Down the Rabbit Hole

Rhulyx and Rizza, CONGRATULATIONS!! Noah and Au, see you at the next wedding.

Three reasons to celebrate; Ninang and Ninong sponsored; Spanish restaurant in Westgate Alabang; musicians in the background; caffeine overdose right after! Photos by Rochie and Anna (who can't wait to get lens filters)

Their shirt colours ALMOST matched those in the Rent wall! Cool!! Rent is being performed at the Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza, Makati for a limited run only.

Jam-packed seminar room with potential recruits for this year. Slideshow of photos, below.

Life is precious; we have to make the most out of it. Starting NOW. That's my take on what the late Jonathan Larson wanted to bring across to the audience in his magnum opus: Rent. Eerily to the point, since he died a day before the curtains opened in the Broadway production. The story revolves around a year in the lives of friends living a bohemian lifestyle in New York's Alphabet City. All under the shadow of poverty and the then-misunderstood disease known as AIDS. Mark captures the ups and downs of their lives in this little nook of New York: Roger and Mimi reluctantly go into a relationship; Collins and Angel, knowing that time is short, went into it headlong. Joanne and Maureen, both with strong personalities, try time and again to smooth things out; Benny, the practical one, marries into a rich family and tries to kick everyone out as the city undergoes gentrification. As this is the first time I've seen Rent (and I haven't seen the film version), ...

( photo from: http://jayseeblabs.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-vote-for-gibo.html ) Gibo Teodoro, the pilot, focuses on the future if seated as President in May 2010. Another advocate of positive campaigning, his advertisements also have catchy tunes, thanks to Rivermaya and Rico Blanco. "Sulong Gibo" and "Posible" attract the attention of the younger voters. Plus, he outlines his deliverables: food security, college education, free medicine. He does not have the rags to riches story of Manny Villar that the masses have a penchant for; but he seems to have the chops to lead, based on his experiences in his youth and his achievements in public office. He promises to use galing at talino  to bring progress to Filipinos. His ratings in the surveys are now on their way up, being behind Aquino and Villar; if he plays his cards right, he just might have a chance to win the presidency. I don't think he will have trouble in getting the votes of the youth; rounds a...

02.06.10 - UST Medicine Auditorium The Association of Philippine Medical Colleges Student Network National Capital Region (APMCSNNCR - what a long acronym!) presented this year's Medgroove/Medrhythmia with the theme, "Ako Mismo MD (Makatao't Makabayang Doktor)." It is a choral and a dance troupe competition. I had fun watching the performances. So, these are some of the things med students do to relax. =) The winning groups won all-expense paid vacations at the Bagac Bay beach resort in Bataan (a welcome break from all their hard work, according to the program's host). Thanks, Noan, for inviting me to watch this show. The UST field trip was fun!

Lunch at the GQNPC! The cucumber salad and the noodles were great! Happy birthday to the January celebrants =)

We went to Tarlac City to bring Ninang Trining and Ninong Romy to the medical mission they were participating in at the Tarlac Provincial Hospital. Afterwards, we went to Robinson's Pampanga to check out the outlet stores.

(Photo from  http://alingiska.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/manny-villar-bakit/ ) Play. If there is a competition for the best campaign jingle for this year's elections, the people behind the  Naging Mahirap  campaign would be the obvious winners. Easy on the ears; easy on the throat; easy on the brain. That's the way a campaign jingle should sound like. There is no need for professional singers and celebrities to grace the plug; unknown children sang (although a few of my friends have noticed that the song the kids mouthed has different lyrics from that which is heard on the television).  A catchy tune nonetheless. Senator Villar certainly knows which buttons to press. It's so obvious, with his improved popularity based on the nightly surveys news broadcasts highlight on the television. This song tugged at the hearts of the masses. The song portrays that this candidate is one of them. He wants them to believe that he is the man to emulate because he got hi...

( Photo source:  http://opinionstoday.blogspot.com/2010/01/techonological-art.html )  Noynoy Aquino is the leading candidate in the 2010 Presidential elections; that's according to the latest surveys which nightly news broadcasts never fail to feature. His popularity peaked in part due to circumstances that surround his family: the martyrdom of his father, the Presidency and the death of his mother, the celebrity status (and the lack of privacy in the life) of one of his sisters, and the dramatic events centred upon his bid for the highest position in the country.  The death of former President Cory Aquino stirred once more the hearts of Filipinos born during the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos, and gave the younger generation an opportunity to get a glimpse of what her fight was all about. Her death is serendipitous for Noynoy's campaign: to win, he needs the votes of the new generation and of those of his parents' supporters. As expecte...

Inhale. Exhale. Two papers down, one more to go... and the deadline is on Monday, the 8th!! Is it time to throw in the towel and plead for an extension to my deadline? This is Rochie pushing the panic button! Juggling revisions for the two papers, additional experiments for the third one, and getting everything done on time are a challenge! The first two papers were okay because they were submitted before their deadlines. But I'm in a fix for the third one. The experiments are all done, and the data analyses are almost finished. Tired, and with a wrist threatening another bout of tendonitis (thanks to the mouse), I just had to stop (and live to fight another day). Tomorrow, I'm going to try my best to submit a revised draft to the boss. =) Fingers crossed!!! And then off to Act II (more juggling). Read: more experiments and more writing. =)

Something to be cheerful about this week (just like these two stiltmen at the IRRI ANIbersaryo, 2009)... After prolonged agony, two papers I've been working on have been accepted for publication! Please watch out for these articles (2010): Cuevas, RP, VD Daygon, HM Corpuz, L Nora, RF Reinke, DLE Waters, MA Fitzgerald. (in press). Melting the secrets of gelatinisation temperature . Functional Plant Biology.  Accepted 29 January 2010.  Cuevas, RP, VD Daygon, MK Morell, RG Gilbert, MA Fitzgerald. Using chain-length distributions to diagnose genetic diversity in starch biosynthesis . Carbohydrate Polymers. (doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2010.02.004) Accepted 03 February 2010.  Please click on the title to see the abstract. These abstracts are in the "Papers in Press" section of the journals' websites and will be removed once these are assigned an issue and page numbers. On to paper #3!!

A lot of surveys on the popularity of presidential wannabes are being shown on television nowadays as the 2010 elections approach. Plus, polls conducted via SMS seems to be popular in talk shows. In the spirit of the election season, and of the popularity of polls, please feel free to check out this comic strip by Jorge Cham (2010).

The countdown to the 2010 Philippine elections has begun (last month, officially)! People eyeing various posts in government have started making themselves more visible, with campaign ads in different shapes and forms, and increased appearances in televised debates and talk shows.  The question is, with all these candidates vying for the Presidential seat, would the winner really gain a convincing majority vote?