A letter to my students

To my dear students,


Even when I'm not with you anymore, I hope you'll remember that:

The lessons you've learned in between classes are far more important than the lessons you learned during class. The previous makes you a better student while the latter makes you a better person.

No one can tell you what you can or cannot do except you so choose to believe that you can do anything. Challenges may give you pause, but they should not cause you to quit.

Don't be afraid to make fun of yourself sometimes. Laugh at yourself. This will break down the barriers that you subconsciously put up to protect yourself from humiliation. It's okay to make mistakes and be humiliated more than once. Remember, no one expects you to be perfect because no one is.

Never waste opportunities. Don't let pride or fear stop you from experiencing everything that life has to offer. Don't forget. You only get to live once!

Learn to value time. It is just too short to waste on hesitations and what ifs. Before you know it, you won't have any left.

I could go on forever... There are so many things I want you to remember but I guess the most important is - you guys don't forget to enjoy. Enjoy the accomplishments and the triumphs (especially the hard-earned ones). These will provide you with strength to go on during times of hardships. Enjoy the defeats as well, the sorrows and even all the difficulties. These will give you a better sense of appreciation for the what could've been times. Enjoy life no matter what for it is a short enough one-way journey. This way, when you are already on your deathbed, you won't have an ounce of regret. Instead you will have a whole lifetime of joy-filled memories to remember - to relish till your last breath.

to stay or not to stay

For the past few days. I've been busy with catching up... at work and at home. Yet, my mind is constantly pre-occupied with so many other things.

One main concern I keep thinking about is career change. It's already the last leg of the school year and I haven't come to a decision yet. Do I stay or do I look for some other work (something a bit more financially rewarding)? I'm torn between my love for teaching and my responsibilities to my family. Aahhhh! Olats! If only the education industry in the philippines provides the same compensation as the corporate industry... (I guess that's why a lot of educators in the philippines are looking at the prospect of finding a teaching position in the west.)

One more thing - if I decide to change career then there's a big chance that andrea, mateo and I will be moving out of our house to a different location (either closer to work or to our parents). Hay! A lot of things are riding on this one decision. Principles, obligations, love and dedication. Huhuhu! I'm really starting to sound like a blabbering crybaby.

To stay or not to stay - that is the question. Unfortuntely, there's no easy answer.

blog rants

I've looked at several blog templates recently but I still haven't found the right one for me. What I'm trying to find is something that takes up almost the whole width of the page, is composed of only 2 columns, highlights an area for a landscape pic, is plain with just minimal color gradient or maybe just has a monochrome background (not distracting at all), sports a good contrast between the background pix and the posting area, and is HTML newbie-friendly.

So far, most templates I've seen provides very limited space for the posts wasting so much space for plain, boring and unused borders. Makes me wish I could meticulously edit HTML codes. Unfortunately I couldn't.

A plea for aid: Is there anyone out there who knows of a blogger template with the said descriptions oe where I could download one? (Should be free too!) Or who knows how to solve this problem by editing the HTML codes for the template? Any help would surely be appreciated.

lonely 7th anniversary

It has exactly been 7 years since andrea and I hooked up together. And among the 6 annivesary celebrations we've had, I have to say that this year's is one of the most not-so-extravagant we've experienced. All the financial worries are giving us a hard time. In fact, andrea approached me earlier and I could see that she was really feeling down and lonely. She asked me, "don't you feel lonely?". I paused for a while and then I told her...

"A month and seven years ago, I thought I to myself, I want this woman to be my wife. 7 years ago I said I want to live in a place far from the people we know - just me and her. 7 years ago, I told myself she's the one I want to start a family with... Finally I answered her NO! I'm not lonely. Not the least bit. There couldn't possibly be any reason for me to feel lonely. You agreed to marry me. We're living in a house far from our families (that we may not own yet but it still is ours until June). And with Mateo, we're now a family. I may not be the richest man on earth but I am certainly one of the happiest. And that's because you love me!"

And then she stared at me, laid her head on my shoulder and wept silently. It was not the most extravagant celebration of our anniversary but it certainly was one of the most memorable.

farewell thrall

To make room for data and to free up some memory in our laptop, I decided to unistall my warcraft III frozen throne game. I told andrea that it's my way of turning over a new leaf... Now I can't remember why in the world did i make such a decision? Now it's gone.

It has not been a week since I deleted the files and yet I already miss the game. That was the only game I was ever addicted to in college. I also played counterstrike, Jedi Wars, Starcraft and even Battle Realms, but none of these games even interested me enough to make me buy a pirated copy to install in my computer. Only Warcraft III gave me enough excitement and appeal to motivate me into doing that. I was even shortly tempted to buy the original copy just so I can play the battlenet version. (Good thing I didn't) Now it's gone.

Oh well, there's no use crying over spilled milk. I guess I just have to wait for Warcraft IV... Although with the way things are in Blizzard right now, I figure it's going to be a long wait.

Huhu! Goodbye Warcraft! Goodbye Priestess! Farewell Thrall!

tough getz going

Recently, we came across a car show in SM City. This time, instead of a sedan, a hatchback was being featured - the Hyundai Getz. Now, if you read my previous post about the Aveo sedan, you'll see that it takes a lot for me to get impressed by a car. So initially, I wasn't at all with the Getz, but my wife egged me to take a closer look.


Up close, this Hyundai subcompact car looked interestingly sporty. The interior brandishes the same two-tone color and texture that we loved in the Aveo sedan. The space ofcourse was incomparable to the sedan but amazingly enough, when I jumped in the driver's seat, I was surprised to find a spaceous leg room. The 3-spoke steering wheel lacks the music control buttons in the Aveo but otherwise feels good to touch. It will still take a bit of getting used to with the dashboard controls though but it doesn't look bad at all. The plastic material of the dashboard gives a synthetic (but almost cheap) feel to the touch. After all, let's not forget. It still is an econocar.


Outside, the car looks less feminine than the Picanto. It has an angrier looking front face. The black trims across the body (body side molds) add excellent contrast to the color and give a more sophisticated look to the Getz (something that the Picanto designers could definitely look into).


The engine, on the other hand, is definitely a stride slower than the Aveo sedan's. The Getz sports a 1.1 L displacement SOHC engine - a rather poor comparison to the Chevy's E-TEC II DOHC engine (VTEC equivalent in Honda). But then again, the Aveo Sedan is not an econocar. Chevy's econocounterpart, which is the Spark, I feel will not hold a candle to the Getz at all so I did not compare it to the Spark at all. Furthermore, the Getz showcases different engine variants. It comes in 1.4 L and 1.5 L versions, with the latter sporting the CRDi DOHC type. (The CRDI technology is the same technology used in european top cars like BMW, Mercedez and Audi.)

The price, however, is a serious consideration. The P468,000 1.1 L Getz costs even less than the 1.1 L Picanto (P490,000). That for me is a big advantage for the Getz. However, the 1.5 L version with the CRDi DOHC engine, comes with a price tag of P628,000 - a slight disadvantage because at this range, it will be taking on the much bigger competitors like the Honda 1.5 L VTEC City (P700,000) or the 1.4 L E-TECH II Aveo sedan (P640,000), or even the 1.5 L G VVTi Toyota Vios (P687,000).

For a while I seriously considered buying the Getz... but then again I remembered why I didn't take the Aveo Sedan in the first place - obligations. Huhu!