Oh I See!

The Dean has appointed me Assistant Secretary of the College of Engineering from Nov. 14, 2005 to May 31, 2006. It's payback time. Leave with a bang!

Dakak Adventure

Y4IT Outing in Puerto Galera

Errr .. Urrr ..

I've encountered a lot of people, from janitors to managers, with P and F Defect -- perfect pronounced as ferpect, proof as froop, and so on. I try to ignore this imperfection, but sometimes, I can't help but give this foolish look.

There's another defect which botheres me, the Urr Factor. Let me give you some examples -- airplane prounounced as urrplane, airport as urrport, area as urrya, materials as maturrials. This one is a classic -- Fairview (some place in Quezon City) as Furrview. I 'm still in denial. She's a damn teacher for goodness sake!!!

The page cannot be displayed

I thought it was my internet connection. I just read from Rommel's blog that indeed, the UP website is down. I think it's been down for more than 24 hours already. I do not usually visit this site but I needed to check the academic calendar.

I heard UP cut its budget for internet and opted to get just one ISP, which happens to be the unreliable Pacific Internet. To the UP officials, you should have listened to him. You know who I am talking about.

Travelling

And you thought travelling was fun ...

I have spent the past two weeks going around the Philippines. As you know, my work in JEDI involves, among other things, teacher training. I have to ensure that the trainings are going smoothly by visiting each training venue. I also present stuff on JEDI, community collaborations, and open source initiatives.

I also have to make sure that all hotel bills are settled properly. Since money from Sun has not been transferred yet, I have to shoulder these expenses for the meantime. Most of it is paid through my credit card anyway.

To sum it up, here are the places I've visited:

ILOILO - October 18 to 20 (Iloilo Doctors' College)
ANGELES - October 20 to 21 (Angeles University)
DAVAO - October 23 to 25 (Ateneo de Davao)
ILOILO - October 25 to 27 (University of Iloilo)
CEBU - October 27 to 29 (Cebu Institute of Technology)

Finally, I will be in BACOLOD from November 1 to 3 (University of Negros Occidental - Recoletos). Whew! My last destination.

I am tired. I've been getting all sorts of illnesses: cough and colds, terrible headache, stomachache, back pains. Despite this, I am still happy with what I am doing. I just thank the Lord for giving me this opportunity. And the fact that I'm jacking up on my milage points.

Semestral break??? What break?! Summer break is going to be as crazy as this.

Political Exercise

Promotion should be about merits, and not personal relationships. Ideally, that should be the case. But in this organization that I belong to, professional jealousy reigns. Promotion is a mere political exercise where those people in power can easily twist things in their favor.

I found out that finishing a Master's programme in one year can be disastrous. They relate the number of years with degree of difficulty. They got it all wrong. However, those who finish (a two-year programme) in three, four, five, six, and even seven (shame!) years can actually bring them more glory ... or so they think! What an irony.

Life goes on. More opportunities await, I'm sure.

Promotion

The Diliman APC has spoken! I doubt though if DCS APC will heed to their recommendation. Let's see ...

Parasites Galore

There are plenty of them everywhere. In my experience, I found them in my workplace, in my organizations (some of which I started and for some reason, some cannot accept this fact), and my alma mater. It's better to stay away from these blood-sucking creatures rather than rot with them. Be careful with the people you trust.

Y4IT Congress

The 2005 Philippine Youth Congress in Information Technology was a huge success once again. With more than 8,000 students, teachers, and IT professionals in attendance, we have once again set the record as the most well-attended IT conference in the country.

The Congress was held from September 15 to 17, 2005 at the University of the Philippines Theater in Diliman. The event was sponsored by the UP Information Technology Training Center (UP ITTC), the DOST Virtual Center for Technology Innovation in Information Technology (VCTI-IT), and the Diliman Computer Science Foundation, Inc. (DCSF).

The 3-day event featured the following topics:
Java Technology
e-Learning
Trends in Gaming
Network Management
Digital Entertainment
IT Careers in the Health Sector
Career Opportunities and Work Readiness
The Japanese Information Technology Industry
Careers in Embedded Systems Development
3D Animation and Visual Effects
Wi-Fi Technology and Third Generation Gadgets
Internet Security
Change Management
The Philippine e-Library Project
Mobile Computing
Network Viruses
Bioinformatics: Challenge and Opportunity
ICT and the Call Center Industry
Robotics

Despite coinciding with LinuxWorld, Y4IT proved to be the larger crowd-drawer having participants from ALL the regions including Batanes and Tawi-tawi. First day had about 2,200 delegates. We had a whopping 3,500 delegates the next day. More wanted to attend unfortunately, we could not accommodate them anymore since the Theater was overcrowded and people had to sit on the aisles. We provided free shuttle service within the campus and some participants opted to tour the ITTC instead. The last day was still jampacked with about 2,600 delegates.

It was surely stressful for the organizers, but with the help of 150 student volunteers from UP, San Beda, AMA, and Roosevelt, life became much easier for everyone.

Next year, we plan to hold simultaneous Plenary talks at the University Theater and the Film Center. I hope we break the record once more!