Too many holidays

It's another Sunday and we're facing another prospect of another non-working holiday tomorrow. Early this morning my mother received a text message from her research assistant with the news that there won't be work tomorrow. As there is no official announcement at all about such a holiday on the papers or on television, we're still trying to confirm this surprising bit of information. If this is indeed true, this will be at least the third time this school term when we'll have no classes again on a Monday.

This might be good news to students or teachers who would like to have another nice long weekend. With the final exam week approaching, most students are probably trying to rush working on projects due at the end of the term or else teachers are probably trying to catch up on work that has piled up over the past few weeks like unmarked quizzes and unfinished lecture notes.

On the other hand, this will mean another round of make-up classes to make up for time lost which isn't much fun for either party. As most make-up classes are scheduled on Fridays, which is the day of the week when the least classes are scheduled to allow for faculty meetings and the like, students won't probably be looking forward to spending a Friday in campus when they could just have already gone home to their families for the weekend.

I for one will lose a few precious hours on a Friday to make-up classes which I normally spend on making lecture notes and presentations for my classes. This is something that I cannot do during the weekend as I can only work on these on my PC in the office. My laptop here runs on Windows XP but my desktop at work runs on Linux. I mainly use Openoffice to make my lecture notes and presentations and I only have Microsoft Office here in my laptop. Yes, I am aware that I can convert my OpenOffice documents to MS Office documents and vice versa so that I can work here at home as well. But I've found that this is more of an inconvenience. Because the conversion isn't perfect (bullets, spacing and graphics get all messed up), I end up spending more time tweaking an OpenOffice Impress presentation converted from an MS Powerpoint presentation that I'd rather create a slide presentation using OpenOffice at the offset. I learned this the hard way several semester ago when I had to make slides for a course that I was handling for the first time: my right wrist would ache after several hours of using the mouse to highlight this and that text and to redraw this and that graphics.

Second, scheduling make-up classes on Fridays isn't that easy either. I usually have to schedule more than one session of make-up classes since not all my students have a common free time even on Fridays. That means I'd have to hold a marathon of lectures--something I did just this past Friday and which is probably the cause of my sore throat right now. Sigh. I can only hope I don't have to miss any more classes this term simply because I've lost my voice.

Anyway my point is while these longer weekends may give a boost to local tourism (the main purpose for having holidays on the nearest Mondays rather on the day itself) and give each of us more time to spend with our families, it is wreaking havoc on our semestral schedules and making us instructors less efficient at work. Since we now have to cram everything into a four-day work week, it is more likely to make us more fatigued by the time the next weekend comes around. And this will in turn affect our performance at work the following week.

This is simply just another instance where too much of a good thing can be bad. So a holiday once in a while would most certainly be a welcome break. But too many holidays are simply--ah, the irony!--too tiring.

Some cures for a stuffy nose and a sore throat

As an instructor, I can't afford to get sick or else I'd fall behind in giving my lectures which have been carefully scheduled throughout the semester. (My apologies if that sounds like the beginning of a tv advertisement based on actual users' testimonies.) Just late the other day I was starting a cold and sore throat (probably due to the heat) and was practically feeling terrible by late last night as I went to bed with the dreadful thought of having to miss a few more classes so late in the semester with little time to hold make-up classes. But beginning this morning I promptly began to take a few home remedies which have proven most effective time and again. So now that I'm feeling so much better I thought I'd share with you these home remedies that I take to prevent a stuffy nose and an itchy throat from developing into a full-blown cold:

• At the first sign of a cold (the sniffles), I sometimes do some steam inhalation: I fill a small bowl or tabo with tap water and set the water to a boil using my portable water heater. Or else, I put some water into a small sauce pan and heat the water to a boil on the stove. At this point, you've got steam rising which I inhale while placing a towel over my head to keep the steam in. Sometimes I would put in a drop or two of White Flower or Lion Tiger oil in to the water as well. (We would put in a small teaspoonful of Vicks Vaporub ointment in the good ol' days.) This is really very effective for unclogging a stuffy nose or stopping a runny nose. I found out though that this is only works in tropical climates where you do get a lot of steam because of the humidity. I was dismayed to find that I couldn't get any steam at all when I tried to do some steam inhalation while I was in the US during winter.
• A good way to sooth an itchy throat is to drink some ginger tea or salabat. I usually drink two or three cups in a day and I often feel much better afterwards. For a better effect, I sometimes mix in one or two tablespoonsful of honey and some orange or pineapple or calamansi juice (the latter is the most effective). Some lime juice or lemon juice should do as well. Unfortunately some people won't take to the taste of ginger very well but for those who do give it a try I suppose it will be like eating some Halls honey-lemon candy.
• Then my latest discovery is Pei Pa Koa candy. (The name almost sounds like how we would refer to an origami bovine.) I used to see my roommate in Singapore drink the syrup form of this Chinese herbal medicine and she swears that it helps relieve a sore and itchy throat, if not completely cure a cough. My mother discovered that a local supermarket sold bags of the candy and bought one some months ago to try. I was starting a cough at that time and found that it is indeed effective, probably safer than taking the regular cough lozenge from the drugstore once in a while since the candy is made from all natural ingredients. (I'm one of those who believe in resorting to all-natural cures and would rather not bombard my body with drugs and manmade chemicals at the first sign of illness.)
  

When I broke a piano string

ATP tennis has a wonderful magazine called DEUCE which they launched a few years ago but WHICH I don't think did too well on print because it is now being published exclusively online. Having it online should be a big plus since it will be more accessible to many who are interested in reading the articles in the magazine but cannot afford to pay for a season's worth of issues. This year's summer issue has very enlightening articles about many ATP players like Federer, Djokovic, Gonzales and Karlovic. It's a joy and refreshing change to read about off-court facts these players.

The article about Federer for instance lists down the "last times" when Federer went somewhere and wasn't recognized, had to hire a tennis court, etc. One item there set me strolling down memory lane so to speak: the last time Federer broke a string.

I certainly have never broken a string on my tennis racquet but I've broken a piano string on a grand piano once. But just as I never expect to break a string on a tennis racquet, I had never expected to break a piano string so when it did happen, it came as a complete surprise. I've always thought that that was 'feat' reserved for the elephants of the piano keyboard who pound away at the piano when they play demanding pieces like those by Rachmaninoff or Liszt. [I've read about how Leon Fleisher played the first Brahms piano concerto during a competition and broke a string. But he played on, pounding out that out-of-tune key.] Certainly not by someone like me, I thought.

But I did. And this was while I was playing the recessional during mass at the grand piano in a church in Ames, Iowa. I remember well that I was playing then the accompaniment to "City of God" where I had to pound out a octave on E natural with my left hand repeatedly. Then all of a sudden this loud bang came out of nowhere. At first I couldn't understand what had happened but when that second E below middle C started to sound funny, I realized that I had broken a string. Of course, I had to continue playing until the end trying to avoid playing that E. When it was over, I stood up and looked over the music stand to take a look. Everyone else in the choir came over as well to look and I remember somebody said in amazed tones, "Wow, Margie, you've broken a string!" Sure enough, there was this thick coil of metal wire sticking out of the frame and straining against the piano lid. The loud bang must have been due to the wire striking the piano lid.

And was it possibly due to my, ahem, brute strength? Probably not. The piano was pretty old though still in tune and the varying humidity within the chapel must have contributed to the weakening of the piano string. But still, I had broken a string. Ha-ha.

Anyway, it was some weeks before the church finally had that string replaced. So whenever I had to play "City of God" again, instead of playing it in the original key of E I would transpose it to E flat to avoid hitting the key with the broken string.

Recalling 9/11

It was simply one of those incidents where you can clearly remember what you were doing when it happened.

It was also a Tuesday evening and I was busy working at my laptop at the small studio apartment at Prince George's Park I shared with another fellow graduate student at the National University of Singapore. I remember receiving a text message from another graduate student (who had a tv at his own flat) saying that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. My first reaction then was that this was another hoax because some months or years before a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center; there was a similar incident where the news turned out to be a hoax or something. So I replied saying that it might be a hoax and got back to work. Several minutes later, however, that same friend sent a text message saying that another plane had crashed into the other WTC tower. That's when I started thinking that this might be real after all and decided to check the Internet for news. But I couldn't upload any news website at all. Instead of CNN, I would get a page saying that the website was too busy. I couldn't get anything either on Yahoo! News. After that I don't remember what else I did except that I anxiously tried to get some news and was frustrated for a long time. Then I finally got the Yahoo! News website and that's when I read that one tower had already collapsed. I was stunned. I relayed the news to my roommate who was equally shocked. Then later came the news that the other tower had collapsed as well. I don't think what was happening had began to sink in even then. It was just too horrible beyond belief. Too terrible to comprehend.

Of course, my friends and I could talk of nothing else for the next few days. Even my friend all the way out in Washington state emailed a short message to assure me that he was okay but that he felt so vulnerable all of a sudden. He most probably had seen it all unfold on television. It was indeed so surreal.

Long life light bulb

A bit of trivia: where can you find a light bulb that has been burning for over 106 years?

Over at a fire station in California is a light bulb that has been working since 1901 when it was first installed. Amazing isn't it? There's even a webcam trained on that famous hand-blown bulb in case you want to see it when it finally snuffs out.

The modern incandescent light bulb here in my hallway has been there for probably a decade but I don't think it would last for a century. I suppose this is an instance where they just don't make things the way they used to. And now that there is a plan in the United States to ban incandescent bulbs in favor of the energy-saving fluorescent or else LED bulbs, this long lasting light bulb will probably be the last of its kind in use in that country. (Do you think it will be removed if and when it won't be excluded from the ban?)

Piano practice at a grand piano

The auditorium here in campus has a wonderful Yamaha grand piano which has been around for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I believe it rarely gets ever played unless there is a (classical) musical performance at the auditorium, which in itself is a rare event. I remember playing on it in my high school days and well into my college years when our high school choir (they kept me on as their accompanist for special occasions) would perform there in choral competitions.

I myself have an old upright piano here at home which still sounds good but whose keys get stuck more often than I like that I now prefer to play my Yamaha P-80, which of course sounds great. But I still sorely miss playing on a real piano, especially a grand piano. I simply love the tone (especially in the lower and upper registers) that one can't get out of an upright piano. I like the fact that when you hit the lowest A or the highest C, you can still tell it's an A or a C. Then there's the feel of the keyboard vibrating as you hit chords, something that I don't get when playing my P-80.

I had so missed playing a grand that I was ecstatic when the committee in-charge of cultural events here at the university approached me last year and asked me to practice at the grand piano to keep it in tune. Apparently they had recently forked out some funds to have all three pianos--there was also an upright and a Chickering baby grand--at the auditorium tuned and needed to keep the pianos in tip top shape as long as possible.

But as much as I looked forward to playing the grand piano there, I could barely get away from work to practice. So far I've been over to the auditorium to practice just three times these past nine months since I was first invited.

The last time though was just yesterday. As usual, I had to ask the caretaker to bring the piano bench out of storage (it's always put away for fear it would be stolen) and open the back doors to provide light and ventilation (the piano is kept backstage where it's dark and stuffy). I had to practice also despite the racket going on because there were some students hammering away on the stage trying to take apart some props from a recent theatrical performance. But I did manage to practice satisfactorily. My fingers were rather stiff though, especially those in my left hand. I got carried away practicing that I didn't notice that more than two hours had lapsed since I started. I had to cut short whatever I was playing then, close the piano and rush back to my office hoping nobody had noticed I was gone for a long time. He-he.

Paying the electricity bill

Today I had a bit of an adventure paying our electricity bill. My father had always been the one to go to the bank or else to the payment center to pay our electricity and our phone bills but since he recently had surgery and is unable to drive a car in his condition, the responsibility fell to me.

My father also used to write a cheque out to pay the bills but as I was the one paying the bill this time I only had cash. I knew had to pay the exact amount knowing that the payment center usually is unable to give back the exact change especially when the amount payable involves an odd number of centavos. So as soon as I had some time to spare at my office, I decided to prepare all the cash and coins I needed to pay the bill and place them into a small plastic bag. That way I wouldn't waste time by digging into my wallet when I arrived at the payment center.

Unfortunately, having just withdrawn some cash from my bank account and used the smaller bills to pay for my lunchtime meals, I had mostly Php500 bills in my wallet and still lacked two Php100 bills to pay the exact amount for the bill. I had no choice but to try withdrawing cash again to get more Php100 bills. (When ATM machines here give out cash, they give out cash in Php100 and Php500 bills: five Php100 bills and then the rest in Php500 bills.) So off I went to withdraw a total of Php500 (the minimum withdrawable amount) after my 10-11am class hoping I'd get five Php100 bills. To my disappointment, the ATM machine spat out a single Php500 bill. Arrgh! So much for trying to get Php100 bills.

Anyway, I just walked on to the paying center just outside campus with my Php500 bills and coins.... only to find out when I arrived there that their payment machine was offline. Okay, I had to pause and consider how to deal with this new road block. When I inquired where else nearby I could go to pay the electricity bill since it was already due today, I was instructed to go to an area near the town proper to another payment center.

So I did just that after my last class for the day. I got on a jeepney from behind our office building and got off at the area I was told about. (I had an interesting jeep ride, by the way, since the jeepney I took took a roundabout route through campus before going out towards town.) I had to ask around a bit before I finally found the payment center. After paying without any trouble at all, I considered going directly back to office. But seeing that I was near a pharmacy and shopping center with a supermarket, I thought I'd take advantage of being in the area and do a bit of shopping. I needed medicine anyway and some things from the grocery. Besides, I had not been to that area for a long long time (thanks to heavy traffic which I'd rather not wade through when driving) and needed a bit of a break. At the same time, I was hoping that nobody important I knew from work would see me there shopping during office hours. Funny thing was I actually ran into one of my officemates at the supermarket.

Needless to say, I managed to get back to work (after another roundabout jeepney ride through campus) with lots of time left in the workday to me to use for making more slide presentations for my classes.