Theo Jansen's Strandbeests

It's Labor Day here and what better way to honor the day than to see the results of more than 16 years of labor of one Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist and engineer. He is a modern day Leonardo da Vinci, having created amazing "kinetic sculptures" meant to "live their own lives" on beaches, their movement relying on nothing but wind and water. These lifelike strandbeests remind me so much of people's creations over at Sodaplay but in three dimensions.

I know that this is an old video (ca. 2007) but I for one will always be amazed every time I watch it.

Computer language

Have I mentioned that I can hear my PC at the office communicating with the network and other devices? Strange but true.

It all started several months ago when I had our technician check some wiring in my PC's CPU casing because my PC would start up and then mysteriously shut down after a few seconds. He tinkered with a few things, moving one card to another slot and that seemed to solve the problem because my PC started up fine after that.

But then I began to notice spurts of static noise coming out of my PC speakers every time I print something or whenever my web browser is busy such as while downloading a webpage. It is especially prominent in the latter case when one of the webpages that I have up contains some dynamic content. (It's amusing to hear how often some dynamic content is being refreshed even while I'm not currently viewing the webpage.) I figured that it must be some kind of interference caused by some wiring next to the sound card where I plug in my PC speakers .

At first I found the noise annoying and was about to ask the technician to do something about it. Eventually however I realized that at least I can now tell when my PC is busy or has successfully sent a printing job over to my printer.

A last minute meeting

Late yesterday afternoon while I was relaxing eating a cup of yogurt, I received a frantic phone call from a professor from another department who said that I was wanted at the ongoing meeting among the university's top officials. Our college dean who was attending the meeting had at the last minute decided that she wasn't prepared to present our department's curricular proposals and wanted me to be the one instead to do it. Talk about not doing one's homework!

Naturally I had no choice but to "obey orders". So after depositing my cup of yogurt in the fridge, I retired to my room to wash up and get dressed. Within twenty minutes I was driving to the meeting, fuming mad all the way about my rudely interrupted weekend.

My mood didn't improve when I arrived at the meeting and found out that it wasn't even my turn yet to present our curricular proposals. There were in fact four more items in the agenda to be taken up.

In the end, I had to wait until around 9pm--a good four hours after I arrived--before my turn finally came. Luckily for everybody there I had sufficiently calmed down by then having been appeased by uncommonly good iced lemon tea, free dinner (although the beef was appallingly tough!) and a morbid pleasure in seeing other more ill-prepared and poorly written curricular proposals being shot down by sharp critics in the panel. Better still, my own presentation went smoothly with nary a question nor objection from the panel.

I only realized later as I got back in to my car how much this unexpected call stressed me when I felt my hyperacidity--which had began bothering me earlier in the week--kick in once again. Oh well. One or two Tums should take care of things.

A loooong work day

I literally had a long day at work today. Our director, another colleague and I were supposed to attend a meeting to present our department's curricular proposals and were instructed to wait until it was our turn to present.

Having experienced this last year where I waited until the late afternoon for our turn to present our curricular proposals then, I felt free to go about my work as usual in the morning. Sure enough just before lunchtime, a call came in saying that our proposal would be taken up about 2:30pm. So I had my lunch, met a few students afterwards and attended to a few more things before running off to the venue of the meeting (a five minute walk).

When I entered the room, our college secretary right away saw me and came over to tell me that it took unexpectedly longer than usual to discuss other proposals before ours on the agenda. So could we come back about 4 or 5pm? Back to the office I went. Funnily enough, I met our director back at our department and he himself had just gotten back after being told that it wasn't our turn yet.

Later, I received a message on my cellphone from the college secretary that they weren't done yet with the other proposals and that they might start on ours around 7pm yet. Okay, I thought, nothing new there. I decided to just go on with my work, called home to tell my parents that I would be eating dinner out (to save time and gasoline from going back and forth), drove my car out to the building where the meeting was and walked from there to the fastfood restaurants just outside campus.

I finished dinner a good 20 minutes before 7pm and decided to wait in my car in the meantime. Then just before 7pm, I went up to the meeting room only to find that they were still a good five items away from taking up our proposals. Anyway, I was told to just come on in and wait inside. Our director joined me several minutes after that. As it was almost 8pm and my other colleague had not showed up yet, I sent a test message to him inquiring if he was coming. To my chagrin, he said he was unavailable because he was having dinner at some restaurant. I told this to our director who said that it was alright and that we could take care of answering questions. Although our director didn't mind that setback, I was a little peeved with my colleague because I thought it was his responsibility to defend the proposal which he authored and that therefore this should have priority over social activities that he might have for the evening.

Anyway, we waited and we waited and we waited. I could see that our director was getting impatient at times and was getting tired because he sometimes would close his eyes and lay his head down on the table. Meanwhile I was divided between being irritated and being amused by the remarks of the committee members who seemed rather nit-picky this time around. I also mentally prepared myself to answer to similar comments in case those were likewise brought up when it was our turn to present our proposal.

Finally, at past 10:30pm, it was our turn (we were the last to present) and I took my seat near the laptop which was attached to the LCD projector at the opposite end of the room. The presentation went relatively smoothly; either our proposal was well written (ahem!) or the committee members too were getting tired and couldn't wait to get it all over and done with. At long last, we were done around 11:05pm to everyone's great relief. (So much for taking four or five hours to prepare my slide presentation!) The secretary of the committee joyfully called out the time of adjournment the moment everyone seconded the motion to endorse our curricular proposals and within minutes nearly everyone had left the room.

I stayed behind a little while longer to make a few more clarifications about suggestions made by the committee then gathered my things and went down to my car to drive home. Since I had to give the chair of the committee a ride home--instead of having her call someone to come pick her up--I had to take short detour to drop her off at her house before finally heading home.

And so ended what was probably my longest day at work. (Of course, not counting the other evenings I have spent working at home grading papers, preparing lecture notes, documents, etc.)

A humble practice

I accompanied my father to the vet clinic this afternoon to pick up our pet cat who died during the night while being confined. I thought I'd note here what I found out during the visit because I was very much impressed by the vet's dedication despite her limited resources.

When we arrived there, I wasn't surprised to find it very much different from the spacious veterinary hospital in campus. The clinic itself is rather tiny: barely 7 feet by 12 feet. Across from the glass door entrance is a small desk where the vet talks to her client's owners. To the left of the glass door is a short wooden bench which seats two or three people. Near the desk is a small refrigerator. There are two laminated tables that serve as exam tables next to one of which is a set of plastic drawers which I suppose serves as storage for supplies and some medicines. Next to set of drawers is a metal sink. At the end of the room is a curtained off area where most probably an operating table stands.

The clinic is run by a high schoolmate of mine who apparently loves her job of curing people's pets, having been inspired to become a veterinarian by the famous veterinarian-turned-bestselling author James Herriot. And it is evident in the concern and unselfish care she shows for her patients, not to mention the effort that she puts into her work without the help of an assistant. (She barely got any sleep the night before because she had to watch over our cat and another pet who also was confined, a beagle puppy who was having seizures.)

I could tell that she probably wasn't making much money from her practice based on what I could see in the clinic. It was quite obvious also that she probably couldn't afford to pay another to be her assistant. In fact she only charged us a total of Php1150 (much less than US$30 by today's exchange rate) which is surprisingly cheap considering that that our cat was on intravenous drip and was given some antibiotics. We were even more dismayed when, upon getting back home, we found out that she had not charged us any consultation fee at all nor did she charge us for the blood chemistry analysis she had done at some other clinic in town.

We're now thinking of buying something from Goldilocks to give to her in lieu of at least the consultation fee that she did not charge us.

Working in a "glass house"

Our office building is finally getting a facelift after all these years. Work started early this week. All the moss is being scraped off the concrete juttings which are then given a fresh coat of cream-colored paint.

Although our building looks so much better now I feel rather uncomfortable having people on scaffoldings doing the painting right outside the office windows and being able to look in while we work inside our offices. Since my office windows--which are huge by the way--have neither curtains or blinds I feel like an animal in the zoo. I've taken to turning off the lights and working in semi-darkness or leaving my office to do my work elsewhere.

I also wonder if the people in the upper floors are worried about thieves climbing up the scaffoldings in the evening and breaking into their offices. Their windows, unlike ours here in the ground floor, are not protected by grill bars.

The legacy of a great teacher

I basically spent both Holy Thursday and Good Friday playing my trusty Yamaha P-80 keyboard as accompanist during Holy Week masses and services here at our parish.

As it turned out I found that one of the members of the church choir which sang during those masses was a former member of the glee club of my high school for which I was often asked to be accompanist during my college days. Small world I thought. Compared to the others in that church choir, he was their most accomplished singer and was in effect their leader. Then it struck me that he was like so many others who belonged to the different batches of glee club members I worked with through the years: he had continued nurturing his passion for music long after he had graduated from high school.

And the only explanation for this phenomena that I could find was the training they received at the hands of their music teacher and choir director, Miss L.

Miss L in fact was not my music teacher during my high school days. She only got hired the year after I graduated from high school and I only got to know her when I was asked to be the accompanist of the glee club for a certain choral competition. There was this choral piece by Ryan Cayabyab that the glee club was preparing to learn for the competition and, typical of Cayabyab arrangements, it had a difficult accompaniment. As none of the current glee club members could tackle it, they looked elsewhere. To make a long story short, I was tapped to play for them. Apparently Miss L liked my playing well enough that I eventually became the glee club's accompanist during major choral competitions for a few years.

Anyway--I don't want to ramble on here too much--I must have worked with six different batches of glee club members. But every year was basically the same as I was amazed at how Miss L managed to coax beautiful music out of each of her charges time and again. Looking back, I realize that how fortunate I was then to witness how this average glee club quickly grew into a polished award-winning choral group under Miss L's guidance and inspiration.

There were however a few people who criticized Miss L's technique and approach to teaching music. One of them was the conductor of the very college choir for which I was a regular accompanist at that time. This lady said that it was not appropriate to force high school students to sing like adults and that it was bad practice. They should sing like children and sound like children, she said.

I silently had to disagree with her for such was not the case with Miss L. She didn't force her students to sing. Nor was there a need to coerce the students into rehearsing a piece until they perfected their singing. Miss L's love for music was infectious and through her enthusiasm instilled in her students a similar passion for music. They learned to love singing and what was required to produce beautiful singing and were thrilled with the music they produced as a choir. How often had I seen them, as they relaxed while awaiting their turn at a competition, suddenly bursting into song, harmony and all. And all by themselves without Miss L conducting them. Even other members of competing choirs who were standing around had to smile and be amazed with the group's enthusiasm.

I had never personally known anyone capable of passing on such a love for learning whether it be music or otherwise to her students and to do it so consistently. And I don't think I ever will again.

Sadly Miss L had to leave the high school for greener pastures abroad a couple of years after I myself left to pursue graduate studies abroad. The high school was indeed sorry to let her go and the glee club was never the same after that. All subsequent music teachers they hired could never produce the same results as Miss L did.

It is therefore a fitting testament to Miss L's legacy that this passion for music continued to burn in those whom she had trained, long after they graduated from high school and despite the diverse paths each have taken.

An alumnus went on to study music majoring in voice and is now a professional opera singer in Europe. I also know of several who went on to form their own singing group during their college days and have held concerts at the university's theatre. A couple of them sang during Miss L's wedding a few years ago and I must say they were just as good as the professional singers we see on television. A few are members of the university choir that sings a capella and has competed in a number of international competitions. Some of these same members in fact form a group that regularly sings during one of the weekend masses at our parish. One of my colleagues at work is himself a former glee club member and he heads the music ministry of his church group.

And now here is this fellow who sang the Introit and several chants during Holy Thursday mass--and who by the way holds a doctorate degree in biology. He could read notes, carries a tuning fork and was directing us on how to properly interpret Gregorian chant.

I myself believe that I would not have evolved into the accompanist that I am today had I not had the experience of playing for my high school glee club under Miss L's direction so many years ago. Heck, I even managed to train a small group of people to sing a choral piece during cultural night when I was abroad studying.

All this because of a great teacher.