Wonderful weather and weird behavior

We've been having wonderful weather these past few weeks. What I mean by "wonderful weather" is relatively cool weather for this country: temperatures hovering around the mid- and lower- 20s (celsius) rather in the upper-20s to low-30s.

And I'm saying it's wonderful also because I'm really enjoying this. It's just so refreshing not to sweat for a change after a brisk walk to outside campus to buy lunch. Then here at home I no longer have to strain my ears while listening to tv dialogue while the fan buzzes in the background. And then at work, I don't have to turn on my air-conditioning unit; I just open the windows and set-up a fan next to them to blow in the cool fresh air. The university should be thankful that I'm saving them hundreds of pesos on its electric bill!

Most other people here on the other hand are suffering from the sudden cold spell. I notice that many of my students and colleagues at work have started wearing long-sleeved shirts, jackets, sweaters--and even scarves! Boy, do I feel lucky that I went through four numbing winters while pursuing graduate studies abroad. I still can go about the house wearing my tank top and shorts and don't need to pile on layers to walk outside. I do wear my pajamas though instead of my nightgown when I go to bed as I tend to wake up shivering during the wee hours of the morning when temperatures really drop.

Unfortunately, I have observed some weird behavior at the same time. For instance, staff workers at the main office of my department insist on turning on their air-conditioning unit in their room--and at full blast, too! They end up having to wear sweaters and jackets indoors. I even had one student show up at class and request that I turn up the air-conditioning in the classroom because he was feeling warm. (We still turn on the air-conditioning in our classrooms since the room can get unbearably stuff with all the windows sealed closed.) I looked at him and observed that he was wearing a heavy dark blue-grey jacket over a simple white t-shirt. So I simply told him, "Tanggalin mo na lang ang jacket mo!" (Why don't you just take off your jacket?)

The one thing I don't like about the cold weather is that it's been unusually gloomy because of overcast skies and occasional showers. Sigh! We had a bit of sun this morning but that was short-lived. Ah well. I still prefer this to hot humid weather.

Little ceramic angel from the Amana colonies

I've just discovered another good spot here at home for taking pictures: the small desk with a laminated top that I use for my laptop. I had just clamped on my old IKEA lamp a few months ago and use it as my only light source while working at my laptop. Now I've found that it's a good light source for macro photos. He-he.

Here's a photo that I took of the ceramic/bisque angel that was given to me by my mom so many years ago after she visited the Amana colonies in Iowa. I was looking around for something to take picture of this weekend--like I said I'm shutter happy nowadays--and decided to give the figurine a try. I just didn't to dust it off well enough before shooting away so that one can clearly see individual dust particles in the original image. Ugh! I'm glad only smaller versions are displayed on Flickr!

My St. Valentine's Day rose

Last Thursday, the fourteenth of February, I was surprised by some students belonging to a student organization when they presented me with a single white rose.

I quickly put it in an empty tumbler that I had filled with just enough water. I brought it home that same evening and where I finally found it a proper home in one of our glass vases. Since I am going through my shutter-happy phase, I also took a couple of photos under florescent lights.

I wasn't satisfied with these first few photos since the artificial lighting coming from overhead combined with a plain white background (actually the side of our fridge) made for a rather flat image. So I decided to take more photos yesterday morning downstairs in the basement bedroom where sunlight filters in beautifully through the south-facing windows "a la Vermeer".

It took several trials with different angles and lighting to come up with a shot that I at least thought looked good enough to post on my Flickr account. I must say, that even if the flower was already slightly wilted I'm delighted with the way its white/cream color stood out nicely against the blue bedspread. He-he.

Mini cassava cakes

I was busy preparing teaching materials in my office this afternoon when somebody knocked at my office door. As I called out for whoever it was to come on in, the door opened and one of our younger instructors entered holding two large flat boxes with his left hand. He came over to where I was seated at my PC and lowered one of the boxes which had no top so that I could what was inside. Looking in I saw that there were several quaint golden-brown cupcake-like food stuffs inside! The instructor told me he was treating everyone at the office for the New Year and to help myself to a few. Thinking that there was just enough for each one of us at the office to have one each, I got one cupcake. Seeing that, the instructor cried out, "Kulang pa yan! Kuha pa ho kayo ng isa pa." (That's not enough! Go ahead and get another one.) So I got one more and said thank you.

I brought both home to show and share with my parents. They turned out to be mini cassava cakes. And they were gooey-ly yummy! Too bad I didn't get to take a picture of the cakes before we gobbled them up.

A man and his pig

Late this morning I left my office to move my car from the far end of the parking lot to a spot closer to my office building (the lot was practically empty anyway). As I walked to the car, I saw in the distance an elderly man jogging along the bridge farther down the road. A few feet behind him was a fat black short-legged dog trying to keep up with his master. I could hear the man chanting something as he jogged and it sounded like he was urging on his dog. As they came closer, I saw that the dog wasn't a dog at all: It was a young pot-bellied pig! The few people who were walking about must have come to the same realization because they all suddenly stopped, stared and smiled at this unusual sight of a man jogging with his pet piglet.

The new year's first day of classes (sort of)

Today being the first day classes resume at university, I got up early with the intention of arriving at my office early. I wanted to make some last minute changes on the lecture slides I would be using for my 8am lecture.

I was however puzzled to find the parking lot near my office building nearly deserted as I drove up around 7:40am. The jeepneys that usually wait for passengers were not around and there were just two other cars one of which I recognized as belonging to our director who is always early at work. I also noticed that there were no cars parked either at nearby buildings. I couldn't see any students or other instructors milling around or walking through the building's corridors either.

Dismissing this as due to the early hour and it being the very first day of classes of the new year, I walked over to the building carrying my bags after parking my car at the far end of the parking lot under some trees. As I entered the first floor lobby I met a colleague (owner of the other car I saw parked at the parking lot) whom I immediately greeted happy new year.

He likewise hello then asked, "Alam mo ba na walang klase ngayon?" (Do you know that there are no classes today?) I was stunned and managed to asked, "What?!" It turns out that the university chancellor had declared on the last day of classes last year that there would be no classes today to give students more time to travel back to town! My colleague who has his own 7am lecture class on Wednesdays wasn't aware of that announcement either. He was informed about it by the college dean only that very morning through a text message. No wonder there weren't any students around at all! There may have been no official memo but this kind of news spreads like wildfire among students. But I wish some kind of official announcement had been posted on the university's website to at least let the rest of us know about it.

Anyway, after having a good laugh over our situation I excused myself and walked on to my office room. As I settled down to work, I realized that my lecture/lab schedule has been messed up a bit once again because of having to miss today's lectures. I was however slightly relieved that I at least now had the entire day to edit my lecture slides and other teaching materials as well as catch up a bit on other work that I had set aside to thoroughly enjoy my Christmas vacation. There was just a small glitch though later when I discovered that our Internet connection was down. While that meant that there will be less to distract me from my work, I was bereft of my main source for teaching materials. So I wasn't able to do as much work as I hoped to.

But the main good thing about not having classes today was that I had at least a day to adjust from vacation mode back to working mode.

New Year celebrations

It's another new year!

New Year's eve was spent practically at the church were I once again had to provide accompaniment at the keyboard during the "midnight" mass at 8pm. As usual I had to be at the church at least ecrackers has finally convinced more people to resort to safer ways to make noise to greet the new year. In fact, I didn't hear too many firecrackers going off during the previous weeks and this morning has itself remained unusually quiet up to this late hour--which could also be due to people remaining in bed after staying up late.

In any case, I don't think one needs to raise hell to celebrate the coming of a New Year. The tradition of setting off firecrackers after all has its origins in Chinese culture where noise is made to scare off the bad spirits. While many Filipinos believe in all those bad spirits and feng shui, I myself don't believe in such superstitious stuff. (Hey, I'm after all a Christian, a Roman Catholic, so why should I?) Besides, I generally can't stand loud noise or music. (It makes me wonder how our neighbor's son can stand sitting in that pick-up of his with all that music pounding into his ear drums.)

We here at home haven't touched a single firecracker for long time. The last time we had a firecracker was something like twenty years ago when my father bought one of those cone thingies that, when lit, gives off a fountain of sparks for one or two minutes--which wasn't even a real firecracker if you think about it. Before that, we had sparklers for one or two years when my sister and I were still in grade school. Nowadays, I feel we're simply too old for such things. There are other anyway lots of other things one can do to celebrate and not get hurt at the same time. Like eating! He-he.