The Christmas Truce of 1914

One of my favorite (true) stories about Christmas is the one about the series of informal truces between British and German troops that began during Christmas in 1914. It is one wonderful example of how respect, peace and love ultimately triumphs over war.

And it also makes me wonder how the various troops sent to the war in Iraq actually feel about it all. Is it possible that, just like those who participated in the 1914 truce, they're just there on orders and don't really want this war?

Meteors and fireballs

The other night (13 December) I once again fell asleep without changing into my pajamas. But as usual, I woke up a few hours later, turned off my laptop, cleared my bed of my stuff and went to bed properly. After I turned off my lights and settled down in bed, I remembered that the Geminid meteor showers were supposed to start that evening and that it was supposed to be quite a spectacle this time around, with around 100 meteors occurring per hour. So I opened my curtains and, peering at the small patch of sky that I could see through my window, I was delighted to see lots of stars. This meant that the sky was clear and conditions were perfect for star gazing. And so I waited.

Sure enough, within a minute a shooting star came streaking down across the sky. After two minutes, there was another one! Wow. I'd never seen that many shooting stars within so short a time in my whole life. Then came another one... and another. All in all I saw six during the twenty minutes I managed to stay awake. And to think that I could see only a small part of the evening sky through my window. What more could there be if one could see the rest of the sky?!

I was therefore determined to spend yesterday evening watching out for meteors. Besides, I had read somewhere that the shower would peak that evening (14 December) at 16:45 GMT, which was around 00:45 local time (15 December). Thankfully it was a Friday and I could afford to stay up late and not worry about having to wake up early to go to work the next day.

So around 8:30 pm last night, I went outside to our driveway. I shut off the gate lights and light outside our garage. Unfortunately, there was still the light from the street lamp which made conditions less than ideal for star gazing. Anyway, as there was nothing I could do about it I turned to look northeast over the roof of our house. There I could see the constellations Taurus, Auriga, Cassiopeia and Orion. The Gemini constellation was barely above the rooftop but the planet Mars was well above it and shining its usual reddish glow.

Within a few minutes, I saw a meteor streak by. I saw about a dozen then (about twenty minutes) before I went back inside the house to rest my aching neck.

I went back outside around 9:20pm and saw more. There was even a really bright one that streaked through about 30-40 degrees across the zenith. I guess it was one of those that they call a fireball: it was not the usual faint streak of light characteristic of ordinary shooting stars. Instead I could clearly discern curling flames and smoke trailing behind the meteor. It was quite a spectacle.

I saw about a dozen more shooting stars later--including another though less impressive fireball--when I went out again around 11:00pm although they didn't seem to come as frequently then. I began to wonder if the shower had already peaked and that astronomers were mistaken in predicting that the peak would be much later that evening. Or perhaps I couldn't see that much (particularly the fainter ones) because of the slight light pollution caused by the nearby street lamp.

Anyway, I went outside one last time around 12:30am. There were clearly lesser shooting stars then. I saw just about a dozen during the 45 minutes I stayed outside. I felt sad and disappointed as brought in my stool (it was easier to watch sitting down despite having to crane my neck to look up) and locked the garage door for the last time that evening. But later I cheered up after realizing that I had experienced my first major meteor shower.

And now I'm even more glad I took the time to look last night. I took a peek at the sky earlier this evening and it was completely covered with clouds. And now it's raining.

[On the other hand, my mother was not so fortunate. She came out with me to take a look around 9:20 last night but went back inside after a few minutes to return to watching her tv shows. I had advised her to stay longer to watch for more meteors because there won't be a replay of this nature show. Then this morning, she announced that she was going to look out for meteors tonight. When I told her that it was virtually over because the peak was supposed to be last night she was naturally disappointed. She also thought the meteor showers were going to last over several days. I might be mistaken in supposing that there was nothing to see after last night. But even if there were "leftovers" today, there was no way one could see anything tonight now that the sky is overcast.]

Another accident and a lizard rescue

This morning on my way to work, another curious sight met me along that accident-prone stretch of road. There was a van going in the opposite direction very slowly. I noticed that the front wheels were wobbling. Then as I got nearer, I saw that the front door on the driver's side was badly dented and was being held closed by the driver himself. Closely following that crippled van was the campus police vehicle. I suppose there was another accident along that road again. Sigh!

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A little house lizard has been living inside my car. I first noticed it on the floor on the passenger's side about a week ago. It was quite tiny then. Then when I saw it again on the dashboard a few days ago, it had grown to about two inches but was painfully thin. Poor thing was probably starting from lack of food. So I decided to "rescue" it today. When I got home this evening, I got a sheet of paper from my bag, cornered the lizard against the part where the dashboard meets the windshield and pushed the paper under the lizard. As soon as the lizard hopped onto the paper, I rushed out of the car before it could jump off again and deposited it on some old boxes we had along the side of our garage. Hopefully it will find its way to a nearby light bulb where it will find lots of insects to eat.

Wanted: Instant textbook

Sometime last month, I was approached by our former director to write a textbook for a new course to be offered in distance mode. She handed me a contract for me to review and sign if I agreed to the terms being set down. Else, she said that I could simply suggest any changes and write those down on a piece of paper and have it sent back with the contract to have it modified.

Going through the contract, I began to realize that this writing project would be quite a challenge since I had never taught such a course before. But given how much I would be paid, I was very much tempted to accept the commission. I was shocked however to later read that I was expected to have a draft of the book ready within three months (for evaluation and editing of an instructional designer)! Worse, I later discovered that it was not just a textbook that I was supposed to prepare but an entire set of teaching materials: exams, assignments, a teaching guide, a list of references, etc.! Plus there was the usual deductions on my fee if I didn't meet the deadline, etc. Of course, I knew couldn't possibly turn in something in a mere three months. Even if I could, I'd most likely be turning in something of unacceptably poor quality because having to rush it all. And being the perfectionist that I am, I'm never contented with submitting any kind of work that is half-baked. Anyway, I indicated in a small stick-on note that I needed a year to turn in the first draft.

When I finally got a response about two weeks later, it was worse than I thought. They were insisting on the three-month deadline because they needed the teaching materials by June 2008! Now I found that completely ridiculous. Why didn't they approach me much earlier if they knew they needed it next year after all? Why wait until last month to ask me to begin? Did they think I had all the time in the world to write an entire textbook and the rest of the teaching materials? Didn't they ever consider the fact that I'm teaching full time and with an overload of teaching units?

In the end, I completely refused to agree to the terms and had to drop the project altogether. I mean, is there anybody who can write a entire textbook in three months? Apparently they think so. So I'm wishing them lots of luck finding somebody who can conjure a textbook in time for the very first offering of the course.

The original "Jingle Bells"

One of the recent posts on the Minnesota Public Radio blog called Classical Notes, a classical music blog I subscribe to, mentioned a radio show that featured Philipp Brunelle and the vocal group he founded, VocalEssence.

During the one-hour show, Mr. Brunelle talked about the history of Christmas songs which turned out to be very enlightening. For example, there is after all a distinction made between a Christmas carol and a Christmas hymn. And, as expected, many songs started out with a melody very different from what we are familiar with nowadays. Often, the original melody was much more complicated that many parts eventually got simplified to make it easier for"less-talented singers" as the song was passed on and performed through the years.

Thus, what I considered a highlight was when VocalEssence performed "Jingle Bells" using the original melody as it was composed by John Pierpont way back in 1857. Being a purist when it comes to music, I was curious to hear what the original melody was like. As it turns out, I liked the original with its more "challenging" melody and now even prefer it to the newer version, which I find slightly boring in comparison. I also eventually found a pdf file of the original(?) sheet music at Project Gutenberg and, having scanned through it, simply can't stop the song from playing over and over in my head.

New leadership adjustments Part II

It looks like I'm not the only one having to adjust to the new way our unit is being managed.

One of the duties that used to be delegated to me by our former director was the approval/disapproval of requests of student organizations to use our lecture halls for their activities. The main reason for this is since I'm in charge of scheduling the classes offered by our unit, I would know when a room would be available or not during a given time and day.

Now that we have a new director, as expected, he has taken the responsibility of approving and disapproving these requests instead of passing them along to me. He however still consults with our property custodian whom I have supplied a copy of our class schedules and at whose office our teaching staff make room reservations.

That was the situation when two students came to see me this morning. Their organization had been given permission to use one of our lecture halls today but they found that the lecture hall didn't have enough seats for all the people who were participating in their activity (some kind of inter-high school quiz). So would it be all right if they used so-and-so lecture hall instead in the afternoon for the rest of the activity?

I was pondering the technicalities involved in that request (that on paper they were allowed to use that lecture hall so was it okay to let them use the other by internal arrangement, etc.) when I realized something.

I asked them, "One question. Who signed your letter? Who approved your request to use the lecture hall?"

Both students promptly answered, "Si Dr. __ ," (our new director).

I expected this and told them, "So if he was the one who approved your request, it is him whom you have to ask permission to use the other lecture hall."

To my amusement, the eyes of both students widened and both students gasped simultaneously before saying fearfully, "Dr. ___???"

I just shrugged my shoulders when I saw their reaction and repeated, "Yes, you have to go ask Dr. ___ and not me. He was the one who approved your request, right? So I have no authority to change that."

Still looking terrified at the prospect of approaching our director, they silently nodded in agreement, mumbled their thanks and left.

I had a good laugh when the door closed behind them.

Although it was funny to see their reaction to my suggestion to see our director, I wondered at the same time why students fear him so. He's no terror at all but as he's the oldest among us teaching staff and well known for his accomplishments in research I suppose they're simply in awe of him. He also probably looks formidable because he's such a serious fellow compared to our jolly former director. He however does crack jokes once in a while which I've seen him do during our faculty meetings. I'm not sure if he cracks jokes at his classes though. I've been his student a couple of times already and I don't recall seeing him smile or joke during our classes. So I don't think the undergraduate students have had any glimpse of that funny side of our director.

Ah, well. They'll just have to pluck up the courage to deal with him as director for the next three years!

Temperamental typhoons and "winter" weather

Just an update on the weather: Typhoon Mina/Mitag did hit the northern tip of Luzon Sunday evening, bringing with it the usual wind and rain.

Over here, it got windier toward later Sunday evening. And then as I was preparing my bed for sleeping, the room suddenly went dark. A brownout! Good thing I had gotten dressed for bed and had put away all my things! But I no longer had my electric radio/alarm clock to wake me up early the next morning so I had to set both my battery-operated desk clock and my cellphone to go off at 6:30a.m. the next day (Monday).

The winds had died down and power restored however by the time I woke up: the digital display on my electric alarm clock was showing 3:38a.m. so I figured that the power got back on around 3a.m. In a way, I was relieved that I could go on with my classes that day and not worry about having to schedule make-up classes. (There was just a short power interruption soon after noon that briefly interrupted my lecture that time.)

With Mitag finally out of the picture, I thought there was nothing else to worry about the weather. But I was wrong: there was a typhoon which had days earlier passed through the Visayas and was on its way to wreak havoc on Vietnam when just like Mitag, it paused just before hitting land. Then it did something that I've seen only one or two typhoons in my lifetime do: it made a u-turn and headed back toward the country! This time it headed for Mindoro . So when Tuesday afternoon came along the rain began to pour here again. The bad weather lasted through the night as well (it was nightmare driving home in the pouring rain from work that afternoon) and abated by Wednesday morning whereupon then my 8am class fell victim to a 30-minute power interruption on campus. Ah well. At least the brownout didn't last all day and it got sunny again later in the day. That evening, temps here in my room got back to around 27c.

But the weather wasn't done with its surprises: Thursday turned out to be an unexpectedly gloomy day: The sky was overcast and no sunshine broke through the clouds all day. Consequently, temps "dropped" (I'm putting it in quotes because it's not the same as the way temps really drop in the temperate countries) and by evening, it was 25C again my room--and "dropping". I subsequently had to put on my long pyjamas aside from my nightgown to stay warm while sleeping overnight. I also got to drink warm apple cider! Mmmmm!

Friday was even cooler although the sun was out for short periods of time. Temps here in my room hovered around 25C during the day and "dropped" to 24C in the evening. Wheee! It's never been that comfy here before. Online weather websites showed that temperature readings outside were probably two or three degrees lower than that.

And today was just as cool; just the perfect weather. I hope it continues until the coming Christmas holidays!