Down the Rabbit Hole

Donan enjoys tactile exhibits of a children's museum: climbable, interactive, and colourful. Mommy likes to wander aimlessly through labyrinthine aisles of department stores, scouting items she'd buy during sales events. The problem is simple: when we engage in one activity, the other person is completely bored.  On a slow Sunday, I had difficulty finding a venue that both of them would love to visit. And then it hit me like that flying spanner that punctured the sidewall of one of my tires many years ago: We didn't need to compromise. We're going to IKEA! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas)   IKEA as a children's museum For Donan, each showroom was an interactive exhibit: an invitation to tinker with the toys, such as the plushy Aftonsparv astronaut bear, open drawers and refrigerators, tap on keyboards, and experience a whole range of different textures. He went round and round on a PS Lömsk chair, cocc...

The University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB)'s  Loyalty Day  is a celebration of volunteerism, honour, and commitment to country. Every October 10th, UPLB commemorates the mobilisation of Filipinos for a war that they ultimately did not fight. On this date in 1918, staff and students of the UP College of Agriculture (now known as UPLB) enlisted in the Philippine National Guard to help fight in  World War I .  The Philippines was a U.S. territory  at the time, and the enlisted personnel were supposed to sail to Europe and be under the command of General John Pershing. However, on the day they were mustered into federal service, the fighting ended (Armistice Day). They never left the Philippines, but their action spoke of their willingness to serve, forever etched into UPLB history. Years after moving to California, I found my link to the UPLB community through the active alumni network  in  Davis, CA . I received an invitation to the Loyalty Day c...

https://www.solanoturkeytrot.org/ I have not learned my lesson. Barely two months ago, I did not finish my treadmill half-marathon . This should have convinced me that I'm not ready for a race, but here I am again, paying and confirming my attendance at another one. I signed up for the Solano Turkey Trot, an outdoor run/walk event to be held at Solano Community College.  I first saw an announcement about it at work, but I dismissed it (I thought that I had to be in a turkey costume for it). Everything changed on a relaxed morning when I wasn't rushing after school drop-off. As I was leaving for a physiotherapy appointment, I bumped into the moms of two of Donan's friends. They had both signed up for the 5K run and invited me to join them. Just like that, my initial decision of no  changed into count me in . I doubled down. From treadmill to the great outdoors Now back to reality: The 5K run/walk lasts for about 90 minutes. I haven't run outdoors for over 10 years, and s...

The problem: data drudgery.  Our solution: business intelligence tools.  Two business intelligence tools are available for use at the Napa-Solano-Yolo-Marin Public Health Laboratory (NSYM PHL): Power BI and R. I described how the laboratory staff use these tools during my presentation to LabAspire Fellows and their mentors. I'm sharing part of it here.  Context The NSYM PHL processes over 10,000 specimens annually, with more than 75% being environmental specimens (i.e., water samples and ticks). The rest are clinical specimens. Once these specimens are in the laboratory, they undergo three phases of testing: Pre-analytical phase Information about the specimen is derived from the requisition form that comes with it: patient information (i.e., unique identifiers, travel history), submitter (oftentimes the medical facility) information, and sample information (i.e., sample source and type, collection date and time, type of test requested). The information is then entered...

Listening to Steven Bartlett's  Diary of a CEO  episodes on  inflammation  and  herbal medicine  coincided with my exploration of how to improve my vitamin levels. I used to take prenatal multivitamins and then individual vitamin and mineral supplements. I even tried green juices. However, the habit of drinking vitamins and minerals in tablet or capsule form doesn't stick; I didn't like the taste of green juices. As I continued researching, I encountered IM8, a product that claims to contain 92 nutrient-rich ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, superfoods, antioxidants, prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics.  It sounded too good to be true; however, it contains  spore-forming probiotics,  Bacillus subtilis  and  B. coagulans .  This is consistent with what Dr Jamnadas said about what he's personally taking to improve his gut microbiome. Moreover, it promises berry flavours with chocolate undertones; not my favourite fla...

I regularly listen to Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO (DOAC) podcast during my commute to work (it's currently in my driving playlist, along with finance podcasts) and during my solo lunch-time one-mile walks because his discussions with guests are compelling and informative. One of the episodes I listened to featured Dr Pradip Jamnadas , the founder of Aristotle Education LLC. I found this episode interesting because it followed soon after the discussion with Simon Mills on herbal medicine . Simon Mills discussed inflammation and its relationship to the body's immune response. To recap, inflammation occurs when blood vessels become more permeable, allowing white blood cells and other immune system components to leave the blood vessels, enter the injured area of the body, and attack the pathogens causing infections. NSAIDs are not ideal medications because they tend to dampen one's immune response. His treatments of choice are concoctions of different plant materials,...

I have subscribed to Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO (DOAC) after I listened to the episode about feet and barefoot running. I appreciate his inclination to invite scientists to discuss their expertise... these guests are conversational, not overly technical or jargon-filled. For instance, the episode featuring Simon Mills (my favourite so far) was all about phytotherapy. Antibiotic resistance limits the medicines available for treating illnesses. Enter phytotherapy. I've witnessed the alarming effects of antibiotic resistance firsthand while at work. Patients with bacterial infections must be screened for the antibiotic susceptibilities of the causative pathogens so that doctors can determine the most effective treatment.  In the lab, isolates identified as  Mycobacterium tuberculosis  complex  from specimens submitted by the same patient are sent to the California Department of Public Health  every 90 days (based on collection date). This is crucial in a pat...

Donan has started Kindergarten. In the first week of the academic year, the school he's enrolled in launched a fundraising campaign in support of the Parent-Teacher Organisation's activities for the school year. It's called "Raise Craze". In this fundraising campaign, each participant performs acts of kindness in honour of the generosity of the donor. I have not experienced this as a child because we normally exchanged donations with raffle tickets or goods (just like what the Girl Scouts do with their cookies). In Donan's case, we pledged to donate his gently used clothes and shoes to a local charity (we had chosen  The Society of St. Vincent de Paul  while planning how to participate).  View this post on Instagram Val and I sent out messages to friends and family to help raise funds. And everyone we asked generously pitched in. In total, Donan's contribution to the organisation was $455!  I thank everyone who showed up for Donan. It...

 You don't quit when it's hard. You quit when it's over. I didn't complete the half-marathon distance in my first Orangetheory Marathon Month attempt , logging only 10.02 miles on the treadmill. I told myself I would refrain from joining these challenges because being so close and yet so far was such a let-down.  The following month, however, I decided to join the DriTri sprint challenge because I couldn't shake off the feeling that I could actually finish this. If the half-marathon is 13.1 miles spread over a month, the DriTri sprint is composed of a 1,000-metre row, 130 reps of bodyweight exercises, and a 1.55-mile treadmill run to be finished within one hour. Crazy for a non-finisher, right? Nevertheless, I took on this challenge. While on the rower, I thought that reaching the distance was easy enough because I started at a good pace. Then fatigue kicked in, about halfway through the rowing portion. I struggled through the rest of the distance as I couldn't...

I've been attending Orangetheory classes every weekend since January. Each class I attend includes a treadmill exercise. In the several months that I have been attending classes, I progressed from power-walking (fastest pace at 3.5 mph) to jogging (fastest pace at 5.0 mph) I decided to join the Marathon Month challenge and run/jog the half-marathon. If I run/jog at least 1.7 miles per class, I'd be able to complete the half-marathon distance. And so I kept signing up for the 2G classes or the Tread 50 classes (i.e., 50-minute treadmill-only workouts).  After the challenge ended, I found out that I had only reached a little over 10 miles. I did not finish the half-marathon. My first reaction was to avoid joining future Orangetheory challenges. As I wallowed in disappointment, I justified not participating by focusing on my primary objective for signing up for classes: improving my overall cardiac health by losing weight, burning fat, and building muscle. I was very disappointe...

Google Scholar has always had this quote on its website. It resonates with me because my scientific work builds upon the products developed by scientists before me. This is why I still marvel at the impact of Miracle Rice (IR8)  in preventing widespread hunger in Asia, and wonder if the work I previously did in improving rice quality made a dent in rice breeding pipelines . My contributions in developing the gastronomic systems research framework, such as the Robinsons Mall auctions  (Quezon City, Philippines) and the expert elicitation workshops (Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, India), helped shape the consumer research angle currently being pursued by IRRI, particularly for gauging the market acceptability of rice varieties that can potentially curb the risk of developing diabetes . My work in applying machine learning tools  to classify rice into quality types  is five years ahead of its time; I now see more people using   big data approaches  to answer incre...

Mycology has always been an interesting subject for me. I am fascinated by the different morphologies of moulds that grow on bread and fruit. During class, I loved to draw the morphologies (see my Mycology notes from my PHM training ). My notes about Zygomycetes I learned that Mucormycetes (or Zygomycetes in the old taxonomy) have coenocytic, aseptate hyphae. The organisms within the Mycormycete group (e.g., Mucor  sp. and Rhizopus sp., and the organisms I had sketched, in the picture above) can be differentiated based on their microscopic morphologies. For example, both  Mucor  sp. and  Rhizopus  sp. have circular to oval sporangia without apophyses. Mucor  sp. is distinguished from Rhizopus sp. by its lack of rhizoids (i.e., roots). Fungi can take on either multicelled forms (e.g., moulds) or single-celled forms (e.g., yeast-like). Some fungi can take on both! Dimorphic fungi, such as Coccidioides sp. and Blastomyces  sp., have been observed in both ...

I have always been interested in learning about personal finance and how to make my money work for me. In fact, I have been listening to various podcasts on investing and financial management, such as:  The Money Guy Show We Study Billionaires Value Investing with Legends The interest stems from dinner discussions with my parents since childhood. Daddy would read an article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer or Manila Bulletin and discuss market trends with us as we ate dinner. Also, both Mommy and Daddy brought me, Anna, and Biboy to Divisoria every weekend for shopping and scouting suppliers for the family business. This was where I learned the fundamentals of economics from a business perspective: the law of supply and demand . Since moving to California, we have resumed these business discussions during dinner. Donan has been a passive participant in these discussions because he doesn't understand the concepts of interest rates and investment instruments just yet. However, ...

The Solano County website has been upgraded. Last year, my supervisor assigned me to the content editor team, which focused on migrating the documents from the laboratory's current website to the new one.  I reviewed the content and realised that a bit of reorganisation was needed: The same information was placed in different locations, requiring someone to update multiple pages. It's easy to miss a page, and the website has inconsistent information in some places.  There was a lot of information that needed updating and pages that needed archiving.  Some pages were not loading.  Some pages just contained links to other pages.  As I pored through  all  the content, I also had to rewrite some of it (specifically content on water testing and tick testing services) so that an eighth grader could understand it. Two weeks before the final review by management, I finished loading the most current version of the laboratory's website content a day before I wen...

Polynesian Cultural Centre , I have returned! Echoing General Douglas MacArthur's famous speech in Leyte, I  returned  nine years  after  my last visit to Hawaii. During my first trip, I wished I had more time for exploration, as I only had a brief stop at the Hukilau Marketplace and ate lunch at the barbecue before boarding my tour bus for the next stop.  For this trip (my third time in Hawaii, actually), I went with Mommy, Daddy, and Donan. I got tickets that allowed us to visit on three consecutive business days. No wonder I couldn't explore the Centre in two hours: it takes three days to experience all that the centre has to offer! We only had time for two afternoon trips to Lā'ie, so we had to make the most of these visits. I had to consider that I was with seniors and a preschooler, so our fastest pace at the centre would be a slow walk. Day 1 We had just arrived from the  Dole Pineapple Plantation , which was an hour's drive from Wahiawa. That visit ...

A slight fall of rain didn't stop us from visiting the Dole Pineapple Plantation  in Wahiawa, Oahu. During my first visit, I was part of a tour group visiting the island. This time, I drove with Mommy, Daddy, and Donan. I was determined to ride the train to see the plantation (because I didn't have a chance to do that previously). Donan immediately wanted to try the Pineapple Garden Maze when we saw it. Our two-hour scheduled stop was short. We were supposed to find eight stations inside the maze, but we only saw three because it was huge (it is the largest maze in the world, after all) and we were pressed for time. It would take about an hour to find all the stations (accounting for the fact that we also got lost in the maze). We wouldn't be able to catch the train tour if we attempted to complete the maze. The train tour circled around the Dole Plantation's pineapple farm, where we saw pineapples in varying stages of maturity (to ensure that there's pineapple all ...

Val usually talks about how beautiful safaris in Kenya are. I, on the other hand, don't like them because safari vehicles tend to go dangerously near these wild animals, leading to (1) animals attacking humans and (2) disturbance of their natural behaviours. I'm also not a fan of wild animals being trained to perform in shows purely for entertainment (e.g., dolphin shows), so I opted out of visiting SeaWorld in Florida. I'm also not a fan of zoos because animals are in cages, though I visit them to learn more about animals that I won't see in the wild. However, DisneyWorld's Animal Kingdom appeared to be different. Its website and streaming app say that the animals are provided with world-class veterinary care and can display natural behaviours because the caretakers change their environments regularly.  So when we went to Florida, I opted to include Animal Kingdom in our destinations (and opted out of Hollywood Studios). Gorilla Falls Expedition Trail We saw some a...