Merry Christmas

My wife and kids are here with me in Naga today. What could be merrier?

Merry Christmas everyone!

Striked!

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

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/

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!

Close gamin'

... 65-64! That's how close the game was. A rubber match is forged between the Blues and the Greens.

---

From http://www.hoopaddict.com/livescores/
...
63-58 DLSU
Rico Foul on Baclao 2PF
Baclao 0-2 FT
JV RB 2:12
Long blocking foul 1PF penalty
JV 1-2 FT
64-58 DLSU 2:10
ADMU TO on inbound
JV miss
ADMU RB 2:00
Tiu 3
64-61 DLSU 1:45
JV missd 3
Ty RB 1:30
Walsham missd 3
ADMU RB 1:08
Tiu airball 3
Long RB
Rico Off Goal tending on Arao shot 51 sec
64-63 DLSU
Bader miss
Baclao RB 25 sec
Tiu drive 7.3 sec
64-65 ADMU
Timeout DLSU
Bader missd 3
End of 4th Quarter
64-65 ADMU

Successful defense

Jen, Jasper, Katkat, and Sha all successfully defended their senior thesis! Congratulations!

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.

1 point

.. and that my friend seals the fate to meet the tigers. hehe

UPDATE: The blue eagles (69 pts) won the knockout game vs the tigers (64 pts).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Happy Birthday to Blogger!

Blogger.com is 8 years old today.

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. ;-)

Crunch time

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

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. ;-)

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.

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.