45 minutes and counting...

Lately I've been watching reruns of E.R. endlessly. When I say endlessly, I mean it. I turn on my DVD when I get home from work, and keep it running till I go to bed. Sometimes, the episodes blend in, and I don't know when one ends and another begins.

Anyway, I couldn't help but compare how different the series is to many of my favorites of today, such as Grey's Anatomy and Gossip Girl. For one, it seems to me (or maybe it's just a figment of my imagination) that the hour of TV shows before were longer than the hour of a tv show today. What I mean is before, the one-hour show would be about 48-52 minutes long. Comparatively, today's shows, such as episodes of Grey's, only go up to 43, 44 minutes at most. Must be the many commercials nowadays as compared to before. Another thing I noticed is before, shows had minimal music playing in the background, save for the theme song and sound effects. It's not that there were no songs played in climactic scenes in the shows, but today, music is very much another character in the story lines of shows. What's more is many of the songs we hear in the show are actual songs that become hits on the airwaves.

What hasn't changed, however, is the pattern in many shows, whether it be a medical drama (such as E.R. vs. Grey's Anatomy), a legal drama (L.A. Law vs. Ally McBeal), or teenage lifestyle show (Beverly Hills, 90210 vs. Gossip Girl). There is always something similar about the way they cast the characters: there's a popular figure, there's the handsome hero, the jerk, the rebel, and the nerd. Also, love is always a central figure in these stories. No matter what, there has to be a love affair somewhere there!

In the end, whether today or in the past, television is really a part of our lives already. Just like real life, changes of day-to-day are seen in the changes in our favorite tv shows. No matter what, however, the basics will always be the same.

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Lost In Translation

I spent the past four days on an out of town trip with some of my colleagues for a community service project. As a result, I could not access my blog the entire time. It made me realize how much of my social world has been in cyberspace, even though I do still work in the "real" world on a daily basis. Being in close quarters with my colleagues, particularly two of my friends who were my roommates for the trip, made me realize how often I get lost in translation when dealing with the real world.

Conversations with people, for example, was one venue for me to see how lost I get in translation. I think it's because there's no delete or backspace buttons when talking to people...with my laptop, if I say something I regret, it's so easy to erase. Plus reading words does not require one to decode intonation of voices, which often have hidden meanings to it.

Blogging, on the other hand, can be a safe haven to say things I wanna say without worrying what people have to say about it. Also, having to write them down gives me time to think before I speak, thus I get to edit myself as necessary.

I learned three very important things because of this:
1. Think before you speak. While this may not necessarily be my S.O.P., I have to make it a habit so I don't regret things I say as often as I catch myself doing so.
2. Listen and listen well. It dawned on me that even though I do listen to people, I don't always listen well. As a result, I get lost in translation!
3. It's not always about me. :-) I caught myself a lot of the times in conversations with my colleagues turning the tables back to me. Whenever we'd talk about something, I often respond "in my experience", or "for me, I think..." I think I'll reserve that for my blog :-)

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The Cocooning

The caterpillars are starting to cocoon. It's so cool! I'm crossing my fingers that they're still cocoons when I come back on Monday....

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Bug Update

Today I couldn't find half of my caterpillars. Apparently they've all decided to start burrowing. My patience is being challenged by this "whole waiting for them to cocoon" experience hehe!!! Nevertheless, I'm still so amazed.

A funny upside to my bug-mothering career: I haven't been late for work in three days. I keep waking up early to check on them kasi!!!!

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Growing Babies

Today my caterpillars, or at least two of them, turned yellow. Compared to last night, it's skin seemed a little looser. I was afraid I hurt it or something, because I ran out of the leaves it was hosting on so I put some other leaves in, just in case they'd feed on it as well.

Anyway, I would like to assume it is a normal phenomenon, and that it's really just part of the process of metamorphosis. They also stopped moving around the way they were yesterday, and the munching stopped!!!

I noticed by this evening, however, that they formed a tent-like structure (or as my cousin Maia said: a cocoon motel) and are getting quite squishy looking (meaning wet). I hope this means they'll pupate soon!!!

Anyway, my colleague Tina saw my teeny-tiny case c/o Bee, and said the caterpillars looked kinda cramped. So she brought me a big aquarium. Here's their new home!!!

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Teacher's Pets

Teacher picked up some new pets today. Quite by accident, I might add.

A few years ago, someone very special to me shared that she once took care of some caterpillars. After some time, they had formed their chrysalis and soon were ready for their rebirth...one in which they would become beautiful butterflies. She told me that as they emerged from their cocoons, it was a dirty, bloody mess, but a glorious dirty, bloody mess. Since then I had been curious about how it would look.

So today I found out that a bunch of caterpillars were feeding on a plant in our schools front yard. So I went and took the plant, put it in a terrarium and crossed my fingers that soon, I, too, would witness that birthing: the terrible beauty of metamorphosis.

In the first few hours of my new pet-caring career, I have learned that story The Very Hungry Caterpillar is true: the caterpillar never stops eating! The book didn't say it poops a lot, too, though. Cute looking poop at that hehe. I left the box of caterpillars in school while I went off to my undergrad classes, with a bunch of leaves. I thought that would be enough for the next day or two. Apparently not! By the time I got back in school to pick it up, there were no more leaves, just a bunch of poop.

Then I went home and set off to create my pets new crib, where hopefully they can thrive. My cousin Bee provided me with an old container she had, which was perfect as it was a plastic container with a cover that already had slots on them. I think it once held her pet white mice. With the cage ready, I lined the bottom with some damp soil and scattered leaves and put sticks and stems they were feeding on. As I write this post, I am watching them devour the plants in their cage. It's an amazing experience thus far. I just hope it makes it all the way to the end. By the way, it's amazing how they munch through the leaves. So cute!!! Here's their new home!

In many ways, it is not only the life cycle this metamorphosis represents, but even my own terrible beauty of rebirth as well. In the past five years, I've seen myself go from a very hungry caterpillar to an emerging butterfly. The journey has not been easy, but I know, and believe, that the journey will be worth the wait.

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Three Cheers for Teachers!

Before the day ends, let me greet all my fellow teachers out there a HAPPY TEACHERS DAY!!! I know firsthand how often thankless and tiring our jobs can get, so in behalf of all students out there (as I was once was) here is a BIG THANK YOU for....

being patient....
caring....
taking the time to go the extra mile...
trying so hard....
never giving up!

There is still so much to be thankful for, I'm sure, but there will never be enough I can say to show all you teachers how much you make a difference in the world.

Before I end, I'd like to share this message I received.

Doctors?
-save lives
Engineers?
-bridge islands
Lawyers?
-defends you honor
TV Journalists?
-reveal the truth
TEACHERS?
-made them all.
Thank you for being one!

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The Gadget Wishlist (Christmas List 2/12)

I was in the mall recently and noticed that Christmas carols were indeed piping through the sound systems. Yes, it's not just me anymore, Christmas is coming!!!

No matter how old we all get, I think the excitement of Christmas eve (or morning, whenever it is you open presents) still lives on. While getting Christmas presents may not seem as important as it was when I was a child, seeing my name in the gift tags of presents stirs up that excitement.

Twenty years ago, my letters to Santa were filled with toys, bicycles, and so on and so forth. Even as a young child, however, I always had an affinity towards electronic gadgets. I remember how Nintendo was always a fixture on those Christmas lists. Now that I am older, I may not write letters to Santa anymore, but if I were to do so, this is what would be in it...


1. An Apple iMac. Being a Mac convert since my friend Sandy introduced her MacBook to me, my mac has become a constant companion. Since I got it almost two years ago, I have been repeatedly wowed by the uniqueness and greatness of the mac. Sure, there are some quirks that can be annoying (i.e. some websites not working with Safari, file transfers and conversions (such as in .ppt) failing, and the like, but overall, it's been great. Let's not even go to the virus discussion!
So, since I don't have a desktop (and even though arguably one might not necessarily need a desktop nowadays) I want an iMac. It's sleek design and system power is way beyond one's expectations. Not to mention, as my cousin Kat says of another Apple product being a status symbol, there's a prestige to having a Mac. Down side to it, not being able to have many of the programs standard Microsoft computers have, particularly because everything in Mac has to be original (ergo, no piracy hehe). I also don't like the fact that I can't play the yahoo games, such as Diner Dash, Chuzzle and the like. Plus, the downside of it all: Price tag, approximately Php 65,000.

2. Speaking of Apple computers, a MacBook Air is also at the tops of my wishlist. While my MacBook is still fabulous, it would be great to have this light-weight counterpart. I haven't heard much raves (nor rants for that matter), but I've seen a few of these on campus (yes, my students have them!). Shempre naglalaway ako sa inggit diba?!? (Of course, this makes me drool with envy). I may give in to getting myself an iMac, but I don't think imagine myself dropping Php 106,000.00 for this. And this, unlike my Havianas fall-out, is something I cannot give in to!!!

3. I will not doubt that the hottest gadget for Christmas this year in the Philippines will be the iPhone. Exclusively serviced by Globe as of now, I can foresee a significant number of new subscribers to this uber cool gadget. My cousin Kat has one, and I try (successfully at that) not to sit too close to her so I don't admire it too much :-) As she describes it, it's sleek, beautiful and with a super large touch screen that's perfect to keep you entertained any time of the day, especially since there are a lot of games and applications available for downloading. Not only are the games fun, it's kinda interactive too, especially since rather than just simply pushing buttons, you can tilt, shake and move the gadget to make the game work (that's the best way I could put it!!!) She also loves the Internet functions. Being a blogger, I think this is what I would love best about it too. However, this wifi capability also appears to be a liability at this time, as it constantly searches for a signal. If no wifi signal is detected, it automatically goes on 3G or other cellular data networks which end up being charged to the subscriber, even though you didn't actually surf the net then. Another liability to this is the lack of a message forwarding function, which can be a hassle, but I think there are applications for this. A friend of mine also commented though about its tendency to suddenly hang. Whatever the case is, I still love it! But Globe's present price tag (which is almost 40k) is a little too much to swallow. I'll take the iMac nalang! Plus the biggest drawback: it's too hard to text while driving, tense or, as Kat says: drunk!!! hehe. Then again, maybe that is a good thing. Whatchathink?!? :-)

4. Since the iPhone is too expensive, I can settle for an iTouch :-)

5. Here's my first none Apple gadget: a Sony Cybershot camera. I haven't really decided which model, but I like the one with a stylus. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but my friend Summer's camera is a Cybershot and her Davao pictures were so beautiful! Maybe it's the smile shutter feature or what not, or maybe it was her artistic eye, but whatever it is, her pictures were great. Maybe it was a confluence of factors hehe! Even though I love my Olympus underwater camera, a Sony Cybershot is still a Sony Cybershot. Plus it comes in red :-) Downside is it's not waterproof, which is why I chose Olympus when I got a camera earlier this year.

6. Wii Fitness. This summer my brothers brought home a Wii from the States. I've enjoyed the Wii Sports a lot, especially the tennis game, but I think the Wii fitness would be a great way to lose weight...again. Haha. I remember when I first tried to get in shape, I used the Dance, Dance Revolution game of the Playstation, the one with a dance pad. My challenge then was to get the Butterfly song perfect!

7. A wireless phone for my room :-) A good, decent one for that matter. As basic as it is, I would love to have one even though I don't use the phone so much because the one I have right now is so frustratingly inaudible!

8. A digital reader. I saw this recently on the news and it seems to be a great gadget. It holds .pdf files and has a great memory. Although I don't see myself using this for reading journal articles hehe.

9. A flatscreen, digital LCD television. For all couch potatoes, this is self-explanatory :-)

10. A Sony HD digital video camera, those being featured in the Amazing Race Asia. So small, compact and powerful. I've never had a video cam before, and this would absolutely be a winner. To be fair, my digital cam can take videos as well.

11. I don't know if one of these gadgets actually exist as of now, but my dream gadget is a voice recorder that automatically transfers audio files to a computer, not only as .wav or .mp3 file, but transcribed into a .txt or .doc file!

12. A magic wand. Well, I can't think of anything else, but I bet there are so many more gadgets out there that I would love. So the magic wand will allow me to conjure these up!

What about you, what's on your gadget wish list?

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Teacher is Getting Old.

Today I felt so old.

I guess for the most part, I don’t feel all of my twenty-nine years…I don’t even dress the part most of the time! I still watch the Disney Channel, I like lollipops and still have a penchant for the Super Mario video game. Today, however, I realized, I am indeed almost 30.

What led to this realization?

Well, for one I had to run up and down six flights of stairs today, twice, in order to settle my classroom mix-up. I used to be able to do that without getting winded, but today, I could barely breathe!!!

To be fair, today wasn’t the first time I said I was getting old. When I’m with my preschoolers, I am starting to find it difficult to keep up, especially during Music and Movement. Running after a bunch of toddlers is not as easy as it used to be!

What took the cake was when I decided to show the film Dangerous Minds (with Michelle Pfiffer) to my college students today. None of them had heard about it! It was such a big hit back when in the day! Then I realized it first came out when I was still in high school. And yes, that wasn’t just yesterday.

As I watched the movie with the students, I couldn’t help but cringe at the fashion and laugh at what we once thought was cool. It also occurred to me how far technology has gone in the past 12 years. There was a scene where a student was carrying a boom box and dancing in the streets with his pants hanging lowly the way the hip-hoppers of my time used to. One girl even pulled out a camera…yup, the black, square ones that you have to peer through to take photos. Even the cinematography was so much different!

What struck me most, however, was how different teaching has become in the past twelve years. I suppose I see this first hand in the classes I teach, but seeing it for myself solidified my assertions that the learning process is different now from the, both in good and bad ways. Nowadays, as long as you have technology on your side, you can get the classes attention. Then, teaching was really a hands-on activity: you had to work hard to be creative, without the aid of technology. Research was different as well, as one needed to spend so much time in the library, as compared to today where everything is online.

One thing that remains, however, is that teaching is never for the money. It is, and always will be, for the love of the craft.

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How Blogging Has Changed My Life

In the past few months, I seem to have gotten bitten by the blogging bug. Hard.

I started this blog way back in 2005, but never had the interest or attention to sustain the task. If you'd go through my archive, you'd see I started out like many other bloggers had: ranting, raving and just journalling online about the daily grind.

However, ever since my friend Janine got me involved in the blog world, I've discovered a whole new side of myself, and of others as well. Because of blogging, I've seen a change in the way I see things, and think about things around me too. I used to think blogging was all self-promotion and narcissism. I see now that blogging is a confluence of ideas, discussions and different POV's.

It's amazing how the world wide web, especially through these blogs, have made the world so much smaller. I learned that what happens in one end of the world affects other parts as well, much like ripples in a lake when you drop a stone in it.

On a personal level, I've learned to appreciate the value of patience and perseverance. Although I've always known these were essential traits in life, I always used to say patience is a virtue I can often live without. Not! Blogging reminds me of this. Especially since I am one of the few broadband hold-outs hehe.

I don't think anyone can deny how addicting and time-consuming blogging can get. I've had to exercise (or at least try to exercise) impulse control, self-regulation and the like in order to still be grounded with the real world (i.e. work. more work. and still more work. not to mention a darned thesis). As such, something I've had to learn is the art of self-control. Still working on this though!!!

Not withstanding blogging also has done a lot of "bad" for me...it's made me hole up in my room until the wee hours of the morning,and it's made me a certified couch potato. Not to mention all the food reviews have made me on the look-out for all the yummyness!!!

In any case, good or bad, blogging has really changed my life. So, go blog!

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FREE trumps SALE anyday!!!!

I used to say SALE was my favorite word, especially when it comes to fashion. Midnight Madness Sales, end-of-season sales, 3-day sales, holiday sales, any sales were always an exciting event for me.

However, as I've made my way through this blogging world, I realize there is a better word than sale: FREE. I never realized how much free stuff there is out there, and how simple it is to get them.

One example of a great freebie is the mug I got from Jonel's Something Sweet and More Blog.

Another one is the free case of coke from the Buhay Coke party a few months back. Plus of course the free dinner, drinks and fun night during the blogger party. Too bad I missed the second party!

One freebie I'll never forget is the free ticket to the D-Cinema Launch at SM North Edsa's the Block. Admittedly, Journey to the Center of the Earth was not really something I would have planned to see, the digital effects of this 3D movie were simply AMAZING!

Of course there's also that controversial What's your Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf story mug.


Anyway, this time there's a new FREEBIE I'm so looking forward to! What girl can resist a free handbag, after all? :-) Hopefully by October 15, this will be mine!!!!

My soon-to-be-bag hehehe!

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Of Books and Technology

After dinner this evening, my nine-year old niece showed me a book and asked if I had read it. I said No, I haven't. Funny, because it was the second time I was asked today I was asked if I had read a pocket book. Now that I think about it, it's kinda sad that I haven't read so many of the popular pocketbooks of today. For one, I have not even read the Harry Potter series! I have, however, seen all the Harry Potter films! It's sad because when I was younger, not having read a book would be the last thing one would ever hear from me. Before the advent of Powerbooks and Fully Booked (where you can actually sit and read the book in leisure), I would spend countless hours lurking around various bookshelves in Goodwill bookstore (at the old North Mall (if I remember it right!) where the Ayala center is now). Since we lived in Urdaneta Village, I'd walk to the mall every Saturday morning, after breakfast, and stay there till about 6PM, just reading book after book.

Nowadays, I seem to find myself limited to reading in the bathroom.

Because of today's modern technology, it seems to me many children are not reading anymore. As a teacher, I see a lack of love for books by most, especially since these books have to compete with television, gadgets, and computer games. While this may be the sad truth, it is very encouraging to see a new item out on the market, which encourages the development of English and reading skills. Welcome, the Easy English PSL.

While it is mainly designed to improve English, it highly encourages reading as part of the development of the language. This modern day audiobook, if I may call it as such, is not like the typical audiobook that you can upload to your Ipod, as it still includes the words that are being read out loud so you can follow along. Further, it has beautiful illustrations that make harness a multi-modal approach to learning (meaning both visual and auditory learners can benefit from it).

The downside to the gadget, however, is that as of now, there is a limited selection of stories it presents. Also, it is more for kids to adolescents, so maybe adults may not necessarily enjoy it (but they still can!!!).

So while it is true technology has become so much bigger than us, we can embrace it and use it to still remain true to the core competencies needed in life, especially reading and the love of books.

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