A Bit Ready for Tomorrow

So precious holiday season in 2015 was spent in the office instead of at home. It's okay, as a family we hardly travel together and we see each other every weekends except when I have out-of-town trips. I see it as some sort of distraction to keep me from missing the Light too much. It was the first Christmas, first New Year that she was not with us.

Yesterday browsing through photos in my external HD, I found not a few pictures of her. And luckily she was, for the most part, my subject when I first got hold of my Sony camera in 2011. It's comforting to know that I have saved the videos which still make me laugh because of the silly things she does when on cam, knowing I am behind the camera.

Makes me thankful that at the very least these gadgets are attainable by ordinary people like me. In the 90s only the rich can afford camcorders.

Good news is that I finally was able to tick off five items on my holiday to-do list:

1. Write an article for an online newspaper about the ugly side of the holiday season. I focused more on the huge amount of trash and on illegal street vendors who block pedestrian pathways. The 24th and the 25th were days I finally took courage to bring my camera and do fieldwork in the metro, something I would always shy away from for fear of having my cam stolen.

2. Send photos of artifacts requested by an ex-professor. I have sent the same zipped file for her countless times before. I hope this is the last time. Digging through my files just eats up time for me thanks to my unfocused mind and my tendency to reminisce while looking up photos and videos.

3. Complete tasks for a new project.

4. Finish checking the articles for our little project which ended last November. It's a one-girl team doing all the checking of more than 700 articles!

5. Complete registrations to events. Fingers crossed with hopeful heart.

Now only a few more left:

1. Work on blog backlogs. But sometimes I question myself if it's still relevant. On the other hand, for memories' sake, I'll still do it.

-SG (with focus on my first day spent at Palau Ubin)

-South Korea

-Oriental Mindoro (done with the excavation part, will write about mapping)

-Cavinti falls + visita iglesia part 2 in Laguna

-Laguna part 1 continuation

-farm visit in Sta. Maria, Laguna (my 2015 weekends seem to be spent mostly either in Pangasinan or in Laguna).

-HK wetland park (this I really have to write about)

-Pangasinan part 1

-MX (Teotihuacan, National Museum of Anthropology, Vasconcelos Library)

-Theaters (Rak of Aegis, Mga Buhay na Apoy, Haring Lear)

-Movies (Oro Plata Mata, Stand By Me, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, +plane movies during my MX trip)

2. Transfer my Math noted to index cards. The materials are ready but I just found it hard to sneak this into my schedule.

3. Finish the books I started to read in 2015. Too many to mention. Classic drifter here, yo!

4. Work on my academic papers for publication based on my drafts. At least I was able to present these already. Worked in reverse of what happened in 2014 when I first had my full paper for presentation.

5. Finish the series I started from 2014. (Not really a priority... But I'm itching to share my thoughts on some cool anime series I stumbled upon.)

6. Play music. This I do occasionally to calm my overactive mind.

So there. I'm sure I will have another busy year this year. Bring it on, 2016!

The Art of Literature

Today as I try to put some order in the bedroom, I chanced upon this small piece of paper. Looking back, as a college student, I would borrow books from the library, books which were not required reading but which interested me. My happiest days in college were spent savoring Chinese classic novels and feasting on the literary gems in the form of poetry from different countries. I loved Japanese poetry best, for the subtlety and elegance, the delicate mix of melancholy and celebration of sorrows.

This piece of paper is a transaction receipt from the College of Arts Library, indicating my borrowed items: "Cosmology in Antiquity" and Arthur Schopenhauer's "The Art of Literature". It is from the latter that I derived the quotes in the pic.

On style, Schopenhauer writes that there are two kinds of tediousness:
1. Objective- author has no perfect knowledge he wantd to communicate.
2. Subjective- reader is disinterested in the topic of the author.

Other important thoughts that I found valuable enough to note down are:

"Authors should use common words to say uncommon things."

"Words make truth intelligible."

"Le secret pour être ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire. (...) To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable signs of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius."

"The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting."

On life, which I had been enlightened to at an early age while lapping up the Book of Ecclesiastes:

"Human life is short and fleeting."

On good books:

"A good book should be read at least twice."

On above, I have read not a few good books but due to lack of time, I seldom read a book twice. The Bible I have read numerous times simply because it was the only book I could get hands onto at home when I was young. Now with so many books in my collection, I very rarely reopen a loved book unless required or compelled to do so.

Food in Mexico

Because I can't seem to get enough of Mexican food...

what I cooked for my hosts in Campeche

my first meal in DF with...

tomato soup (LOVE this!) and...

love the chips. The bread were good, too!

Had this in Teotihuacan. Complete meal and very delish!

Conference food. Love the bacon!

at an eatery near St. Jude Thaddeus Church near Reforma. This one's got a funny taste, but probably just the corn in the tortilla

oat crackers which I bought for my long bus ride

inside La Venta they sell pozol, a chocolate drink with maize. YUM!

And this pack of potato chips made my day in Villahermosa!

my last meal in Villahemosa consists of this sopas, this very refreshing lemonade, and..

the chicharron rice!

free breakfast in the hostel

Halloween 2015

On Halloween, I visited the Light's grave in Taytay. I almost didn't recognize the area where her tomb was because other tombs suddenly mushroomed around. I lighted two candles, and left sweets, cookies from HK, and biscuits from Mexico. She would have been delighted to eat those were she still with us.

On the way, I got hungry so I had quick lunch at a small Japanese resto. My order was pork tonkatsu. Now, I'm not fond of pork but I had no choice. It was the cheapest that was available. The meat was too thin but made to look thick by the batter and bread crumbs. Fairly decent but it feels like consuming oil and grease.

looks yummy to a hungry gal on a budget

one can barely see the meat...

 After that, I met up with Archaeo boy and we had dinner, his treat, at Salliano's Restaurant & Bar in Marikina. I love Marikina when it's not raining. It's probably the cleanest city in NCR. It was the first time that I had Spam fries. Basically it's spam sliced like thick French fries, battered, then fried. It's amazing except I'm not a big fan of Spam so I only had a few pieces. We also had chips and the bestseller garden salad. Love the walnuts in the salad.

Light's tomb

Then off I rushed to SM North EDSA to have a date with my sister. The mall was having a Garfield exhibit and my sister, a Garfield fan despite her age, wanted to have her pics taken. I was late, many thanks to the traffic, and she was a bit mad about it but we still had dinner at Lugang Café in The Block.

xiaolongbao: good enough but Shi LIn's still the best!

xiaolongbao up close

beef noodles: This I LOVE!

fried spring rolls: I thoroughly appreciated the vinegar dip. Didn;t enjoy this that much though normally I'm a fan of spring rolls. Probably because I have had too much of fried food for the day.

Christmas 12252015

Christmas Day this year was spent in the office, one hour shy of completing my normal shift but I had to go because I wanted to spend sometime in a church as I did last year. Except I didn't go to my peaceful sanctuary because I left later than planned so I opted for the nearer church.

We had free lunch meals ordered from Cafe Nenzo as in last year. I love the fish fillet with garlic and butter. The cheesecake was exciting at first but the heaviness of cream cheese made me just gulp down the whole thing with water. The chocolate cake was one of the best ones I've had, to think I don't even like chocolate cake. But this one had just the right sweetness and the cake itself was moist. Yummy!

While to many working on holidays suck, I welcome the opportunity because I am more productive when I am alone. I get a lot of work done and I think better when alone.

Before heading home I dropped by Booksale to claim my reserved books: Pillars of the Republic and The Journals of Lewis and Clark. The latter is something I have been wishing for but it was always priced in the P150-P250 range so now that it dropped to P50 I saw my chance of having a copy. The other book is not much of interest to me but the blurb says something about common-school development before the American Civil War. Lately I have become interested in developments of systems and institutions as opposed to my earlier obsessions on origins (that's why I took up archaeology in the first place).

Walking on major roads, one can see the ugly side of Christmas. No wonder I am always gloomy and in a bad mood at this time of the year. Metro Manila is turned into one big stinking garbage city thanks to the undisciplined people and also to the MMDA's little effort in apprehending the violators of the Anti-Littering Law.

As I was looking for my last jeepney ride, I chanced upon one empty but on the inner lane so I hopped inside. The driver asked me where I was headed to because he was about to go home already. Just so happened that he would pass by near where I live so he told me there was no need to pay even though I insisted many times. So I just wished him a Merry Christmas.

Hazard Maps Seminar @UP NIGS 12052015

Last December 6, I attended a seminar which was forwarded to me by a former ASP classmate. When I first received the invitation, I couldn't inform H immediately if I could make it since that Saturday was already allotted for the office's center-wide Christmas party, something I shouldn't miss since the theme is Rock Music and all of my fave rock bands are sure to be reinterpreted in the different teams' performances. In the end, my love for maps prevailed. I also wasn't too keen on going to Pampanga to party all night.

It was also the last day of a personal project so I decided to just skip the party in favor of this seminar. It doesn't disappoint. Maybe because I am neither an architect nor an urban planner nor a geologist that's why I was happy to have learned a lot. Because mapping is integral in archaeology simply because spatial analyses are also involved, I was super interested in this seminar. It also gave me a chance to know other uses for mapping and why it is suddenly becoming the "in" thing especially in matters involving disaster risk management and mitigation.

Finally happy to see the great Dr. Mahar Lagmay in person (so I made sure to get a fullbody shot!). He talked about Project NOAH, what the project has done so far and upcoming projects which I am very excited about. I hope I can be part of this project. It looks so cool and I have visited their den in NIGS once when we were toured there. And I so love their sophisticated equipment!!! I regret not taking up Geology in college. #cries

Introduced as Dr. Mahar Lagmay's righthand man, Mr. Oscar Lizardo is Project NOAH's Chief Technology Officer who talked about how the average person can use the database developed by Project NOAH and how to leverage the NOAH app.

Arch. Geomilie Guittap discusses the oft-ignored part in disaster management: how to deliver relief goods to affected communities. Hers is an interesting talk that draws parallelism and notes differences between commercial supply chain and humanitarian relief chain. The speaker is someone I would really love to connect to since she is confidently smart with a beautiful heart. (Inspired by Pia Wurtzbach's response in the recently concluded Ms. Universe Pageant.)

Arch. Nicasio Espina Jr. talked about how risk and hazard maps influence design and urban planning and talked a lot about the CLUP (Comprehensive Land Use Plan). While it is cool that we have the CLUP, I am actually far more interested in how CLUP is used, or is it just another theory sadly unused in practice? (I love hs curly hair! And he resembles Hiro Mizushima, the actor who played the lead character in Kamen Rider Kabuto...)

And so spending the whole day in my beloved alma mater, what else is there to regret? Definitely nothing. Parties end when they end, but seminars make possible the beginning of something wonderful because great ideas are shared on the floor for the benefit of mankind.

That ^, and finally knowing a little bit more about urban planning. 

Mindoro Excavation

Last February, I was lucky to have been invited to the on-going archaeological excavation in Mindoro. I've been wanting to go but I'm a bit shy in asserting that to the project director even though he had helped me before in my lithics paper and in return I arranged his books and created a digital inventory of his collection.

a statue of the tamaraw outside the airport

The moment I stepped out of the airport feeling a bit sick because I just had my period early in the morning before my flight, I was greeted by a statue of a tamaraw and I was excited. I was thinking that I should see a tamaraw during my ten-day stay in Mindoro but that didn't happen, unfortunately.

Ilin Island where Bubog I and II are located

Right on my first day, I was tasked to carry excavation tools aside from my personal belongings up to the site in Belat Cave. It hurt a little and I curse at my girlhood for being such a nuisance to activities I love best. Still I carried on and never whined about my condition until we were safely in the resort because I had need of sanitary napkins!

The trench in Bubog I where we got sediment samples per layer

On the second day, I was glad that I was assigned in Bubog II in Ilin Island. After working there, we were treated to beach time! Yay! So glad I brought my swimwear with me.

Ah the ship... I mean banca

Photo of a volunteer by yours truly: super proud to have done this :)

We have the freshest seafood and other food for lunch prepared by our local boys. Sometimes we have grilled fish, sometimes ensalada which was awesome (to think I don't normally eat ensalada in Manila), sometimes we have grilled pork... And the sauce that the locals make are soooo good! I never have any want in energy because we ate healthily. We even had crabs on my first day there. It was such a pleasant surprise.

sea urchins, gecko?, various shells recovered from Bubog II

sunset at a nameless sandbar: stopover before returning to the resort

a dramatic shot of sunset

What I will certainly miss about the Mindoro excavation is... Okay scrap that. I miss so many things in Mindoro. The weather, the sunsets, the funny and witty German director, the visiting archaeologist from Germany who also speaks Spanish and French so we got to practice those languages together (and I visited her in Mexico), the food (fresh seafood!!!), the beaches (who doesn't love the beach?),  oh and simply being able to wield the trowel and be an archaeologist again! I love doing permatraces. I would love to really master the total station.

local kiddoes who greet us everytime we return to the resort

a view from my hidden sanctuary in Inasakan Beach also in Ilin Island but on the other side of the Bubog sites

Hoping to be able to participate in next year's excavations. I was again invited this July but I chose to attend the conference in Mexico and promised the director that I will definitely join next time. Beautiful Mindoro will always be special in my heart. Also, did I mention that what I love about the project is that it's got not many volunteers so I'm not stressed with people that much.

sunset at Inasakan Beach