Contortion

Yesterday, I watched the UB Symphony Orchestra's first performance of the year. It was amazing, and I was impressed.

I actually did not plan to attend this one, but since it was free, I decided to check it out. Besides, another factor which led to my attendance was the fact that I was introduced to the new orchestra director for this year, an Argentinian by the name of Christian Baldini. My Argentinian friend and I were walking through the Music Department on our way to buy tickets to a different event last week, when we bumped into Christian. And so we were introduced, and I decided to attend.

They played Ravel's orchestration of his Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, and Beethoven's First Symphony. And for a college orchestra, the quality is superb.

The soloist in the clarinet concerto is actually a faculty of the Music Department, and she was very expressive in performing her part. She was contorting her body in accord to the music. Someone who would see her do it without hearing the music may find it funny, but in all actuality, she is just putting the right kind of emotion in the music.

The only thing that annoyed me was the decorum of the audience. Well, I couldn't expect much from a free concert. But the people were sometimes whispering, some people were going out the auditorium in the middle of performances, and some were taking flash photography. But aside from that, it was a good conclusion to the evening.

I had a meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies earlier today. I might be taking three classes from three different departments for next semester. I am not sure yet, because that might not be possible based on department rules, and so he will confirm with the Chair first. If that would be possible, then it might be an exciting Spring semester for me. But I'll update that later. In the meantime, I am beginning my countdown. And of course, I won't tell yet why I am doing this countdown. Still regardless, I have 48 days to go.



(Pillars on the outside courtyard, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Time Flies Like An Arrow

It's that time of the year again, when the graduate students sign up for classes to be taken next semester. I still have 7 classes to take, which is equal to 21 credit hours. This means that I still have 3 semesters of coursework to go. I cannot believe that I am actually getting there. Hahahahaha.

So, that means that I have a fifteen-minute meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies, which also happens to be my adviser. So in that way, I get to decide what classes I will be taking for next semester. I already have an idea for the two of the three that I am supposed to take, but not for the third one.

I am teaching a class next semester. I already have a few students registered in that class. And since this is my third time teaching this class, I am more confident of the material now than before. It really is true that practice makes perfect. I am also planning on revising the syllabus and adding new material and discarding old material. It gets boring in my part if I teach the same class in the same way over and over again. It also allows for people to just pass on my tests and quizzes to other people, so to avoid that, I am changing my questions.

I have gotten an email from the college saying that my class would be included in the list of possible college classes that high-school students might want to visit. Since during the Spring semester, there will be an Open House, some prospective high school students can come and visit and sit-in in classes. So my class will be one of those that they can visit.

I also got a message from one of my professors broadcasting the opportunity to get an undergraduate teaching assistant for my class. I don't know whether I will be needing it though. It is because undergraduate TAs cannot grade and record grades. All they can do are help with the classroom set-up, attend class, and hold office hours. So will I need it? If the professor doesn't contact me a second time, then I won't ask for one. If she does, then I will take one.

So there you go, time is moving again. I cannot believe that the semester is two-thirds over after this week. And that is not the only thing that says that time moves. This morning, I saw the ground as I was walking from my house to school, and I saw that there was frost. The grass was whitish-green.

I woke up early enough to witness the frost. I usually wake up at 6:00 AM. That is the time that I set my alarm clock. However, most of the time, I wake up a few minutes earlier than that. My body clock seems to have adapted to that, and so since I wake up at around that time for five days a week, even though I don't want to wake up that early in some days, I cannot help but wake up. Having a body clock can be frustrating sometimes.

Oh I cannot wait for this semester to finish. I have two papers to write, and for both of them I already have a topic and I have started working on them already. Hopefully, this semester ends in a bang and I will be closer to my objective.



(Alligators and turtles instead of gargoyles, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Manipulation

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. Well, not exactly bad as it seems; this is my third time to experience a Buffalo winter, so by now, it is nothing. But today, the temperature started to dip down to the single digits (Celsius, of course). So I know it is coming.

Yesterday was a bizarrely weird day. A friend of mine and I wanted to watch a play, and we got tickets for yesterday night at 8:00 PM. So before that, we agreed to go out to dinner, and so we did that. I haven't been to the Thai restaurant that I went a few months ago recently, so we decided to go there, since my friend hasn't tried Thai food before.

After dinner, we went to campus, and so we were in time for the play. The play was The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute. I was quite impressed with the way they produced it. They used the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts building here in campus. This theatre is flexible in nature, and they made it that the stage is actually in the middle of the audience. The audience can opt to either sit on the floors in between the four different podiums, thereby creating the effect that they are part of the spectacle, or the audience can sit on the balconies around the stage, thus as if they are peeping into the lives of the four characters in the play.

I loved the play because it addresses multiple issues that I think are worth addressing. It is about a graduate student, who is a sculptor, who dates a guy, who until that point, was the totally uninteresting guy on the planet. And as they get to know each other more, the guy changes bit by bit, from his hairstyle, to his clothes, up to the point of getting a noselift, just for the female sculptor. In the end, the guy proposes to the girl. But what the guy doesn't know is that he is the sculpture of the girl, and the girl has no love interest in him whatsoever. For the girl, he is just a piece of art, where she has used the human flesh and the human will as base material.

The play addresses the question, What is art? What qualifies something to be called art? Can one call the end product of this specific task as art? The play also addressed the power of manipulation. Many people have partners, but none of them are perfect. Most of the time, there is just one thing that we want to change in our partners. Do we do it abruptly, or do we manipulate them subtly?

In short, yesterday was a rather very enjoyable night. Good thing I went with somebody, or else I would have to endure the bus ride late at night, which I didn't want to, since the goblins and the zombies of Buffalo are all unleashed in their costumed fury. I even saw a guy with a weird hat wielding an ax; I think his costume was a Viking.

Anyway, aside from that, I also finished reading my other book about a family, whose father was imprisoned in Iran, simply because he was a Jew. It was a very moving book, and I definitely recommend it to people. Thus, I returned the book to the library, and I started on a novel called The Disinherited, by Filipino-American novelist Han Ong. I haven't gotten much yet, so far I am in the first chapter, and it starts with a funeral procession in the middle of EDSA. Interesting so far.

There you go, my blog post for today. I'll see you all soon.



(The intricate doors of the basilica, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Lake-Effect Turbulence

Did you know that there is a thing called lake-effect turbulence? I never knew this until I was flying from Chicago-O'Hare to Buffalo last June. I was on my way home from a month-long stay in Manila, since I needed to go there to conduct my experiments. And the Chicago-Buffalo flight was my last leg in my trip.

So we were there being served with drinks, when the Fasten Seat Belt light suddenly illuminated. And then we had some turbulence. Seconds later, the pilot announced that we should hold on for a bit since we were experiencing lake-effect turbulence. I know that there's such a thing called lake-effect snow, probably lake-effect rain, but I didn't know that lake-effect turbulence exists as well.

Anyway, speaking of turbulence, today is a very windy day. I feel myself being carried away by the wind whenever I am outside the house. And this wind triggers the leaves to fall as well. My neighborhood is so orange and yellow, with all the dead leaves lying around. Good thing there isn't any tree in my backyard, or else I'd have to clean them up and bag them for a bit.

I noticed that my posts for this year already exceeded the number of posts I had for the first year I was blogging. Nice! Although, I have to say, that I started this blog around July, thus, if one looks at the frequency, it seems that I still blogged more often back then than now.



(The clock tower from outside, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Hot

It's time. It's time to heat up.

This morning, I woke up at 6:00 AM, which is my usual wake-up time. I was shivering with the cold, and when I checked my thermostat, it was 66 Fahrenheit. So at that point, I decided that it was time to turn on my furnace. I set it to 72 Fahrenheit, and it warmed up the house for a bit. It definitely made it more cozy, as I was preparing my breakfast. After about thirty minutes, I checked the thermostat again, and it was 72 Fahrenheit, so at that point, I decided to switch it off since I am heading out of the house anyways.

Today was also the first day I wore my coat again. I sent it to the dry-cleaners a month ago, and so it is ready again for one cycle of winter. I donned my black coat and together with a scarf, I set out for my office in my building. I thought that it will be a good morning.

As I was walking in the corridor in the sixth floor of my building, a few steps to the my office, I saw my adviser in the hall. He can be goofy sometimes, with a dry sense of humor to accompany it. He told me that he liked my attire for the day, and that he should also dress up like the way I do. I told him that I dress up compared to the regular college student to earn and be deserving of respect in the classroom, and he remarked that indeed, one's attire can be compared to honorifics. If one is lower down the ladder, then one uses it, but if I were the president of the university, then I don't need to dress up in order to be given respect, since my function does it for me. I guess there was truth in that statement.

So, I guess this marks the start of the winter season for me, at least. Turning the heat in the house, wearing winter clothes, among other things. A friend of mine told me that usually it snows even before October is finished. Well, there's five more days before I turn the calendar over, in case the weather was wondering.



(The devout one praying, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Quotidian

The temperature is slowly descending, day by day. I got out today with just a leather jacket, and when I got out of the building this noon, it was a bit chilly. I am not sure whether I like it or not, but it does seem to provide a feeling that time is passing by. I guess I appreciate this fact, since I had the experience of living in a place where the weather is more or less stable every month.

I finished reading my Ayn Rand novel the other day. It was a good read, rather philosophical in nature, but controversial as well. So, today yesterday I started on another one, entitled The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer. This is about a Jewish family in Iran, and it is set around the time just after the Islamic Revolution, two years after that, actually. So this is more of a drama of how a family struggles to survive a regime.

I actually found this book in Amazon.com, when they sent me their periodical e-mails about new books out. I was quite interested in the novel, and I searched for it in the university library catalog. However, I realized that the library didn’t have a copy, so I sent a purchase recommendation. They were good in complying with requests, so a few weeks later, I found it in the catalog, and I checked it out. So far I am enjoying it.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my adviser about my work. Hopefully, after this meeting, I will run the statistical tests and write about it. And hopefully, it will be in time for two possible conferences I might submit an abstract to. I’ll blog about the details of that later.

I might not go to Manila this summer to conduct my experiments. The reason for this is because I still may not need to do it at this moment. My current academic goal is to finish this qualifying paper by the end of this academic year. Then. after that, ideally, I should start working on my thesis proposal for the whole year, and so, I should only go back and conduct the experiment after I defended my proposal. So, I guess I would not be going to Manila for the upcoming summer.

I have a long meeting again tomorrow, since this is the second of two long meetings where we get to decide who gets money and who does not in a certain research foundation, since I am a member of the review committee. At least I get free pizza in the process, and I get to rest my soul after that by watching a dance performance.

Speaking of this dance performance, I was initially thinking that I wouldn’t attend this one, but a friend of mine convinced me otherwise that I would be missing on a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This is because it is the Georgian State Dance Company that will be performing tomorrow night. They are from the Caucasian country of Georgia (not the state in the southern United States) and the Georgian dancers are just famous for their acrobatic male performers coupled with the graceful female performers. And I might not have an opportunity to see a unique performance any time soon, unless I find myself in Tbilisi. So yeah, I bought a ticket and so that will conclude my day tomorrow.

So there you go, the latest quotidian events in my persona.



(The stark concrete interior, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Vicissitudes-Inducing Ignes Fatui-like Eschewals

The title may be a bit complicated, but this entry is basically an introspection on my being an escape artist.

I realized quite recently that I can be an escape artist, in a weird sense.

I guess it has been a reflex of mine to daydream whenever I find myself in a not-so-ideal situation. I've had a few of those in the past days.

I rarely blog about my roommate, compared to the rate I did two years ago, when I had a Japanese roommate who sucked. This time, my roommate is way better than that, but I still have some reservations.

I will not put emphasis on his "misdemeanors," because I don't want to concern myself about it right now, but instead, I want to blog about my survival instinct about it. I guess I just daydream of the time when I would have a pad of my own, where I rule the place, and I am the boss. I dream of a place where I would return and not find the sink half-clean, with fish scales all over the place. Don't get me wrong, my roommate tries his best to do his part, but it is just not as thorough as I can do it. I dream of a place where I would not remind whoever it is that it is his turn to vacuum the place, since I did it last week. I dream of a place where the dishes are placed in order and exact precision in the cupboard. I dream of a place where the knives are all placed in the right order, with the blade facing upwards not downwards in the knife-holder. I dream of a place where I can insist on my desires and preferences. But alas, I am not yet in a position to do that.

I see myself in him, only I see the version of myself when I was in fourth grade. I remember the time when it took me 3 hours to finish washing the dishes back in Manila. I remember my mother telling me how bad I am at washing dishes, with all the grease still intact. And now, I see myself, my previous self, embodied in him.

Enough of that.

Yesterday, I went to the library. I carried my statistics book, my notes, and my folder for that class. I decided that I would go to the library, find a quiet place, and sit down and do my homework. Even if I have an office, I decided to do it in the library. In this way, there would be no distractions.

Don't get me wrong. I do love the class, where I am brushing elbows with different terminologies that I haven't encountered before, such as the Satterthwaite's Procedure, the Newman-Keul's Procedure, the Tukey-A Procedure, in addition to the numerous different statistical tests, such as the Student's T-Test, Hartley's F-Max Test, and Cochran's Test, among others. It's just that the homework is a bit too tedious and I get distracted whenever I am in my office.

Well, there is always my laptop and the Internet in my office. I then put on my escape artist hat again, and surf the web for the different places that I would want to go. If I want to be distracted, I would just go to websites offering tours to far-away places. In the past, the places I have checked and traveled to virtually included Registan in Samarqand, Uzbekistan; Xibalba Caves in Coban, Guatemala; the earthen carved churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia; the Buddhist stupas in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; the Inca citadels in El Valle Sagrado, Peru; the salt pans in Salar de Uyuni near Potosi, Bolivia; the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan; among others. There are simply too many places to go.

And having a wall with postcards pushed into it does not help. In front of me is this push-pin wall where I display my small but growing postcard collection. I have started this small collection of mine from the time my family sent me postcards from places where they have been to. I also asked friends to send me postcards whenever they would go places, and I myself buy a few postcards here and there, whenever I would find myself out of town.

A few years from now, when I am a faculty of a sweet university, I imagine myself having an office, whose wall is full of postcards from all over the place. I'll be a linguist-cum-deltiologist by then.

Ok, back to reality.



(Tall arches, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Learning a Language

Given my past, I have had several chances to learn a language. And looking back at all those chances, I realized that each one of those learning processes were different.

First was learning my first language. I guess all I did was observe my parents talk, store my observations, and process them. Perhaps I made grammatical mistakes whenever there is an irregular form of a certain word that I did not know and mistakenly applied a rule that wasn't supposed to be applied. But, I did not make a deliberate effort to learn my first language, which was Tagalog.

My second language is English. I also do not remember having a deliberate effort of learning this. Whenever people ask me where I learned my English, I would answer that I learned it through Sesame Street. I did remember reading children's books in English, but I never sat down in a class and deliberately learn it.

The third language I learned was Japanese. This was different. I first took a six-month-long class of introductory Japanese. It taught me basic phrases and constructions. After that, I was forced to learn the language by being enrolled in the Japanese school system, thereby it was a form of total immersion. I guess I had some sort of shock in the process. Since, this way, some of my other aspects of learning were hampered, such as my academic progress. Anyway, it paid off in the long run, since I became fluent with the language. However, since it has been seven years since I left Japan, a lot of the characters are slowly fading away (since my brain has been replacing its memory with more accessed and more used bits of information) and my vocabulary is slowly getting depleted, as evidenced by my occasional conversations with Japanese speakers, where I have to revert back to English sometimes when I am at a loss of words.

The fourth language I learned was German. This was something that never got too far. I took 24 credit hours of German in undergraduate. However, due to the fact that I never got immersed into a situation where I had to use the language, I never improved to a conversational level.

Aside from that, there are also a couple of languages that I had brushed with in the past. Before my trip to Prague in 2006, I picked up a Czech phrasebook, and it proved useful whenever I took long-distance country trips in the Czech countryside. I also did the same before traveling to Quito, Ecuador, when I picked a Latin American Spanish phrasebook.

Finally, I am currently learning another language, but in a different sense. I am currently doing fieldwork on a language called Dagaare for my Field Methods class. This is learning in the sense of finding out the structure of the language, but not actually being fluent in it. Although being fluent is not out of the picture.

There are plenty of things that spark the interest of the scientist in cases like me. Since I know more than one language, how are the words stored? Do I have parallel lexicons? Or do I have a inter-related and linked lexicon? These are some of the questions that the psycholinguist wants to answer. But that is the work for someone else, not me.



(The intricate roof, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

Appreciation

I guess one doesn't realize how vital one thing is until one deprives oneself of that specific thing, deliberately or otherwise.

Take Buffalo for example. I always see it as an urbanism that is too small for me. I didn't like the fact that my transportation freedom is limited if I don't have a car, and I didn't like the fact that there isn't a lot of diversity like New York City has.

However, when I decided to get away from civilization earlier today, I appreciated how vital Buffalo was for me.

Today, I, together with some other friends, went to Letchworth State Park to view the turning colors of the trees. It was an hour-and-a-half drive from Buffalo to the park. On our way, we passed through farm country, where every thing seems to be rural, in one way or another. The houses were pretty, but very far from each other. People had farm machinery parked in their yards. There were barns and huge silos on the side to store grain. There were horses and cows and goats roaming in enclosed spaces. And there wasn't any reception for my cellular phone.

Upon getting back, I had further appreciation of the city.

True, once in a while, one wants to get away from civilization and walk along the trees, losing oneself in the process. But I still think that I won't be able to survive in a rural setting if I live there most of the time.

Anyway, the trip was worth it. The leaves were beautiful. Good thing that the chlorophyll were gone and one could observe trees in different colors.

I like autumn. It is very pleasing to the eye.



(The path to the altar, from my Basilica de Voto Nacional Series)

As Leonard Said

"Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."

Leonard Bernstein said that. I guess he was true.

For the past two days, I seem to have an obsession for a collection of things centering around a movie I watched. Yesterday, I blogged about humankind's fascination with the idea of living forever. And now, I cannot keep my head off that topic. All because I watched Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain.

Sometimes, this happens to me whenever I watch a thought-provoking movie. The same thing happened when I watched Seven Years in Tibet a few years ago. I remember it clearly; I was in the library of my university. I had a couple of hours to spare, so I checked out the videotape for Brad Pitt's movie, and watched it in the viewing room of the main library.

2 and a half hours later, I was pensive, nearly catatonic, thinking of the themes of the movie. I never felt sad like that in the longest time.

The same thing happened to me two days ago. I watched it at night, and after that, it just propelled me into deep thought, thinking about existentialist topics like living forever, and about the fear of death and dying. Not only that, I also obtained a copy of the sound track, and I cannot get enough of it listening to my computer.

Clint Mansell, who wrote the soundtrack, did a very good job. It sends a powerful message across. The theme, the orchestration, the beats just are appropriate for the whole setting. Whenever I hear it, it always makes my blood stop and my heart skip a beat. It does sound like the soundtrack that is appropriate when one is finally at the end of one's life, facing death.

A lot of people are afraid to die, which makes most of the death-themed music frightening and harrowing, slow and deliberate. As if people wanted to delay the inevitable process. If one thinks about it, why are funeral marches written in largo? Possibly because people do not want to hurry to the grave. Because people wanted to postpone the process, trying to put it off as much as they can. Why, people spend big money just to prolong their life by an inch.

On the other hand, if one isn't afraid anymore, if one has reconciled the fact that in the end, one will die, then this movie's soundtrack is the appropriate music for that. It is the best climax one could think for a life-long journey. When everything flashes before you, until you reach the point where you are convinced that it is indeed your time to go.

I have realized that I surround myself with plenty of things that are associated with death and dying. I have a replica of a skull on my office. I have two shrunken heads from the Amazon that are displayed in my office as well. And when I graduated from college, I took a photo of myself dressed in black, with a rope tied around my neck, supposedly hanging from the ceiling, swinging and dead, since a part of my life died in a sense, when I finished my undergraduate career.

Death is the road to awe.

One of the tracks in the soundtrack had that title. Whenever I listen to that, I feel that I am split in half, that suddenly, my insides are all visible for everyone to judge, and this whole chasm of the universe suddenly drills my brain inside, bringing me to my conclusion. This piece sends multitudes of electric shocks across my spine, especially near the end, when the final bars have a fortissimo after a brief period of silence.

Music can indeed name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.



(The platform, from my La Virgen de Quito Series)

For All Eternity

What if you could live forever?

Would you choose to live forever if you were offered the chance? Or would you rather live just up to a certain amount of time and then die, ceasing to exist?

I watched a rather philosophical movie yesterday, entitled The Fountain. It was a fantasy film about two lovers who loved each other in different periods, one from the era of the Conquistadors, where Hugh Jackman was a conquistador and Rachel Weisz was Queen Isabella. The other period was the modern-day period, where Hugh was an oncologist, and Rachel was his wife, sick with brain cancer. And finally, the other period was in the far future, where Hugh was an astronaut in a bubble-like vehicle traveling to this Nebula, which the ancient Mayans consider Xibalba.

All three periods had both of them wanting to live forever one way or the other: Tomas the conquistador searching for the tree of life in the Guatemalan jungle; Tommy Creo doing research in rhesus monkeys trying to find cure for death and dying; and the astronomer Tom traveling with the tree of life hoping that the tree wouldn't die before they reach Xibalba.

If you have someone to live for, I guess you would want to live forever. Like Tom and Izzi.

But "forever" is such a long time.

It is interesting to see how plenty of different methods in prolonging life were tried by different people in different ages. People tried alchemy, concocting different cocktails of elixirs and drinking them trying to find everlasting life, only to be poisoned by mercury. People tried to find the "Holy Grail", hoping that the water that was drunk using that cup would also give them everlasting life. And people also sought to find the tree of life, hoping to drink the sap of it, in hopes of again, gaining everlasting life.

Is it really that attractive? Is living forever really that appealing that people were willing to conquer lands for it, that people were willing to surrender their lives for their kings and queens for it, that people were willing to give up everything else for it?



(Facing the statue, from my La Virgen de Quito Series)

What You See May Not Be...

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon after class reading over the grant proposals that I was to review over the next week or two. Some were good, some were ok, a few were bad. Basically, this is a research fund that is run by graduate students. I have served in the Review Committee before, and I am doing it again this semester. I figured that it would be a good way to gain experience in these sort of things, since after all, a few years later, I surely would expect to find myself in a situation where I need to be consulted with regard to money matters.

Since this is run by graduate students, who are we to evaluate which proposal is good or bad since we aren’t experts in all of these fields? Any graduate student with a project in mind can apply, so one can imagine the diversity of the types of projects that we get.

So, because of that, the only way we can evaluate which one to fund and which one to reject is depending on whether they followed the instructions carefully or not. Whether they have good grammar or not. Whether they exceeded the amount of words that are allotted in the abstract or not. If they followed the directions well, then usually they get the full amount that they requested for. If there are a few bad things, then they are penalized by partial funding, or sometimes they are not funded at all.

Aside from the reason I wrote above, another reason why I do this is because I am interested at the diverse types of research that is being done in this university. People go to places to conduct fieldwork, ranging from places such as Lahore, Pakistan to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. People also do plenty of different things in the laboratory, such as cloning cells and doing electrophysical experiments in the molecular level.

Another reason why I volunteer in the Review Committee is because I know that some time along the road, I will need to apply for funding as well, and so by knowing the rules of the game from an insider point of view, it would be an easier exercise for me when I do it in a few semesters.

So because of that, I have read twenty-something proposals yesterday and wrote comments on them.

By way of a change of topic, my roommate is sort of entertaining me. He apparently discovered a Filipino store in the neighborhood. He has some friends that have wheels, so they go there during the weekends. And the other day, he bought stuff such as red eggs (duck eggs that are processed in a way that they are saltier than the usual egg), shrimp paste, soy sauce (yes, there is soy sauce available in the supermarket, but he doesn’t like Kikkoman, which is the typical brand, because it is not “dark” enough), fish sauce, sausage (this is longganisa, the typical Filipino sausage, not the ones you usually find here), and different kinds of fish for frying.

For me, he is an exercise in amazement. I never fail to be amazed by him, at how ingrained in his system the typical Filipino ways are. I am not saying that if it is the case, it is bad. All I am saying is that there are plenty of other stuff around the world to try, but he is very reluctant in doing so.

It makes me think of some of the people here in Buffalo. I have met people who spent all their lives here in the area. They never moved, they never traveled. They never saw what is outside Erie County. It kind of reminds me again of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where people never left their surroundings and never saw what was outside.

Like The Matrix.



(Another angle of the virgin, from my La Virgen de Quito Series)

Hero

I recently watched a rather interesting movie called Stranger than Fiction. This is about a government employee, played by Will Ferrell who suddenly hears a voice. Specifically, it is the voice of a woman, narrating his life events.

Things suddenly go awry when Will realizes that he will be killed by this narrator, Emma Thompson. So it seems that the audience should exercise an extreme case of suspension of disbelief, so that one can follow this story well. Will goes into this crazy-like phase, and then desperately tries to find this narrator so as to stop his death.

I won't tell you how the movie ended, but all in all, it was a very philosophical movie. It may be billed as a comedy, but it is indeed very philosophical when it comes to addressing the issue of whether humans have control of their lives or not. I find it that the movie is an allegory of sorts, where Will plays the average human, while Emma plays God.

Indeed, if one thinks about it, our lives are affected by a number of factors. First of all, our free will. We are relatively free to decide what to do with our lives. We ultimately choose what to wear for the day, what to eat, what to read, and what careers to choose, among other things. These exercise influence over our lives.

Another factor is the fact that other people control our lives too. Parents tell their children to do things. Friends ask people to do things. Superiors order their subordinates to do things. And lower-status beings try to persuade higher-status beings to do things. These also exercise influence over our lives.

Finally, there is another factor that may or may not influence our lives. Some people say that this does, some say that this does not. I won't argue for one, but I would let my readers decide. This is the idea of a supreme being. Is there a supreme being that pre-determined everyone to where everyone is right now? In short, are we predestined?

Being a human with free will, my personal answer to that is no. I am where I am right now because I chose to be where I am right now. I find that predestination simply is an escapist answer. People who say that it wasn't their choice to be obese, that it wasn't their choice to kill a person, that it wasn't their choice to have cancer, among other things.

Another point against it is that being predestined paints a picture that is contrary to an otherwise loving god. If one were predestined to be good, and another to be bad, wouldn't that be unfair for the people?

So predestination may be wrong, but still, I believe that somehow, there is an element of control that is exerted upon us. If man is not capable of guiding oneself, then isn't that a fact that was preset long ago? That humans will fail without superhuman guidance? Does this mean that whatever we do, without divine guidance, we will fail?

I find it to be similar to a car. The maker says that this car will not run without gasoline. The car then is preset, predetermined to be like that. Humans are just the same.

So, in conclusion, human lives are carved by at least three forces, our own individual desire, the desires of others, and invisible hand of a supreme being.



(The Virgin, standing on a serpent, from my La Virgen de Quito Series)

Chimæra

Have you ever asked whether you can step inside my body and see things the way I see them?

Would you like that idea? If your essence suddenly envelops my being, and you'll control my thoughts, my movements, burning me alive in the process.

If I wake up tomorrow in another person's body, and walk the walk of another human in the face of this planet, dance the dance, and live the life of another being, then what would happen?

My skin slowly burns away, a chemical reaction brought by the unseen force surrounding me. Colors fade away, people are half in color, half in monochrome, as they go on doing their business.

Water flows from the tap, the same way as thoughts flow from the grey matter that is stored in the circular calcium-fortified structure above my neck commonly known as a skull.

My skull screams loudly, as it stares at me while it is sitting comfortably on the edge of my table. It cannot even support its jaws to remain open indefinitely, but needs two metal tweeds to hold it.

My howls are drowned by the silence of this unknown chasm that is smothering me. It is a peculiarly sadistic feeling, when one shouts for help, yet nobody hears. You hear yourself crying out, yet the cries are trapped in your head, because the vortex sucks it out of the ether and all its components just vanish into thin air, thus crippling you completely.

I can see the air molecules traveling from my lungs, reverberating against my oral cavity, making my vocal folds vibrate, yet it produces nothing. The moment it exits my lips, it is captured by the deep hidden and unknown chasm. My vociferations result to nothing.

If I run, what good will it do? I'd always be tailed, I'd always look back. This alley is a scary place, or is it? Is this a delusion, or is this my reality? Acidic, my reality is. It burns me all right, but I'd just have to be back again, stand up again, rise up again, like that liver who was eaten every night.

Violently, it changes.



(The statue guarding Quito, from my La Virgen de Quito Series)

Banning a Verb Form and a Popularity of Fingerprints

A random slew of interesting stuff have been floating around the newsroom. And I'd like to write about two of them.

First concerns a weird and supposedly a first-ever attempt of outlawing a certain verb form in certain contexts. According to this news link from Bloomberg, the governor of a certain department in Brazil banned the use of the present participle from his government, because of inefficiency. The present participle is equivalent to the English -ing form, such as "looking". Thus, Brazilian politicians cannot say "We'll be taking steps." and other sentences with that verb form anymore.

I find the decision absurd. And somehow, very Big Brother-like.

I remember reading 1984 and its Newspeak, where language shapes the way people think. If the language cannot permit you to think in a certain way, then I guess people will stop thinking that way. But then this delves into the long-standing debate of language and thought, famously known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Another random news I want to talk about is the recent popularity of fingerprints in airports. Apparently, fingerprinting will increase, in different parts of the world, starting with the USA, Japan, and the UK. For the US, instead for fingerprinting just the two index fingers, they would want to fingerprint the whole ten fingers. Apparently, the reason is because most of the crime scenes have prints that belong to other fingers, not just the index finger. So, it would be easier to pinpoint criminals this way. Somehow, the thought that a visitor is treated as a possible criminal is quite disturbing. And for Japan, they will start to implement fingerprinting when entering the country as well. And finally, for the UK, they will use fingerprinting when people depart from the airports; they will take your prints when you check-in for your flight, and when you board the plane, they will check it again whether it matches or not. If it does, then they let you in the plane, if they don't, then they call security.

Somehow, the thought that a few years from now, I will have a microchip implanted in my right arm containing my biometric information is not surprising anymore. At least I would prefer that than traveling naked.

It seems like our world is turning into a science-fiction scenario.



(Farming inside the crater, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

You Look So Fine

You look so fine

I want to break your heart
And give you mine
You're taking me over

It's so insane
You've got me tethered and chained
I hear your name
And I'm falling over

I'm not like all the other girls
I can't take it like the other girls
I won't share it like the other girls
That you used to know

You look so fine

Knocked down
Cried out
Been down just to find out
I'm through
Bleeding for you

I'm open wide
I want to take you home
We'll waste some time
You're the only one for me

You look so fine
I'm like the desert tonight
Leave her behind
If you want to show me

I'm not like all the other girls
I won't take it like the other girls
I won't fake it like the other girls
That you used to know

You're taking me over
Over and over
I'm falling over
Over and over

You're taking me over
Drown in me one more time
Hide inside me tonight
Do what you want to do
Just pretend happy end
Let me know let it show

Ending with letting go

Let's pretend, happy end

(Garbage - You Look So Fine)

(The lush green side of the crater, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

Week 7

Week 7 is here.

This means that after this week, half of the semester is over. Thankfully.

This week is a weird week. By this Friday, it would be the one-year anniversary of the freak October thunder snowstorm that we had last year. It was the time when it snowed one fine afternoon and dumped wet slushy snow, thus the trees cracked and fell due to the weight of the snow against the still-present autumn leaves. This thus resulted in a week-long power outage and a coverage by CNN.

I am also perceived to be the substitute guy for some classes here, apparently. I have been subbing for my adviser in his class where I am a TA for the past week. Also, a friend of mine also asked me to sub for her class today, in case her flight gets delayed from California, so I am prepared for that as well. Finally, I got an email from one of my other professors asking me whether I could sub for her next week, since she has a meeting with the college.

So there you go. I am subbing for a lot of people apparently.

I am expecting to receive a large packet full of funding applications by the end of this week. This is because I am part of the review committee of a certain research fund. I've done this before and I want to do it again. I do have an ulterior motive for this. I am thinking of applying for the position of the director of this research fund a couple of years from now. This is because my guaranteed funding only gives me four years, and who finishes a Ph.D. in four years? So, by being the director of this research fund, I can still get a stipend. By that time, I would have finished all the required courses, and all I need to get busy with is my dissertation. So I can still earn my way here. Thus, I am familiarizing myself with the procedure as much as I can right now, so by the time I apply, I am qualified for the job and hopefully get the position.

Just as Shirley said, When I grow up, I'll be stable. When I grow up, I'll turn the tables.



(Viewing the crater, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

Lightning

Yesterday was a weird night. I was very tired, and so I grabbed my book and read myself to sleep. I guess it was around 9:30 PM when I decided that I can't process any information any more, so I got up and turned the light off. I was so zonked.

But around midnight, I woke up. I thought I was dreaming. There were lights all over. Blinking lights, and sounds kabooming here and there. I checked the kitchen and the whole house was dark. I checked my roommate's room and it was already dark. But apparently, there was a lightning storm. And the sounds were so loud.

I went to the kitchen and drank water. Thunder was kabooming still, and I heard noises outside. I decided to dive back to bed. And I was out in a moment.

I thought I had a lucid dream. I thought I was in a weird room with sounds and lights flashing every now and then, designed to drive the wits out of me. I thought I was David Webb becoming Jason Bourne.

Anyway, apparently, last night was a rather loud lightning storm, and people were talking about their experiences last night.

Totally bizarre.



(On the way to the crater, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

The End of a Relationship

Yesterday, at around 11:30 PM, I ended a relationship.

I ended my relationship with four women.

It was a full year since I met these four women. I met them in a bookstore in Prague, while I was strolling and doing sight-seeing. I saw them waiting for me, and I took them on their offer to take them home. So I did.

I was with them since last August. I spent my evenings after school touching them. Because, if I wouldn't touch them, they wouldn't be complete.

But, winter came, and I somehow fell into a hiatus. I forgot about my four women, until last week. When I decided to touch them again.

And slowly, limb by limb, arm by arm, face by face, they became complete. And now, they are all exhibiting their Art Noveau glory. I was done touching them.

Finally, all four women are in their majestic poses, and I attached the final piece last night. Now, all I need to do is to frame them, and they will grace my room for the time being.



(Old fort, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

Mongolian Pipe Dream

It is the typical Friday. People are relaxed, people are crazy and excited to transition to the weekend, and basically, people just want to unwind. I guess I have the same feeling too.

I didn't go to school early today. I cooked a pot of tofu and spinach curry for lunch, and cooked some rice, and together with the curry, I packed it to school for lunch. It wasn't from a recipe of some sort; I just bought two bags of spinach, two packages of tofu, and stir-fried them together till the tofu was cooked and the spinach was wilted, and I poured a bottle of Thai Red Curry Sauce with it. I also added a few dashes of turmeric and coriander for additional oomph. It didn't turn out to be bad at all.

Last night, we attended the performance of the dance troupe Tango Buenos Aires. It was amazing. The tango really is a seductive dance. I was glued to my seat as I watched 5 couples dancing away on the stage.

My puzzle is almost finished. The only remaining pieces are the brown shades which are basically indistinguishable from one another. I will frame it sooner or later. I feel a little bit addicted to it, every time I sit down on it, I find some piece and attach it. I never sit on it and not find a piece.

I was browsing the Internet earlier, and I found this link from the National Geographic website. Apparently, there is a contest where any student in North America is welcome to write a 300-word essay about a trip that they took recently. The best essay will then allow its author to spend 10 days in Mongolia together with an expert travel writer. And one needs to write about the Mongolian expedition and it will be published in an issue of National Geographic Traveler. And if you are really good, then they will hire you as a travel writer and you get to travel anywhere and write about it!

So I decided to give it a shot. The deadline is the by the end of this year. I am not hoping for it, but I figured that I have nothing to lose in doing so. Who knows? I might find myself staying in a ger and drinking goat's milk and eating goat's cheese. Obviously, my stereotypes of Mongolia aren't that good, so all the more reason to write a good essay.



(Entrance to the crater, from my Vulcan Pululahua Series)

Four Women

I have been working on a puzzle. It depicts four women in various poses. It actually is a puzzle version of a work by Alfons Mucha. In actuality, I started it August of last year. But then things just happened, and I took a rather long hiatus.

Then last week, I decided to pull it out again of my closet and continue on it. Now, it is getting shape, about 80 percent complete. One-fourth of the panel is already complete, and I can see one of the women in her full body attire.

Puzzles are fascinating. It makes your brain work. It makes your brain active.

One of my classes, namely Field Methods, is also like a puzzle. Assuming that languages are systematic, one must just figure out the system. And I think I have a good idea of the system of the topic I am working on in Dagara, which is its tense-aspect-mood system.

Yesterday, I decided to make a metadata file for my pictures. I have quite some collection of CDs full of pictures, taken both by me and my family. And since CDs have serial numbers in them, I decided to make an Excel sheet and note what the contents are in the CDs I have, instead of sticking stickers in them which make my laptop growl.

Tonight, I am attending a tango performance with some of my friends. An Argentinian dance troupe, Tango Buenos Aires, is in town, and we bought tickets for the one-night event. Hopefully, that is enjoyable.



(Dancing on the middle of the world, from my La Mitad del Mundo Series)

Drive You Home

It's funny how
Even now
You still support me after all of the things that I've done
You're so good to me
Waiting patiently
And isn't it sad that you still have to ask if I care?

I never said I was perfect
But I can take you away

Walk on shells tonight
Can't do right tonight
And you can't say a word
Cause I leap down your throat
So uptight am I

I never said I was perfect
But I can drive you home

I got down on myself
Working too hard
Driving myself to death
Trying to beat out the faults in my head
What a mess I've made
Sure we all make mistakes
But they see me so large that they think I'm immune to the pain

Walk on shells tonight
Can't do right tonight
And you can't say a word
Cause I leap down your throat
So uptight am I

I'm praying for a miracle
But I won't hold my breath
I never said I was perfect
But can you take me home

(Garbage - Drive You Home)

(The egg never tilts, from my La Mitad del Mundo Series)