Deantastic!

National Schools Press Conference 2010: The Tagum Invasion

Deantastic — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:53:15 +0000

When I first learned that Tagum City in Davao del Norte had won the rights to host this year’s National Schools Press Conference—the last one I would be eligible to take part in—I wasn’t sure what to feel. To be frank, I wasn’t so sure an NSPC in Mindanao was worth looking forward to. Even though I call the island home, I’m no stranger to its history of violence and unrest, and with the contest being held against the backdrop of a tumultuous political season and the Ampatuan Massacre still fresh in the nation’s mind, not only were I and my fellow participants faced with the prospect of boredom in a city relatively alien to us, we were also followed by the unwelcome fear of violence and danger.

By the time we settled ourselves in our billeting quarters in Tagum, however, the worst of my apprehensions were gone. The Tagum City government, headed by Mayor Rey Uy, took every measure to ensure our security and comfort as we participated in the five-day event, which centers on a timely and relevant theme: the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the need to achieve them by 2015. The result was a smoothly conducted, well-organized competition that brought out the best in all those who participated, and one that is definitely one for the history books.

Over the next few posts on this blog I will recount my NSPC 2010 experience day by day, from the unusually long opening parade to the kickass sendoff the genial people of Tagum prepared for us. Stay tuned for my account of the National Schools Press Conference 2010 in Tagum City.

To The Girl In The Souvenir Stall

Deantastic — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:03:27 +0000

The 2010 National Schools Press Conference in Tagum City ended yesterday, but I’ve been unable to get you out of my head.

Hi, I’m Dean. I don’t know if you remember, but we “met” in a souvenir stall in Tagum City National High School. I was wearing a red-and-yellow Caraga shirt and an unbelievably stupid face, and you were wearing a simple shirt, a nice pair of shorts, and one of the sweetest smiles I’ve ever seen.

I was waiting for my shirt to get printed and you were looking at the designs they had put on display on one side of the booth. I vaguely remember us stealing sidelong glances at one another, but that could have been just me. At any rate, there I was, standing stupidly, secretly admiring your presence, while you leisurely looked for a shirt design you liked.

Then you made the exclamation that made me squeal on the inside: “Uy, yun oh, cute ‘yun!” (or something to that effect) while pointing to a design. Right after you said that you looked sheepishly at me, giggling to reveal that smile and those dimples that made me melt. I don’t know if you were making pacute or if you’re just that adorable by nature.

All I could say in reply was, “ok lang ‘yan, ate *giggle*.” I barely even got the words to leave my lips, and I highly doubt that you heard what I said. The reply might have been obfuscated by the corny laugh and the one hell of a f—face I said it with.

We didn’t speak any further, and soon you moved to the other end of the stall—whether to look for more shirt designs or to escape from my weirdness, I’m not sure. I wanted to make conversation so I could get your phone number (or at least your name so I could add you up on Facebook). I even moved to your end of the stall, pretending to sift through the piles of shirts on the table while thinking of ways to start talking to you. I wanted to strike up a chat, but you seemed too busy and I was too shy.

Before I cold utter a word, you got the shirt you wanted, haggled all you could, and left the stall and my life as quickly as you came—possibly forever.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about you, about the brief exchange of giggles in the stall, about how I was too shy to say a word, about what would have happened had I been brave enough to try to strike up a conversation. I spent the wee hours of the next morning writing this, forgoing sleep I needed much for the homeward journey I made a few hours later.

I learned many things from my NSPC 2010 experience, the chief of which I learned from you: the window of opportunity can stay open for as briefly as a few seconds, and if that window isn’t seized, many what ifs can come to mind, which is bad since life isn’t supposed to be lived in regret and thinking “what if?”

I know the chances of you reading this are slimmer than Heidi Klum, but I’m a guy who’s grown accustomed to hoping against hope, so here goes:

If you are the girl who stood next to a silly-looking guy in a brightly colored CARAGA shirt in a souvenir stall in Tagum City National High School on the night of February 25, 2010, and if you made a remark to the effect of what was described in the fourth paragraph of this piece, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get in touch via Facebook or by using this page. Please please please. I really want to be friends. =)

With warm regards,

(sgd) Dean.

Post-NSPC 2010

Deantastic — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:15:29 +0000

I’m back in Butuan after participating in the 2010 National Schools Press Conference in Tagum City.

I am pleased to report that I placed fifth in Feature Writing – English Secondary and third in the online writing contest sponsored by the Philippine Online Chronicles. I was also awarded as one of the country’s outstanding campus journalists along with 16 other writers.

A detailed blog post chronicling the prestigious event is in order, of course, but I’m still weary from all the stress and the traveling, so it might take a few days for me to come up with one.

In the meantime, stick around for a short letter I wrote to a girl I, uh, met, while I was in Tagum.

NSPC 2010 in Tagum

Deantastic — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:50:33 +0000

Today, my colleagues and I hopped aboard the early morning bus bound for Tagum, arrived at around 10, spent a couple of hours in NCCC, retreated to our quarters for some much-needed sleep, left later in the afternoon so my colleagues could attend mass, and ate dinner at Chowking. We’re resting up tonight to prepare for the National Schools Press Conference 2010 which commences tomorrow.

Thank goodness the school we’re billeted in has WiFi. It’s not school-wide, but it’s loads better than nothing. I will probably be able to go online a lot more during this year’s NSPC than I did in Naga last year. Stay tuned for constant updates; if you’re looking for results, I’ll try to get them posted here once they’re announced (closing ceremonies are this Thursday, I think).

Power hungry

Deantastic — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:06:20 +0000

Hours-long power outages have plagued Visayas and Mindanao for a few weeks now. Locally, the situation has worsened to the point where brownouts happen daily in at least one part of the city. I’ve observed that the city is divided into two general areas. If at 600pm there is no power outage in Area A, then Area B is definitely without power (and vice versa). The brownouts occur alternately, too; on Monday, Area A gets no power, Tuesday, Area B, Wednesday, Area A again, and so on. It’s almost like the interruptions are scheduled. Many have suggested that they are, and that these outages are part of some administration ploy to somehow influence the outcome of the May polls.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines says the outages are caused by low water levels in hydroelectric power plants and not a disgusting and insatiable hunger for power of the political kind. Apparently the country is suffering a dry spell of some sort (it rained as hard as dog dung this afternoon and yesterday, so I wonder how they can say that), and as a result the power plants are producing much less electricity than we need.

I find it hard to buy this explanation. It doesn’t help that the rotating brownouts began right around the time when the presidential race was beginning to really heat up. In other countries, it might seem implausible to think that power interruptions would be deliberate and that they would have something to do with elections, but this is the Philippines, a nation that has, for nearly a decade now, been under an unbelievably, pitifully self-serving administration. This is the Philippines. Our ancestors fought to free us from abuse by foreigners, only for our own countrymen to abuse us generations later. This is the Philippines, where politicians have one hand gripped tightly on a rostrum in the Senate as they passionately condemn dishonesty and corruption, while the other hand helps itself to the nation’s coffers. This is the Philippines, where a promise made to the people on national TV means absolutely nothing. This is the Philippines, a country that boasts that it is well on its way to becoming a first world nation by 2020 while one of its highly urbanized cities suffers daily power interruptions. In the Philippines, everything has become possible, from votes magically multiplying to public funds quickly and inexplicably disappearing.

Sometimes, I go through the newspaper and have to wonder if we’re absolutely sure we’re not living in a psychedelic Alice-in-Wonderland universe. In the darkness of my bedroom, during the frequent nights when there is no power and nothing to do, I’ve begun to wonder more and more.

Just moved

Deantastic — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:45:12 +0000

It took me quite a bit of tweaking and a lot of patience and hard work, but this blog is now finally and comfortably settled in its new domain, WWW.DEANTASTIC.COM. (The blog used to live at www.deanlozarie.com.)

If you have me on your blogroll, please update my blog’s URL. Also, I’d love it if you could add me to your blogroll if you haven’t already. If you wish to be included in my blogroll, send me a message on dean at this domain or drop a comment in this post. I am yet to begin rebuilding my blogroll—apparently WordPress doesn’t export links—so if you were on my previous blog’s blogroll, don’t fret.

Thanks, and keep life deantastic!

My dream workspace

Deantastic — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:30:54 +0000

I was in my classmate’s house recently to take care of some school stuff and while I was rummaging through his cabinets full of magazines, I came across an Ikea catalog from 2008. I spent a few minutes going through it and remembered how I’d been meaning to assemble a list of items that would compose my dream workspace. Here is that list.

Tabletop

Envelop Desk attached to wider desk for non-computer stuff. Photo from ikea.com

The core component of any fancy workspace is the tabletop. I’ve always wanted the kind that has a corner, like Ikea’s GALANT corner-desk left. A much more extravagant (and much more expensive) solution is the Intent Furniture setup from Herman Miller. I’d personally prefer a modification on the Intent Furniture setup—one that includes the Envelop Desk, also from Herman Miller, attached to a longer work desk for non-computer-related tasks (see picture on left).

Seat

Profile of the Embody Chair. Photo from Flickr / Bfionline

For the past four years, I’ve had to contend with sub-par seating in my small study desk/workspace here at home. Since freshman year in high school, I’ve used only three chairs: a monobloc plastic chair that feels more at home in a government office lobby than in a home setting, a wooden dining seat with a comfortably high backrest but ridiculously low seat height, and another wooden dining chair with a nice seat height but an inconvenient seat depth. Throughout the years, I’ve experimented with ways to make the most out of this poor situation: I often pile a pillow or two on top of the seat so my ass doesn’t break after hours of sitting on such a hard surface, and place another pillow against the backrest so my back doesn’t break while I’m working.

My dream workspace is a world away from this problem. I’m sure many a person will vouch for the Herman Miller Celle Chair as the chair to have in a workspace. As far as I know it’s one of the best work chairs you can get out there. Here’s a review by tech blogger Paul Stamatiou back in 2007. A more recent Herman Miller model, the Herman Miller Embody Chair, has received similar acclaim; in fact, tech blog Gizmodo calls it “the best chair we’ve ever sat on“. If there’s anything backbreaking about these seats, however, it’s the price tag attached to them. The Embody is priced at a ridiculous $1,600 (I repeat, $1,600—that’s more than an iMac!) while the Celle Chair sells for $450 in Amazon.

Computing

The Apple iMac. Photo from Flickr / stephenhackett

Let me be frank: although I constantly praise FOSS and use Ubuntu as my main OS for my day-to-day activities, I make no bones about the fact that I really want a Mac. It’s not just because it’s shiny and has a picture of a half-eaten fruit on it, either. The Mac is the computer of choice of professionals, businessmen, tech geeks, and artists. Its amazing hardware custom-built for its remarkable operating system makes it an excellent choice regardless of your inclination or profession. It doesn’t have the clunkiness and vulnerability of Windows and offers a wider array of software and a better user experience than Linux.

The crown jewel of the workspace of my dreams would be a 27-inch iMac complete with a Logitech mouse + keyboard combo. The iMac should also be loaded up with incredible software: Adobe Creative Suite 4, iWork, and Microsoft Office for Mac, among others.

My workspace should also feature a number of devices that take my computing experience to the next level. For my printing needs I’d like the super badass HP Officejet J3680 All-in-One Printer, Fax, Scanner, and Copier. For networking I’d definitely need a Netgear router, maybe a Wireless-N 300.

I’d also need some other gadgety stuff. For example, this fancy iPod dock from JBL. For backup purposes I should also have at least three Western Digital external hard drives (three for redundancy).

Writing

A Montblanc Meisterstück and a Moleskine. Look at that thing. It's gorgeous. Photo from Flickr / idreamoutloud

The crown jewel of the workspace of my dreams would be a Montblanc Meisterstück 149. I would dedicate a drawer to it and the bottles upon bottles of only the best ink there is to be had. For writing that doesn’t require or befit of the use of a fountain pen, I would need a Montblanc Bohème rollerball.

I would also keep a Moleskine 12-month daily planner on my table for scheduling and organization. For everything else writing-related I would have a couple of ruled Moleskines. Perhaps there would also be a few boxes of stationery for letters, notes to friends, addenda to my Grand Plan for World Domination, and the like.

Other

I’d also like a good desk lamp, such as the Forså work lamp from Ikea. Some implements from Rolodex like their letter tray and pencil cup, too. (Not their actual rolodex, though; no one uses that anymore.)

Finally, my whole workspace and workflow should be designed in accordance with David Allen’s patented Get Things Done (GTD) system.

* * *

What does your dream workspace look like? Anything you would add to, subtract from, or change about mine?

Falling in love with the fountain pen [Excerpts from my diary]

Deantastic — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:55:35 +0000

Excerpts from pp. 57-58, dated 02-01-2010.

Today I fell in love.

I first met my new muse indirectly, on the Internet. Jessica Zafra copied JD Salinger’s “Before the War with the Eskimos” [by hand] as a way of remembering him (he died on Jan. 27, Wednesday, at the age of 91). Ms Zafra’s penmanship is remarkably elegant and I couldn’t help but notice how nicely the ink looked on the paper. This led to a bit of exploration which led me to the Montblanc website. (Montblanc is a renowned writing instruments manufacturer.)

And then I saw her.

The Meisterstück 149 fountain pen. Gorgeous. Elegant. Seductive.

Yes. I just called a fountain pen seductive.

Unfortunately the Meisterstück costs upwards of $500, way beyond what I can afford. However, the offerings of Parker, another popular premium writing instruments maker, are quite beautiful, too, and much more affordable. Some of their fountain pens can be had for below $30.

This afternoon I floated the idea of buying a fountain pen to my dad. I did so quite sneakily, too—I simply asked him if he had an unused fountain pen lying around. He told me there wasn’t much of a point in purchasing a fountain pen towards the end of the school year (he’s right), but that he wasn’t closed to the idea of buying me one for college.

I’m not going to hope for a Meisterstück 149, but a nice Parker with a refill bottle sounds delicious. Hopefully I will acquire one over the summer.

* * *

Look at this. Just look at it. Now, tell me that isn’t gorgeous. Here’s a beautiful Parker, too.

Do you use fountain pens? Any recommendations?

JD Salinger, 91

Deantastic — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:50:49 +0000

JD Salinger of The Catcher in the Rye fame passed away in his Cornish, N.H. home last Wednesday at the age of 91. The famous recluse who has lived away from the public eye since 1953 died of natural causes. Read the New York Times obituary. Another interesting piece on how fierce Salinger’s neighbors were in protecting his privacy.

JD Salinger, 91. Rest in peace.

How I passed the UPCAT

Deantastic — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:45:08 +0000

Click for full-resolution image

Results of the University of the Philippines College Admission Test or UPCAT, which I and my batchmates took last August, were released today. Although results are still unavailable online due to technical difficulties with Globe Telecom’s connection, I was told I qualified for admission to UP Diliman’s Journalism program, praise be unto God!

To qualify for UP is probably one of the most coveted achievements a high school senior can hope for, and although Journalism was my second course choice (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Accountancy being my first), I’m still shocked that I even passed the UPCAT. I remember how dizzying I found the Mathematics and Science portions of the exam to be. Certainly, I passed the UPCAT not because I have the smarts but because a Higher Power willed it.

Here is my secret to passing the UPCAT.

***

If you live in the Philippines and watch a good amount of local news, you will probably remember that the Iglesia Ni Cristo (of which I am a member) held massive gatherings in different locales around the country and the world in celebration of its 95th founding anniversary. What fewer people know is that beginning one month prior to the celebrations, we held daily devotional prayers (panata in Tagalog) for the success of our celebrations. Beginning June 22 (if I’m not mistaken), I made the daily ride to church right after school. Although congregational prayers in our locale were scheduled for 7.30pm nightly, I sometimes had to hold my own personal devotional prayers whenever I had UPCAT review classes to attend and couldn’t make it to the congregational prayers. Of course, I prayed primarily for the success of our celebrations (that was the reason for our panata, after all), but I also prayed that the Lord guide me during the UPCAT, that He bless me with a bright future if He so willed, and that above all, His Will be done. I asked Him to allow me to pass UP so that I wouldn’t have to enter a secular university in order to earn a proper education (INC members are highly discouraged from entering secular schools). I so prayed every day for more than a month, even after our July 27 celebrations, in the days leading up to the August 1 test date.

When I took the UPCAT, I felt my prayers were answered, inasmuch as I felt His presence and guidance. Sure, I found the test difficult, but I didn’t feel threatened (if that’s the right word). The moment I finished the test, I knew that I had been granted victory, the results notwithstanding.

Last week, in anticipation of the releasing of the results, I decided to hold another weeklong personal panata, this time asking that He give me the strength and wisdom to accept His Will. I asked Him to teach me how to use the outcome of the test, whatever it may be, to better serve Him.

Today I found out that I qualified for admission into UP. He heeded my prayers. He didn’t leave me alone. Praise be unto God.

I am fortunate to have been brought up learning to place my trust in the Lord. I was always taught by my parents and my elders in Church that no one and nothing in this world can be trusted, that my trust should be placed in the Lord, in the Lord always, and in the Lord only. I was always taught that He will never turn a deaf ear to the prayers of His chosen people so long as we never turn away from Him.

Today I once again saw that He has never deserted me and will never desert me.

This victory is not mine but the Lord’s. Praise be unto God!