the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

a look back into the past to start the new year right...

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia     Where I live now, it is December, and the nights are warm and heavy, and the sea is always calm, and the grass is fading yellow on the field. A man stands along the boulevard, his feet treading, it seems, on the horizon itself. On a bustling Monday afternoon, only sky and sea matter.   January had offered only the anticipation of the unknown and the uncertain--possibility! It was the beginning of the end, I sensed. Only, I had a vague idea of what it meant. Four months later, I had moved out of my office of four years, moved out of my rented place, and moved out of Cebu .   I was adrift for the first time in my life. I had no source of income or guidance about where to go next. All I had was a restlessness I couldn’t define telling me that my life as I had known it till then had to end.   But surely the end of the present must mean the beginning of the future. The problem was, I could see only a frightening dark wall before...

a summary of things i've managed to keep records of, whether on paper or in my steadily dimming memory.     TRAVEL   Scratched off my always-wanted-to list   MAR - Diving in Tinggo off Olango, Monad Shoal off Malapascua APR - 11-day backpacking tour of Palawan (PPC, El Nido, Sabang, Honda Bay, Narra) MAY - Going up Osmena Peak     - Seeing the Liloan lighthouse JUL - Canopy walk in Cagayan de Oro AUG - Road trip with Mama (Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental, Davao Sur, North Cotabato ) SEP - Diving in Arbor and Granada off Boljoon     - Working in Mindanao (ComVal, Davao Norte, Davao Sur for an agrarian reform project) NOV - Road trip with Papa (DVO-CDO by bus, CDO-DMGTE by boat, DMGTE-CBU by EZ-ride, pumpboat, and v-hire, BOLJOON-CBU CITY by multicab and v-hire)   Unexpected bonuses   FEB - seeing the Supreme Court in session in Manila MAR - 6-day backpacking tour of Southern Cebu (Argao-Alcoy-Moalboal-Badian), with separate to...

this morning i just took my first prelims exam, so i'm giving myself a short break/ reward before i start working again on my students' papers and studying for the next exam. i'm writing a blog entry to commemorate it because 1) i had only a vague idea of how exams for grad school and for Silliman and for this notoriously difficult professor went, and 2) this was the first time i actually studied for an exam since college (!). i was even afraid i'd forgotten how. i mean as far as i can remember, the only exams i've taken after college are the professional civil service exam and the TOEFL, and THOSE aren't things you study for =P actually, i think i HAVE forgotten how to study, as in college-style where you focus on all the little details that might come out in trick questions. fortunately, i have the sense now to read for the sake of understanding rather than for getting as many words into my head as possible that i can use in the exam. which means i didn't ...

December 8, 2006. For the first time, my Powershot A540 went to school to with me so I could take pictures of tissue slides under the microscope, to help my students review for their lab exam. To my delight, and even with many instances of poor focusing, my A540 still came through =D Never before did I think it possible that I could shoot cells through an ordinary compound microscope (sunlight and mirrors still the best!) with an ordinary digital camera. And so allow me to share my excitement over my first microscope shots (aren't they cute??). And my joy at actually recognizing the types and parts of the tissues based on the textbook description hehe. Next time, will shoot corals under the stereoscope--something I saw for the first time the day before this. It's an even more fascinating landscape! I'm finding more and more reasons to love biology =D

November 30, 2006 - Martisan, Bacong, Negros Oriental. In commemoration of Bonifacio's heroic death, or perhaps of the fact that all classes had been suspended for the intrams, Stephen and the usual gang of DMs got together, this time for a night dive at Mandarin Point--my first one on this island. I was content turning off my light (which was weak, anyway--gotta get myself an LED!) and watching the bioluminescent plankton. Thankfully, Vera kept spotting all the good stuff that made it worth the trip for my camera. No mandarin fish, but I DID see some movement in the little volcanoes that i saw last time . Since one of the dive objectives was spearfishing, we had fresh lapu-lapu for dinner (cooked in some mysterious European style by Stephen =P), but thankfully had beef and spaghetti as back-up. Had to bring my oceanography book to make sure I didn't fall behind schedule in my readings for class, but reading about the sea while sitting in front of the sea is no effort at all. ...