Coursera

This is not an advertising feature, but I highly recommend bored office workers, bums and semi-bums (like myself) to keep your brain cells active by going over to the site linked at the bottom of this page. At Coursera, I feel like a student again; most especially with the business course I took recently from Darden's (UVA) online school. I will admit that it's tough if you're juggling an unfamiliar course with a full-time job. In my case I had a flexible 9-hour online job, but had another part-time in addition to that, and was taking courses in between. As a result my concentration was divided and I spent my weekends studying instead of relaxing...nevertheless I always believe the benefits outweigh the costs.

WHY ENROLL?? 

1. Less burden on your wallet (or card). College may be affordable, depending on where you live in the world. But not everyone has access to it. And since education is a human right, Coursera staff unsolicitedly demonstrates their unwavering support through this site. That's right folks! It's totally fuh-REE! 

2. Reputable Institutions. Apart from the Ivy League institutions in the States, I'm not familiar with other high ranking state universities. I'm not even familiar with the cream of crop in the Asian region. Their school directory includes Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tokyo University as well as other more acclaimed schools like UC Berkley, Standford University, MIT and the like.

3. Portable classroom. Like any other open university, the lectures are downloadable; therefore you can watch it anywhere, at your convenient time. So if you're in the middle of a long vacation, or are on a long-haul flight, you can watch the videos on your smartphone, tablet or notebook and answer the quizzes right after. Like interaction? No problemo! Virtual interaction is made possible through the forums section of each course. In fact, if there's a large number of people taking the same course in a certain city, some students are serious enough to meet up and have a real face-to-face discussion about the course/ homework.

4. Personal calendar-friendly. Since most of the schools I've been enrolling in are located in America, I have more than half a day to submit requirements (papers/quizzes) before the deadlines. Thankfully, America's time is well-behind most countries, which entails convenience for us non-Americans to meet the usual midnight cut-off of the schools- because that would mean 8AM or later on a Monday (in my area, at least). The best thing is that I don't have to follow a strict regimen when i should start/finish a certain video. IF it's a familiar topic, I can watch all videos, answer the quiz and complete everything else in just 2 hours for an entire week. If not, it'll take at most 3 hours a day.

5. Up-to-date, competitive and relevant information. I regret to say that my undergrad was old-fashioned and conservative to some extent. Some of the tables we had to memorize for BMI (body-mass index) interpretation were no longer used in the West. Global trends on nutrition labeling, thought-provoking discoveries on diabetes, business strategies of incumbent valuable companies were yet another indispensible bit of information I learnt from this platform. Might be even more practical (let alone reasonable) than taking a full second degree, like I had originally planned after my undergrad.

6. Rehearsals for studying abroad. So you've gotten admission to your dream school, and you're just passing the time doing nothing but waiting for reality to sink in. Well, this is nothing short of the perfect way for to practice while on an English speaking/listening hiatus after the nerve-wracking TOEFL/IELTS and/or GMAT exams. Most lectures are administered in English, and is therefore fitting for you MBA/Graduate School hopefuls to brush up before the actual thing.  

If these six reasons aren't persuasive enough, check out https://www.coursera.org/

YOU CAN'T MUTE A MUTE

It's fourty-five after four in the afternoon and I am sitting next to a
clique of mutes here at a coffee shop in my town.
As you would imagine, they try to explain themselves through multiple gestures until
their peers understand their point.
But you (nor they) have any idea how incredibly loud they are.

The first five minutes they were here, I was too engrossed in my work to notice what their deal was.
I had assumed they were playing CHARADES or something.

Ten minutes later they were still quiet. I only heard them giggle every other half minute.

At first I thought that being next to them, I was in luck because I could get some
peace and quiet here while finishing my case study.
But now I'm involuntarily learning their single-syllabled vocabulary while wasting my time blogging about them instead of doing my work.

I hope I get done with my paper before my laptop's battery runs out...

2NE-4

For some reason, I can't fall asleep tonight...
I've been lying restless in bed for the past 3 hours....
I'd usually read some medical/science journal coz that would put me to sleep in no time.... but that didn't work out..
Oh well, I might as well as blog...I hope i feel drowsy enough at the end of this...

This day last year....
I was relaxing from a tiresome business trip in Cebu.
I had a late dinner with my boss and a guy who everyone was trying to set me up with;
got surprised by the live band at the bar when they sang Happy Birthday to me at midnight;
retired from drinking by hanging out at the bar at our hotel;
got saved by the same guy from drinking a shot of tequila, which was a treat by another guy we were drinking with;
sanely danced Teach Me How to Dougie with baristas, coz the guy was too shy (?)

This day two years ago....
I was too stingy to celebrate with others..
I bought myself my first iPod touch....

This day three years ago.... 
I ruined a huge surprise party my friends were supposed to throw me.
I rented a pool and bought pizza for a group of friends and myself and
witnessed my guy friends dance and sing for me at midnight after swimming.
later that day I was watching the Pyrolympics Competition (fireworks synced with music) on Manila Bay with my close friends and cousins.

This day four years ago.... 
I was still in college, and was returning home from on the job training, which was interviewing mothers around the community about their eating habits.
I suddenly felt like celebrating at 10PM with the crowd I used to hang out with.
Back then, it was still safe to be walking around at night and we played a lot of computer games back then till the wee hours of the morning....

This day five years ago....I was rushing a paper for my diet therapy class but because we had just gotten our internet cable hooked up, I got sidetracked with answering the greetings on my Facebook page with a :).Thankfully I don't have to waste time doing that this year. LOL.

It's on birthdays you know who your friends are... they don't need a social networking site to remind them someone's waiting to be greeted. 

Valentines Day

I'm a photo-blogger this week...
sorry i don't have time to write down my feelings...


HOW MY DAY STARTED . . . 

Thank you to my friend who gave me this.

You really didn't have to. . .

Had I known you would be bringing me something, I would have asked for Natto... hahaha :D


HOW IT ENDED . . .

This is what greeted me when I came home from my date.
A B. marinus on V-Day.... how much awkward could the night get?

Monday with a sense of humor

Yesterday, I found several reasons to smile. Good thing I had a camera on hand to capture those moments.

Fig 1. New menu offerings at Starbucks

1. Strawberry Granola Yogurt Cake and Hoji-cha latte @ Starbucks.
It's strawberry reason in the Philippines; well, at least in the Northern part where it is abundantly grown. I'm so happy to see it paired with other healthy ingredients like granola and yogurt. It's a rather unique combination to most Filipinos, but I think it'll be a mainstay on their menu.
The tea was familiar to me, as I've had it in the country of its origin- Japan; but this was served with milk and sugar. I didn't hate it but I'm not used to having those additives in my cuppa. I tried it only because I'm a big tea afficionado and am a sucker for Starbucks' Chai Latte. In fact that's the only drink I order there. I figured that maybe another tea drink of theirs would appeal to me.


2. Feng Shui / Chinese Horoscope
I'm not sure if that's what it's called, but for some reason these huge red banners printed with some person's forecasts for love/business/family, greatly beckoned the people's attention. It was unbelievable! The picture below isn't clear but I surprised to see even businessmen taking out their iPads just to take pictures of what the walls had to say for them.

Once upon a time, there were twelve animals summoned by a Chinese emperor to race each other. The order in which they arrived at the palace, corresponds to a person's birth year. 2013 is supposed to be my year, but I don't really believe what they predict about the future. I think the future is unpredictable, so astrology, zodiacs and horoscope are the things I'd least like to know about.

Fig 2. Chinese horoscope believers at the mall.

3. Confidential information now required when paying cheques...or so I thought.

Fig 3. The newly renovated confession chamber. 

I saw this while paying for my electricity bill yesterday.
Good thing I pay in cash (LOL).

Isn't it enough that I confess my sins to God? Now I have to confide in my electricity provider? Just kidding... 
I completely understand what sin tax means. I just never expected it to be required at a billing office.






4. The beautiful view while jogging
....Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnd we're back to the summer season. It had been pretty chilly in the past month. I had to wear a denim jacket sometimes to keep warm, especially during the night. But yesterday, the sun had not yet set by 4:30PM. It was still bright by the time I finished my third lap and it was less breezy compared to last week. Maybe it'll be a good idea to celebrate Valentines at the beach this year.
Because it was fitting to the humid atmosphere, I chose to listen to Grease Lightning's Summer Nights while jogging back home.

Fig 4. My campus during my afternoon jog. .

5. Nationalistic murals and Oble

Arts and Humanities 2 is a subject where we study and do contemporary art. It was my first time to see the students' masterpieces displayed outdoors. They would usually be hung in one of the halls of the buildings on campus; otherwise they'd be mounted on the walls of one of the dark cellars of a fifty- year old facility, temporarily transformed into an art gallery. Since it depicted historical scenes, I thought it was a good move of the Arts professors because a lot of foreigners were taking their pictures with the canvasses in the background, and were inquiring the Filipino students about the story behind them. The statue of a naked man in the foreground is our university's symbol meaning freedom. We refer to him as Oblation; Oble for short.

6. A Promil Kid on Skype

There is a connotation in the Philippines that talented kids drink a certain brand of milk (Promil). My first online student last night was an impressive five year-old, who left me in awe after he insisted on showing me how well he could play his keyboard. I didn't know the piece he played but it sounded really good- he's definitely not an amateur. After he played, he wanted to hear me play. So I sang while playing Love Song by Sara Bareilles, which was of course unfamiliar to him. The whole lesson time was spent showing off our skills, which wasn't right for an English lesson but he and his mom asked me to...challenge accepted :D 

Friday Afternoon at the Grad School Fair

Today, I attended what I suppose is a pre-February Fair of Masters and PhD students at my undergrad university. Feb Fair is the most anticipated time of the schoolyear, next to graduation. Various student organizations (academic, religious, sorority/fraternity, athletic, music, etc) set up their own booths on the campus grounds and take shelter there from afternoon 'til night while listening to a series of performances from amateur rock bands and hip-hop dancers, to surpirse appearances of alumni-turned-celebrities, to a very much-raved-about university-wide beauty pageant. There are other exciting events such as paintballing, rock climbing, a motor show, zip lining, a sort of timed tight-rope walking over a twenty-five meter swimming pool, second hand books on sale, uncountable food stalls.....but I'll set aside the details (and photos) for a future blog entry.

Fig 1. Ultra spicy pad-thai.

Going back to the topic at hand, I had seen a Facebook announcement about the 'fair' with the subheading 'Thai Food' neath it. I didn't have to think twice. I decided to open my teaching schedule earlier in the day, drop by my boss' office at university, hang out with my friends at the food fest and probably watch the play that the orchestra I used to belong at university, would be playing at. Unfortunately that last part didn't happen.

Fig 2. Rice cakes filled with coconut-paste.

Fig 3. An Indonesian bean dish.

Fig 4. A very animated demonstration of papaya-salad.

I made it to the campus grounds by five and before I knew it, I was already buying my first half-a-dollar item. It wasn't Thai, but it would do. I was really hungry after Skyping for 3.5 hours straight. I certainly wasn't expecting other Southeast Asian food to be served, but sadly that's what I spent most of my cash on. I only had a few spoons of a very spicy Pad Thai, an even spicier salad which left me terribly parched at the end. The drinks weren't even cold. There was some ''unrefreshing' juice sold for 5 pesos (~12 cents). I was unsatisfied and even thought about advising them to label it TEA. I guess, one area they obviously failed to consider was how to keep the guests properly hydrated. I regretfully had to buy a bottle of coke, to quench my thirst. (and I have that to thank for, in keeping awake to write this blog). The only thing I enjoyed for sure was the coconut-stuffed rice cakes, which wasn't really unique to my taste buds. At every stall, there was at least one dish made of rice. I even encountered grilled rice cakes, which I didn't quite like the sound of. 

Fig 5. Vietnamese stuff.

In addition to food, there was karaoke (which I couldn't get hold of, even if I wanted to), a costume booth, and other native goods that I just wasn't that interested in. But to balance how I felt about the event, a gay Laotian enthusiastically demonstrated how to make a Papaya salad, while struggling to speak in Taglish (combined Tagalog and English). I wasn't too sure his hands were clean when he hand-picked the grated papaya which was the base of the salad. I was impressed however, that he could shake his hips like a belly dancer while slicing tomatoes in the palm of his left hand.

After chatting and taking photos with some international students, my friends and I bid goodbye and decided to drive out of campus to have a decent dinner. We ended up at some slightly cozy, red-walled, Mexican-ish restaurant. We ordered appetizers and iced tea instead of more grains, because we realized that we wouldn't be able to sleep with full stomachs later. 

Fig 6. An unclear shot of us and the graduate school president.

SHIZUOKA

After my 8AM-6PM trip to Kyoto on my third day, I hung out with other young professionals at Jesus Lifehouse Osaka (the Hillsong church at Shinsaibashi which I didn't get to on my first day). We sang, listened to a preaching, dined out together and talked with local believers. To my surprise, there were a lot of Aussies, Brits and Americans in the church. So there actually is a lot of opportunities to get involved in an English community when in Japan. An hour later, I rushed back to my hotel in Umeda to fetch my baggage, and took a taxi to Umeda Sky Building. Before boarding the bus bound for Shizuoka, I charged my phone because it was used the entire day while in Kyoto and I needed battery to keep track of where my bus was. I couldn't understand a thing the conductor said during the trip. He assumed all the passengers were Japanese. And it's a good thing my phone wasn't updated to the new iOS, otherwise I'd be lost. 

I met my student's husband at JR Shizuoka station at six the following morning, and eventually met her (and her cute dog) in person at their lovely modern Japanese home. Breakfast was elaborate- better than she had described it over Skype. I felt like I had come over for Osechii (New Year's meal). The bento box was huge and had quaint details all over it. I had neglected to take a picture of it because I was excited to eat what was in it. I documented the content of each compartment instead.

Fig 1. The infamous Natto
(fermented soybeans) 

It was my first encounter with Natto (fermented soybeans) and I loved it. Well yeah, it does smell like feet, but I try not to imagine eating parts of my body while eating it. I ate it with mustard and some soy sauce. It was really sticky- kind of like mozzarella cheese on pizza; but you had to eat this with chopsticks, so it was all the more challenging. Other foods included breaded oyster and chicken (figure 2), Edamame (mature green bean) and Gomame (black sesame) tofus (Fig 6), Tsukemono (Fig 7), and fish cakes with a herb that tasted lemony and minty at the same time (Fig 8).

Fig 2. Tempura oyster and chicken

Fig 3. Another breakfast item-
I forgot what it's called.

Fig 4. Boiled salad,

Fig 5. Miso Soup.

Fig 6. Two varieties of tofu.

Fig 7. Clockwise from top:
Pickled eggplant, cucumber and plum. 

Fig 8. Kamaboko with shiso.

Fig 9. A staple of Japanese meals
- short grained rice.

Like all Japanese meals, my breakfast came with hot tea. My appetite was sated, and I thought that would last me the entire day. But little did I know, there was more in store for my stomach.

Fig 11. The Sado master at work.

Fig 10. Japanese me.

By nine, my student took me to a tea ceremony class at a traditional Japanese home. The teacher was a Sado Master, so she's been catering to guests for more than ten years. I got to fit a kimono and while I was changing, Japanese music played in the background. I felt like Sayuri in Memoirs of a Geisha.. all I had to do now was get my face painted white and do a geisha dance. I entered the tea room with my student and the teacher verbally demonstrated how to make tea using sophisticated utensils. There were times wherein she had to rotate the cup in a certain direction before serving it to us. I wondered why all the routine in preparing tea, but I had forgotten to ask her the reason. 

We had the tea with wagashi (Japanese sweets). After eating, it was my turn to impress the Sado Master- fortunately I passed, I just don't have the jpegs to prove it. 

Fig 12. Japanese sweets to accompany the tea we drank.

We had some Kaki (persimmon) after the ceremony. I hesitated at first because I have never liked the taste of the fruit whenever my cousin bought me some from the market around my hometown. But at the same time, I might insult the lady if I refused. So I accepted them, and it was not bad at all. In fact, my perception of kaki changed; maybe because it was served cold. Lowering temperature of foods, does make food taste sweeter. I appreciated her gesture and gave her Philippine wagashi in exchange for hosting the unique experience. 

Fig 13. My student and I at Choji-ya.

My student and her husband drove me to a local wasabi museum. I saw the different ways how Japanese use the 'spicy' root- in KitKat, embedded like a chip in Nori (seaweed) sheets, incorporated into soy sauce, put into soda, and even to flavor soft serve. They challenged me to do the wasabi shower where I had to push a button afterwhich wasabi gas would diffuse from the ceiling, at a rate of what seemed to be a rapid ten meters per second. The vapor reached my eyes and before I knew it my sockets profusely swelled up in tears. I exited the room laughing at myself. I love wasabi but I'm not used to getting it in my eyes.

Next we headed to Chojiya, an old restaurant which specializes in Tororo-Jiru (wild yam soup). It was my first time to sit on the floor at a restaurant. Though I didn't get pins and needles while sitting, I was more conscious of my blouse because it wasn't long enough to cover my lower back. Still that didn't stop me from my 'annoying' ritual before eating. I spent three minutes of shooting the food before we finally dug in. 

Fig 14. Hijiki (seaweed) salad.

Fig 15. I forgot what this is.

Fig 16. Amazing starchy tororo jiru. 

Fig 17. Karaages topped with fish and shiitakes.

We literally ran back to the JR station, to catch up with the next shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo. FYI, all trains in Japan follow a schedule and they stick to it. If you miss a shinkansen, you'll have to wait for the next schedule, which in my case was ninety minutes later. Incidentally, the train's schedule is displayed on google maps, so you can check it up and make plans ahead of time.
I thanked my student for a wonderful gastronomic experience and hospitality then bid farewell. Tokkaido region did not disappoint one bit. I enjoyed there a lot and left with a good glimpse of Mount Fuji.

Fig 18. Snow capped mountain- something I don't get to see
everyday while riding the train.