Down the Rabbit Hole

December 28, 2018. Val and I have known each other for a very long time. In the beginning, our paths never crossed except for brief greetings along a random corridor at IRRI until Sam Mohanty directed him in November 2012 to discuss grain quality with me and see how I could lend my expertise to a project Val was working on. See, Sam was his boss at the time and was my mentor in IRRI's mentoring program. Back then, Sam told me that what I got myself into was not just a mentor-mentee relationship; he was expecting it to turn into a working relationship between me and his staff. Well, he's not entirely correct...  A little over six years since Val sent me that email invite to meet with him, we got married! It's a civil ceremony in Cotonou late on a Friday afternoon. It was a simple event, followed by a reception in a riverside restaurant.

Anna had this great idea of going out on a walk along a trail in Clayton, a city adjacent to Concord. Daddy and I joined her but with a time limit because I had to catch the 4:30pm train to San Francisco (I had an evening class that day). Along the way, we noticed interesting markers that told this city's history.  From what we've learned, Clayton was named after a multi-hyphenate from England. It's a mining town in the beginning and became a cattle range later on.  Clayton is definitely less hectic than Concord. There are a lot of parks and green spaces. While we were walking, we saw quite a number of flowers in bloom. The trail we were following led us through the roads facing backyards. There were beautiful rose bushes along the way and there were a lot of pets peeking through their houses' fences, making this walk not very boring. There's a bit of highway we needed to cross so we waited for the pedestrian go-signal before proceeding...

Summer was in full swing when I took my usual afternoon walk with Krishna and Ate Mary, not knowing that this was my last afternoon roaming IRRI's world-famous experimental station (I moved to California a few weeks later). I intended to take photos because the sky was largely clear. Maria Makiling was fully visible for a change. Walking at sunset to photograph birds with a point-and-shoot was not ideal, I know, but I also wanted to exercise for a bit. I was happy that we took the time to get out of our desks to walk because the sunset behind FF Hill and Chandler Halls was glorious. It's something I'd miss when I moved to the other side of the Pacific because the course I was taking did not allow for a lot of free time (I'm currently studying data analytics at UC Berkeley). Some of the roadside fields were being prepared for planting during this last walk of mine. There were no bird tapes, scarecrows, or "bird boys" at this point in the planting ...

The San Francisco Chinatown is touted as the largest Chinese community outside Asia and the oldest one in North America. Based on my experience, frequenting the oldest  Chinatown in the world ( Binondo ) when I was still based in the Philippines, there should be a lot of great restaurants in the Chinatown in SF. But I didn't get a chance to try one out (if I'm not counting the delicious boba tea I bought in a shop near the Dragon Gate ) until one Saturday afternoon when my classmates and I walked from Main Street to Kearny Street in search of affordable noodle soup.  Grace, one of my classmates, directed us to  Joy Hing   BBQ Noodle House  along Kearny St. I chose the pho ga with ginger scallion dip (yes... it looks like the Chinese restaurant is serving up some Vietnamese fare). I have to say that it was the best pho ga I have tasted outside of Hanoi !  Grace and Janel had similar soups but with different noodles while Andrew (our instructor at t...

Antiques always have stories to tell, whether these were involved in changing the course of history or were things that belonged to notable people from several centuries ago. The Red Violin is such an example, and its story is woven into the historical fabric linking Cremona (Italy), Vienna (Austria), Oxford (England), Shanghai (China), and Montréal (Canada). My main takeaway from the movie though was how history added value to this musical instrument but the violin's real value came from its quality. It all began with a famous violin-maker, Bussotti, who varnished his last violin with the blood of his pregnant wife (who recently died) in the late 1600s. Bussotti's violins were always well-made. This violin eventually fell onto the hands of a highly gifted orphan in Austria (late 1700s), whose musical talents attracted a music teacher. Unfortunately, the child died during an audition. The violin was buried with him but was dug up by gypsies. In the late 1800s, the gypsies ...

I've always thought that Winnie-the-Pooh is a Disney character. However, the movie Goodbye, Christopher Robin  showed that this anthropomorphic teddy bear is actually a character developed by A. A. Milne, an English author. And the movie version of the real-life story is bittersweet. The adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh and of his friends (Tigger, Eeyore, Owl, and Piglet) are the result of the real-life Christopher's bond with Milne (who was suffering from PTSD) in the English countryside after World War I.  It conveyed peace, nostalgia, and a good feeling for the simpler life for the Milne father and son tandem. However, the fame that the stories generated basically robbed the real-life Christopher of his privacy as a child. He despised the stories and didn't want to have anything to do with it. But World War II changed that. Listening to the stories of his fellow soldiers, he realised that the real treasures in Winnie-the-Pooh were their happy childhood memories......

For the past few days, strong winds have been stoking the Camp and Woolsey Fires in California. The smoke from the Camp Fire was blown towards the Bay Area, blocking the sky and giving people a view of fiery sunsets. Although it's a pretty sight, it makes me think just how bad the fire up north really is... and how many lives have been lost or displaced. An hour before I took this photo, a classmate of mine was musing that this must be like what a nuclear winter probably looks and feels like. I responded that I don't know but the closest to it probably was the winter after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which is probably a disproved hypothesis because the technology to make weapons powerful enough to start a nuclear winter probably wasn't available in the 1940s). My classmate further mused that this might be what the aftermath of a volcanic eruption looks like. Because my family's house in the Philippines got covered in ash after the Mount Pinatubo erupti...

At the Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco, one of the ice cream stops had a guide asking visitors what their favourite ice cream memories were in exchange for a cone of soft-serve ice cream. Some visitors talked about ice cream melting because of the summer heat or about ice cream scoops accidentally falling onto the ground. And then there were others who mentioned spending time at Fentons, an ice cream parlour famous for its invention of the rocky road ice cream flavour. Anna, Joycelyn, Biboy, and I had a chance to eat at Fentons' second branch (in Vacaville) after we failed to find Sherlock Holmes and his companion .  Though we were so full because the serving portions of our dinner were huge, we couldn't leave without eating its handcrafted ice cream. I think we got a classic combination: one scoop each of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry topped with a generous pile of whipped cream and chocolate fudge. I found the ice cream rich and sweet. It was definitely...

Biboy and Barbara welcomed a healthy baby boy and they named him after our paternal grandfather, Gabriel (aka Lolo Bats ). 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Nov 9, 2018 at 8:44pm PST Sherlock Holmes is the world's most renowned fictional "consulting detective". He is normally chasing after the bad guys with Dr Watson. But because Watson's already married, if we follow the track of the Sherlock series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman , he gave up his spot as Sherlock's assistant. Hence, the detective is on the look out for his new assistant. At the moment, Sherlock is missing; people aspiring to become his assistants must find where he is and who he's with. This is the premise of the latest escape room I played with Anna, Biboy, and Joycelyn. We went to Beat The Room in Vacaville (yes, near the outlet stores). We were guided into "221B Baker Street", where the clues to Sherlock's current location and companion were hidden. We had 50 min...

One of the projects I spent a lot of time on in my final year at the International Rice Research Institute (as a scientist) was contributing to seven chapters in a book of grain quality methods. After many months in the making, the book has finally been released.  Writing the different chapters was like reflecting on the past years that I've been in the laboratory (I started off as a researcher; then I became a scholar, a post-doctoral fellow, and then a scientist). The chapters I contributed to described protocols in characterising rice grain quality using the usual protocols and non-routine methodologies. In some of the chapters, I wrote content that provided context to possible applications and data interpretation coming from the results of assays I haven't performed yet (e.g., inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry and near infrared spectroscopy). People come and go; the lab is in constant flux. The group I started out with has largely moved ...

I've gone on a bus tour of San Francisco before. But that bus tour was designed for visitors to the city. We drove by some of San Francisco's famous landmarks: the Golden Gate Bridge , the City Hall, the Asian Art Museum , the Transamerica Pyramid , Union Square , and the giant dangling legs in Haight Ashbury. It's certainly a good primer on the lay of the land because I got a glimpse about some of the neighbourhoods in the city. Golden Gate Bridge Haight-Ashbury's Dangling Legs San Francisco Symphony San Francisco City Hall Asian Art Museum Transamerica Pyramid (right in front of the bus) Union Square Aside from seeing landmarks, we were treated to a view of a city of visual artists. Murals peppered buildings in the city. Some were monochromatic or minimally coloured while others had strong splashes of colour that it was difficult to dismiss them. But the bus tour couldn't give an experience of what it's like to live ...

Lola Bats used to say that she and Lolo Bats did not reach the highest levels of education during their youth. It was quite understandable... back in their time, anyone who finished grade school in the Philippines could already get a good job. Lola Bats did not finish grade school but Lolo Bats probably did.  Lola Bats used to tell us that Lolo Bats was a skilled mechanic. He used to work at the well-respected Batangas Transportation Company (BTCo.) during the Commonwealth era. It's one of the most prominent bus companies... it's known as the red bus. More than 50 years later, I (a pre-school student) became a regular passenger of this bus company, typically catching the bus plying the Laguna-Tayabas route (hence the new abbreviation, BLTBCo.) Anyway... Lola Bats had fond stories about Lolo Bats going to work wearing a white uniform. He used to be assigned to fix stalled engines. People in the barrio had a high regard for him because he'd tinker with the problem...

"Are you Indian?" That's the latest among a long list of ethnicity questions I've received over time. Previously, I've been mistaken (outside the Philippines) as Canadian, Korean , Chinese , and Vietnamese . I think that in cases in which I was mistaken as East Asian, the people who made mistakes were not exposed enough to Southeast Asians. Those who thought I was Vietnamese found it difficult to differentiate among Southeast Asians (yes, that group includes me because I'm also stumped at times). And that one time I was mistaken as Canadian was the most surprising yet... because the man who insisted that I was Canadian said that my accent sounded Canadian (not stereotypical Filipino). In school (UC Berkeley Data Analytics and Visualisation boot camp), a classmate asked if I'm Indian. When I said no, he then asked if I had relatives or ancestors who were Indian. Still replying in the negative, I was then asked if I understood Hindi. I said that I wa...

One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...

One of the first things I had to do was to get my driver's license at the DMV. I had to take two tests before I could be granted the privilege to drive here. The first one was the knowledge test; the second one was the behind-the-wheel test. Knowledge test On the first day I arrived at the DMV, the queue was so long that I didn't have the time to take the test. However, I was allowed to process my paperwork (and pay the fee), take the vision test, and then have my photo taken. I just had to return another day to take the test. On test day itself, I was told that I didn't have to wait in line; I could directly go to the exam room. The technicians there remembered me because I was one of the last clients on my first visit. One of them was very encouraging and made sure that the examinees were relaxed before and during the exam. He also made sure that we understood the instructions before we took the test. I didn't realise immediately that the test was on a touc...

My first trip to Strawberry Hill , the island in the middle of Stow Lake, was not complete because we weren't able to walk around the island. The fog came in fast, abruptly pulling the temperature down. So when I saw my chance to visit it a few weeks later, I jumped on it.  It was a bright afternoon in the Golden Gate Park... not a cloud in sight. The lake was filled with water birds, turtles, and people on rowboats. Squirrels were busily foraging the path for fallen popcorn. It was an enjoyable walk. But I was really looking forward to see the hill's manmade waterfall. Huntington Falls, because it doesn't depend on rain for its water volume, had quite a steady stream of water feeding into Stow Lake despite the drought that California is experiencing. And unlike the other waterfalls I've visited before, the trip to Huntington Falls was just a walk in the park. There was no hiking involved at all. While I was reading about this waterfall, I learned that ...

I first heard about Crazy Rich Asians when the book got published but I never got around to reading it. Then, I learned that Kris Aquino was actually cast in the movie adaptation. That created a buzz in the Philippines because it's quite rare to find a Filipino in the cast of a Hollywood movie. Curious with the role Kris Aquino played, I decided that I wanted to see the movie. ... and then, the movie opened to rave reviews. So I went to the movies with my parents and Tita Babie to see what the excitement was all about. And being Asian who just moved to the Americas, I frankly couldn't relate to the people who had a lot of great opinions about Crazy Rich Asians. What I had, however, were eyeopeners. First, this movie is touted to be a movie that fulfils the demand for Asian-led movies. Perhaps this need is particularly true for the Americas (specifically in Hollywood). In Asia, there is certainly no shortage for movies with Asians portraying characters but there may be...

When Lola Bats was approaching her centennial year, her Christmas wish was to receive P100 cash gifts from each of her grandchildren. I didn't receive the memo so I ended up giving her a bigger amount when I got back to the Philippines from my Christmas trip to California (somehow, the cousins didn't tell me nor Kuya Jun-jun, so we ended up pitching in more).  Lola was so elated with her cash gifts that she kept telling us about it. Kuya Eldie, Richelle, and I asked her if she's willing to treat us to dinner in a restaurant. She said yes, so we (along with Mary Ann) went to Mandarin Palace to eat. On the way to the restaurant, Lola asked Richelle to hold her wallet for her.  In the restaurant, she started worrying about her wallet. She kept asking Nasaan ang pitaka ko? Perhaps, she was concerned that her money might go missing or she didn't have enough money to pay for all the food. We were all laughing because she asked to see her wallet every five minutes on...

I have been introduced to the works of Impressionist Claude Monet when I was taking up Humanities II, a course taught then by Dr Paul Zafaralla  in UPLB . Back then, we only had access to photos of the artworks we were studying. So when I learned that the Legion of Honour  housed some of the most extensive collections of European art from different periods, I wanted to go and visit. I particularly like Monet paintings when I first saw photos of them in college because what Monet painted was what I saw when I didn't wear my eyeglasses (back then). Everything I saw was just blurred without my glasses because I have myopia. It has since progressed so I see more splashes of colour than blurry images these days (the glasses help correct my eyesight).  Reading up on his style, I learned that Monet actually had cataracts when he was painting these landscapes on canvas. So these paintings probably show his view of the world when he was visually impaired. Wh...

Biboy and Barbara brought me along with them to Berkeley, where the Brazilian community celebrated Brazil's Independence Day and Lavagem , a cleansing ceremony.  What they didn't tell me was that the organisers actually closed down part of Hearst Ave for the street party. I was absolutely not in any mood to be in a huge dancing crowd because I was exhausted and I am not comfortable being in the midst of a crowd dancing. But because I didn't want to ruin their fun, I hung back and explored the sights instead... and learned a thing or two about this Brazilian cultural event. The way I see it, Brazil was Portugal's version of Spain's Mexico. Brazil and Mexico grew in rank and power to the point that their local governments operated with (in my opinion) minimum supervision from the centre of the empires. Hence, both countries already had relatively mature governments when they sought for independence. Which made me think about the Philippine case... the...

Most of what I know about European art movements, I learned through Dr Paul Zafaralla 's Humanities 2 class. Since then, I've been augmenting my familiarity and appreciation by visiting art galleries and museums. A group that I haven't heard about was the Pre-Raphaelites. Of course, I had to see their works; after all, I'd like to try to learn more about a generation of artists that came before  Raphael and the Renaissance. This is one reason I dropped by the Legion of Honour, where I had my first exposure to Rodin's masterpieces . The Pre-Raphaelite exhibit was entitled Truth and Beauty. I'm not sure why it's been titled as such but I learned one truth as I took a closer look at the artwork... the Pre-Raphaelite paintings were made after  the Renaissance. The movement originated in England in the mid-1800s; more contemporary than what I had in mind. The curators kindly provided a timeline to show the trends in Europe from 1300 to 1900. Medieval ...