Tuesday, August 23, 2005

RADIOACTIVE MAGAZINE NOW OUT


Actually, the Flickr version, that is. The website really has a lot of cool stuff going on, and this is one of them. Thise who love to take photos really should seriously consider uploading and managing them in this site.

Thanks to Dr. GP for introducing me to Flickr.

Monday, August 22, 2005

SHAME, SHAME



This article got my full attention because I am currently writing several chapters for a Science textbook for Grade III students based on DepEd's Basic Elementary Curriculum (BEC).

I really hope my being a stickler for precise data and information will help make the approval of the textbook faster. Just imagine the headache of having to redo the entire thing if it gets rejected (and my publisher might ask for my poor neck)!

For the meantime, read the related article here. The shocker is, only a handful of the textbooks out of 130 submitted and reviewed were accepted by the Department. Can you imagine decades of what may be inaccuracies and misinformation being fed to millions of Filipino children?

No wonder...

THE NEW NAIA TERMINAL 3


(Photo by Rommel Dorado for www.jetphotos.com)

The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has released official photos of the new air terminal in Nichols.

Visit my travel / food blog here for the rest of the photos. Really looking forward to its opening! Our Filipino readers abroad who are excited to come home will soon use this terminal before the year ends.

Now if only they finally resolve the cases surrounding this structure before it rots.

ENOUGH


(Photo courtesy of www.inq7.net)

There's really a limit to destruction and this is one of those which gets my goat (enough to cut short my holiday from blogging). While I have been a fan of the City of our Affections, I haven't been as kind to the destructive policies of Manila Mayor Lito Atienza.

Perhaps the Mayor should take inspiration from the fact the Manila was home to Southeast Asia's first botanical garden (the Mehan, now lost) and should do all he could to replicate what Tokyo has done to the Todoroki Gorge - a haven for flora, fauna, and people in one of the world's busiest cities.

Kim Atienza, in a letter to me a few months back, promised to work hard with his father to make my second home more livable. Perhaps it's about time I take him up to task for that promise.

Friday, August 19, 2005

XX WELTJUGENTAG KOLN 2005


“Are you capable of giving yourselves, your time, your energy and your talent to the well-being of others? Are you capable of love? If you are, Church and society can expect great things of each one of you.” (PJPII, WYD'95 Manila)

“The Church is young. Young people should not be thought of as being consumed by the trappings of consumerism or pleasure. They are not materialistic, nor egotistical. “The opposite is true: The Youth want the Greater”- and the Good. They are against injustice, inequality, oppression; they are for freedom. “They are very open to Christ.” (Benedict XVI, Cologne 2005)

The XX WELTJUGENTAG KOLN 2005 site here.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

BLOGGING OVERLOAD



I am taking a rain check on blogging, dear friends. It's almost a year since I opened this site and thousands of visits later, I suppose it's time to take a break from all this and return to some things I have been missing. I think of being able to catch up on my reading when I say this. Cleaning my room is another. So what's up with me? A lot. Been so busy thinking but not doing much. Weird but I've been humming 'Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered' lately. Never mind that it was recorded by Mel Torme in 1944. I just love the tune. You all know me being a young old man. I'm afraid I still am.

Anyway, they say that certain things reach a saturation point. Fortunately, this does not apply to blogging. At least not for me. Because no matter what, I will always write. I (finally) accepted the fact that writing is a career I want to seriously work on. I just hope I finally get paid *grins*

At any rate, I think my film blog will still be updated because I will still write for Yehey! Movies even if I am not paid for it. Maybe I am just a silly guy who writes for kicks, I dunno. I do need a kick in the ass sometimes. Or a rap on the head.

So, I hope to see you all again soon!

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED



Words & Music by Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
Recorded by Mel Torme, 1944

I'm wild again, beguiled again,
A simpering, whimpering child again -
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.
Couldn't sleep, and wouldn't sleep,
When love came and told me I shouldn't sleep -
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.

Bridge:

Lost my heart, but what of it?
She is cold, I agree;
She can laugh, but I love it,
Although the laugh's on me.

I'll sing to her,each spring to her,
And long for the day when I'll cling to her -
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I,

Coda:
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

CLOSING A CYCLE


by Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.

If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

A PRANKSTER? ME?


The Prankster
47% dark, 11% spontaneous, 15% vulgar)
your humor style: CLEAN, COMPLEX and LIGHT

Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.

You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Conan O'Brian

Monday, August 08, 2005

WALA NA, WALA NA!



Where have all the doctors gone? Gone abroad everyone. Where have all the doctors gone? Far, far away. Where have all the doctors gone? Nurses abroad everyone. Oh, when will we ever learn? Oh, when will we ever learn?

(Sung to the tune of "Where have all the Flowers Gone?")

RAUL ROCO, 1941-2005



Read related articles by Manuel Quezon III here and Conrado de Quiros here.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

PHILIPPINE PRESIDENCY OF THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL


2 August 2005, NEW YORK — The Philippines will again take the center-stage next month when it assumes the presidency of the Security Council and also possibly convene and chair a summit of the leaders of the 15-member states that make up the most powerful organ of the United Nations.

Read the rest by visiting the website of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the United Nations here. Must be the only Philippine Mission website that looked professionally done, aside from the Philippine Mission to the UNICEF.