Harry Potter 7 and fitting in my old jeans

These two are my mission accomplished and mission-still-to-be-accomplished at the moment. I LOVE HARRY POTTER which makes Mission 1 very easy. And I LOVE FOOD which makes Mission 2 a tad more difficult.

Among all the things I brought home from Greece, I think it was my sudden BIG appetite that has become irremovable. All excess baggage are now found on my waist. And even if others say that I am not fat, I am now BIGGER than I used to be. Thanks to the combined efforts of Feta cheese, lamb, gelato, and loaves of bread a month ago. Back here in the Philippines, I think I owe the additional inches to ice cream, BreadPan, and hard core kain-mamang meals.

But aside from these, I am kept busier than usual by preschool work and my thesis. In line with my research, I am now on the lookout for studies and articles on career decision-making of Filipino young adults.

If any of you have readings/studies on career decision-making of Filipino high school students, college students, or young professionals, please send me a message and I'll be very grateful.

Oh, and this short post also serves as my late attempt to plug an article I wrote about cutting my hair short. Please grab your copies of Metro magazine, July issue and flip the pages until you see someone familiar sporting a cool bob. ;)

BEFORE with Shu Uemura's makeup artist

AFTER with Philip S. and Geoff Simpson of Salon Prive, Shangri-La Makati

Have a beautiful month, everyone!

Dr. FG David

Not everyone may know him because he rather kept his intelligence and wisdom away from the limelight. All those who have met him, however, all those who have crossed paths with him one way or another, all agree that he is someone to be always remembered. For everything that he taught us, how can we forget? (Sorry, sir. If you still don't want any of the limelight, we really just could not help but write about you).

I've written several blog posts with him in them during the time I was taking his classes, Psych 210 and Psych 212 (Multivariate Statistical Methods). You may check out my August 2006 Archives and look for my entry "Inspired". I also had several other entries where I mentioned him in passing.

I rarely write the actual names of my professors but I've written his name on several occasions. He makes that kind of impact. He does. His family, friends, students, and colleagues know that.

Like any other UP Psychology student, I heard about him even before I took his classes. Undergraduate students have him as their neurophysiology or neuroanatomy professor. Graduate students who are serious about finishing their MA or PhD degrees didn't have a choice but to go through Dr. David's two classes popularly known for their difficult statistical derivations -- Psych 210 and 212. Don't get me wrong, they were a good kind of having "no other choice." These were the classes that you'd be highly grateful for, no matter how hard and painful it was back then while taking them.

I attended two of his classes. Two semesters. One for each semester. He was never absent. Not a single day. I would have wanted to say the same for myself but I missed two days of classes in two semesters. One was when I had to leave for Palawan and one was when I got really ill. The first absence was a choice that I made because I was pursuing something I loved to do. The second was a non-choice that I wished didn't happen. In retrospect however, everything does happen for a reason.

After that second time I was absent, during the following week, Sir David asked if I was already feeling better. As always, he used that faint tone of his which you barely hear and yet, sounds so clear. Up to now, I still wonder how he spoke that way. I said, "yes, sir" and smiled at him. And for that particular moment, I knew that he did not simply memorize us all. He was truly concerned about each one of us.

During the first day of my Psych 210 class, my head was filled of stories about him. My younger sister, Nikki, who was under his undergraduate classes, is partly responsible for whatever image I had of him even before classes started. She did give me a very good image of him.

I knew how Dr. David would call each one of his students by their surnames and how he knew each one by face. Imagine the number of students, year in and year out. He knew all of them.

True enough, he called me Miss Jara in his classes. And somehow, with the way he'd call each one of us, I just wanted to be able to give the correct answers all the time. But sometimes I didn't give him the perfect answers. Like when he first asked me, "Miss Jara, what is 2?" and I said "Sir, 2 is a number". He simply replied, "Two is an abstraction." Oh yes, I had preschool-ish answers on particular days. Preschool-ish answers are not necessarily wrong. In contrary, they're so simple and unquestionably correct, making us laugh at them or laugh at the person who said them. But he didn't laugh.

My regular seat was in front of the class, right across his table. To all those who don't know, I have poor eyesight and I'd rather have the best view of the two most difficult subjects in my MA course. Math, derivations, and I didn't seem to mix that well. That didn't mean that I stopped trying. In fact, it was the opposite of that. In Dr. David's classes, I had to give more than my usual efforts.

A batchmate of mine, Imon, also told me what Sir David was like while we were waiting for him on our first day of Psych 210. Even before the start of class itself, I heard that he'd address us with the question, "What is an experiment?". And he did. It was Imon who answered that first question.

After one of our long exams during the middle of the semester, I felt so tired and drained. I even cried because I felt that I could have done better. It took some of us more than three hours to try to finish our exam and we still didn't finish... While walking down the corridor, we said in our most pleading tone: "Sir, effort..." And he told us before saying goodnight, "Oftentimes, effort is the best measure of success." I took that to heart.

As I mentioned before, I've written some of his words of wisdom on the margins of my notebook. How I wish I could share those notes to all of you now but a fellow graduate student has all my notebooks with her because she's preparing for the comps. I'll simply write what my memory retained after a year.

I remember him telling us to be systematic starting with the simplest tasks. Even with the way I copied the given data and wrote them on the board, he'd ask if I were being systematic. (I think for that particular task, I was.)

And then I remember him asking us why we were all there one night, in that class, in the courses we took... We said because we chose this. Yes, he agreed that we did choose our courses but why us? Why were we all there that night? Why did all of us choose our courses and ended up in the same class? Was it because we all had to meet each other this lifetime? Not really.

He was waiting for his favorite answer -- that most likely, everything that happens, happens by chance. We were all there that night because of random chance. We weren't destined to be classmates. Just like when we play dice and we get number 5. We're not destined to get 5. It showed up because of chance.

Remember the saying that says "God does not play dice"? Dr. David had a different thought on that. Playing dice, being a game of chance and randomness, just seems to be one of his favorites.

We played dice once in his class to prove that point about chance.

If we were to ask him about death, he would probably say that this is one of those random events. Death is inevitable, yes. But when does one die? He'd probably say it's all up to chance.

Some people may not agree with some of the things he had been believing or not believing. But there will always be a little something among all the things he said that we'd never forget and would come in handy sooner or later. Which one of his many sayings you would remember is really up to you and your needs.

The ones I wrote are the bits and pieces of my experiences with him. Mostly in the classes I took under him. Right there, sitting quietly, front and center with my poor eyesight squinting back at him and our notes on the board.

Because of him, I learned that there are other things more elegant than all the shiny and beautiful things in the world -- Math. "Its elegance is in its simplicity." And this is I speaking, a non-lover of Math.

Because of him, I learned how to look back at where things came from, from origins of words to the simplest forms of equations.

Because of him, I re-learned how to compete with noone but myself.

And lastly, he taught all of us to go on with our lives and to finish everything that we've begun, in whatever field we chose.

It's the little push that makes great things happen.

To Sir David, maraming maraming salamat.

Greek Adventure (Part 1)

I'm back from a trip that almost did not happen but still happened. During those days that we thought we might not be able to go, I told myself that we MUST go and we WILL go. Ladies and gentlemen, positive thinking does work!

My dad was invited to be one of the speakers in the World Congress of Echocardiography and Vascular Ultrasound in Rhodes, Greece.

My youngest sister, Ling, being the fresh college graduate this year, automatically had the privilege to join my parents. But the thought of visiting Greece was something I didn't want to pass up... I just had to experience their rich culture, walk through all of their historical sites, and share all these through photos and words.

My parents saw how passionate I was about this. (I told them that travel and experience are the best teachers plus I offered to pay half of my airfare. :-p) Afterwhich, they decided that the four of us should go. Whoopeee!

But then we encountered several roadblocks...

1: Our Schengen VISA application appointments were scheduled separately and it was only my dad who had an early schedule. My mom was scheduled to submit her requirements a few days after my dad while Ling and I were scheduled for an interview after our target departure dates. Thankfully, the Spanish consul was kind enough to process everyone's VISA upon speaking with my dad and understanding our situation.

2: My passport was not accepted by the Spanish Embassy because apparently it had been "worn-out" and a little hole was discovered on the plastic covering my photo. This might cause trouble with the immigration officers as any openings in that plastic could be considered as tampering. I was asked to have my passport renewed. My jaw almost dropped at that moment. I think I just gulped and didn't speak. My eyes pleaded, "But I want to go with my family to Greece..." Then it was explained to me nicely that my VISA would still be processed and I'd just have to drop off my renewed passport within office hours, Monday-Thursday. Allelujah. And instead of having our passports sent through a courier, the Spanish consul asked us to get the VISAs a little more than a week after application so we could fly on time. This sounded like we were ready to fly... Or atleast they were. I still had to solve my passport glitch.

3: On that same day, I had my passport renewed. I went to the DFA in Manila after lunch. At that time, I was so thankful that I was a preschool teacher. I had my pencil case with me that contained my glue stick, scissors, stapler, ballpen, and everything else that I suddenly needed while applying (Girl Scout ako!). Then, I got my passport after 2 working days from the DFA and headed straight to the Spanish Embassy in Makati. The traffic was heavy (it was a Monday!) and I reached the building at 3pm. The guard asked me to run to the 5th floor and try to see if the Embassy was still open. I ran to the elevator. Upon reaching the 5th floor, a familiar-looking guard warned me that he wasn't 100% sure if they'd still accept my passport because it was already 3pm. But the lady behind the counter was very nice and still got my passport. At that point, all there was left to do was wait. We had a little more than a week left before the trip. We could get the VISA a day before our flight. I was getting paranoid because a lot of things could happen in a week. (Now you see why I haven't been telling people about the trip before? I thought I've jinxed it enough and didn't want to add any more jinx to it...)

4: My dad did not like the waiting hours from our original Qatar Airways connecting flights. He asked for another airline. We ended up with Thai Airways which was more expensive but had better flying/waiting hours. This made our stay in Greece shorter (boo) because the available flight was June 27 (and arrival in Greece would be June 28) ...which of course we just had to deal with because we wanted to push through. By this time, after everything we've been through, the more convinced I was that we really had to go. Ah, but we were still waiting.

June 25. My mom sent us a text message that she got our Schengen VISAs. I texted back, "Whooohoo! Greece here we come!"

And everything just happened from there...

Day 1 was our "family day" as we explored the area of Syntagma where the Parliament could be found and where the private Benaki Museum stood near. We got inside the Benaki Museum for free that day but cameras were not allowed inside. :) Sounds fair to us! Afterwhich, we walked through the beautiful National gardens and found time to cool down a bit.

Top: Evzone guarding the Parliament. Benaki Museum.
Center: Theater of Herod Atticus on the way to the Acropolis.
Bottom: Papa (kabuki sunblock) and Ling. Lala sitting on the wall of Acropolis (background, Athens)

Under the hot Greek summer weather, we all climbed the Acropolis and walked through all the theaters and temples in it including the famous theater of Herod Atticus and the well-known Parthenon. The day before, a heatwave had hit the city, making the temperature rise to 45 degrees Celcius. On the day we got there, the temperature was 39 degrees. It was still one of the hottest days I've ever experienced. Imagine a person with high fever and having his temperature all around you, pricking your skin...Oooh HOT. This explains my dad's "kabuki" way of putting sunblock and the way my melanin enriched skin turned so dark on the first day.

The Greeks are very proud of their heritage. You tell one Greek person how amazed you are by the richness of their culture and he/she would engage you in a long conversation that would leave you even more amazed. Maybe the Greeks we have encountered were coincidentally like that but when you look at the list of the people whom we talked with and spoke about their country with love, you'd wonder if it was only coincidental. Each of those we encountered had something beautiful to say about their culture and history -- from the ice cream man, to the taxi driver, to the hotel receptionist, to the restaurateur, to the flea market merchant. Being nationalistic seems to come naturally for them. One of the things that we noticed was their fondness in using their country's colors -- blue and white. That and the way Greek flags are found almost everywhere -- houses, buildings, archaeological sites, and ferries.

The ancient Greeks are well-known for the temples they built for their gods and goddesses, the gold pieces that they turned into ornaments, the pots and jars they used in everyday living, and the list goes on. Some of these things we still do and have today. We just add a little bit of technology to everything but we're still basically eating, drinking, thinking, creating, and being. So yes, we are similar and different from them in this light.

When you look at this closely, one of the oldest civilizations had been preserved because they had various forms of records of their past. We could speculate how the Greeks lived thousands of years ago because they had kept records in forms of writings, temples, and buried objects.

My sister and I were talking about our own museums in the Philippines. And we thought that the main difference between the Philippines and Greece in preserving historical records was not on being "nationalistic" per se but because of what transpired in our histories as peoples. Both countries experienced wars. Both of us experienced colonization but were in two different ends. The Greek temples and majestic columns awe us. But as with most of the seven wonders of the world, they came about because of slavery. That's the reality of it. But we are still in awe. How could we not be? But now, I also wonder how come many beautiful and majestic things had to happen with bloodbath and coercion?

In the case of the Philippines, we lost the use of our alibata and a great number of historical pieces because we were colonized so many times, forced to erase our own culture and adapt to what our colonizers imposed. Our country's name was even given to us during the Spanish regime. And at the time of our real ancestors when the Rice Terraces was constructed as the first hagdan-hagdang palayan in the world, we weren't technically Filipinos yet.

Oh yes, at this point, our beloved Philippines is still a young country. And I do believe we'll someday find ourselves in a better place.

At present, whether one likes it or not, blogging has transformed into a way of keeping records of ourselves. This is how we live. This is how we write. This is how we record what's happening in our lives. Thank you to technology. Because of it, most of us have the privilege to write on air.

And maybe someday, thousands of years from now, when the world wide web has not yet been infected by a deadly virus that could erase everything we posted online, the new people of the world will be amazed at how different and similar we are from them as well. By then, aside from archaeological sites filled with gigantic columns, temples, preserved objects, and writings, we'll have alternative modes of viewing history. See how our blogs have their own archives? That's history in the making.

If you want to view the complete photos, just check out
http://elijarz.multiply.com/photos/album/105 or click my link on the left "Home of the Brown Rabbit".