Beggar woman

I saw her again this afternoon as I was on my way to buy a drink at 7-Eleven. Several years ago, she showed up at our church asking people leaving the chapel after Holy Mass if they had a job for her. I pitied her although I really couldn't do anything while the others she approached suggested she inquire at the barangay captain's office. Years later I would see her beg here in campus. Today, I was shocked to see that she had grown painfully thin. I gave her fifty pesos which she gratefully accepted with a "Thank you po!" I hope it helps. I plan to buy her a decent meal from the COOP next time I see her.

Jolly biscuits

This afternoon, I walked down to Grove in search of more ring binders to buy to use to compile my class notes. I also dropped by the Star Mart to buy more biscuits to add to my stash of munchies I keep in my office desk. There I was overjoyed to find Fibisco's Jolly biscuits on their shelves. My mom used to buy some for us kids to bring to school as snacks. I immediately bought a pack of ten packets.

In the same boat

Having lately found difficulty coping with my studies, I began to have ambivalent feelings about my decision to pursue graduate studies again yesterday evening to the point that I felt depressed about it. Then this afternoon, as my classmates and I waited for our professor to show up for our computer theory class, one of us spoke up and said she feels she can no longer handle the subject and feels like quitting. Then when second classmate admitted thinking the same thing, I told them that I had exactly the same thoughts yesterday. We all laughed.

Alex Colville, Canadian painter, 95

I was browsing through news articles on the Globe and Mail when I spied the photo of a painting entitled To Prince Edward Island and thought that I'd seen that style of painting somewhere. Then the name on the article's title, Alex Colville, stirred something at the back of my mind: an article in the Reader's Digest probably 30 years back and accompanied by hyperealistic paintings of a pointer dog, a loan cow grazing in a meadow, an old man sitting on veranda looking out to sea. Yes, I remember Alex Colville.

A decision

I was supposed to walk down to the chapel to go to confession late this afternoon. I eventually decided at the last minute to go next week instead when I thought I better learn how to write a flex program for my computer theory class. It was a good thing I did because I later learned that the priest who comes to hear confession got stuck in traffic in Manila and couldn't make it to town in time. Now I'm relieved I didn't waste two hours waiting in line to go to confession when there was none in the end.

My three thank yous

Three things I am thankful for this day:

• Waking up to the news that the Duchess of Cambridge has been delivered of a son at 16:24 GMT yesterday.
• That my paper presentation in my database management course went well. I managed to squeeze my report on a 40-page(!) paper into a 35-minute talk. Having worked during the weekend to put together my presentation, I'm also grateful that I'm done with it!
• That yesterday in restrospect, I was given more time to work on said presentation when my linear models professor said that she would be unable to meet us for our afternoon class because she has to attend to urgent office matters.

Upcoming concert, more apps and new piano fingering

• Joel finally contacted me about watching a concert of alumni of the Philippine Madrigal Singers early next month. I posted a copy of the poster announcing the concert on Facebook hoping he'd get wind of it, so to speak. Sure enough he caught sight of it and commented that we have to go watch it. Shortly after he sent me a text message, he was able to secure tickets for the best seats in the house! Definitely looking forward to the concert!
• I'm currently on an (free) app downloading/installation spree. Mostly puzzle-type games, like Slice & Splice and Cargo Bot, to give my brain some needed exercise and some handy apps like TuneIn Radio, this so I can have my fill of classical music.
• I spent time again playing my piano/keyboard. This time, I decided to re-study de Leon's Sa Bukid which I learned at age 9 or 10 as a competition piece. Today, I re-worked the fingering for several bars, seeing that what I have been using all these years was atrociously nonsensical.

My problem set and the helper

• I am very much relieved that I managed to come up with  answers to three of five remaining items in our problem set. There was a point early Thursday morning when I was in despair of being able to answer any of the problems at all. By the grace of God some ideas popped up in my head during the course of the day before our afternoon deadline. I believe I simply needed more time to pore over and understand the material, which is all new to me since I have not taken the equivalent undergrad course, to work out answers to the rest.
• I spent some time talking late this afternoon with the young fellow who helps carry my student with muscular dystrophy to and from his classes. I have to admire this helper for his dedication to his backbreaking work. It is a pity that he finds it boring to wait each time for my student's classes to be dismissed and eventually plans to leave and look elsewhere for a job.

Lost and found

Last night I discovered that my red gel pen that I keep in my wallet/pouch was missing its cap and thought what a pity it was to let the ink dry up and go to waste. Then this morning, as I made my way to the COOP to buy food for lunch, I happened to look down and spied the cap of a pen lying on the sidewalk. What's more, the markings indicated it was for a red pen of exactly the same brand as my red gel pen! Realizing that it was my missing pen cap--it must have fallen off when I walked over to the 7-Eleven to buy merienda yesterday afternoon--I snatched it up right away, incredulous but grateful nevertheless that I had found it.

More apps, The Hiding Place and lonely

• This morning while I got ready for work, I downloaded and installed two more apps/games: the photo app called Over and the game Where's My Water? I also hoped to get Tiny Wings but was disappointed to see that it was no longer free.
• I am reading again Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. I read this some twenty years ago when I borrowed it from the library in Ames. I had long been wanting to read it again and happily found a copy the other week.
• A familiar feeling of loneliness and depression came over me late this afternoon for some reason. It came after seeing my Facebook news feed and Joel's latest likes and upon realizing as well that it has been nearly a month since my beloved Marshmallow disappeared. I miss Joel and my little kitty cat.

New piano piece, apps and breaking news

• Yesterday, I played piano for the first time in a few months and never felt so relaxed in a long time. I even managed to learn Kempff's piano transcription of Bach's Siciliano from his Flute Sonata BWV 1031.
• Last night, I installed Angry Birds Star Wars and Bad Piggies. The latter game is something different and more challenging than Angry Birds but I found it ever so much fun experimenting with different configurations to see what happens.
• The big news third morning was that of the acquittal of Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. Then early this afternoon came breaking news that Cory Monteith of 'Glee' fame had Bern found dead in a hotel in Vancouver.

No wallet, Hiro biscuits and data mining articles

• Our linear models professor related how after landing in Iloilo to meet up with project personnel she found out that she had forgotten to bring along her wallet. Her contact person wasn't answering her text messages (her cellphone was malfunctioning and therefore couldn't make calls) and she couldn't take a taxi from the airport either because she didn't know exactly where she was supposed to go. Happily for her, she was picked up several minutes later by said contact person.
• I had to go over to Acer Mart (a good 20-minute walk back and forth from my office) to buy some packages of Fibisco's HiRo biscuits for papa. We haven't been able to find any for sale in either South Supermarket or Savemore these past few weeks.
• I have begun downloading articles on data mining for higher education in preparation for my seminar scheduled late September. Hopefully this will be a good topic to present.

Weight training again

I've began weight training (with my 4-lb weights) yesterday. The last time I regularly did weight training was in Singapore nearly ten years ago. (I then had to improvise with a mop pole and empty 1-liter milk containers filled with water to make a 6-kilo dumbell). Joel urged me last Saturday to do load-bearing exercises to strengthen my bones. He thinks it's unusual for someone my age to have fractured my olecranon after simply slipping on a wet slidewalk and landing on my elbow.

A free app and two problem sets

• I discover that the awesome Day One app, along with nine other apps, is free for a limited time on the Apple App Store as part of the store's 5th anniversary. Of course, I download it right away.
• I somehow manage to scribble answers to most of the 57(!) items in the diagnostic exam in our advanced database systems class. All questions were crammed into two pages, printed back to back, hence the tiny font size and poor quality of the printing. There were a handful of items wherein the notations were not readable at all so I had to skip answering those.
• Am done with seven items in our 12-item problem set on automata theory. More accurately, that's 6.7 items, not seven, because I haven't come up with the minimal regular expression for item #5. Hmmm...

Three who eke out a living

Here are three hardworkers I encountered today. Seeing how they struggle to make a living, I really hope they somehow get by:

• The slightly-built young fellow who perseveres to pedal his Selecta ice cream cart up our main--an uphill climb--street rain or shine.
• The old woman who rummages through the trash bags for recyclables near our office building. I've long wondered how old she is and where she lives. 
• The lady who watches that tiny shop where I buy those plastic slinky-like pony-tailers. Although narrow shop's walls are teeming with all sorts of other kaboodle and there are trays of more stuff placed on a narrow table along one wall, I hardly see anybody drop by.

Breakfast, two minions and lots of tennis

• We decide to have our Sunday breakfast at Dal Cielo cafe at SEARCA dorm for a change. I had pancakes with blueberry and hot chocolate (actually heated chocolate-flavored fresh milk). Nice little place. Loved the black and white detailing on the tables.
• As I had promised, I send Joel two Despicable Me minions emoticons via the Facebook app, hoping to cheer him up
• It's tennis all evening again: Djokovic vs Murray at the Wimbledon gentlemen's singles finals. Based on the long exchanges between the two in the first two games, it looks like we're in for an epic match. What a pity that the Star Sports coverage no longer includes any live commentary.

Time with Joel

• Joel invited me to watch Despicable Me 2 with him at SM Calamba. Since he was on his way home from Quezon City this afternoon, we agreed to meet at SM Calamba. Joel arrived there first (about 5pm) and bought our movie tickets straightaway. When I arrived some forty minutes later, we walked around while filling each other in on our latest undertakings, among others (how he's "single" again at work, my studies, the latest in mobile technology, that I should get a bone scan, etc.) before settling to eat dinner at Pizza Hut. 
• We caught the 8:15 showing.  The movie was not as despicable as the first but was definitely much more hilarious! (I now wonder what Roger Eber would have thought of it.)  While we were not too keen on watching it in 3D, it turned out that an animated movie in 3D was a much better experience than a live action film in 3D.
• Today was also my first time to drive by myself to SM Calamba! The drive was as expected: smooth sailing until Pansol where traffic slowed down but at least was moving. What I didn't expect was that it would take forty minutes to get through unusually heavy traffic for the remaining kilometer to kilometer. (Joel was the one who drove home afterwards.)

Instant ID, problems and another comeback

• Finally order my student ID from the registrar's office. I was told that it would be ready for pick-up tomorrow thus I was surprised when it was promptly delivered to my office this afternoon.
• We have been given our first problem set to work on in our automata course! I couldn't wait to get started and right away came up with solutions to a couple of items while watching tennis in the evening.
• Witnessed yet another exciting third set comeback manufactured by Germany's Sabine Lisicki to overcome Agnieska Radwanska at in the Wimbledon ladies' singles semifinals.

"Brrrr!", "Yes!" and "Youch!"

• Attended both lecture and lab classes again of our automata course. This time I brought along a sweater to wear in that ridiculously freezing lab room. It didn't do much good though. Maybe I should bring my winter coat next time! Have a good mind to bring along a thermometer too just to find out exactly how cold it is in there!
• I worked on the exercise given during said lab in my office. It was fun figuring things out on paper instead of using JFLAP. In fact, I believe I correctly answered all three problems.
• What a horrible scene on Centre Court at Wimbledon: del Potro chases down a volley from Ferrer in the very first game of their quarterfinal match, stumbles then hyperextends his (already heavily wrapped) left knee! Quite a relief to see him bravely soldier on and produce a happy ending by winning the match in straight sets.

Stupid driver, goodbye and hello

• Driver of the day: the one who turned left from Pili Drive out of IRRI and into my lane on IPB road as I stopped at the intersection before turning left into Pili Drive from IPB road. Said driver obviously didn't know the difference between left and right. Nuff said!
• Said goodbye to my Google Reader then tried to log into Feedly to check the feeds that I had transferred there only to find that Feedly is down. It probably couldn't handle the sudden influx of new users.
• Tried using the Facebook app in my old Nokia E51 after some years. Quite a cute feature-rich app. Not bad.

Three "of the days"

• Task of the day: I spend the morning sorting and clearing old papers off the top of my office desk and filing cabinet. Am converting those printed on just one side to notebook paper and having the rest thrown out for recycling.
• Food of the day: curry chicken meatballs from Bugong for lunch and chocolate chip cookies from Micha's served during a meeting among us graduate students. The cookies were delicious. Fatty, yes--and therefore forbidden--but delicious.
• Match of the day: the terrific fourth round match between Sabine Lasicki and Serena Williams. What a comeback by the German from 1-4 down in the third set to triumph over a yet another reigning Roland Garros champion, 6-2 1-6 6-4!