Felinity

June 28, 2009

admittedly, we’re not cat lovers in the family; we don’t actually love them as they should but we don’t hate them either. its coexistence afterall. its just respect to another life-breathing entity. i will not call it affinity; more like felinity. i thought at first that this word is non-existent in the dictionary; but i was wrong. its there! and i am using the word in a way to replace affinity, hehehe. the correct meaning is here.

this is then a tribute to the felines that freely roam our backyard in the province. we actually don’t own one, but one day one came and then another and then we noticed there’s a clowder of them already. we just can’t drive them away and so mom would give them food and they all stayed.

so here goes, one “catty” scene:

Would you dare disturb a cat who is probably in a magical feline world divinely resting like this one? and look at the position. it deceived me at first. I thought it was dead and so i went to take a look. then i saw it was breathing. that made me go back to our house and get my camera.

oooopsss, sorry! the shutter sound woke the cat and she sleepily flipped to see who is the culprit.

she looked at me accusingly. hmmm… am guilty.

and so she bolted and with grace and felinity left me to continue her interrupted sleep.

with persistence, i followed with my camera. she felt it and she looked back seeming to say, “Hey, don’t follow!”

Okidoks. So much of this already. Let’s give her rest. She must need it. :)


A Taste of Ivy League

June 8, 2009

I dragged myself to work today. I actually started to draft an sms telling my boss I will be out. But knowing I have a lot of things on my list and Friday (June 12) is a non-working holiday in my country, I have to really forced myself to report. I head on to iron my clothes (i do this everyday, mind you), went to take a bath, change and prepare myself to work. I was early to log-in at 8:06am for my 8:30am office call time.

I did accomplish a lot. Three emails to India answering technical specifications and queries, instructions to my small team, programs running, emails to colleagues in the business, calls, etc.  All in all,  I can say I had a productive day. I earned what the company pays me for the day plus more.

I went home excited to hear Robert Shiller of Yale University lecture on Financial Markets. His course is ECON 252. I am not enrolled in his class but last night, I downloaded the first series of his 26 lectures on the course. I slept late and that’s probably the reason why, I was about to declare I have a Monday sickness to my boss.

Anyway, call it late, but I just learned that lectures from Ivy League universities have become available in Youtube. Know why I learned about it? Its from our April 27, 2009 TIME magazine subscription which i don’t get to read regularly because i had it delivered at home in the province, hehehe. I went home last weekend and catch with my reading. See how old fashion I am. There’s an online version yet, i don’t read them. Tsk, tsk, tsk,… as if I have time.  Hmmm… anyway, on page 27 of that Magazine, Legendary lecturer Marian Diamond was featured. In the text, it says “In March, YouTube launched an educational hub called YouTube Edu, dedicated exclusively to videos from the…”.  All I can say is WOW! I need to see this.

And so last night, i get busy. Right this very moment I am downloading several lectures from this site. The moment I reach my place from the office, i switch on my machine, plugged in my portable 320GB Buffalo and then hear the opening class of Prof. Bob Shiller’s ECON 252. If that is not awesome then tell me what is!!!

I am in the Philippines sitting in front of my PC and having a taste of an Ivy League education. Thanks to YouTube Edu.

Am looking forward again to learning great things. Life is just great! :)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8F7E2591EE283A2E