In yesterday’s Bloggers’ Kapihan forum, Mr. Tonchi Tinio of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers gave a briefing on the dubious multi-million dollar Cyber Education Project of the Department of Education. To be fair enough, here’s the government’s spin on the issue.

Now, though we all know that this is another white elephant, that does not truly address the basic problems of our education system, one of the multi-million dollar contract’s provisions that we are probably not aware of is that the contractor of this cyber-education project is Chinese company Nuctech which specializes in, guess what, X-ray inspection technology. And whose company president, is interestingly the Chinese President’s only son, Hu Haifeng.

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October 1, 2007. It feels so pretentious. The smile, the Macbook and all the pretentious props at that. For someone who claims to be frugal, at a time when I felt drained of cash. I surrendered to the wants I have been conditioned to need. I was unhappy, and I felt that a material object in a commercial establishment would somehow magically help me relieve it. Boy, expensive ice cream does not make me happy, however I pretend it would. Thanks for the company, nonetheless.

I’ve somewhat envied how Broad Comm students promote and market their productions. Annually, as part of some of their courses’ curricula, they hold festivals, screenings and even awards nights. I’ve always thought Film student productions deserve as much attention. I don’t know, perhaps we Film students are oriented not to treat our works of art as commercially as broadcast productions.

I wasn’t expecting the publicity to go such a long way, but I heard the screening drew quite a crowd. If one of my blog entries is an indicator, it seems some UP bloggers even got to see it. It gets pretty weird when, days after the screening, random people ask if I’m Lloyd. Whew. Perhaps it was because of that shot.

When Lloyd of All Trades was being screened last October 5, I intentionally missed the three show times. I was not confident enough to show up among the audience and watch myself on screen. And perhaps I was not ready to witness how audiences would react, especially with that embarrassing butt-exposure scene.

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We held a birthday party last September 30 for Tisay’s second birthday. It was a buffet lunch in our place in Sta. Maria, Bulacan for our relatives and my parents’ friends and neighbors. During her first birthday, we held two gatherings. One in Bulacan and a KFC kiddie party in our relatives’ place in Amadeo, Cavite. You may see pictures from her first birthday here.

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Long time no blog. Let me cut the backlog a bit with this.

Last September 28, Friday, we held one of our last mobilizations for the semester. It was a simultaneous rally with students from different UP units while the Board of Regents meeting was being held the same time in UP Los Banos.

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Please bear with the lack of updates. I’m just slugging it out with the heap of final output requirements for this semester. Then, its on to more tasks for the semestral ‘break’. I just saw some pictures from friends in La Salle who graduated a semester ahead of everyone else. Sometimes, I honestly can’t wait till I graduate myself, just because… um. That’s it. I want to rant but I feel so restrained. People from all spheres of my life from old friends, to new friends, to orgmates, to brods, to family and relatives, to people around me who I don’t exactly know–they all read this blog.

POST-SCRIPT: Dear blog, you have betrayed me. For years, you were always there when I needed to rant and to let off some steam. Now that you’re older, and more popular, you’re role as my venue for various intimate personal expressions is no more.

June 2, 2007. As we continued our drive south, the landscaped had changed from seaside mountains to rolling meadows of grass and vineyards. After a couple of hours of driving through Highway 1, we ended up in Paso Robles. We went to J. Lohr winery along Airport Road where my parents and my aunt went wine-tasting. Unlike in Napa Valley, my aunt attests, wine tasting in Paso Robles is free.

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June 2, 2007. Before leaving San Simeon and continuing with our long drive south to Los Angeles, we decided to visit Hearst Castle, a vast, vast estate used to be owned by one of America’s most affluent, controversial and influential aristocrats, William Randolph Hearst, who made a vast fortune with his controversial newspapers and tabloids.

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