Flowers for Dorothy

While we’re walking to the canteen to buy breakfast the day before her birthday, Doth, our bubbly network administrator caught sight of the flowering shrubs planted at one side of the path and blurted, “I love the flowers! Its color is just the right shade of yellow that I want.”

The next day, I punched in earlier than everybody else in our workroom to become her wish-granting genie. I plucked 10 stems of the flowers and immediately placed them in a dipper I found in the restroom and half-filled it with water while our office isn’t open yet since I don’t have a key. As soon as a colleague with a duplicate got in, I went inside and emptied an ice cream canister that I use as a pen holder and sought help from our 2 trusty OJTs; one rinsed the canister and the other searched for a pair of scissors.

I cut the stems so that it’ll stand just right in the pintsize canister. (Fact: the canister was from Doth herself when she shared with me 1/3 of her Blueberry ice cream almost a year ago). Unfortunately Doth arrived while I was finishing the last two stalks so the surprise was spoiled. Nonetheless, she said she appreciated the effort very much.

I made the final touches of the simple arrangement and tried to present the blossoms in its best look despite the several creases in its delicate petals before handing to our celebrant who immediately placed it on top of the coffeemaker in her cube.

The yellow present

The celebrant enjoying her own meal in the restaurant where she treated us

Doth giving a sweet smile

The buds bloomed into fresher flowers the next day

Jarelle in McDonald’s Teen Idol

In celebration of its 1^st anniversary, a local outlet of McDonald’s organized a pageant dubbed “McDonald’s Teen Idol: The Search for Today’s Youth Icon”. Six pairs from 6 public high schools were chosen to compete and McDonald’s shall sponsor a benefit project of the school/s of the winners; my cousin, Jarelle, represented theirs.

The contest was divided into three events – presentation night, talent night and the grand finale – held from March to April. She appointed me to be her handler and regularly consults me on what to say, do and wear except for her talent presentation for which she shed little money for a choreographer. One hot Sunday afternoon, she went on our place to seek help getting fixed for studio pictorials and on evenings prior an event, she sees me so we could polish details. The night before the finals, I told her the dos and don’ts of long gown competition based on my experiences in judging such. We even had to wrap a sheet around her waist to make her used to the long and heavy skirt and she complained about having to sustain a smile and her back straight but nonetheless enjoyed doing it. We also brainstormed on several questions that may possibly be asked in the interview portion. It helped a lot since we’ve tackled something to the question asked on the finals hence she was able to give a rather practical but smart answer without sounding scripted.

In the end, marketing in some way remained the primary goal of McDonald’s hence popularity based on availed vote stubs had the largest bearing in the criteria. Jarelle won just one prize – Best in Long Gown. The pictures will do the boasting.

The experience was both exciting and disappointing especially when that stupid sound operator suddenly killed the music when Jarelle was just hurriedly changing for the next part of her talent presentation thus displacing the momentum and ending her stint early.

On the other hand, I still comment McDonald’s for the clever concept of the production numbers. One presented the candidates portraying modern-day superheroes who at the start wore black cloaks with issues confronting the youth such as drug addiction, prostitution, and the like, written on labels on their backs and then they battle the villain representing bad influence or cause of such misdemeanors. The other number motivates the youth to pursue their dreams; the candidates portrayed successful professionals through a dance interpreting a Filipino song that translates to “Forward! Fight! Don’t regress… It’s possible”

To Jarelle, realize that you are still successful because you managed to handle with grace, the obstacles you’ve encountered in the duration of the contest and I guess that is the ultimate purpose of beauty pageants: to bring out a better person in the participants; always smiling and head high.

The blogger is out

It's been a while since my last post, I know. Sorry pals. Well some things demanded much of my time and attention and I can't even tell you yet what but I'll be posting about it as soon as I have all "evidences" on hand. So far about 3 posts are lined up...

I caught the cold v and I'm on leave from work due to sore throat and coughing but the doctor advised me to rest (not blog!) actually so I just kind of sneaked for a while. I'll catch up with you soon

Status Quo: Sineplians and Anigavlians Principle

"Sineplians and Anigavlians Principle"

Publicity: Huh?!?

Status Quo: I learned this from the book that I'm almost (not yet) done reading - Sex, Lies and Stereotypes by Dr. Gary Wood. The Sineplians and Anigavlians story is similar to the men from Mars-women from Venus principle. And if you're clever enough, you could easily identify which refers to which

Academic Year 2007-08, Semester 2

Grades for the recently concluded term had been released. I’m honestly hesitant to post about it but since I’ve previously blogged some stuff about the classes I’ve taken, I think this should conclude it all.

The lowest was a 2.0 (85-87% equivalent) for Artificial Intelligence. It’s ok; it’s quite tough and I’m simply not artificially intelligent.

After the unfortunate outcome of two major exams in Philippine Literature, I managed to redeem myself for the finals by submitting a good reaction paper about a short story from our reference book. I chose to react on “Sa Karuwagan ng Pilikmata” which closely translates to “The Cowardice of the Eyelashes” after I was intrigued by the title. For this I earned a final grade of 1.75 (90%).

For Politics and Governance, I got a 1.5 (91-93%) which isn’t bad especially that the mentor was challenging who doesn’t tolerate any form of negligence. Read: a graduate from a reputable university specializing in political science and a grandson of a lawyer. I never thought that the subject will be interesting but it had been, fortunately, despite the thick references we had to use. We learned among others the issues behind the real properties of our political leaders, and the differences of slander from defamation, crime from felony, murder from homicide, constitution from law, and amendment from revision. I also enjoyed George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as a recommended reading.

The second level of 3-D modeling course neither has been tough nor easy for me since I took a similar class last semester yet it is really laborious. Once again I’ve gone through a week of sleeping at two hours before dusk to accomplish the output. (Check out the slideshow). Nonetheless, the 1.5 rating as compared to the 2.0 last term is rewarding.

Credits to the various sources of jpeg images which were used in my 3-D scenes.

Status Quo: Not at my desk coz I'm on my seat

"Not at my desk coz I'm on my seat"

Publicity: I was asked how would I spoof the "On the phone" status...

Status Quo: Basically a spoof of YM's default status message "Not at my desk". It's quite confusing though whether I was really at my area or not. In the afternoon, it was spoof and I was at my desk but earlier I wasn't.