lines from DEAR JOHN (that i can't seem to forget)

"Our story has three parts: 

a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

And although this is the way all stories unfold, 

I still can't believe that ours didn't go on forever."

"When you're struggling with something, 

look at all the people around you and realize that 

every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, 

it's just as hard as what you're going through."

"I finally understood what true love meant...

love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, 

no matter how painful the choices you face might be."

"And when her lips met mine, 

I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world,

 but nothing would ever compare to that single moment 

when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and 

knew that my love would last forever."

 

[dear john (for those who aren't familiar-but i doubt there's one) 

is a novel written by nicholas sparks]

throwback: lessons from zombieland

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOVIES 

I WOULD WANT TO WATCH

WITH MY BOYMAN AND MANBOY 

FEW MONTHS AGO...

BUT SINCE I AM MILES AWAY THEN... 

THEY DECIDED TO WATCH THE MOVIE 

ugh--WITHOUT ME.

WHEN I CAME HOME FOR THE SEMBREAK, 

I SAW THE VCD(ZOMBIELAND movie) 

BEING RENTED...SO I DID (RENT) IT.

WE WATCHED THE MOVIE TOGETHER

-- FINALLY!

THE BOYMAN WAS A SPOILER AND 

I SO LOVE HIM FOR BEING

JUST THAT... HE KNEW EXACTLY 

WHAT SCENE WILL THE

RULES COME OUT...

(AND SOMEHOW MEMORIZED THEM)-

--HERE THEY ARE!

1. cardio 

(you have to be fit to be able to run away...)

2. double-tap 

(you have to be sure that its really dead...)

3. beware of bathrooms 

(they attack when/where you are most vulnerable...)

4. fasten seatbelt 

(oh well, you know those sudden brakes...)

7. travel light 

(coz you have to run and hide and run...)

16. limber-up 

(didnt work for the main character though...)

17. (don't) be a hero 

(depends on the circumstance...)

22. when in doubt, know your way out 

(almost always needed...)

31. check the backseat 

(to not to have the shock of all shocks...)

and--- 

32. ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS 

(awww, this one i heart...)

ouch! the market failed?

a former student asked me... what's market failure? i say, it's just around...i may have laughed answering it but it's true...market failure is a concept (within economic theory) describing that situation when the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient. by 'not efficient', i meant, there exists another possible or conceivable outcome where a market participant may be made better-off without making someone else worse-off... it may be viewed as scenarios where an individuals' pursuit of self-interest leads to results that are not efficient – that can be improved upon from the societal point-of-view...

then he asked, what are the sources of market failure?... i say there are many but to name some we can start with (1)  public goods --- a public good is one, which if provided to one consumer, is freely available to all consumers like the street lights, parks and roads. this means no private firm is able to make a profit from providing such goods.  hence, government should ensure that such goods are provided at the socially desired level. another is (2) income distribution --- the market does not ensure equitable distribution of incomes. this may motivate government to put in place some policies to redistribute wealth through measures like income taxes.

then there's (3) monopoly --- the operations of monopoly (or natural monopoly) more often than not result in misuse of market power (inefficient allocation of resources too which reduce community welfare). here, at times, governments regulate monopoly and enforce laws preventing cartels. then the most famous (for those with background in economics) (4) externalities --- an externality arises when an activity confers a benefit (like the benefit of research or vaccine) or imposes a cost (pollution) on a third party, without the cost or benefit being included in the market price of that activity...

and saving for last is the most common (5) information asymmetries ---supposedly, buyers and sellers in a competitive market have complete knowledge about a product or service characteristics and quality but this is not always true in the real world... information asymmetries between producers and consumers can lead to market failure and reduce community welfare.. this is the part when WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW WON'T HURT YOU doesn't work... 'coz believe me, it does!

econ 101: externalities

externalities is an economic concept for "side-effect" or "spill-over". it occurs if a person’s activity affects the well-being of an uninvolved person. this term comes from the fact that someone external to the action or transaction is affected by the activity (or production of consumption of the good). this may be positive (externality) or negative (externality). A positive externality occurs if an activity creates benefits for uninvolved people. A negative externality occurs if an activity creates costs (harm or discomfort) for uninvolved people.

lately i have been thinking of this concept in a 'not-so-economist-way'. i have reason to believe that i have been experiencing negative externality. one person's activity have been affecting my well-being (as an uninvolved person in the activity) for about a month now.

have you ever been disturbed by 'noises' of a neighboring space while you are doing your 'writing jobs' ? (remedy: tell the 'whoever causes the noise' to tone it down or if to no avail, let them feel that you are disturbed in any manner you know how) ...have you ever inhaled second- hand smoke that lead you to bouts of irritating cough? (remedy: cough your lung out and drink lots of water or find out next time where/whom the smoke came from and politely ask him/her to just swallow it)...

have you ever been distracted knowing something illegal (or immoral) is going on nearby and you just can't (or so far, won't) do anything about it 'coz you might be branded as naive or self-righteous- so distracted that it costs you your peace during your established work-hours? (remedy: read your bible and ask for inner peace or sing your prayers out loud so your mind won't have space to think of other things or talk to the people involved as if they'd listen to you and feel ashamed that they'd stop doing it or find a new place and wonder what externalities will be in store in the new place)...i could go on and on about it but i guess somehow you get the picture. what are you to do? what am i to do? - still, das ist die Frage!

my 10 favorites in the 48 laws of power

• Law 1 Never outshine the master.
• Law 2 Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.
• Law 3 Conceal your intentions.
• Law 4 Always say less than necessary.
• Law 5 So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.
• Law 6 Court attention at all costs.
• Law 7 Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
• Law 8 Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.
• Law 9 Win through your actions, never through argument.
• Law 10 Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
• Law 11 Learn to keep people dependent on you.
• Law 12 Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.
• Law 13 When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.
• Law 14 Pose as a friend, work as a spy.
• Law 15 Crush your enemy totally.
• Law 16 Use absence to increase respect and honor.
• Law 17 Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.
• Law 18 Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.
• Law 19 Know who you're dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.
• Law 20 Do not commit to anyone.
• Law 21 Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.
• Law 22 Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.
• Law 23 Concentrate your forces.
• Law 24 Play the perfect courtier.
• Law 25 Re-create yourself.
• Law 26 Keep your hands clean.
• Law 27 Play on people's need to believe to create a cultlike following.
• Law 28 Enter action with boldness.
• Law 29 Plan all the way to the end.
• Law 30 Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
• Law 31 Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.
• Law 32 Play to people's fantasies.
• Law 33 Discover each man's thumbscrew.
• Law 34 Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.
• Law 35 Master the art of timing.
• Law 36 Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.
• Law 37 Create compelling spectacles.
• Law 38 Think as you like but behave like others.
• Law 39 Stir up waters to catch fish.
• Law 40 Despise the free lunch.
• Law 41 Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes.
• Law 42 Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
• Law 43 Work on the hearts and minds of others.
• Law 44 Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.
• Law 45 Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.
• Law 46 Never appear perfect.
• Law 47 Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.
• Law 48 Assume formlessness.

*WIKI: The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by Robert Greene.
The book shares thematic elements with Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince
and has been compared to Sun-Tzu's classic treatise The Art of War.

little brown man

Little brown man 
This is the song that I quoted in the dedication part
of my dissertation about labor migration...
I first heard this from Joey Ayala
and it has haunted me since then.
I have her sidekick/pretty friend/fellow musician
Tapati to thank for for  this lyrics and chords :)


Intro: D-C-Bm-C-D-Am-G-D-C-Bm-E-G-D-A

I

D             C                                 Bm       C
glad to know you’re feeling better
D                Am                                       G
happy to hear you’ve found your mind
D            C                                    Bm  E
it’s no joke to be living in america
                     G                              D  A
she ain’t friendly to our kind

II

D                       C                                Bm     C
you’ll always be a second-class citizen
D                   Am                      G
even if you pay your taxes right on time
D                              C                           Bm     E
you struggled so hard to get that green card
                 G
working under the table
               Em                                      A   D
calling home when you’re able to

Refrain

G                      C                                       A        D
little brown man in the land of the giants
G                      C                                         A      D
little brown woman on the white prairie
G                            D                                        C    
hold on to your dollars don’t go on no shopping spree
                     G              Em                 A  
you got to save it all for the family

III = I
everything’s disposable in the first world
nothing’s indispensable - you can throw it all away
good food in the garbage good people in the welfare line
it happens all the time

IV = II

peaches and apples and grapes don’t make it all that easy
bacon and eggs everyday can get to be a drag
these fancy slums get cold when the winter comes
chills you right to the bone
and you wish you were home

Refrain x 2

D               G   /F#      Em    /D  C A      
you got to save your soul
                   D-C-Bm-C-D
for the family

life...is what we make it II

There were many times that my father was ‘absentee’ because of his work,
and then he was ‘deceased’ and it somehow didn’t matter to me anymore.
I knew that as the eldest, I have to be my mother’s assistant,
even a partner in taking care of my siblings and make sure our house is a home-
be it an extension of someone’s garage, a shanty by the ‘riles’ or
a room of a house of a relative. There were happy times, yes.
And we are truly a family, my mother and I made sure of that.
Despite the hardships, we excelled in school.
We were popular because we didn’t allow others to look down on us
and we proved that we didn’t have to be rich to be so.

As a family, we were a strange band of characters-- in the 80’s,
my mother and the three of us, in the 90’s ‘minus’ my sister
who died of leukaemia and another sister who was away from us for 10 years
but then it’s also ‘plus’ a new sister and two brothers
from my mother’s second marriage. We went through life sharing a lot- ideas,
school supplies, socks, toothpaste (even bath towels at times),
coveting one another's desserts, borrowing money, reading each other’s diaries,
inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending,
and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together…
and that common thread is my mother or the love for her.

Family (of origin) shaped my life in one way or another- who I am now
(and I have my own family), how I act, and how I keep my values,
and especially how I formed my identity. I have to form my own identity
besides the pre-wired identity that my family built because I realized that
I cannot depend on that (there were times I do not know what I want to be,
but I am quite sure of what I don’t want to be so I take it from there).

I remember some seven years ago, a girl called and told me that her dying father
is my father too, and that I have to give my forgiveness so that he would die in peace.
Fast forward, no one knows yet if this was true but I had another family added on my list.
Here, I was exposed to stories of how ‘this father’ was and how I came to observe
that we share a lot of commonalities and this made me wish I have met them
(he and his family) before he died. My choices and priorities now
are based on what I wanted my new family to be – less complicated, intact and
ever-present for each other. This wouldn’t be difficult (I hope)
because we’re a family of three.

But then I asked myself once:
would I be this strong-willed, patient, and passionate and
beautifully disturbed enough to try to help the least-favoured if we haven’t gone
through all those life’s struggles and complexities?
That is a question I wouldn’t risk answering by application now.

a reminder...

for miyako

Noise from empty drums
Nothing but polluted air
Play deaf if you must.

rhetoric is a poor substitute for action (throwback 2009)

bored at work? been there, been that (throwback 2010)

we all get our share of those days when we feel oh-so-bored at work...sometimes there's a cause for it (stressor-boss, dead-end job and the like), sometimes, it just happens, as if it's a part of an unending cycle. here are 5 of the things i did before to boot me out of the feeling, might (fingerscrossed) work for you too:

1. following the advise of a plurkfriend, i tried getting enough sunlight, fresh air, and exercise before work. i also did brisk-walking (pretending i'm about to miss someone or something if i don't rush) in-between work and people-watching (best place to do this is a university park) after work.

2. 'coz it cured my boredom in the past, i tried helping a friend's organization- planning learning sessions and activities for out-of-school youth. i also did encoding for a citizens group, and packing of relief goods (among others) after-work time til after midnight. yeah, it's selfishness(and selflessness altogether). you may also want to go out and pick up trash in your community (did this with my playmates when i was 10)- and get fun not from picking trash but from the look on the people's faces wondering what you're up to. that gave me something to think about (other than work) while at work, and something to look forward to too.

3. oh this one's a sure hit- visit the library (or if you can't go out during work hours, surf surf surf) and check out some weird books (i read witchcraft).

4. i did something new! i tried learning japanese (used a book) then french (used an audio-book) then mandarin (used a book again) then spanish (this i did online) then german (attended saturday classes). didn't succeed at all of it but it sure did steal some of those boring moments (hopelessly trying to translate curses in my head). i tried learning the sign language (something to do with my fingers during dull moments) - i ended up to only learning words that are in two songs used by my teacher...i also tried to learn how to dance the way bollywood stars do just with a compilation of music videos from india (spent a lot of time imagining and laughing at myself while working)- whew! fun!

5. i re-decorated my fugly room (again, something to occupy mind and look forward to)! with magazines and newspaper first then old CDs and post-its. but if you don't want to or afraid you might feel depressed instead of just bored afterwards, just exercise-pushing furniture this way and that.

yeah, those are my top 5 attempts...as i stated in the beginning, some worked (for most, only for a while) some didn't but hey, nothing's not worth trying :) if one of these works for you, tell me about it...but if none, you can tell me about it too, let's share a good laugh and go back to spending/stealing some time of boredom at work searching for a new job. (lol)

ECON 101. Happiness by Curly Tops.

The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility Simplified.

The first curly tops I ate (after weeks of fasting from it) is good. 

On a scale of ten, I'd give it a 10. 

Then, "my happiness by curly tops" has been somewhat tamed, 

but they gave me another, so I took it.

Since I already had one, my "happiness" rates at a 6.5 at best. 

Maybe others will stop before utility ("happiness") drops even more, 

I wanted to stop too, 

but they gave me a third (let's just say it scored to 2.5). 

If I keep getting and eating, eventually, 

I'd reach a point at which my eating more would make me puke/sick, 

providing dissatisfaction, or dis-utility or, "unhappiness". 

Yes, at some point, 

I have reached the saturation, 

the "saturation point". 

ENOUGH.

how much?

If you were 

to put a price tag to yourself 

(hypothetical question, still NO TO SLAVERY :) ), 

what would it be? 

If you were 

to put a price tag of your hour, 

how much would it cost?

causes of morbidity

In the recent decades, 

the leading causes of 

morbidity (in Pinas) were 

diarrhea, 

bronchitis, 

pneumonia, 

influenza, 

hypertension, 

tuberculosis, 

heart disease, 

malaria, 

chickenpox, 

and 

measles. 

Have we won the war against these? 

Let's also use some of our socmed time 

in (info campaign or) fighting these off . 

Thanks.

sweet valentine :)

2017: the secret

Hello 2017!



Secret to a happy life:

Assume nothing.