Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

1. It is never a good idea to study at my condo, since I usually end up sleeping or cleaning it up instead. So I usually park myself at Kopi Roti, Columns for a couple of hours after work to read my ever-growing hoard of thesis articles. Or, I meet up with my patient and gorgeous thesis partner at other coffee shops where we can bounce off the walls and bounce ideas in caffeinated company. I prefer to study in places that have no wi-fi, airconditioned, quiet, spacious and with non-intrusive humans.

2. A kind person lends me a router, and I rejoice in the fact that I’m no longer attached to my DSL line when I work from home.

3. “Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” David Wilkins (1972).

1. My beautiful web host restored my site to its former shiny self. Hurrah! And I have learned my lesson about ticking things I cannot understand.

2. I can immediately identify three things I will not sacrifice for my thesis:
a. Intimacy with God.
b. Sanity breaks with people who can relate.
c. My health.

3. A question well asked is a question half answered. (from K. Punch’s thesis proposal book)

1. I come across an fb page called Nostalgia Manila, and we marvel at how different Manila looks like a few decades back. Lots of greenery and very few structures. Two things remain the same: traffic and monsoon floods.

2. I bounce ideas and bounce off the walls with a caffeinated thesis partner. Strangely, we have more to say about each other’s topic than our own. We also share link resources, and watch a cool Prezi of how to get unstuck when writing a dissertation.

3. Relatives from Canada are here for a short vacation, so my paternal clan gather for an impromptu reunion. I am nursing serious grievances about the seemingly wasted time (thesis! dialogs!) when my two-week nephew wakes up and makes a funny face. I cuddle him in one arm for almost an hour, moving around so that the huge mosquitoes can’t reach him. Baby smell and vague eyes following the ceiling light and minute fingers clutching at the blanket.

1. The flower arrangement I took home has a live cactus plant with roots. I set the seedling bag on my windowsill and promise it/her/him a nice new pot as soon as possible. It/her/him drinks in the sunshine in reply. Now, what do I name my new pet…?

2. Gianne offers us a unique Chinese Lunar New Year treat: tikoy wrapped in a turon wrapper. Gone in 10 seconds.

3. Things that scare me but which I hope to learn within the next decade:

a. Cook and grocery shop in a real palengke/market
b. Iron clothes
c. Do CPR
d. Drive a car in Manila
e. Swim
f. Shoot a gun
g. Stock market investment sans brokers
h. Run a marathon
i. Do household accounting
j. Be a wife and a mother

1. It is almost midnight when we finish packing up after coordinating a beautiful Tagaytay Highlands wedding. I am infinitely grateful for getting a free ride at such a late hour and how a spot of engine trouble miraculously goes away.

2. We get to Manila in the wee hours of Sunday, so the Aranetas kindly adopt us for the night. While I miss the hammocks in their UPLB home, but bunking on the floor is just as fun. Our hosts are what I want my future family to be like: loving parents, talented and capable kids, God-fearing, avid bookworms, watches TV rarely (which is probably why Jed honestly did not know who Christian Bautista is), and with a warm, welcoming home.

3. The tavern adventurers have a celebratory game for Timmy’s second birthday. The GM hatches a clever story within a story within a story plot, the newbies vainly attempt to alert the party to this new development, and we dispatch a land-octopus and a shadow dragon. And no TPK, hurrah!

4. I avail of the Smartconcepts Mont Albo massage coupon for a free 1 hour Filipino hilot with bentosa session. My aching feet and back are happy again.

1. My first ever nephew (and the second grandchild in the clan) makes his appearance before midnight of Friday the 13th. Welcome to the family, Ar-J! I have not seen him up close yet, but the photo show chubby cheeks and that he thankfully also takes after my sister in law, not my brother. The pressure to produce the next generation is so totally off my shoulders, hurrah!

2. A day of focused brainstorming means I’ll have a lot to look forward to this summer. Exciting days ahead for us passionate people.

3. I access the online resources and find a wealth of data, on top of the dozen or so studies I already have from an afternoon of digging through ten years’ worth of language journals. Now I have to read all of them. Such a happy problem.

1. It is my first time to work offsite this weekend, and it goes smoothly. Internet is surprisingly fast, Athena cooperates, and I manage to go to the dentist, grocery shop and cook pork sinigang while the goods are buffering. The wonders of flexitime.

2. I realize that I am an abstainer, not a moderator, as explained in the Happiness Project. I don’t have a middle ground or a medium setting. No blurred lines or gray areas for me. I am on or off, up or down, high or low, hot or cold, passionate or disinterested, stop or go, silence or sonic boom, all or nothing, sink or swim, do or die.
So this season, I need to abstain. I have to simplify, retreat, surrender and focus. Because I choose to be still, listen, read, think and write instead. Just until this is finished and the seasons change.

3. I can soooo relate to these thesis-related, grad student written blogs… click here, here, and here to know why.

And this might just help me get unstuck.

And the deadliest deadlines are:

1. Workers put up colorful paper dragons on the street lights to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year. Their scarlet tails flutter in the breeze.

2. “You really like soup, don’t you?” my Ian observes as we have our lunary date at Som’s Noodle House in Mandaluyong. I grin in response since I am too intent on inhaling my bowl of tom yam. The beef phad thai is not bad either.

3. My new pixar-like lamp casts a warm glow in my reading nook. Thanks Ivy!

1. Parental units are dropping by my place today, so I dash to straighten things up before going to work. I wipe the dust off my mom’s round flower vase. It gleams a deep crimson.

2. They inspired me to write again. My current mountain of pebbles: calling, vocation, ministry, career, job, purpose, gifts, passion, read, write, discuss, engage, plan, dream, people, friends, organize, impact, word, know, imagine, create, change, flow, decide, discipline, finish, graduate, serve, early, love, family, children, home, intimacy, presence, God.

3. I have someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for in 2012. And my word for this year is focus.