Please. Let us help victims of Typhoon Yolanda

I try, as much as possible, not to post anything negative in this blog, but the article just broke my heart. I was browsing buzzfeed when I saw this statement:

Check the buzzfeed article, you will know what I am talking about.

Not to mention I was watching the news last night when a woman, all limpy, approached TV reporter, Jessica Soho, and asked if she can use the media to call her relatives in Manila to tell them not to return to Tacloban because there is literally nothing to return to. She even enumerated that their mother is dead, their relatives are dead...etc. It is so heart breaking.

Walang mahirap o mayaman. ( There's no rich or poor) Everything is practically wiped out. Everyone needs help.

I had plans for my 30th this month and cancelled my reservations today because this is bigger than my existentialism. What the lady above is going through is nothing compared to my "nearing-three-o" crisis. I will be using my alloted vacay money to send it to Typhoon Yolanda, because this is way beyond feeling good about ourselves. This is bigger. I am lost for words. 

It also happens that our UP President, Alfredo Pascual, issued a memorandum for helping victims of Typhoon Yolanda. Here's the article: 

Super typhoon Yolanda has left a trail of extreme devastation in many parts of the Visayan region over the past few days. Among the areas most affected are two of our campuses — the UPV Tacloban College and the UPM School of Health Sciences in Palo, Leyte.

Many members of the UP community have indicated their willingness to help and are requesting information on how to channel their financial assistance. At a meeting today with the Chancellors of all constituent universities, including the Dean of UP Cebu, it was agreed that donor contributions in cash should be coursed through the UP Foundation, Inc. (UPFI).

Indicated below are the bank accounts (for Philippine-based donors and those abroad) and contact details of the UPFI. (copy of memo is here) 

Please, if you want to help, you may refer to the details below.

Contact Details of the UP Foundation, Inc.
Direct line: +63 2 929-1941
Trunkline: 981 8500 local 4304
Email address: upfi@up.edu.ph

Bank details (4 accounts):

Payee: U.P. Foundation, Inc.
Address: Room 102, Fonacier Hall (Alumni Center)
Magsaysay Avenue, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City, 1102

1. Bank: Union Bank of the Philippines
Branch: Acropolis Branch
Peso-Savings Account No.: 00053000-6820
Address: 171 Bridgeview Bldg. E. Rodriguez Jr Avenue, Bagong Bayan, Quezon City

2. Bank: Philippine National Bank
Branch: U.P. Campus Branch, Apacible Street, U.P. Campus, Diliman, Quezon City
Branch Code: 1275
Peso-Savings Account No.: 393565000023
PNB Swift Code: PNBmPHmm

3. Bank: Philippine National Bank
Branch: New York Branch
Branch Name: PNB New York Branch
Branch Code: 700
Customer ID No.: 9400378
US Dollar-Savings Account No.: 94003788000015
Address: 30 Broad Street 36th Floor, New York, NY 10004
Tel. No.: (212) 790-9600
Fax No.:(212) 382-2238
Email: pnbnyc@pnb.com.ph

4. Bank: Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company
Address: Head Office, Metrobank Plaza, Senator Gil J. Puyat Avenue Extension, 1200 Makati City, Philippines
Branch code: 066
EURO Savings Account No.: 066-2066-600429
Swift code or routing No.: mbtcphmm
Fedwire/Fedline: 0260-02846

There's no use to feel sorry for those in Tacloban if we are not going to do something about it. 

Please, let us help.

The 3 million peso Mobile Home

When I was a kid, I dreamt of a car. It was not the regular car that one would name like a Jaguar, a Rolls Royce or a Maserati, it was a mobile home.

Now I know what it looks like for I have seen local celebrities drive around from one shooting location to another. I have always wondered what it looks like on the inside. 

Last weekend I tagged along with my sister to a work-related exhibit and saw this on the display:

It's a mobile home!

(More photos of the mobile home after the jump!)

The Grad School Diaries: Episode 23 - Avoiding Murphy's Law while doing my MS Thesis

My laptop is an old compaq presario. My sister asked their IT guys to check it during the times that it needs to be reformatted and they were amazed that my laptop is still working compared to its laptop batch mates (laptop of the same model).

My laptop has endured wear and tear. Since last year:

• It's battery is not functional so it needs to be plugged in directly to the power outlet. 
• It's screen case has a crack that I didn't even notice.
• The display driver keeps on shutting down and recovers itself right after.

It still works fine, until one weekend, I was typing something on my laptop when it just shut down that I had to restart again. It happened again while my sister was using it, which means it might conk out soon and this time, for good. 

I prayed really hard for my 4 year old laptop to not to conk out on me while I was doing my thesis. I asked my laptop to let me graduate first before finally retiring.  I saw this on the net and it reminded me what my desktop looked like while I was writing my thesis:

I was told that having this messy desktop slows down my laptop but I couldn't really keep it clean. Until one day, I saw on Facebook a horror story of someone's laptop with his dissertation on it and it got stolen with all his drafts and research data.

So, to avoid Murphy's law while writing my thesis, here's what I did:

1. Save the document (word format) and email it to my three email addresses for safekeeping. (What a freak, I know)
2. Saved in 2 USBs.
3. Saved in Drive D and Drive C of the laptop.
4. Back up in my office computer.
5. Create a new gmail account and save my working drafts in "Google Drive".

Better safe than sorry.

Travel Laguna: Rediscovering 88 spa hotspring resort

I've been seeing 88 spa for as long as I can remember and the first time I was there was December last year.  We delivered the bridal bouquet of one of my sister, wedding florist Aprille Araguas' clients and she was checked in at the Nipa Hut with best over looking Mt. Makiling view. I even instagrammed it last year:

(More photos after the jump!)

[Project FeeTrail October 2013]: If Cinderella was here, she wouldn't fit the shoe

So on my last post, we were at Liliw for a quick tour of the place because Kuya's wife was in town and will leave in a week for UK.

I don't really know what new feetrail shots that I will have for this month, until I saw this huge slipper on the side walk and decided that it'll be perfect for my project.

So there, that's my size 9 foot in a size 52 slipper. If Cinderella was in Liliw, she wouldn't fit the shoe. Read about my Liliw entries here and here.

Also, it's October 31, how's your October? Mine was a roller coaster. My friends know how much I love Halloween but I've been donning a different Halloween Celebration since last year though I would love to join my friends for trick or treating later. My friends' lady kid, Cheska, dropped by my office yesterday to show me her unicorn costume but too bad I had to be in Manila today.  Pictures please Faye & Frankie!

Happy Halloween!

( A scheduled post) 

That one spa in Indonesia that will never relax me

I'm a huge, huge fan of spas and getaways and I've written about it more than just a couple of times.  Yesterday I read this in Yahoo news and for the love of me, I cannot and will not be able to relax in this spa even if they pay me.

It is described as:

A customer undertakes a massage using pythons at Bali Heritage Reflexology and Spa on October 27, 2013 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The snake spa offers a unique massage treatment which involves having several pythons placed on the customers body. The movement of the snakes and the adrenaline triggered by fear is said to have a positive impact on the customers metabolism. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Did you the words that I underlined? I don't know how in the world my fear would have a positive effect on anything considering I'm already a worrywart and paranoid.

Here are the photos that I borrowed from the article. ( Retained image original URL)

Que horror!

Read all about it here. *Goosebumps*

Travel Liliw: Try the "Minani" other than shoes

The last time I was at Liliw was back in 2011. Then this month, we went back and it is still the same as the last time. Only it's Aprille now who's driving for us.

It is exactly how I remember because it's only just a little over two years. 

The Grad School Diaries: Episode 22 -I did not get published on my first try and I know why

In 2010, our class produced a special edition of a refereed journal. If you are in the academe, and also in my case as a REPS in the university, it is a big deal.

You see, I don't really think about it so much, thinking I will be practicing in a different industry anyway. I have been very honest to myself and to all the friends that I made that I pursued Graduate School out of a whim and to cure my quarter-life crisis. I even remember telling my friend Faye, that I would just stay one semester and go back in the game (and by game I meant career in the city). I guess I was wrong because I am now in my 5th semester and working in the university.

Anyway, the thought of getting published excites me, thinking, wow I must be really lucky that my class is sponsoring it when I heard (back in 2010) that people had to submit to Call for Papers announcement, hoping to get in. But this opportunity to get published is (I thought) within my reach. But then, to make the story short, my so-called article was whipped into rejection. Even though it wasn't really much of a big deal to me back then, it did sting.

My friend, whose paper got in on a first try, (and got her travelling almost effortlessly to Hawaii for a presentation of the paper) explained to me that certain publications have certain themes, like apart from the fact that a research may probably not be good enough, maybe it also just happen that my paper did not match the theme that the journal is going for. I did not really understand the full grasp of it, until three years later when the actual journal came out, I finally understood that maybe it's not just me, it's the journal and well, yeah a little bit of me because the paper that I wrote don't really go well with the theme. And also with all honesty, my writing back then is not good enough for journal standards. Come on, I don't even have any idea about the big deal behind the words "publication" "refereed" "journal" "article" and "paper presentation". My heart in writing was not really in it, so actually, I should not be surprised that I didn't get in. The paper felt like "blah". It is only been a couple of years later that I understood and decided that I want to write, I want to learn how to do technical writing and eventually be good at it and write a qualitative research paper properly. I still have a lot to learn so I don't mind getting my articles heavily edited. In fact, I am actually grateful that someone did take the time to read it and point out what would've been better.

It is always the first rejection that cuts the deepest, but after that, it becomes bearable. My friend and I were talking over coffee over a week ago that it is better to try than not being able to try at all. I got rejected on a first try, but I learned a lot from that rejection.

And also, maybe this also comes with age and maturity, that more than a year ago, I managed to stop beating myself up when things did not go as what I wished it to be. There will always be someone better than me/us, and at the end of the day, it's not really your classmate, your friend, or your colleague that you are up against with. It is with our own self.

So, to my friends who made it in this special edition journal, congratulations! :)