Glass soundtrack

I had not been interested in watching any of the movies being shown on tv until I caught a glimpse of Edward Norton starring in what looked like a period piece being shown on Star Movies early this evening. It turned out to be the movie entitled The Illusionist which I vaguely remembered was being frequently compared with another movie about a magician, The Prestige, that was released in the same year (2005?). I was hooked at once by the storyline but was even more mesmerized by the haunting musical score. I naturally waited until the credits came on to find out who the composer was. And no wonder, it was Philip Glass! That's definitely another movie soundtrack going onto my wish list.

Win a car? No thanks!

This morning I received a text message announcing another promo from Globe in which they were giving away a brand new Honda City as the grand prize. My first thought then was, why would I want to trouble myself with a car at this time when gasoline prices have been skyrocketing?

An unexpected meeting

I felt strangely compelled to attend today's afternoon mass even if I was shamefully twenty minutes late. The reason for this became clear when after the mass I ran into our church music group's cantor who had long wanted to discuss certain choir matters with me. As it eventually turned out, we got stuck conversing about many other things for nearly an hour! When I arrived home nearly half past seven, I was not surprised to find my parents wondering why I didn't come home around 6pm as usual.

Spammed

I'm currently handling a course offered through distance mode at a sister university. I hadn't handled the course for a number of years now because of all the stress that comes with having to answer emails and checking out the course website for my student's queries. I thought I'd give it another try this semester. But this morning I took one glance at all 43 email messages that had come in from my students and were clogging my inbox and realized once again that it was an extremely bad decision to make.

A recurring question

At today's reunion among my mother's retired co-workers--many of whom I had not seen for years myself--I was asked the usual question, "Are you married already?" My negative answer was, as expected, followed by disappointment and an admonition--albeit a good-natured one--to get married soon. Of course, given that all but one of the people at the reunion are married people ,the general consensus at the gathering would be that marriage is the ideal vocation. At such situations, I'm really tempted to fire back with the question, what's is so wrong with being single?

The Sanctus road

Beware! this has an ending that might sound corny to you. For the first time in months I took the road that goes over "our hill" in order to get to this morning's Sunday mass. Although it is shorter than the one I usually take to go to work, I had not been taking this particular road because of the numerous potholes that I have to avoid along the way. In fact, sometimes one would have no choice but to fall into one in order to avoid another, to the detriment of the car's suspension. Anyway, the last time I took this road, most of the holes had been filled. But now after several downpours and the other week's typhoon, it's full of holes again. That is, holey thrice over so to speak. So I've christened it the Sanctus road.

Solitary worker

My father is complaining once again about all the hard work he has to do. Quite frankly, he has only himself to blame. We usually offer to help him or else hire somebody to help him but he says he would rather do the work himself and even refuses to teach someone else how to do something. I don't think he knows how to delegate work and doesn't trust anybody well enough to let them do the work instead.

Luncheon preparations

We're going to have some twenty guests over tomorrow for lunch during a reunion of retirees from the office where my mother used to work. So we're in a mad scramble here at home to prepare our daylight basement to receive our guests. The tablecloths on the tables downstairs had to be changed, dust wiped off chairs that came out from storage and electric fans put in strategic places. My mother brought out from our buffet the silverware and dinnerware which rarely see the light of day except when we have company then I helped wash, wipe and arrange them downstairs on the kitchen counter.

Latin prayers memorized

Earlier I searched for an online tool--that is a way to keep track of where you are--for praying the rosary and came across one that included the Latin version of the prayers said in the rosary. I'm not sure what got into me then but I was intrigued and proceeded to say the rosary using the Latin versions of the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory Be. Eventually I memorized them--although I still recite the Pater Noster rather slowly. It was interesting though to analyze the Latin versions and notice patterns in order to guess Latin equivalents (sicut = as, nunc = now), root words (have been familiar with most actually) and what certain suffixes meant (like the "toribus" in "peccatoribus" and "debitoribus"). And then to realize that the English versions were not necessarily faithful to the original Latin ("world without end" in the Gloria Patri).

Today's earthquake

Tonight's news on tv reported that several school children did not attend class today because of the news that was spread around that an earthquake was predicted to hit the country today. I myself did not receive the text message warning everyone of the "earthquake" although I first heard about the rumor two days ago. Of course, I dismissed it as nonsense. I just can't believe that school children who are supposedly being taught to think rationally and scientifically--and not to mention, the adults who are their parents and prevented them from attending school-- could be so gullible.

First meeting

Earlier this afternoon, I presided over a meeting as committee chair for the first time--the first actually in several years. Last time I was committee chair, I was completely lost about what to do during meetings and felt rather intimidated because I was in fact the youngest member of the committee by several years. In other words, they were forgettable experiences. This time, by the grace of God, things went more smoothly; I think I'm still the youngest in the group but I'm wiser and feel more confident now. I just hope I didn't miss out on anything important.

More weight loss

I've been monitoring my weight these past couple of months ever since I've discovered that I've lost weight since February. And the latest is I have continued to lose weight: My weight lately has been hovering around 107 and 108 lbs--that's two or three lbs down from last time! The cause remains a complete mystery to me. Things are definitely more hectic at work now that we're back in the regular semester and I'm beginning to eat snacks again once in a while. So it can't be due to lesser stress during the summer months.

Mini disaster

When I showed up at work this morning, I was greeted with the news that a water pipe had burst on the second floor above our offices, sending water down through the ceiling above the first floor and into a number of offices. My office was spared--except for water that leaked under the door and soaked some old papers and boxes on the floor--but our main office, library and supply room got the brunt of the flood. Everything there--books, documents, equipment (computers and printers!), supplies--got soaked by the water that rained down from the ceiling. The administrative staff in those office are now in the process of drying out their things in the hope that many can still be salvaged.

The late habit

I was told that last night's get-together with high-school was at 8pm at a local restaurant. I was anxious to be there on time and in fact arrived there just before 8pm. To my dismay, I found that I was the first one there. And no one arrived until nearly half an hour later! Then the rest started arriving after 9pm. I have to say that I'm totally fed up with this so-called Filipino time.

Fellow Federer fans

Last night I attended a get-together with my high school classmates for the first time in nearly four years. As expected the conversation was typically about our jobs, children (among those who were married of course) and how to get in touch with our other classmates. That's when I found that some of my classmates, who get together to play tennis regularly, were Federer fans like me. And what's more, some were even much more fanatic followers than I ever had been: while I was merely disappointed when Federer lost to Nadal in Wimbledon, one of them got so depressed she couldn't sleep for a couple of days and even had her hair cut short to give vent to her feelings.

Federer vs. Nadal

I didn't expect last night's Wimbledon finals between Federer and Nadal to be the epic battle that it turned out to be. In fact, I thought all was lost when Federer fell behind two sets to love. But I found that I had totally underestimated the champion in him. So it came as a complete surprise when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning (I had fallen asleep while waiting for the first rain delay to end) to find Federer leading 5-2 in the third set tie-break. It's just a pity that Lady Luck had to side with somebody in the deciding set. But I must say, there definitely were no losers at the end of this match.

Williams vs Williams

The finals between the Williams sisters apparently presented the sports network covering the event a bit of a dilemma. During the first few minutes of the match, I was perplexed to see that the onscreen scoreboard simply displayed "Williams" and "Williams". This is of course understandable since normally only the last names of the players are shown. Even so I thought, surely they can't keep it that way throughout the match! Luckily somebody at the network must have finally realized that it was confusing because a few games later the scoreboard read "S Williams" and "V Williams". That for me was much better--but apparently not for somebody at the network because now the scoreboard reads "Serena" and "Venus".

Lost and found

I must be getting old. This morning, as I was fixing up my hair to get ready to go to work I couldn't find my dark blue hair scrunchy. I looked for it all over my room, the closet and even in the bathroom but couldn't find it at all--although I swore I could see it somewhere in my mind's eye. As I was about to give up, I reached up to my head and touched the base of my ponytail--and there it was! Of course being on the back of my head, I couldn't see it at all the whole time! I must have put it on automatically after brushing my ponytail. Sigh.

Our friendly office cat again

The stray cat at the office seems to have settled into its role as our official mascot unusually well: This morning I spotted it sleeping soundly not on the floor in the hallway but on the top chair of the pile of monoblock chairs delivered the other day and left just outside the main office. And it has began fearlessly approaching students and staff alike for a cuddle.

Feeling the energy crunch

As I mentioned just earlier, I went to put gasoline into the nearly empty gas tank of my car. But of course, I first had to withdraw extra cash from the ATM since gasoline prices had risen nearly 50% since the last time I bought some gasoline. Sure enough, with the price of gasoline at Php59 per liter I had to spend Php2550 for a tankful of unleaded gasoline. Ouch!

Free car wash

We had not just one but two downpours today. The first one came as I was driving out to buy gasoline this afternoon. It was so difficult to see through the sheets of water coming down the windshield that I didn't see the hump on the road ahead until the nearly last minute. Phew! The second downpour came as I was doing some quick shopping at the supermarket after buying gasoline. I had to wait until it stopped to avoid getting soaked when I went back to my car. One good thing though about those downpours though was that my car got a good wash--and I didn't even have to bother wiping it dry to make sure the water doesn't dry into white spots!