ordinary teaching of no ordinary teaching

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Striked!

I commute daily. Others like me are affected by the transport strike today. Students commuting from outside Naga City will surely miss classes.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Duke Superbowl

Duke U is known for excellent college basketball program but not in college football. Their weekend match with notre dame, a traditional college football powerhouse, however upped the desire of Duke fans to win. Duke and ND are both 1-9 in football standings (that is 1 win and 9 losses). There is a big possibility of Duke winning it -- a rare opportunity in a lifetime. :-) For a more humorous story, visit http://www.dukesuperbowl.com/

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A new life!

Congratulations to daddy Manny and mommy Girlie. A 7-plus lbs baby will now make their nights memorable. We are very happy for them!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Metaphor of absence

Last friday, a faculty's cubicle is empty. Nobody bothers. Another faculty declares that it is not unusual. For a long time, she's quite hard to find whenever it's her birthday.

This time however is different.

She's migrating with her husband and kids to Canada this October. Her absence last friday is a foreshadow. I think the college will miss a friend. The college will miss a faculty who for a long time worked hard in keeping the department intact and running smoothly. The college will miss a faculty who always submits her grade reports on time (actually, most of the time earlier than the due date). She mastered teaching discrete math with linear algebra and computer-aided statistics. She always come to class prepared. There was a time I worried that she's working too hard and that her blood pressure might shoot up because of n concerns in the department (btw, n approaches infinity).

I wish her and her family all the best in their adventure at the other side of the world. I have been there and life there is quite good.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Time out!

It's nice to play bowling with Rey, Josh, Froi, and JP. We even made it to the final round of the competition. We are assured of 3rd runner-up. heheh.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

1-1

The hokies were simply overwhelmed by the tigers. In 2002, I saw how the hokies embarrassed the then nationally ranked tigers by winning 26-8. It was the first time I watched a football game at the Lane stadium. Today, the hokies just managed 7 points against the tigers's 48. Game recap is here.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Get Real J!

Just saw this at www.phdcomics.com. I'm not quite sure if I'd laugh or not. ;-D



Teaching is a real job. .. right? heheh.

...and I'm quite happy here.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Routing Maroons

beating the katipunan rivals would ensure a match with the taft guys during the semis.

UPDATE: Slow start but the eagles prevailed. ;-)

UPDATE: I was wrong. Two more games to go.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Salaries

I find it interesting that the information about the salaries of Virginia Tech teachers is available on the web. The ones with the highest pay (top 25) can be browsed here.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Finis!

The Ateneo Computer Programming Competition ends today. My undergraduate advisee tops the competition! This a good warmup for the First Philippine National Inter-Collegiate Programming Competition (Philippine ICPC 2007) which will be held at De La Salle, Canlubang on October 19, 2007.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Rule in Patintero

I just got this from an email of one of my students:

It is better to cross the line and suffer the consequences that to just stare at the line for the rest of your life.

Happy Birthday to Blogger!



Blogger.com is 8 years old today!

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Clearing the-fence

Another undergraduate advisee passed her preliminary defense today. I am happy with the research results of my four advisees. We can possibly write papers and submit to NCITE 2007. ;-)

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Crunch time

Somehow that's what I feel today. There's just a lot to do and so little time.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dyipni!




You can learn at least two values when you ride passenger jeeps in the Philippines.

First is honesty. The usual ritual is that a passenger would hand out his fare to the driver as soon as he or she gets inside. Now, if you are at the far end of the seat, you naturally ask someone near you to hand out your money towards the driver. If there's a change, it would be handed out to you by the driver, usually also through the same person who handed out your fare to the driver. If there's not enough honesty, this passenger jeep business will not thrive. Of course, there are occasional passengers who would deliberately "forget" whether they already handed out his fare or not.

Second is humility. Every time you get in or out of the jeep, you really have to bow low -- which is sometimes quite embarrassing because your buttocks sticks out. ;-)

Monday, August 13, 2007

On being a good teacher



Bro. Nono is a very good friend of mine since high school. He will be ordained as deacon this September 8 (together with with Bro. Xavier) at the Ateneo de Naga University Church.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Back to blog!

I stopped blogging for more than a year now. My alibi? -- I was completely tied up with my work (but, hey until now!). I am happy however that my undergraduate advisees are doing well in their research work. I am also happy to be back teaching Computer Science subjects to undergraduates.

Roy recently got his PhD from Virginia Tech. Soon, he will work in that company at Redmond famous for its Operating Systems and Office Productivity software.