Went to Davao City last October 21-25, 2009 for the 10th Philippine Association of Marine Science Conference. Since the conference proper was on Oct 22-24, we decided to arrive a day early in order to explore the city. This was taken in the Philippine Eagle Center:

Meet Pag-asa. He was the first chick born in the center. He’s now 17 years old and still going strong. Thank you very much to Tatit (Communications and Fund-raising specialist for the Philippine Eagle Foundation) for the great tour

A more coherent post when I get my thoughts in order! ^-^

I say Han

Teehee.

I entered the Philstar.com “I Love Philippines” Year 2 contest last August. They asked people to submit stories about best Philippine travel experiences in the form of websites, photos, songs, or videos created using Apple’s iLife ‘09 software. The grand prize? A 13″ MacBook Pro. As someone who’s been dreaming of a Mac for some time now but never had the funds, how could I pass this up?

My project: a website featuring my almost 2-year stay in the paradise known as El Nido, Palawan created using iWeb ‘09. I didn’t win the MacBook *sob* (but the winning video really was kick-ass and deserved to win) but my entry was among the top 4-10 entries (they never mentioned my exact standing) so I got the 3rd generation iPod shuffle. It’s so tiny!

Screenshots after the jump!

And this is my title page. The fact that I still placed even with this horrendous formatting glitch is a mini miracle. LOL. It looked absolutely fine in Safari but the titles displayed in their default font size in Firefox. Grar.

That’s my sister in the photo. LOL

Tada! Not too shabby for 1 evening of writing + 1 evening of laying this out in iWeb + 1 evening of finalization and uploading to Mobile Me ^-^ Hoped you liked it!

Yesterday’s discussion in my Marine Ecology class on order and patterns in nature was fun. We got to reproductive patterns and everyone started contributing anecdotes

From Pat: young dolphins group into all-female and all-male pods. Once they hit puberty, they (meaning female-female and male-male) practice having sex with each other so that they know what to do once the two pods merge for the real thing.

From Ella: before a male cockroach mounts the female, he scoops out the sperm of the last male to make sure that the female’s eggs are fertilized by his sperm

From me: crabs do that too

From Fleur: after copulation, male rats plug up the female’s vagina to make sure that other males don’t interfere.

Dr. Yap’s comment? “You guys sure know a lot about sex!” LOLOLOLOL.

The discussion on order: Dr. Yap told us about a study Dr. Saloma (the CS Dean), his wife (a molecular biologist), and a group of graduate students did on rats and complex systems. When they induced panic in rats, the rats actually got more organized when there were fewer exits. When there were 3 exits, the rats moved about chaotically. But when there was only 1 exit, they actually lined up and exited without any fuss. Huh. If that happened to a group of people, instead of order, there would be a pile of dead bodies blocking the exit.

Wheee. Found some videos on YouTube of Anoop’s set on the American Idol tour and what can I say? With a voice like that, he should get signed ASAP! 

Set list:
“Always on My Mind” – Willie Nelson
“Mad” – Ne-Yo (damn! *melts*)
“My Prerogative” – Bobby Brown (his dancing has improved considerably but there were a few awkward body movements. He’s still smexy though )

The whole set, though from far away:

Practically a front row view:

And Party Anoop comes out!

Waaah please come to the Philippines!!!

Got to see how the folks at Ocean Adventure care for the animals. Doc Mariel and Trainer OP were very nice about answering the endless questions that I had – I’ve been to other oceanariums that took care of marine mammals but this was the first time I’ve ever gotten a backstage tour.

I was meeting Tonka! He was very gracious about acting as our “stranded” marine mammal. Yesterday would probably rank as one of the most awesome days ever  More photos once I have the time to fix them. Argh. Wanted to bring the SLR but I was paranoid about carrying it while taking public transportation – I knew that Diuvs, Asa, and I would be taking the bus back to Manila. Hay.

One of my favorite books of all time is “Smart Women Finish Rich” by David Bach. The book that started Mr. Bach’s “Finish Rich” series, “Smart Women Finish Rich” is a guide to personal finance written especially for women. Consider these facts:

1. In general, women live longer than men.

2. Women are more likely to take breaks in their careers in order to care for family members, be they children or elderly parents.

3. Women still make less money than their male counterparts.

Taking all these things into account, women have to take more steps in order to secure their financial future. This is where “Smart Women” comes in.

Prior to reading this book, I thought that I already had a pretty good grasp of my finances. I got my first job, took home my first paycheck, started saving everything I could. I got my first credit card. It was only upon reading “Smart Women” that it finally sank in that the things I did NOT know about money far outweighed the things that I did know. I knew inflation was a bad thing but didn’t know just how badly it could affect money lying stagnant in a savings account. I knew how the stock market worked but not how to go about making money in it. I didn’t know what a mutual fund was. I didn’t realize just how important having health insurance was. Through reading “Smart Women”, I found out all of these and much more. Most importantly, I found out how to make my money work for me.

“Smart Women” is geared towards personal finance newbies, with worksheets to accomplish and easy-to-understand text largely free of jargon. Because it is an introductory text, “Smart Women” doesn’t contain any “earth-shattering” revelations for someone who’s already well-versed in financial planning. Mr. Bach also makes frequent references to United States law, especially when discussing taxes, retirement accounts, and company benefits, but that doesn’t mean that you should skip those sections entirely. In fact, you should read those sections to find out how the US government is helping their citizens save money and prepare for retirement. Makes you wish that the Philippines had similar legislation.

The first thing I did after reading the book was analyze my financial situation and plans for the future. The second thing I did was to consult with a (well-off) friend in the finance sector and pick his brain regarding suitable places to invest in. The third thing I did was to put money away in a mutual fund. Prior to reading “Smart Women Finish Rich”, the future had always seemed to be something off in the distance that wouldn’t arrive for many, many years. The future is still a long way away, but that just means that I best start preparing for it now.

Get your Geekerie Shirts fix this June 13-14, 2009 at the 7th Philippine Toys, Hobbies, and Collectibles Convention happening in Megatrade Halls 2-3, SM Megamall, Ortigas. Drop by and help us launch our latest designs!

To guarantee yourself a shirt (especially of our most popular designs), you can email us at geekerie.shirts(at)gmail(dot)com.

See you there!

Finally got this done after 2 (ack) months. I loved shooting and editing this.

Until next year!