays are LCD tvs with a screen size of at least 30".)

That's it basically for me. Just these few major purchases for these past eight years. But I'm contented and happy. Besides, I don't understand why some people have to get the latest Nokia cellphone model or the latest Sony Playstation (when they have an old model at home that works just fine) or consider a Tag Heuer watch a must-have. I don't need things like all those high-end high-tech pricey flashy stuff in the rich kid's wishlist to make me happy.

Jerry Hadley, tenor

I'm in shock. I've just learned that tenor Jerry Hadley has just passed away at the age of 55. Even more shocking was the fact that his death was brought on by severe brain damage after an apparent suicide attempt. Gee.

Such a pity. I really enjoyed his performance as Gaylord Ravenal in the studio recording of Jerome Kern's Show Boat and in the title role in Leonard Bernstein's Candide. In fact, I've always kept his "Oh, Happy We" duet with June Anderson and his rendition of Kern's "I Have the Room Above Her", a favorite of mine, on my playlist. The mere mention of his name for some reason also prompts me to hear him singing in my head the opening lines of "Where's the Mate for Me?" one of the songs on Show Boat:

Who cares if my boat goes upstream,
or if the gale bids me blow with the river's flow.
I drift along with my fancies.
Sometimes I thank my lucky stars my heart is free;
And other times I wonder where's the mate for me.

With an expressive voice like his, I thought he'd be leading a successful career at the opera for a long time. I certainly didn't expect him to die like this and so early.

Anyway, after surfing the web a bit for more news about Jerry Hadley's unexpected passing, I came across a link to the blog of a music director of a radio station where reader's have posted their reflections on the death of this opera star. Mr. Hadley was also the subject of a special feature at Performance Today on Public Radio.

Anticipating the last Harry Potter book

I can't believe that it's almost here, the last book of the Harry Potter series!

Like I said, I hope I'll be able to go and pick up my reserved copy from the bookstore during this weekend. But as I'm coming down with a bad cough, I don't know now if that is a sure thing. Perhaps I can just go (about an hour by car) and then come right back. Anyway, I don't think I'll be up to anymore shopping after that (although I'd like to shop for textbooks for my classes). (By the way, I've already reserved a piece of plastic bookwrapping material--imported from Singapore!--just for this last book.)

As for when I finally get hold of the book...gosh, I'm not really sure how I'll react or feel at that moment. While I certainly look forward to reading it, I also dread finally reading the last chapter because I know it will be the last book, that no more will come after that.

It will be fun though to see if many of the theories and predictions, particularly about the final confrontation, about Snape and the horcruxes, will turn out to be true. The people over at MuggleNet have recently posted their predictions. My favorite Mugglenet columnist, Lady Lupin, has written extensively about her own predictions in Spinner's End.

Rowling herself has stated that a re-reading of the first six books should reveal at least one horcrux that Voldermort created. Having re-read the first two books, scanned the third, read a smattering of the fourth and the fifth in the past few weeks, there is only one thing that struck me as a likely candidate for the missing horcrux: Tom Riddle's special award. After all, didn't he relate to Harry via his diary that "They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble..."? What's more is that received the trophy after successfully killing someone, albeit through the basilisk. And didn't Dumbledore tell Harry that "Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies"? Just my two cents...

I also read somewhere about this theory that Dumbledore had willingly and deliberately sacrificed himself to protect Harry, and, in doing so, re-established the charm that provided Harry with a protection as an infant. It is said that since Voldemort now believes that that charm no longer exists because Harry's blood was used to restore him his body, he will think he will be capable of killing Harry with the Avada Kedavra curse. But what he won't expect is that it will once more rebound on him--just as it did the first time he tried to kill Harry when he was a baby--and ultimately kill him, assuming of course that Harry will have had destroyed all horcruxes then.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But I have my own modified version: it was never Dumbledore's intention to sacrifice himself when he was killed by Snape in Book 6. Instead, the final confrontation between Voldemort and Harry will be essentially a replay of what happened the first time Voldemort tried to kill Harry. In the end somebody will stand in Voldemort's way and try to protect Harry but will be killed by Voldemort. It is that sacrifice that will re-establish the charm that will protect Harry once again. Who that somebody will be can be anybody's guess. It has to be somebody who loves Harry deeply naturally. Hagrid perhaps? Ron? Ginny (who was made to resemble Lily Potter with her read hair)? Even Mrs. Weasley who loves Harry as her own son (another case of mother's love protecting Harry there). I really don't know.

But I know that I find out only when I've read the last book.

Remembering the first Harry Potter books

With the release of the last book just a few days away, I thought I'd reminisce here how I first came to read the Harry Potter books and how I acquired my copies of the first six books.

I believe I first read about the Harry Potter books on the CNN website. That was in the late 1990s and only the first three books I think had been released then. Articles there had mentioned that it was a hit among children and adults alike but I wasn't interested in reading a book meant for kids. But then a friend of mine started using "Hedwig Hoot" as his Yahoo! ID which I found rather curious because I knew Hedwig was a girl's name. Since it's my habit to search for more information (in the Internet) about something that catches my fancy, I started Googling (Google was just starting out then) the word "Hedwig". I knew that I found what I was looking for when I found out that it was the name of an owl in the famed Harry Potter series. So when I asked my friend if he had read the Harry Potter books, he admitted that he had read all four books (the ones available then in 2000) and liked them a lot. Now that got me curious as well because my friend and I have similar tastes. So I ended up buying the US paperback editions of the first two books, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (they were on sale at the bookstore) one April weekend in 2000.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got sick the Monday after I bought the books and that gave me a good excuse to stay home, stay in bed and read. Ha-ha. I began and finished reading the first book that Monday (I think I stayed up until 2am) and finished the second book over the next two days. I was hooked! I wanted to buy the next two books but all that was available then were the hardbound editions which were way over my budget. So I was forced to wait.

I didn't get a copy of the third book until it was given to me as a birthday gift in 2002 by my very good friends in Singapore. It was definitely one of the most unexpected but most welcome of gifts. (Thanks gang!) I managed to read Prisoner of Azkaban (UK paperback edition) through a hectic study schedule; I remember having to resist the temptation to begin reading it since I had upcoming exams at that time. Anyway, by the time I was done reading it in a week or so, it quickly became my favorite in the series.

Now Goblet of Fire I think I downloaded (shhh!) a copy from somebody's computer. (File-sharing was rampant then before the university finally put its foot down.) That Rowling sure knows how to keep her readers glued: I read the entire fourth book off the screen of my laptop. It was that good. Yet I'm of the older generation who are much more comfortable reading something on paper. I eventually bought myself a copy of Goblet of Fire (UK paperback edition) a few months after that so that I could reread it while more relaxed sitting back or lying down in bed.

My US hardbound copy of Order of the Phoenix was sent to me (ordered through Amazon.com) by the very friend who got me started on Harry Potter. Yes, considering the cost of the book plus shipping and handling, it was a rather expensive gift that I should have refused. But when I wrote to my friend that I was given book Prisoner of Azkaban as a gift he seemed miffed because I said no when he offered to buy me hardbound copies of the first two books. So to appease him, I accepted his offer this time around to buy me this fifth book. Anyway, he should be happy to hear that I was absolutely thrilled when the book was delivered some two weeks after the 23 June 2003 release to the flat I shared with my friends in Singapore. I think it took a few weeks to finish reading that because I still had my hectic class schedule then.

Then last was the Half-Blood Prince which I pre-ordered through a bookstore here. (My sister and I bought my friend a copy in exchange for the Order of the Phoenix that he got for me.) I picked that up on 17 July 2005, a day after it was released and finished reading it within three days. I typed out the following on my laptop when I was done reading:

It is 19 July 2005 and I've just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sigh! I began reading about 8pm last Sunday, 17 July, which was soon after getting home from doing some shopping at the [mall]. I had gone there that afternoon with my father to pick up my reserved copy of the book at [bookstore]. I managed to read until the end of Chapter 12 that evening before dropping off to sleep a little past 2:30am. And then I read one more chapter the next morning before leaving for work. In the evening, I believe I read on until page 437 when I fell asleep again, probably fatigued from work. I'm not even sure what time it was then. And now, I'm done having resumed just before 8pm. A few hours earlier, my hands were sweating and I was near tears. I didn't even want to read on at one point because I was dreading to read about what I knew would be happening. But I forced myself to continue reading. And so the clock on the Windows desktop of my laptop read 11:28 when I looked up after reading the last page.

In a way, I was in a hurry to read it to avoid getting the ending spoiled for me by reactions and reviews appearing on the Internet and other media. For me, it was just as good as Prisoner of Azkaban but definitely much sadder.

And so, I hope I'll be able to go to the bookstore this weekend to pick up my reserved copy of Deathly Hallows then spend most of the following week trying to snatch some time to read it.

Robbery on the information superhighway

Okay. I'd hate to do this but I just had to get this off my chest. So here I go with another complaint:

Our Internet connection here has been positively crawling nowadays. And I'm very frustrated that there can't seem to anything I can do about it.

I've been subscribing to this ISP for more than two years now and have been generally satisfied with the service provided thus far. Being very particular about bandwidth, I've been periodically checking the speed of our Internet connection using bandwidth speedtests available online. (The one I find most appealing is the speedtest at SpeakEasy while the one that is most informative is the MySpeed test by VisualWare.) In the good ol' days so to speak, our download speed would usually clock around 220kbps while "quality of service", as measured at MySpeed, would often be a respectable 50%. Overall, this isn't really too bad considering the usually poor standards of service here in our country. Of course, as expected, the connection would slightly slow down during peak hours (early evening).

But in the past month or so, it's been really very very very bad. Despite the fact that the Internet connection provided is supposed to be "faster than dial-up", I've been finding that our connection has dropped to an atrocious 20-30kbps with a quality of service of just 10-20%. So now, it takes forever to load nearly every webpage. Or else, most webpages nearly never get fully loaded. Even worse, the browser sometimes ends up displaying that page with the "Page failed to load" or "Server not found" message. And this is not just during peak hours mind you. I've been noticing that connection would return to normal (that is, around 220kbps) only for a couple of hours in the early morning nowadays. (I know this because I'm still having problems with my sleeping habits and end up surfing the net during the wee hours of the morning when I'm most wide awake.) Yet, connection speed used to be pretty good starting around 10pm and continuing for most of the day.

I've already complained about it at the main office when I went to pay my bill last time but all I got was apologies and the poor excuse that their subscriber base has grown so large that their existing network resources can't keep up with the demand. I bet many other customers have been complaining as well because soon after that they sent everyone flyers apologizing about the situation. The sad thing is, there isn't anything more that we can do about it. (Such is the sad state here in this country in similar situations.) One can keep on complaining or even go as far as to threaten not to pay the monthly fee but the company can always conveniently hide behind the fact that they have promised to simply provide its customers an Internet connection with a maximum speed of 310kbps or 512kbps (depending on which plan you subscribe to). Nothing in the contract specifies that connection speed is guaranteed not to fall below a given minimum. (Nothing, that is, except for their posters and banners which advertise "faster than dial-up" connections.)

While nothing much can be done, I must say that it's totally unfair for the company to continue accepting new cable Internet subscribers when they can't guarantee quality service to everyone. Imagine, they're collecting monthly fees from everyone and no one is getting the Internet connection they paid for. It's practically highway robbery!

Good news before bad news

My boss has a knack for delivering the good news before bad news, often with comedic results:

Popcorn, anyone?
One day, several of us at the office were helping out at a campus activity. As our boss is rather fond of food (her figure is evidence of that!), she often provides us with snacks when it comes to group activities like these. So on this particular day, she showed up at work with a huge plastic tub of popcorn, the kind that you buy sealed at the supermarket. Sometime mid-afternoon (snack time), she brought it to where everyone was working and opened it for us to eat. Naturally, everyone there was starving by then from having worked since morning and promptly dug in.

While all were eagerly partaking of this free snack, our boss stood there examining the cover of the tub before getting a handful of popcorn herself. After eating a few puffed kernels, she remarked as she glanced once more at the label on the tub's cover, "Hmmm... okay 'to. Masarap pa rin kahit nag-expire na siya." (Hmmm... not bad. It still tastes good even if it expired already.)

This extraordinary pronouncement of course electrified everybody there. All mouths stood frozen open with hands poised in mid-air about to pop in another few kernels. Needless to say, there were lots of leftovers.

Cheap housing
Housing outside campus is as usual more expensive than housing within campus meant for teaching faculty and administrative staff. As there are a limited number of units of the latter, only a handful become available for rent at the beginning of each academic year and applicants often have to compete for one. We had a few young faculty already sharing a single apartment outside campus in order to cut down on monthly expenses but struggled to pay the rent nevertheless. And my boss who always watches over the welfare of our younger staff was aware of the situation. This June being start of the academic year 2007-2008, our office eagerly awaited the list of units that would be available for rent starting this year from the administration office in-charge of these things.

In anticipation of this list, my boss encouraged one of our younger staff members to apply for a unit together with other younger staff saying, "Ba't ayaw niyong mag-apply para sa housing? Php___ lang per month yung rent." (Why don't you guys apply for a unit? The monthly rent is just PhP___.)

The younger staff member who apparently was not aware of the on-campus housing rates was amazed, "Talaga?! Php____ lang? Sige, kakausapin ko sina R___, L___, at J___. Baka sakaling interesado din sila." (Oh, really?! Just PhP___? Sige, I'll talk to R___, L___ and J___. They might be interested in applying for one as well.)

My boss happily urged them further. "Malaki ang chance niyong makakuha ng unit. Kaunti lang nga daw ang nag-apply. Dahil sabi daw, palaging nag-brobrownout, tumutuklap daw yung pintura ng ibang kuwarto at maraming lumalabas na ahas sa likod 'pag tag-ulan." (You should have a pretty good chance of getting a unit. After all, not too many apply for the units meant for singles. That's because they say that brownouts are frequent, the paint in some rooms are peeling off ... and there are lots of snakes that come out in the backyard during the rainy season.)

Now you can bet if our younger staff went on with their housing application!

P.S. to miracle recovery

Sadly, we found our little pigeon dead in its cage early this morning. I suppose it had not really truly recovered and might have been suffering from a relapse of sorts, probably due to the unusually cold and damp weather we have been experiencing these past few days. It's quite a pity because the poor thing really did look so much stronger in the middle of last week. Ah well. At least it's no longer suffering.

Federer's fifth, bak kwa, a miracle recovery and TAA reminiscences

My favorite memories of the past week:

1. Federer winning his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title. Enough said.
2. My boss was given some good ol' bak kwa by an old friend visiting from Singapore. She shared some with me when I went to her office to discuss certain administrative matters with her. Yum yum! Haven't had bak kwa for ages (even if I've eaten some just once or twice in the past)!
3. Our little refugee pigeon who apparently came down with salmonellosis is somehow recovering. It looked terrible for several days, refusing to eat (thankfully it at least managed to take a sip of water a few times a day), producing green faeces, its neck twisting in odd angles (neck torsion) and staggering/rolling around due to wing/leg paralysis. The poor thing. But last Sunday I noticed that the neck torsion ceased. Then Monday, it looked more alert; was looking around, as if for food; and managed to stand up again. It even flew up to the top of its house the other day. And as of today, it was walking around the floor of its cage (though it was still slightly limping), eating a bit of crushed pigeon pellets and beating its wings whenever it would see or hear me greet it. It was truly some minor miracle. I'm praying it makes a full recovery.
   
4. I visited an old friend's weblog yesterday and laughed when that I saw that his latest post was a "reprint" of some TAA notices and reports my friends and I used to write and send one another (coincidentally almost exactly four years ago to this day). We often arranged to meet at the tennis courts in campus to "play" tennis every Sunday back then and even got together to watch tennis on tv as well. I thought it was funny how we were "obsessed" with tennis just then and christened our group the TAA, for Tennis Addicts Anonymous. The emails we sent each other served as some kind of a newsletter of our group. Such were the good ol' days of (our) tennis.
   

Wimbledon withdrawal symptoms

If the fortnight of 25 June to 08 July was spent watching Wimbledon on tv, this past week was mostly about looking for something else to do now that there's no tennis and no Federer to watch on tv. He-he. This is crazy!

I recall that for at least the first couple of days I whiled away the time reading online reports and articles about Federer's triumphant win at the finals for a fifth straight title and clipping the good ones to save in my Wimbledon 2007 folder of my Google Notebook. (My, my! Those accolades sure keep pouring in for Federer. We fans are so proud of him.) I had to do that straight away--as I usually do in the aftermath of a match or tournament--before the articles get lost forever when the links stop working.

After that, it was mainly channel surfing in a vain attempt to find something else to watch. I guess I got so used to the euphoria of watching tennis that I now find typical tv fare rather boring in comparison.

And then there was the short period of searching for and watching video clips of the finals match on YouTube. Can't get enough of that brilliant break of serve at 3-2 in the fifth set plus championship point of course.

Hmmm. I wonder if my friends over at the Tennis Addicts Anonymous (TAA) are going through the same "ordeal". Hey, JNU, MCFM, MCPA, HBI, JCSY and ERST!! How are you guys doing?

Power outage break

Today became one of those typical days when we'd have frequent power outages on campus.

I rushed to work this morning in order to catch my 8am lecture only to find that there had been a power outage in campus since the wee hours of the morning with no explanation on what the cause had been. Naturally my first worry was for my classes scheduled during the day. A power outage during the week is never good news since missing just one class totally upsets my lecture schedule for the semester. (On the contrary, the students would be happy not to have any class.) So on the hope that the power would come back in time, I decided to wait until 20 minutes after eight. When nothing happened, I had no choice but to dismiss my class. Ten minutes after that, surprise! the power came back on. Ah well. Just when I also had posted an announcement for my 10am lecture class that we wouldn't have classes either. But that turned out to be the right decision after all, for we had another power outage that started around 10:30am and lasted for nearly an hour. Then I thought it would be smooth sailing after lunchtime but I was wrong once again. Just as I was beginning my 1pm lecture, there was another power outage! I groaned, my students cheered. Luckily this time, it lasted a mere five minutes (I grinned, my students groaned) and I was able to give my lecture without interruption after that. We had yet one more power interruption later in the afternoon, but as I no longer had classes scheduled then I didn't mind it that much. Except that I had to once again shut down my computer and my air-conditioner (too risky to leave that on with the low-voltage episodes that usually occur on days like these) and the unusually hot and humid weather without air-conditioning made even sitting still at my office desk uncomfortable.

As you can see, this frequent power outage business can be very annoying. It's a real headache and especially frustrating because there isn't anything we can do about it.

But there also turns out to be a plus side to these interruptions at work.

First, I got a bit of time to clean up my office. Having one class after another and endless piles of paperwork to accomplish, I rarely have the chance to organize my things, most especially important papers that should be filed away for future reference (man, I need a secretary to do these things for me!). So with nothing else to do, I finally got to sift through the small (since it's still early in the semester) but growing piles of paper on my desks (yes, desks!), sort them and file the important ones into the correct folders in my filing cabinet.

Second, it allowed me to finally take a break as well from the hectic schedule I have had since the start of classes. I have had barely an hour of rest from having to work on my lecture notes, presentation slides and things related to my administrative duties. Even my weekends have been full since the constant stream of students to my office for consultation or for my signature (paperwork) during weekdays prevent me from working continuously. At least without electricity, I couldn't use my computer and so that meant a break from working on all those lecture notes, etc. ( At the same time, it gave me additional time to grade unmarked quizzes I gave in the past week.) I must say, the power outage allowed me to put those things from my mind, take a deep breath and relax.

Needless to say, I'm in a way thankful for the power outages. I got spurts of mini-vacations in the middle of the week!

Rooting for Roger

My evenings for most of the past fortnight have been devoted to watching the Wimbledon tennis championships on television rooting for my favorite tennis player, the great FedEx, the Basel Dazzle, the Swiss Who Cannot Miss, the Artful Roger.

I consider my preference for tennis an anomaly in this country where the main sports obsessions are the three Bs: basketball, billiards and boxing--soon to be joined I suppose by a fourth B, for badminton. I'm probably one of the few who are dismayed to find that the local channels devote their sports coverage to these. But thankfully, there is the Singapore-based ESPN Star Sports that continues to provide live coverage of practically all matches at the tournament every year.

And when it comes to the television coverage of the Wimbledon, I am extremely fortunate to be in this part of the world. With local time seven hours ahead of Greenwhich Mean Time, matches scheduled to start at 11am London time get shown here live at 6pm. This naturally is perfect timing since it allows me to get through my workday without worrying about having to miss watching matches being shown live on tv. If I had been in London itself, I'd practically be unable to watch everything except the evening matches; if I were in the east coast of the US, I'd get to catch only the early matches and miss the rest. (And I've found that unless you've subscribed to the Tennis Channel you don't get much coverage of the tournament either.) Thus this is the ideal place to be to watch the Wimbledon especially if one wants to see the sport's best player in action.

So here I was every evening, watching whatever tennis match was being shown live (or on a delayed basis, in the case of this year's very rainy Wimbledon) on tv and keeping an eye on other matches I was interested in via the Live Scoreboard on Wimbledon's website. If Federer was on, I'd be sure to keep track of his match statistics via the Live Scoreboard as well , marveling at the growing number of winners he has hit. (Sadly our Internet connection hasn't been fast enough these days to enable me to watch the points replayed on the PointTracker.)

Most probably just as Federer went through his early round matches, I pretty much watched his matches with little anxiety, confident that he'd come through with relative ease. I noted however that his game seemed to lack the fire that it used to possess years ago and he was hitting a lot more errors than usual. I attributed this to the fact that he lacked matchplay after skipping his traditional warm-up event at Halle. Thus instead of being relieved when I learned that he received a bye to the quarterfinals via Tommy Haas' withdrawal and consequently got a "holiday" (further extended by rain delays), I became more concerned. Sure enough, he dropped a set when he faced Juan Carlos Ferrero in the quarters after waiting six days to get back on court. I relaxed again though when it was Richard Gasquet and not Andy Roddick whom he had to meet in the semis. There, he overpowered the young Frenchman who was clearly exhausted from having to play matches on consecutive days.

And the finals against Nadal last night? I had to make sure that my bottle of Tums was within reach. I knew that although Nadal had to play matches on consecutive days like Gasquet, he was so physically fit that he would not be tired and that, on the contrary, he would be battle-hardened coming into the finals. Thus as I had expected, he fought nail and tooth to wrestle the title from Federer's hands.
And what a roller-coaster ride that finals match turned out to be. It was a typically warm evening, but I was feeling cold from sheer nervousness. I'd have a few brief warm spells though whenever Federer got the upperhand and especially when he took the third set in a tie-break to eke out a two-sets-to-one lead. (Those tie-breaks are such nail-biters!) But some minutes later, I was in utter despair when Federer fell behind 0-4 in the fourth set. Ugh! I believed then that all was lost.

When Nadal did take that fourth set 6-2 and clearly had the momentum going into the deciding set, I couldn't take the tension any longer. I turned off the tv and crawled into bed (it was past midnight by then), knowing that I wouldn't be able to stand watching Federer lose on his beloved grass and see Nadal triumph in his place. However, I tuned into Wimbledon Radio just the same to listen. Although I couldn't bear to see Federer's disappointed face again, I needed to know what happened.

Just as a I feared, Federer struggled to hold serve in the beginning of the fifth set, falling behind 15-40 twice; the radio commentator was shouting,"This could be the end of Federer's reign!" To my amazement and relief, the champion rose to the occasion to save all four break points and hold serve each time.

But that, I found, wasn't the end of Federer's surprises for the day. I remained in bed, listening anxiously and trying to doze off at the same time, only to suddenly sit up when I heard that he was up with three break points on Nadal's serve! The radio commentator's voice was rising in the excitement, the crowd cheering in the background. The next thing I knew, Federer had broken and was up 4-2 in the fifth. Then a few minutes later, 5-2! I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I jumped out of bed and turned the tv back on. I had a gut feeling that Federer would try to break Nadal's serve to win the match and I dared not miss championship point! There were just a few more anxious moments when Nadal earned a couple of game points before the absolute thrill of witnessing Federer hit a winner at his second match point and collapse to the ground, victorious once more to the applause of all, including Bjorn Borg who was watching from the Royal Box.

Now, that definitely was a match and an evening never to be forgotten.
Photo credit: CHRIS YOUNG/AFP/Getty Images

The bigger picture

Soon after breakfast this morning, I was looking for something to watch on television when I came across this documentary on the Discovery Channel that was apparently about the inventor Charles Goodyear.

Just like many other inventors during those difficult times, Goodyear struggled for years and was frequently short on funds to support his experiments with natural rubber before he came up with an invention that literally changed our lives. Sadly, it was something that couldn't improve his own family's living conditions as they also suffered together with him before he reached did a breakthrough. His wife even urged him to take on a regular job but since Goodyear recognized early on the potentials of his invention, he persevered. He knew that even if couldn't help his own family then--Goodyear himself died before the age of 60 from the effects of working with the chemicals he used--the results of his research would eventually lead to many applications of rubber that would in the future improve the lives of millions. And he knew he and his family would reap the rewards later on. Indeed, the products that results from his work include tires improved transportation (can't imagine what it would be like riding in a vehicle with wooden or metal wheels) and more importantly rubber medical gloves that saved lives by preventing the spread of bacteria. He was also finally awarded a pantent for vulcanization (although after a hard fought court trial). Goodyear saw the bigger picture.

I believe we have much to learn from people like Goodyear. I've heard and seen too many people here in this country work for selfish reasons and with little foresight, people who do something to get instant gratification and disregard the long-term consequences of their actions. These range from those who are most visible in politics and show business down to even the less fortunate. I suppose I need not mention names; anyway they are too numerous. But at least consider for instance, years ago when I heard the shocking news that someone was mining the famous Chocolate Hills for limestone and land filling. Imagine that! One of the natural wonders of our country being destroyed all for monetary gain. Don't these people ever think of how that would affect the tourism industry--not to mention the people in Bohol who benefit from the tourists who come visiting--if these unusual land formations disappeared completely? And suppose those weren't the famous Chocolate Hills but some other resource that can never be replenished or at best will take years to replenish. Like trees. Don't they ever think of what would happen if they cut or burn down all the trees growing on the hills and mountains? Even if they're not aware that the lack of trees will increase soil erosion, don't they ever think that by cutting/burning all the trees there will be nothing left for the next generation? You know, I don't think they ever stop to consider that at all. (I believe that the Filipino generally has no conscience and is KSP; but that's another long story, worth a blog or two.) Look at what happened in Ormoc way back in the 1990s. I thought by then that that disaster would open people's eyes to the potential dangers of illegal and indiscriminate logging. But nope, the same thing happened again just more than a year ago in Guinsaugon. I could go on and on about unlearned lessons and deliberate ignorance but the mere thought of wasted lives and resources just makes me boil with frustration.

It's no wonder the country has been going nowhere for the past few decades. Despite vows to be more disciplined and calls from all sectors to eliminate graft and corruption, I think our poor country will continue to go nowhere. Our people maybe hardworking, but they tend to work hard for the wrong reasons. And if the country ever does go somewhere, with people who remain stubbornly narrow-minded, the likely direction will inevitably be downwards. All because we refuse to see and acknowledge the bigger picture.

Obanyaki, Flickr, a hot cup of soup and a beautiful backhand

It's the end of another work week and time to look back at the things that made me smile.

1. My workweek did not begin too smoothly as last Monday I began to suffer from a headache which was most probably caused by the anxiety of having to deal with another round of administrative duties this week. It was with great relief therefore that I set off around noon to buy my lunch. As I approached the entrance to campus, a welcome sight greeted my eyes: the obanyaki cart in its old location. Wow! I didn't expect that. I thought it was one of the few businesses that folded up after a year of trial. Needless to say, the sight almost completely chased away my headache and I bought the usual Php20 worth of obanyaki.
2. I had been considering using Flickr for storing my digital pics but was reluctant to open an account there since I already had one with Yahoo! Photos filled with hundreds of pics I had uploaded over the past five years. That point of indecision was cleared up this week when I received news that Yahoo! Photos would be closing this coming September and that those with accounts had the option to transfer their pics to another online photo sharing account such as Flickr. So I finally will get to use Flickr after all!
3. Last Wednesday, I had to miss lunch to work on some documents needed urgently by another unit. I just munched on a few crackers to stem the hunger and hurried to my lecture class at 1pm. After class, I made myself a cup of soup from one of those small packets containing one-serving of soup powder to be dissolved in hot water. Nevermind the high sodium content and MSG. It was the first cup of hot soup I've had in ages!
4. I've yet again been mesmerized by the beauty of Federer's game and knack for shot-making. I just saw him make a beautiful curving backhand slice in his quarterfinal match against Ferrero which the latter could only push wide. Too bad I can't recall exactly when during the match he made that amazing shot.
   

All in moderation

Among the top articles under Health News in Google these days are a number about the benefits of eating dark chocolate! Being a dark chocoholic--I find milk chocolate too sweet--this is certainly good news. But at the same time, the topic has become rather tiresome since the fact that eating chocolate can slightly lower blood pressure, reduce the chance of a heart attack, blah blah blah, was after all made known about five years ago. While I do eat a square of dark chocolate once in a while to satisfy my chocolate cravings, I don't intend to increase my daily dosage so to speak. After all, eating too much chocolate means high sugar, fat and calorie intake.

In fact, I am rarely moved to change my eating habits just because so-and-so was suddenly found to significantly reduce the chances of so-and-so disease or health problem. Haven't we always avoided drinking too much wine because of its alcohol content but then hear nowadays that a daily glass of red wine is good for the heart? Then wasn't high consumption of coffee harmful due to its caffeine content? And then, whoa, it's good after all for the liver and the heart! Wouldn't we love to hear that our favorite sinful dessert was actually good for our health? Take for example butter, extra notorious for its high saturated fat and cholesterol content. A few months ago, my aunt who loves butter, can't stand having margarine on her toast and is rather gullible when it comes to news in science and technology proudly announced that she read that butter is actually good for you. Then she happily proceeded to put an alarmingly huge pat of butter on her dinner roll and began extolling the benefits of butter. All of us at the dinner table at the time would have suffered through another monologue had my cousin not immediately shut her up by saying that one simply has to eat anything, whether it's good or bad for your health, in moderation. I couldn't agree more. While a lot of a bad thing is definitely harmful, too much of a good thing can be just as bad or even worse.

So for me, I choose to continue having my usual meals as much as I can under the difficult circumstances--that is, preferably with a good helping of vegetables (can't get along without my veggies!) and fruit juice (softdrinks are a definite no no)--ending occasionally with something sweet like a cookie or a slice of cake (if we have any in the fridge or pantry) or a square of dark chocolate for dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Observers from beyond

Sometimes I would rather watch documentaries on the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Channel than watch movies on HBO or Cinemax. Among the numerous types of shows being shown, I enjoy those documentaries that deal with solving mysteries about certain people or events in the past. One relatively recent example is the documentary about what caused the early death of the Egyptian pharaoh Tut. When I watch these investigative type of shows, it amuses me to wonder about what the people concerned think about it all as they watch us from somewhere beyond. Are they grinning about the historians' and archaeologists' various theories, perhaps even impressed by how these scientists manage to draw conclusions from such tiny clues and details? (I can imagine God watching us with some mixture of pride and anxiety as we uncover the mysteries of life and the universe.) Or are they banging their fists on a table somewhere yelling, "No, no, no! You've got it all wrong!"

Slide presentation graphics, Nestle Freze and McDonald's greetings

Okay, time for some glad things:

1. I have been spending most of my time at work making slide presentations for the lecture class I am teaching for the first time. This is the part I enjoy most about teaching: making instructional materials. That covers making slides and handouts; deciding on the format, fonts and colors; customizing animations and making graphics to accompany the text as example or illustration. As always, I make the illustrations using the drawing tools available in whatever presentation creation software I'm using at the moment (OpenOffice 2.0. nowadays if I'm working at my PC at work). This week I found pleasure in making two slide graphics that I'm extremely proud of. It was fun making the graphics mainly because it was a challenge trying to figure out how to assemble basic shapes to form a figure/object.
2. Last Friday, I bought Nestle Freze/Granita (minus the bits of coffee jelly, an additional Php16!) at the Mini-Stop convenience store just outside campus to have with my McDonald's McRice chicken burger (my lunch that day). Ahh .... there's nothing like the stimulating taste of coffee and an ice-cold drink/dessert on a hot day.
3. You know how here in the Philippines, you're greeted (yelled at is more like it) by an eager-to-please employee at the counter with "Welcome to McDonald's" every time you enter a McDonald's fastfood joint here and then there's an appropriate farewell when you leave the place as well. For me it seems to be done too automatically for the greeting/farewell to sound sincere. Take for instance this morning's episode when my father and I decided to eat breakfast at the local McDonald's while waiting for my mom to have her hair trimmed at a nearby beauty parlour. I went ahead to order our breakfast while my father attended to something in our car in the parking lot. I was about to approach the counter when I suddenly remembered that I needed my father's senior citizen card to get a discount. (The usual store policy is for you to present the card before you place your order.) So I turned on my heel and proceeded to walk out of the place. Just as I was exiting the doors, I heard an employee call out after me "Thank you for coming to McDonald's!" I couldn't help chuckling at that once I got outside.