More than a bird's nest: El Nido wins PATA Award

Just in case you live inside a box, you probably already know we live in a tropical country where it rains during summer season and it’s freakishly hot during the cold months.

I am not scientist (but if you will count my four years spent in a special science high school, I am) but the relation of the sun to great beaches is kind of high. (I speak from the perspective of a science student who majored on theater and arts.)

Recently, I chanced upon a news article saying that El Nido’s Be G.R.E.E.N. campaign won the prestigious PATA award.

Ok. What’s PATA? Check the meaning of PATA here. What’s El Nido? Check El Nido here.

El Nido remains one of my most desired places to visit. I’ve visited Palawan last year but only got as far as the jeepney terminal going to the Underground River or the boat to El Nido.

Now, I am torn if in saving Pxx,xxx.xx, I will climb Mt. XXXXXXXX or visit El Nido.

For the article about El Nido’s Be G.R.E.E.N. project, check the link.

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We live in a world of biodegradables

Kenneth Cobonpue: World's First Biodegrable Car

It’s more beautiful than the Batmobile – a testament of how truly amazing Filipinos are. But sometimes, I am slightly bothered by our tendency to overreact whenever we hear of Filipino achievements abroad. Let’s say for example, a certain designer gets the Hollywood nod for creating avant-garde furniture pieces. We become aware of it, and the awareness wells into increasing enthusiasm, then a buzz is escalated into full-blown news that ring in our media sphere for weeks. I have nothing against us celebrating our Filipino achievements, but are we that intimated as a nation that simple things make us giddy? Like me! Other nations don’t do it. Maybe because they already know they’re good. I just hope we know we’re that good. Or we do. We’re just too humble to act it out. Or I don’t know. I don’t know.

Kenneth Cobonpue from Inquirer.net

And this is not about a small thing. When I read the news, I even felt like I was transported in another universe. It looked completely alien and otherworldly.

Imagine yourself creating a masterpiece that makes people’s hair rise. I am convinced our talents, when pooled, can create a new world.

I have a question though. Was this created with Manila in mind? Because I simply cannot drive this car around without feeling my carbon exposure meter shooting to the heavens. And by “biodegradable," does it mean the design disintegrate during the flood season? Like paper?

There’s talk about installing electric motor power into it. So it was not made with the idea of it actually performing transportation functions?

It doesn't matter. I love KC. I love Filipinos. I love cars. I don't own one. I just like saying it.

For the article on World’s 1st Biodegradable car, please click on the link.

Image source.

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Sleeping in an Airport - We have the worst airport in Asia (You didn't know?)

Sleeping in an airport

Do you sleep in airports?

It’s official. We have the worst airport in Asia. After years of denial, someone finally realized it’s no use hiding it. It has circulated the web last week and each time I encounter a link to the news, I close my window, turn off my laptop and walk away.  

No I don’t, but you get the idea.

I live near the airport. In Parañaque. Commuting, it’s around 30 minutes inside a jeepney, 20 inside an FX. Unless you’re me, you take the FX. Driving, it’s just 7-10 minutes. If you’re Tto Brt, it’s just 3 minutes.

As a child, I would be fascinated by planes flying over us and be amazed at the hugeness of these planes. As an adult, I get irritated by the noise. Planes cutting you mid a conversation are just annoying. We don’t really live near enough to experience hearing the sonic sound of airplanes during breakfast. But we see planes every time we drive around Parañaque. I have a friend who lost her best friend because one commercial plane decided one day to just skip the runway and land on her best friend’s house.  They live in an exclusive village near the airport runway. I hear these tragic stories every time. One time, before takeoff, a couple of grass self-combusted in the runway and had the entire takeoff operation paralyze for a while.

NAIA voted 5th worst airport in the world

All my life, I’ve been exposed to the killer traffic near the airport, and as I wait on the vehicle to move another inch, wonders of how the foreigners view the Philippines seeing the first things they see outside Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) engulf me. I mean, sitting in the comfort of an airconditioned car, I am already appalled at the scenery, how much will an excited foreigner make out of it?

So the news that we have the worst airport in Asia is kind of, well, not new. I haven’t been to Terminal 1 yet but Terminal 2 is bad enough in the arrival area (I like the departure area, sorry). And I just looooove Terminal 3. It’s new. It’s cold. It’s... new. I love it, but maybe because the budget airlines are there (hee hee) and the cheapness of it all made the big difference.

People in the website http://sleepinginairports.net/, the site that released the airport rankings, were complaining of bad comfort rooms and services in Terminal 2. Terminal 2 suddenly is equated to NAIA itself, so people don’t really know other terminals exist. But that does not have any bearing. They still think our airport is hideous. I don’t know the real score, but if it’s in Terminal 3, I would. I have 2 friends from the sanitation division and I know they do not sleep until all the bowls and sinks are squeaky clean. I know 3 people from the maintenance division and interviewing them, they gladly made out their own version of professional evaluation of Terminal 1. They are the people behind keeping the water drops from leaking into the bunbunan of important international officials upon arrival. I salute these people.

What does the government do about this? I have no idea. I tried googling reactions from the government’s side, but found nothing. Hmm. I didn’t try enough, I know.

If you want a real laugh, try reading http://sleepinginairports.net/. It’s very entertaining, and informative. You’ll get the feel of different airports from different people – who sleep in these airports. I think I will contribute something for Clark (DMIA).

Have you tried sleeping in an airport? I have. It’s super nice.

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Lonely Whale

I've heard of lonely people. I've heard of lonely planet. But I've never heard of a lonely whale. This is disquieting, not really in the deepest sense, but I wonder if this whale is suicidal. Humans tend to think of death when faced with utmost sorrow.

I wonder if this whale is aware of her flaw. If the scientists had to follow her for years to find out, I wonder if she has the right knowledge to lead her to her epiphany.

I pity her. But then again, some humans are bound for more misery.

Please read here for the information.

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A break from my holiday posts: POVERTY

I am currently viewing a website for the Philippine elite. It makes me think, "My God, where have all those rich people come from." It makes me wonder whether I am living in the wrong Philippines. Must be have been dreaming for decades. And to think that I came from this "elite" university and sat beside children and grandchildren of these creatures, the reality of their existence only caught up with me just now.

Blame it on the weather or the different news coming in nowadays in my twitter feed, (or my overhearing my publisher over the conference table)  but the catching up is disheartening. Not for me, but for those I see everyday on my way home (I do not at all dismiss the fact that I not poor, I can't lie about it).

I thought the meaning of bourgeois is "high class" or anyone at the topmost level of the societal caste. I was wrong. Miriam-Webster defines it as "characteristic of the social middle class." So I don't know how to call the upper class anymore. I feel more alienated from them now, like they're untouchable altogether.

But these websites serve their purpose. They make wealth something to desire and be depressed with. People, me not excluded, enjoy these sites.

No need to call me anti-elite or fake revolutionary anti-rich. I am positive that in the near future, the light year gap between the rich and the poor will be narrowed drastically. Looking forward to that. But for now, I shall read more on the Tatler.

UPDATE: I read in an article that the poorest countries in the world became rich by a notch. Here's the article.

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Do we need the RH Bill?

Intramuros-2
Originally uploaded by ikeorganus

For the people who actually say something about this, I hope they've read the bill. I hope they actually understand before they say something about it. It will only make them look, er, unintelligent and when things like that happen, I'm saddened. I am yet to read the full text. It think I can find it here. Maybe I'll download it and print it to read it before I sleep.

But I still have a few more chapters to read about the book of Acts. I guess the RH bill can wait.

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A Beautiful Boxer

No, this is not another film review.

Before I post about the Oscars, which I do not plan on doing anyway, let me say I am amazed to see her last Saturday (or Sunday, I forget) in her final moments before the super-bantamweight championship announcement in California. I wasn't able to watch the game, but hey, she's so cute that unless she wears dentures, I would say she makes a good toothpaste commercial specially made for boxers.

She's truly, truly beautiful and she reminds me of Kuya Erc's boxing gloves in his room. Makes me want to become a boxer again... Nah.

For the news, click here. 

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Of Love and Other Drugs

Sorry Lovi Poe, but it sure is your fault why your beloved “Cong”  - now that I mentioned it, I don’t actually know how to call him anymore – Singson is going to spend his cold nights behind bars for 18 months.

It was your fight that drove him to do drugs that day. Or Usher. Either way, he’s in, you’re out and left crying over what-could’ve-been’s and whatnots.

 I wonder how your professed love for each other will grow as you get separated by those steel bars (or not, because I have no inkling as to how HK jails look like, most especially for the big names getting jailed for “justice’s” sake.) Will your love, as my old yaya would call say it, grow ponder?

18 months is a long time. Imagine, a woman houses her baby in her belly for nine months, by the time he gets out, you could have gotten two babies, provided of course that you’re not human and are too excited to make babies you disregard nursing your first baby on its first few months.

18 months and a baby is enough to have your baby develop words and ways of communication.

18 months and it’s the birthday of two of my former friends.

18 months and some Filipinos might forget we voted for a president and demand a new one.

18 months and another AFP-related case will be colorfully dissected in the upper and lower houses – unless we find Cha-Cha a nicer topic to stress our already stressed political arena in which case, we’ll be welcoming a possible new contenter for Phillippine domination: her excellency, Gloria MacapagalArroyo. (Oh, she’s not new? But she hasn’t become a prime minister yet right? This one’s different.)

18 months Pacquiao could have fought Mayweather already.

18 months and Donaire could have been the 2^nd pound-for-pound king, after Pacquiao knocking out Mayweather.

18 months and a new singing Hollywood sensation could come out and be featured in Ellen or Oprah (hello to the Fil-Canadian girl who made Lady Gaga cry).

18 months and you could have found a new love, Lovi. Someone who takes after your father (or any of the movie characters he once portrayed.) I’m not saying you should dump him, Lovi, oh no. It’s not in my position to dictate love. I am merely saying this: you might want to spend more of your time focusing on your career, prayer meetings and spiritual reformation. Who knows that in those 18 months, he a reformed man, and you of course, may find yourselves more in love than ever, end up in each other’s arms and make-up for the lost time. By then, you will have said no to premarital sex – which I’m not insinuating you’re engaged in for I know how good a girl you are – and you will have rejected posing for sexy print ads.

Now will not that make a beautiful Philippines?

For related news, please read the following links:

1. Recap of Songson's case (and his love for Usher).

2. Singson pleads guilty (of loving Lovi).

3. Singson sentenced to 18 months (without his Lovi).
4. The source for the image. 

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I'm such a geek

This article made me want to read more on the topic.

"This will help us understand the structure of space and time. For reasons that no one yet understands, nature ruled out antimatter... this inspires us to work that much harder to see if antimatter holds some secret." -Professor Jeffrey Hangst

 I am all the more fascinated with God's greatness in creating every single thing.

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Hold Conversations, Not Meetings

NOTE: Since, I'm too busy to blog anything intellectual, I find myself posting articles instead. This one caught my attention from reading HBR. Imagine, I'm starting to read the Harvard Business Review already. What has my job done to me? I particularly liked this one because this makes a lot of sense. We just need to talk things in a simple manner, away from anything that will eventually waste our time. I have formal meetings. I hate having to sit in a round table listening to made-up things by people who are required to say things. So this one's really really nice. I thought I was the only one who feels this way.

START OF ARTICLE
I once knew a consultant who was hired by a major corporation at the senior level. Within days of his arrival, his diary was filled with appointments and meetings that he knew nothing about and over which he had no control. He wanted nothing more than to attend to this mandate, but instead he found his days filled up by pointless meetings that had little to do with the bigger strategic picture.

If you're anything like this executive, you'd probably be glad to skip most of the meetings you're called to. They soak up too much of your time. They are too formal and filled with data-focused PowerPoint presentations. (In one corporation I know of, the average presentation for strategy sessions in a single business unit is over 400 slides long.) And nobody addresses the real issues; they nit-pick and criticize instead. The net effect: everyone's imagination is suffocated, and they lose sight of the big picture. When that happens, organizations run the risk of failure.

The best way to energize thinking is to hold conversations rather than meetings. In our personal lives, we are used to talking openly with one another, but most organizations have failed to capitalize on the power of conversation in a business setting. So how does a conversation differ from a meeting?

A conversation is informal. As the great German philosopherHans-Georg Gadamer said, you only have a conversation when you don't know the outcome at the beginning. Think about a conversation you have with a friend over a cup of coffee. It flows from one topic to another; ideas spark spontaneously. A conversation is alive and interesting, and sometimes even a little dangerous.

A conversation is a creative process. A conversation is not about walking through an agenda. It is a journey that takes people through the full range of thinking, not just a problem at hand. In a conversation, people explore issues, invent solutions, and find ways forward through messy circumstances. (The broad scope of a conversation differentiates it from "brainstorming," which only focuses on generating solutions. Brainstorming can't help you address wicked problems like a military engagement in Afghanistan or a messy merger.)

A conversation is democratic. In a conversation, no single person holds forth while everyone else nods sleepily. Instead, the dialogue bounces around the room as participants design a new idea together.

Obviously, if you are the kind of manager who likes to control the agenda and who dislikes surprises, the prospect of an informal conversation is a little scary. So I propose an experiment. Next time you want to gather your team to talk about a potential new product or service, try the following. You don't have to commit to doing it all the time; just try it once or twice to see what happens. The point is to try to activate the creative, right-brain intelligence in people. Ready? 

• Invite new people to join in. It's important to tap the creativity and diversity of people in your organization. Invite 10 to 15 people from across the organizational spectrum, and from the bottom of the hierarchy — particularly bright younger people.
• Replace the agenda with questions. Leave behind those notes and PowerPoint slides, and wear jeans instead of business clothes. Come ready to discuss questions that don't have easy, right/wrong, yes/no answers, and that ask for positive rather than negative or critical responses.
• Play around with the room. Instead of seating everyone around a conference table, ask people to work in clusters. Also, try setting up a bazaar. Put representative objects, maps or graphics on various tables or on the walls and ask people to walk around and react to them.
• Capture the conversation on a white board. As people come up with ideas, link them using spider diagramming or clustering, or mind mapping. (For ideas about how to do this, see Gabrielle Rico's Writing the Natural Way.)

Of course, I am not arguing that an organization should throw out all of its agenda-driven process meetings and replace them with conversations. But by holding more conversations and fewer meetings, you will find that people begin to solve your company's wickedest problems faster, and in a richer way. And instead of complaining about being bored to death, people will talk about how much fun they've had.

Have you held a conversation in your company? How did it differ from a meeting?

Tony Golsby-Smith is the founder and CEO of 2nd Road , a business design and transformation firm headquartered in Sydney, Australia.


Article source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/02/hold_conversations_not_meeting.html

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Chilean Miners Talk Sex, Drugs And Cannibalism In New Book

Chilling. I want to read this. I wasn't able to watch the Discovery Channel feature though.

Chilean Miners Talk Sex, Drugs And Cannibalism In New Book

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Azkals on FIFA.COM

Azkals: Headline in FIFA.COM.

When they were still known for their skills and not their hot bodies and to-die-for faces. 

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Pinoy is videogame champ in California | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features

This is one example of the Great Filipino Power. Go gathletes!

Pinoy is videogame champ in California | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features

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Google's Logo Today

Why is Google's artwork like this?

Last year, their Xmas special (like food) was cute. I don't normally see their search page artwork because of Chrome. I just type my search keywords on the address bar ang hit enter, so when I saw this one, I wonder how many artworks I missed the past months after December.

O well, apparently, it's Jules Verne's bday today. Someone who's dead actually gets to celebrate his birthday. And here I am, even forgetting to greet my best friend on her birthday!

...The same day Angelo Reyes died (more about that later). The same day I got my bag spilled with black ink. The same day I ate tocino for the nth time. Wala lang.

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Julaton to represent PH in Olympics - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

How about I try boxing?

I remember wanting to box when I was in college. Hey, Judy Anne did it, why shouldn't I? I might end up being the next promoter of her, err, I forget the sliming tea, but I know a couple of people who actually used it, and - well - did not use it again.

Anyway, here's the article:

Julaton to represent PH in Olympics - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

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On Bombings and Natural Disasters

How come that every time something awful happens, it’s the only time people take precautions? And then give it a couple of weeks and the precaution is once again forgotten.

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Fear

Everyone's fearing commuting through buses already. Well, not all, but a great number of people are commenting on how they become so paranoid about riding the bus already. I don’t know if it’s just me but not a light feathery touch of fear went through my body. I guess it’s all about this:

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways…” (Psalms 91:11).

God is way bigger than any bomb don’t you think?

Related link

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New Starbucks Logo

I feel kind of saddened, but its how life is. But honestly, it scares me. I mean, it's freaky.

There are two versions I saw. I wonder which one's true.

Read about it more here.

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