Bonfire na!!!

           I finally witnessed Team Ateneo winning the UAAP Championship live.  Hooray!

          Back in 2002, I had to content myself with watching the game in Moro due to the fact that I wasn't able to secure a ticket.  Araneta typically releases SRO tickets on the actual game date, and at that time I should have realized that the tickets would run out faster.  This time, I vowed not to make the same mistake and woke up early.  I arrived at Araneta around 8am today, and promptly fell in line with about a hundred people ahead of me. 

          My major mistake was my failure to eat breakfast before falling in line.  (I last ate a full meal 8pm the night before.)  You see, they were only selling Gen. Ad. tickets and we were forced to enter the premises after getting the ticket (with the condition that re-entries were not allowed).  It took 4 hours before I got to enter the venue, and another 4 hours before the game began.  Sure there was food sold inside, but they were overpriced (and if you know me, I only buy expensive food if the taste is worth it...which unfortunately, can not be said for the food sold in Araneta.)

          So there I was, starved for 8 hours and surrounded by Chris Tiu fangirls in the Gen Ad section.  I can't complain though.  A lot of those fangirls look great ...in a Nabokovian context (hehe, eeevil! )  Seriously, is it just me or have college girls gotten hotter since my time?

          Anyway, a really nice thing happened today.  I met up with my "Get That Ball" buddy Paolo Gillego, with whom I spent a lot of UAAP wars in the past, cheering our throats hoarse until until our heads hurt badly from the effort.  He introduced two of his female friends to me - Aga (a former schoolmate in UP law, I found out) and Carol (a former Guidon reporter).  Both were from ADMU batch '97.  Paolo unfortunately had to leave us in the Gen. Ad. section because he had to accompany his future father-in-law in the Lower Box.  That means I was left with my two new acquaintances.  But it was ok, they were nice to be with.

          It turns out that Aga was engaged in a continuous texting effort to get better tickets while we were already seated, and was actually able to have someone secure Upper B tickets for her right before the jump ball.  She was supposed to get tickets for herself and Carol only, but since she felt particularly generous (or she might have taken pity on me ) she asked her contact to get one more ticket for me.  (Yeheey!)  The best part of that is, it didn't cost me anything!  (Yeheey again!)

          And so, upon confirmation of the existence of our tickets, the three of us made the seemingly-ridiculous scene of leaving our "good" Gen Ad seats (which we have been occupying for about 3 hours) just when the game was about to begin.  We found good seats very near the DLSU side.  Actually, we were already in the DLSU side because, for some reason, DLSU fans were vastly outnumbered today.  The audience was around 65-70% Ateneo supporters.

          It was a good thing that DLSU gave a good fight and actually got us scared a number of times.  It made the victory all the more sweeter.  Aga and Carol proved to be formidable cheerers and we three had a great time shouting and cheering for Team Ateneo (and jeering the Greenies). 

          And when it became apparent that Ateneo was going to win, all hell broke loose.  I actually needed some space to run around, shout, and flail my arms over my head and so I did just that.    I went up to the walkway between the Gen Ad and Upper B sections and I ran around like a madman.  The last time I did this sort of thing was when Gec Chia made that miracle shot back in 2002 against UE.  It was at this point where I completely forgot about my hunger and soaked in all the great feeling of witnessing the Blue Eagles become champions.

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          It was only later, when I was having a hard time going home when I realized that a full 24 hours have passed without me having anything to eat.  I was craving for Taco Bell but the entire Gateway Mall was packed with ADMU and DLSU fans, and so I ended up in Goldilocks in Farmers' Plaza where I consumed Fresh Lumpia and Bola-bola Siopao.  Going back to Gateway where I intended to hail a cab, I noticed that Taco Bell had almost no more customers, and so I had a second dinner, hehe.

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          What a day!  I'm happy I came to watch.  I'm happy I met up with Paolo again after a long time.  I'm happy to meet two new friends both of whom I will never forget for as long as I live.  And I'm happy that the Blue Eagles finished the job!  Thank you for the great memories!

          One Big Fight!

The State of Philippine Education

THERE'S nothing more pitiful than seeing the deplorable state of Philippine education broadcast nationwide by ABS-CBN.  No, it's not due to an investigative report.  It's from an unlikely source - a noontime gameshow.

"Game Ka Na Ba?" hosted by Edu Manzano is admittedly one of my favorite local shows owing to the fact that it is a gameshow that does not exploit the poor - very much unlike GMA-7's "Eat Bulaga", or worse, Willie Revillame's "Wowowee" also in ABS-CBN.  Anyway...

Earlier today, I tuned in to GKNB and here was what I witnessed:

Almost all of the contestants were teachers, with matching uniforms (the show apparently has a regular "theme day" where there is something common in all contestants.)  The first round is designed to be the easiest, wherein Edu will ask giveaway questions in order for the lucky contestants picked from the crown to proceed to the next round.

What happened instead was that a LOT of teacher-contestants got eliminated in this round.  I watch this show almost everyday, and I'm telling you, it's difficult for someone to be eliminated in the first round.  For example: "Ano sa Inggles ang pinsang-buo?"   Easy enough, right?  For us maybe, but for one teacher she had a stumped look that made it painfully obvious she has never encountered the term "first cousin" in her life.

Here's another one.  A middle-aged teacher was asked "Anong buwan sa kalendaryo kung ang okasyon ay New Year's Eve?"  It is worth noting that Edu emphasized the word "eve", with matching facial expression.  The teacher took around 3 seconds to think (the time limit was 5 seconds) and said unsurely, "January?"

I would understand if these contestants were of the Eat Bulaga or Wowowee variety, but these are teachers who educate children. 

If you are a teacher, there's an expectation that you are at least more knowledgeable about general information than a lay person - and it does not really matter what subject you teach.  That's why it's really disappointing to hear one give the answer "Middle East?" to the question, "Saang kontinente matatagpuan ang Sahara Desert?"

It's not funny, and Edu, to his credit, did not rub it in (as he usually does whenever a contestant makes a mistake.)  It was really sad to see those teachers do their "walk of shame" when exiting the stage.  You could see the pained embarrassment in their faces after failing to answer very-easy-are-you-f*cking-kidding-me?-giveaway questions.

So there you have it, the state of Philippine education exposed by a gameshow (and not some self-serving, awards-craving investigative report.)

Oh by the way, did I mention that the contestants were private school teachers?









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photo credit: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a196/kren2/tv3.jpg

Comics

TAKING advantage of my few days off work, I figured I could use some of my free time by keeping myself updated on the developments in the Marvel and DC universes  (well, mostly Marvel).  It's been quite a while since I last read a genuine superhero comic book (the last I've read completely was The Age of Apocalypse), and so I indulged myself in this form of juvenile entertainment.

          At the risk of incriminating myself, I'd rather refrain from revealing my source for these voluminous comic books.  But suffice to say, my source enabled me to read the storylines that I wasn't able to follow even during my highschool and gradeschool days.  A case in point:  I've always wondered what exactly happened during the Infinity Gauntlet series when Thanos took possession of the Infinity Gems and gained omnipotence.  Now I know.    It was a series that wasn't too kind to the X-Men, what with Wolverine's adamantium skeleton being turned into rubber, or Cyclops' head being encased in a force cube, subsequently suffocating him until he dies.   And of course, who among the Earth-bound heroes miraculously survives everything after everyone else has fallen? - Captain America.  (Ugh.)

          I've also come across two storylines from Marvel that had the most impact in recent years.  The "House of M" and Civil War.  House of M follows an old Marvel formula of creating alternate histories arising from momentous, reality-shattering events.  In this case, it was the the deranged Scarlet Witch' reality-warping powers that enabled her change everything in such a way that mutants are the dominant race, and homo sapiens are a dying breed in a world ruled by Magneto.  It would have been an exciting read were it not for the fact that we've seen this sort of thing before.  At the end of it, something is bound to be done to correct the mistake and the "normal" reality once again takes place.

          Civil War is a refreshing storyline in that, while the conflict is all-encompassing, there is no resort at all to reality tampering-or time travelling.  It is also highly-political in it's approach where the world's superheroes are evenly divided in the middle between two opposing factions - one side led by Iron Man supports the government initiative of having anyone with superhuman abilities register themselves in order to be regulated state.  The other side is led by Captain America, who decries the initiative as a violation of their civil liberties.  The unfortunate conclusion of this is that the pro-registration forces won, and Captain America was later on assassinated while awaiting trial for treason.  I'm thinking that Marvel devised the Civil War plot to bring a semblance of order in their superhero universe - what with the sheer volume of super-powered beings they have produced.

          The only thing from DC that I found pleasurable to read was "Red Son" from their Elseworlds line.  In the storyline, they had the baby Superman crash-land in the Soviet Union instead of the United States.  That means Superman grew up in a farm collective, and being educated with Communist ideology.  I won't give much of the story away, except that it had a very interesting twist in the end (think along the lines of Groundhog Day - except that this one spans millenia.)

          "Death in the Family", also by DC, was a disappointment.  I was expecting more from the story (if not the artwork) becuase this was reputedly one of the most momentous events in Batman's history - where the second Robin, Jason Todd, is murdered by the Joker.  There was too little drama where there should have, and it even this bizaare ending where Joker was employed by Iran to be their United Nations ambassador.  I think I'll stick to "The Dark Knight Returns".

          Currently, I'm reading up on "Origin", which finally reveals Wolverine's origins, and how his claws first emerged in his early years.  It's interesting reading, and the artwork is superb.  For decades, the early years of Wolverine has been Marvel's best-kept ace in the sleeve.  How this will impact Wolverine's future marketability remains to be seen.

          There's a lot more out there that I'd like to read up on.  Fortunately, I have the time.

10 Years Ago today

10 years ago today would have been a Thursday.

It would have been near the close of the first semester of school year 1998-1999 during senior year in college.

I would have weighed around only 140 pounds, with a waistline that never went beyond 30 inches.  I would have remembered that the year before, it was only 28 inches, when I experimented with a vegetarian diet.

I would have woken up late, and possibly missed my first class for the day - either Bobby Guev's Theology of Liberation, or the History of Psychology under a teacher whose first name is "Gerry".

Having gone to school, I would have gone straight to the ACMG-Kaingin-LiKaS-Musmos Room in Colayco Hall, when it still existed.  I would have heard the Eucharistic song practices of ACMG members (many of whom were gay), the boisterous jokes of the Kaingin boys (most of which were green), the not-so boisterous huddles of Musmos (a number of whom were rather portly), and of course the wholesome chatter of my fellow LiKaS people (many of whom were Biology majors.  But I wasn't.)

It would have been the FInal 4 season in the UAAP, but most people in school wouldn't have really cared because at that time, the old Blue and White wasn't a basketball powerhouse yet.  (It would have been the final year of what Atenean basketball enthusiasts would later on refer to as "the dark ages".)

Visiting Austrian Professor Clemens Sedmak (from the University of Innsbruck) would have been my Philosophy of Religion teacher, and I would have thoroughly enjoyed his lectures - even though I would not have understood a good one-half of the discussions.

The Eraserheads would have still been popular at that time, but they would have also been undergoing the slow denouement that characterized their later years.  But I would not have really cared because I never was an Eraserheads fan.  This would have also been at a time when I was a sucker for 70s and 80s senti songs, which I would have pirated using cassette tapes.  (During that time, CD burning was almost unheard of.)  

This being the day before Friday, I would have earnestly anticipated the weekend - Friday being almost always reserved for some org activity or what was known then as "Coffee Nights" at Beanhoppers.  (Ah, "Beanhoppers", that's one name I haven't heard in a looooong while.)  And this anticipation would have rendered my afternoon classes a dreadful bore.

I would have spent the early hours of the evening hanging out in school or in McDonald's Katipunan, because for some reason I did not like going home early.  Speaking of McDonald's, I would have ordered my favorite meal which was the Cheese Burger meal.  And it would have cost the astonishingly low price of P50.00.

Going home, I would have ridden one of the jeeps that plied the UP-Katipunan route.  If one was not available under the overpass, opposite National Bookstore, I would have walked all the way to the jeepney terminal near Aurora Boulevard.  I would have gotten off at Nawasa, and walked towards the jeepney stop in front of Vinzons Hall in UP.  

I would have taken another jeep going to Philcoa, where I would have finally ridden a bus up until the Batasan stop in Commonwealth Avenue.  There would still have been a lot of tricycles that could take me inside the subdivision I live in.  But since this would have been at a time when I still had an inexhaustible amount of energy to burn, I would have just walked until I reached my house.

Lying on my bed at midnight, I would have wondered what I would be like 10 years from September 3, 1998.

Batulao Climb (08/02/2008), epilogue

          Quite different from what I expected, the descent was a lot harder than the ascent.  It was probably a combination of a lot of factors, but the most prominent of which was exhaustion.  There wasn't any real rest from the night before,  and before we knew it, we were on packing our bags for the trip back.

          Before Batulao, I can say I've never really experienced what it's like to be in a situation where "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak".  Well then, the cliche basically describes what I experienced during the final 2 kilometers of the return trek.  My mind was as sharp and focused as the day before when we were still approaching Batulao, but my legs seemingly were already made of lead.  Lara, Ehmer, Raymond and Krissy must have noticed that in our group, I badly lagged behind when we finally reached the foot of the mountain.  I simply could not will my legs to go faster.

          The day after, it was interesting to observe that my legs did not hurt, but instead, it was my shoulders that did.  The part of my shoulders where the straps of the backpack dug into hurt like hell and I had to apply Salon-Pas on them to kill the pain.

          There are two things worth mentioning regarding the trip, and they are both about some articles of clothing that I had the good fortune to possess and use during the climb.



          First, my Nike ACG shoes.  I've purchased the pair early last year for no other reason than the fact that it was on sale and it looked like it would go well with informal wear.  ACG apparently means "All Conditions Gear" and the pair served me well in getting a firm foothold in the slippery and muddy terrain.  I owe it to these shoes (and years of squat-ups that gave me strong thighs) that I never once fell during the climb.  I did come close to losing my balance a few times, but good thing the traction of the shoes helped me fix my footing.

          Second, my Maui heavy-duty rain jacket.  This is an old jacket I've purchased before the new millenium, and which I've always regarded as a mistake.  It is oversized, too bulky and too thick.  It wasn't designed for the tropical climate because it always caused me to produce an undue amount of sweat whenever I use it.  During the Batulao trip, however, it kept my backpack dry, thanks to its tough outer layer that was virtually waterproof.  In fact, I left this jacket outside the whole evening while the storm was raging outside.  The morning after, I saw it on the ground muddied and drenched, but when I inspected the inner cotton lining, it was DRY.  Amazing isn't it?








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          Anyway, I guess I'd like to thank the AWWC mountaineers for letting me tag along for this climb.  I'm not too keen on joining a major climb soon, but if there are "minor" climbs (possibly a return to Batulao in better weather conditions) I'll gladly sign up again.

         

Batulao Climb (08/02/2008)

First major test for Olga. It was a disaster, in a manner of speaking. The camera got wet and I had to place it in a sealed container with loads of silica gel bags to suck out the moisture.

In hindsight, I should have brought with me a point-and-shoot digicam.

Batulao Climb (08/02/2008), part 2

(To continue...)

          And all throughout, the rain became continuous.  No, it wasn't a spattering rain that made loud noises as it fell to the earth.  This was very fine rain, which, coupled with the high wind speed, was almost like a spray.  One moment you hear the wind whistling in your ears, the next moment your face is drenched with rainwater.

          This was, for me, the best part of the trip.  Walking through the rain with breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape, and hearing only the sounds of nature everywhere.  A number of times in the trail, I purposely let everyone go on ahead until they are out of sight.  It was a great feeling walking all alone on the trail - peaceful, overwhelming, triumphant, exhilarating - a lot of words you will only fully understand once you go there yourself.

         
          I was enjoying one of those solitary moments when I realized that it was already 6 pm.  That's when I panicked a bit because we were warned that it gets dark pretty quickly - and you don't want to be stuck on the trail in the dark alone.  I picked up the pace and caught up with my companions who were resting on a rocky peak.  It was only later when I remembered that there were a number of veteran climbers who were behind me in the trail so there really was no cause for worry.  

          What was genuinely cause for worry, however, was the condition of the campsite when we reached it.  It was already dark and the rain volume increased.  We set up the tents in this desperate condition, and a number us (including myself) began to worry about there not being enough tents for everyone.

          The fears were not unfounded.  In Ehmer's tent where I stayed in, there were three of us guys (the other guy is Raymond) who were packed like sardines in 3.5 x 6 feet of floor area.  We Considered ourselves fortunate because there was a group of three girls ("the Munings") who had an even smaller tent and which seemingly sucked in rainwater which pooled inside.

          Later on, when the wind speeds picked up and we realized that we were actually experiencing a storm, we assembled in the makeshift hut owned by the campsite watcher and proceeded to have dinner.  Ah, so this was what they called a mountaineer's meal.  We had brown rice (brought by myself), mixed tomatoes and salted eggs, and two types of soup (the kind labelled "Knorr" in the packaging.)

          Sleeping in the tent was an absolutely miserable experience.  Apparently, Ehmer pitched the tent in uneven ground.  On my side there was even a rock that slightly protruded to the surface - which poked on my tailbone.  This would later on cause some pain even a week after the trip.  

          In addition, moisture began to set on the inside of the tent - which meant that water began to accumulate in our tent too.  Since i was extremely on one side, i kept on catching the water that dripped down from the side of the tent.  Needless to say, it was very difficult to sleep even though I was exhausted to the bone.

          Later, before dawn, when it became apparent that we were no longer going to get any sleep, we accommodated Krissy (on of the "Munings") in our tent.  She was a welcome addition because it was getting boring and we guys needed someone to pick on (hehe).  Food was passed around from tent to tent and when we realized that most were already awake, everybody just began talking to each other.  It must have been a funny sight for an outside observer.  It was as if one tent was talking to another tent.  

          (It was also at this point where the mountaineers gave me a nickname - "Boy Bastos".  But that's another story.) 

          When dawn finally broke (it didn't really "break" in the usual sense of the word since the skies remained overcast) everyone gathered outside relieved that the rains gave us respite ,and to spend some time socializing.  It was unfortunate that the rains spoiled what could have been a great mountaineering adventure.  In particular, the chance to socialize with each other was severely limited.  Most of the morning was spent packing up for the trip back.  

          We've reached 8 peaks and in the morning we were supposed to go further and explore the other two.  But the veterans were unanimous in deciding that, lest the rains come back, we're better off descending the mountain.   When it was time for the trek back, it seemed as if all the atrocious things I experienced the night before was cleansed away.  I again enjoyed walking alone on the trail in the mist, with no sound at all except my footsteps and wind.  

          The trip back was as grueling as the trip going to the campsite, because we passed by the same 8 peaks we have reached.  It was like climbing 16 mountains all in all - 8 going to, and another 8 coming back - unlike a singular mountain where the descent is all downhill.

(To be concluded)