It's been a while

Since it's been a while since I wrote something into this blog, I'll try to run-down highlights of what happens to be my exciting life as a bum, broke (I had to ask for baon from my mother yesterday) technopreneur wannabe, *insert adjective here* educator and, for the lack of a better term, "not-so-good" MS student. And just so that I have a note when I look at this again in the future, right now, I'm really excited with what we're doing at Infini. Ever since I resigned from my work as hardware engineer at Canon (or even before), I wanted to be part of a start-up company and contribute something big. Whether we succeed in this venture or not, *insert some positive thing here like I*. I can't concentrate with doing thesis stuff anymore during the times I assign as thesis hours because I always think about Pasagoods, our future direction, etc. Which brings me to another thing, I NEED (vs. want) to finish my thesis soon. Im an into my fourth year this year and maximum residency in UP is five years. Adding to the pressure is me being an ERDT scholar, which means I have to finish this, or else! (I think I'd have to pay quite a sum of money if I don't. Sometimes I daydream that someday people will describe as "the MS dropout who did this and that..." ala Bill Gates, Larry Page/Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs. My permanency of being an Ateneo faculty is also at stake. I'm only teaching part-time this semester because maximum evaluation period for an Ateneo faculty is 3 years and I'm into my third year already and haven't obtained my MS degree yet. Luckily our department chair was very supportive in that he sort of used the "part-time" loophole so that this semester won't count as part of the 3-year evaluation period.

Anyway, last month I got my MacBook. What can I say about it? It looks good. The apple logo lights up. Nice to use. Cameh hates it (actually only those Steve Jobs fanboys/girls). I am so amazed by the four finger swipe up-down which does this:

Swipe down

Swipe up

I hate that I have to press 3 buttons though just to get a screenshot (4 when I don't want to automatically generate a jpeg file)

I got to visit baguio for the second time in my life for the faculty R&R (I have vague memories of the first). 

I look *insert description* here

I, together with friends also almost died. Or so we thought... We went into this beach/island hopping adventure to Pundaquit, Zambales. Our first stop was Nagsasa cove. I practically slept on the sand the whole time except to eat lunch and when we had to trek to go to the falls. We took a short dip on the "waterfall." This is a photo of me on the supposed waterfall.

When we got back, we were off to our next destination: Capones island. 

The ride was bumpy because of the large waves. And about 30 minutes into the journey, the exciting part happened. Our boat capsized... Actually, before that, Marc got extremely sea sick and vomited (a lot). The engine stopped because of too much water going into the boat. And when the koia was restarting the engine, a huge wave synched with the momentum of his pull causing the boat to capsize. Time was 4:20 PM. Nobody panicked (a lot) except that some of us forgot to save our belongings. Only Marc and Daniel were able to recover their bags. Jason's and my bag were later recovered because they floated, while unfortunately, Zyra's was completely gone. First attempt at getting rescued was to call using our cellphones. Daniel's phone worked initially but there was no answer from 117. After a couple of attempts, the phone decided to die probably because of it being wet. koia, filled with negativity informs us, "naku, wala nang dumadaan masyado dito, lahat yan galing ng Anawangin."(Anawangin was along the shore, while Capones was up there, away from it) We waited for a while for a boat to show up, and there were boats. Unfortunately, because we were too far away from their paths, they were not able to see us. A couple more passed by but they don't hear us shouting: "HELPPP!!!", "TOLLLOONGG!!!", "HOOOOYYYY!!!" So our strategy was to keep paddling and swimming towards the shore while still holding on to the capsized boat (which was still floating by the way) so that there would be a greater chance for boats passing by to see us. Being the pasikat that I am, I considered swimming by myself to get closer to the path taken by most boats. I after all attended an advanced swimming class last year in UP and felt a little confident about my skills. I informed the group at some point that I will try. After 20 or so meters away from the boat, I got scared. If we were going to float there overnight or if we were going to die there or get eaten by sharks, It'd be much nicer if I were with friends than all by myself. I find it funny afterwards, but I was really more concerned of getting eaten by sharks than dying of drowning/dehydration. (I watched the original Jaws when I got back at my "pad"). Somehow, the paddling and pushing the boat worked and after more than an hour, one of the boats passing by noticed us. Jason and Zy credits the umbrella which we were waving in the air. We were mocking that umbrella earlier that day. However, the scare does not end. The boat which found us was too small and it to go back to the shore to get help. What followed was a long 30-40 minute wait. We were very concerned that it would get dark (and it did) and they were going to have a difficulty finding us. Luckily, a lone boat was able to do so. We were concerned that this single boat might also capsize. koia also wanted to save the capsized boat so we first had to struggle with putting it in the "uncapsized" position (this will facilitate pulling compared to when if it is in the capsized position). "Buhay bago bangka!", exclaimed Daniel who is now impatient of the koias. Good thing, another boat came to the rescue. We got into this boat and left for the shore while we felt sorry for the koias because they still had to recover the capsized boat. When we were leaving our original boatman was still in the water, recovering the small pieces of wood used as divider I think. During this time, it was already dark at about 6:20 in the evening. I wanted to cry on the way back (but tears didn't fall). If a movie about my life will ever be made, I'd like my character to be crying in this scene (para madrama).

And so, that was the story of our zambales adventure. What's the damage? A LOT.

Zyra lost her bag which contained a cellphone (ericson w910i), a camera (sony h20), wallet with almost 6000 cash, atms and credit cards, 3 USB sticks, IDs, favorite bra and panty, new Nike t-shirt, pyjamas, slipper, make-up kit, towel, casio watch. Even if Daniel recovered his bag, he still lost a few stuff because his bag opened while we were floating. He lost 2 cellphones a Samsung Galaxy Spica and a low-end Nokia phone. Marc was also able to save his bag but threw the "cheap" contents (umbrella, slippers, towel, short, belt, shorts, camera shirt, 3 boxer briefs, coin purse, etc.) away (which he later on found to be quite funny and stupid. hehe). His e63 also got lost because his bag opened. The worst thing though is his Canon DSLR got soaked and when he asked for repair quotations, it amounted to 45K, almost as expensive as a newer model. I on the other hand lost my cellpone, wallet with 1K and a couple of atms and point cards and my slippers from Vienna.

We were not very sad though:

(us the day after at the resort taken using my laptop)

To life:

So there... When I got back, I had to attend the Ignatian Spirituality in Education Workshop. 

It's a requirement for permanency in Ateneo. I'm not a devout Catholic but I find the teachings/methods of Ignatius to be very reasonable and I feel that even if we were in a convent, they are not forcing their god on me. They were also very cool. Our bartender on the first night serving tequila sunrise, margarita, bloody mary, kamikaze, etc. is a father-to-be. I'm also very happy because I finally got that picture with Fr. Ben.

Whew! This is my longest blog entry ever. I was assigned to write the blog entry about the Zambales adventure and made a lot of excuses before I could write this. Writing it before was like doing my thesis in UP. There were so many ways I wanted to write the story and eventually I came up with none (until this). Maybe there is a lesson to be learned. 

Maybe you were wondering why there are *insert XXXX here*... Answer is: I can't think of what to put in those portions. Steve Jobs said "real artists ship." I'm not an artist but I ship(deploy/release) this blogpost with missing phrases. If I delay further, I might not publish this blog at all. So Pasagoods guys, let's ship this week and just improve it on the next version... (I don't have a plan of improving this blog entry though). :P