Ex Libris 2011

Books that I’ve read for 2011:

1. General Sociology: Focus on the Philippines by Isabel S. Panopio, Felicidad V. Cordero-MacDonald, Adelisa A. Raymundo

2. 1984 by George Orwell

3. 501 Most Notorious Crimes by Paul Donnelley

4. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham

5. A Painted House by John Grisham

6. Cradle and All by James Patterson

7. Developing Study and Thinking Skills by Carolina Talavera-Gonzales, Ferdilyn C. Lacia, Arsenia S. Allam

8. Sociology-Anthropology by Aida G. Soliven, Edgardo I. Cabural, Marietta D. Subida, Dorothea C. Dela Cruz, Angelina A. Villanueva, Josephine F. Santonia, Eva Evangelio-Pacayra, Rosemarie A. Chico

El Pueblo del Rio Sta. Maria Bulacan

I’ve been living at El Pueblo del Rio since March 2010. I’ve purchased a Katrina Royale from Bright Homes. For those of you who are intending to purchase a property from this developer, let me just share you my experience. My Pag-IBIG housing loan for the purchase of the said property was approved August 12, 2009  and since then I have religiously made my monthly payments but it took me more than five months before I could finally move in. There were defects that could have been fixed right away. Those defects include uneven and unprofessional finish of the walls, disproportionate size of the main door, missing light fixtures, and other things that gave me headaches. Well, they only attended to my complaints when I spoke with their Vice President.

It’s almost a year since then. This time I’m encountering problems with the homeowner’s association. There’s a dirty politics going on. I don’t want to blurt out the details here. But I have to say that my first year at El Pueblo del Rio is almost a nightmare. If I could just turn back the time, I would have purchased a condo instead.

Ex Libris 2010

I’ve been doing this since 2007 — enlisting the books that I’ve read for the entire year, those books which has helped shape my frame of mind.

1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

2. PUP Graduate Forum: Volume XI, No. 1

3. Principles of Mental Hygiene, Fourth Edition by Josefina Gaerlan, et al.

4. What Type Am I? by Renee Baron

5. Conviction by Richard North Patterson

6. Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn

7. The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon

8. Memories of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon

9. Understanding Psychology, Eighth Edition by Robert S. Feldman

10. Introduction to Special Education by Teresita G. Inciong, et al.

Let's Save Water

Saving water should not feel like a sacrifice; when we save water, we are conserving it for the future. Let’s save water one drop at a time.

These are simple ways we could do to save water:

• Use reusable water bottles and refill them at school or at home.

• Turn the water off while washing hands, brushing teeth, shaving and washing dishes

• Take shorter showers

• Cut down your laundry load by doing laundry at least once a week once you have a full load.

• Replace dripping faucets and pipes because every drop counts.

I’ve found a site which lists 100 ways to save water. Please take time to go over it and try to make those acts a part of our habits.

By saving water, we save Mother Earth. But of course, a more effective way to save Mother Earth is to stop breeding!

Bar Ops Melee

I was at the Bar Ops last September 26, Sunday. It was my first time to witness it, and it all seemed fun expect for the blast that took place. I was just a few feet away from the spot.

I would just like to share these two videos which I took just right after the explosion.

http://www.dennisrelojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BarOps1.avi

Video 1

http://www.dennisrelojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BarOps2.avi

Video 2

Ex Libris 2009

Just like what I did for 2007 and 2008, here is the roster books that contributed to my frame of mind for 2009:

1. Harlem Redux by Persia Walker

2. Catch Me a Killer by Micki Pistorius

3. Friday Nights at Honeybee’s by Andrea Smith

4. Strangers on the Street by Micki Pistorius

5. Before I Wake by Anne Frasier

6. Human Resources Management Principles and Practices by Concepcion Rodil Martires

7. PUP Graduate Forum 2007

8. Principles and Methods of Teaching by Amparo S. Lardizabal, et al.

I am

I am the fish whom the eagle caught in his claws and lifted in the sky. A second before I died, I thought I could fly. – This is very captivating. I  just got this from an Indian blogger. Thanks Amit!

Amazing Koreans

This is just so fun to watch. This shows what a great bunch of people could do plus cooperation and creativity. And the output is breathtakingly exceptional, providing an amazing visual experience.

School Ranking and Advocacy

If I would be an advocate, I would like to turn myself into someone like Loren Pope for he is a different kind of advocate. He fought for colleges who possess everything to offer students and parents, except the status and brand. Pope used to collaborate with parents to help get their children into the most well-known schools in America. He has expressed his perspective to fight for small, not-so-known, liberal arts schools all across America. Pope has published a book used by high school guidance counselors entitled Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change The Way You Think About Colleges. This man has acted as a wonderful and staunch ally for those schools. Although he is not paid for his work, he is providing an awesome service to schools that do not get much attention but should. I haven’t heard of any Filipino who did the same for lesser-fancied schools although it’s easy to spot people who are so rabid about their school being the supreme institution.

Our society is one in which everyone seems to assume that the climacteric moment in young people’s lives is finding out which colleges have accepted them. Gaining admission to an elite school is treated to be a shining, shimmering passport to success; for bright and talented students, failure to do so is viewed as a major life setback. As a result, the devotion on getting into a mega-selective college or university has never been greater. Conversely, Loren Pope’s message is that you don’t have to go to a brand-name school to get a superior education. He has done extensive research on the 40 small liberal arts colleges that are included in his book, Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change The Way You Think About Colleges. His research included visits, discussions with faculty, staff and students, and revisits a decade later to the schools that are included in his book. All of the colleges are student-centered and have collaborative learning environments. Also, on his another book, Looking Beyond the Ivy League, Pope has persuaded that the ultra-glamor schools were losing their status as the sentinel of success and accomplishment.

I strongly recommend Loren Pope’s books to all students, alumni, and educators (especially to those who are conceited) as a way to get them to think beyond the 3 or 4 brand-name universities that most Filipinos believe are the only institutions where one can get a quality education. Isn’t it better if people will realize that, that you have a college degree is more important than where you attended at.

Which is Which?

To put a hyphen or not to put a hyphen? That is the question which most of us ask ourselves when we type the abbreviated version of electronic mail.

Wired Magazine communicates that it should be hyphenated. Meanwhile, The New Hacker’s Dictionary draws on email in its glossary and Geek.com uses the hyphen. The Compact OED in UK approves email, while both Merriam-Webster and the Chicago Manual of Style in the US demand e-mail. Apple uses email. Microsoft usually uses e-mail but sometimes email. Adobe uses both. Google and Yahoo prefer email. CNN uses e-mail. The New York Times uses e-mail.

While according to Dictionary.com (my trusted site for spelling and definition), there are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic up to 1995, email predominates, e-mail runs a not-too-distant second, and E-mail and Email are a distant third and fourth. So, that’s another reason for me to to stick with email.

And this is what Wikipedia has to say:

The spellings e-mail and email are both common. Several prominent journalistic and technical style guides recommend e-mail, and the spelling email is also recognized in many dictionaries. In the original RFC neither spelling is used; the service is referred to as mail, and a single piece of electronic mail is called a message.

Newer RFCs and IETF working groups require email for consistent capitalization, hyphenation, and spelling of terms. ARPAnet/DARPAnet users and early developers from Unix, CMS, AppleLink, eWorld, AOL, GEnie, and HotMail used eMail with the letter M capitalized. The authors of some of the original RFCs used eMail when giving their own addresses.

Donald Knuth considers the spelling e-mail to be archaic, and notes that it is more often spelled email in the UK. In other European languages the word email has a completely different meaning: “enamel”.

Personally, I prefer it without the hyphen just because I’m sluggish. But Wired Magazine definitely has a point, “e” does stand for electronic and therefore e-mail is indeed two words. Thus, e-mail makes sense. However, most of the us are not going to sidetrack overnight and you’ll see ample of  emails scattered around.

I don’t want to sound like a grammar police but I believe it should be standardized. Nobody knows how to spell email. Or you might say, “nobody knows how to spell e-mail,” but you’d be mistaken. Or would you? Nobody knows and perhaps nobody cares…