Friday – 3 Jun 2011

[smartads] Raven is the oldest child of Ramil and Robbie Apilado.  He’s not very athletic, but he’s a good kid.  I’ve only seen him cry one time since I’ve been here, and even then, there was no noise, just tears.

Useless Knowledge: It may be possible to attend your own funeral. The human brain continues sending out electrical wave signals for up to 37 hours following death.  (So the ‘life after death’ issue has been solved)

Sorry it’s not such a great picture.  This is Ramil and Robbie’s youngest and only daughter.  She is only 3 years old, but she is pretty smart.  Sometimes when she gets something to eat and her brothers are not around, she will save some for them when she sees them next.  I never remember them doing that for her though.

1 Jun – Lita has been talking recently about making adjustments to a tricycle so I will be able to ride it.  She figures that if I have a tricycle, that she would never have to pay to go back downtown again.  Even if I’m not the one pedaling, someone else could use it.  That’s all fine with me, but not now.  I’ve got several other things to do first.  I think that within a year, we should be able to do something like that.  I think that it would be excellent exercise.  I’d just have to make sure I did it often enough to make a difference.  If I bring her downtown every time she goes, it’ll be enough.  She goes to the market at least 5 times per week.  When it gets that it’s too easy for me to do the 2 mile round trip with a passenger or passengers, plus groceries, then I can always ride to the gym and work out on the machines there.

Most of the cigarettes are only P1 per stick.  Some of the, like Marlboro, are P2 per stick.

Tanduay rum is very cheap and thus very popular here in the Philippines.  I’ve never personally tasted it and most likely will not.  I’m not too much into hard liquor.  I do like tequila, vodka and some rum though.  I’d really rather be drinking a nice cool glass of lemonade or a nice glass iced tea.  Or a beer.

I showed Crystal how to play a memory game with a deck of cards today.  It was just the simple one, trying to make pairs while the cards are turned upside down.  Like in the game Concentration.  She actually did very well for her first time.  I was pretty impressed actually that she did so well her first time.  She even matched the first 2 cards that she turned over.  Being her first time and all, she kept looking over to Bebie and Khany (her Lola and Lolo) for which cards to turn over.  Like they would know, but I guess Crystal just figures that Lola and Lolo know all.  I believe that she showed her cousins here how to play.  I will buy her a new deck of cards from downtown, so she can play with a full deck of cards.  The deck she used was about half missing.

Since I put her oldest and youngest child on here and I had this picture just sitting there, I decided to add this picture of Robbie too.  She’s not shy about getting her picture taken, but she doesn’t want for me to post a bad picture of her on here.  I think this is a very good picture of her.

Useless Knowledge: Rats can swim for a mile without resting, and they can tread water for 3 days straight.  (I hate rats, roaches and flies … they are all disgusting creatures)

Today I made 4-1 liter bottles of lemonade.  Titing gave me a case of 1 liter bottles of water, so I just used 4 of those instead of going through the whole boiling the water thing first.

Do you see the tricycle coming at you?

Juvic has decided to go back to school.  She now plans to become a teacher, I think.  She says she wants to get an Education Degree, so that sounds like teacher to me.  I hope that if she does become a teacher, she teaches elementary school, at least to begin with.  I don’t know how the teaching thing works.  Maybe she HAS to be an elementary teacher, before she moves up to the higher grades, but I don’t think so because Marianne didn’t do that.  I could be wrong, but I think she would do better teaching the younger ones, maybe 3rd or 4th grade.  The 1st and 2nd graders are very loud and active.  Right about the 5th grade is when children start thinking that they know it all and don’t have to listen.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Juvic to death, but I don’t think she will be able to handle college or high school students, or even handle the demanding workload of a teacher in the higher grades.  Can you imagine making a mistake and being corrected by a 6th grader when you are suppose to be the teacher?  If that happens too many times, it could turn into a problem.  Mar will be paying for her to go to school this time.  We are still paying for Grace, and now J, so we can’t afford to do anymore right now.  Whatever Juvic decides to do though, even teaching in a college, I will be behind her 100% and assist her whenever I can.  Her teaching in college, being so good looking and being only a few years older than the students could mean a lot of unwanted attention, especially from the male student body.  I’m sure she will make the right decision for her.

Future teacher of the Philippines?

As I was taking the notes for this post and typing up the last post, I had a room full of mga bata.  They were all here hoping to be able to play a game on my computer again.  I told them, not now because it’s blog time.  I let them hang around but they started getting to noisy so I had to shoo them away.  Lita went out and told their parents that they are not allowed to come back in our room, because they are always touching things, even when you tell them not to.  I could let just one come in, but then they leave and tell someone else they were in here and the next thing I know, there are 4-5 mga bata hanging around.

I needed to add at least one more picture so I thought I’d put my 2 favorite little girls in here.

J and Jascyl were out in front of LolyKat, after closing time (9:00pm) sitting on the bench, talking.  They both have their duties during the day, so they don’t get to talk too much then.  Now that J will be going back to school, they will have less time to talk.  At least tonight it looked like they were happy.  They talked, I think, everyday while she was in Tambis with Cathy.  J was always on his phone, sometimes while he was working, but Lita stopped him from talking and working at the same time.  He slowed down when he was talking.

J did have to go by the school today for some sort of academic thing.  No one elaborated, and I didn’t ask.  Not that important.  He starts regular classes on Monday, June 6th (D-Day).

This is our future chef, probably.  He will be studying towards that degree starting on June 6, 2011.  He says he likes to cook, so that’s a good start.  It’s always good to like what you are studying. It just makes the work easier.

I noticed that someone from Hornsby, New South Wales was searching for “Grand Tour bus Calbayog”.  First of all, Grand Tour is a “van” service not a “bus” service.  I tried looking them up on the Internet and I couldn’t find anything.  I will try to remember to go by there and get some information to put in this blog permanently.  While I’m at it I’ll get the information for Vans Van’s and maybe 2 or 3 of the bus lines around here.  I don’t think any of the bus lines are actually based in Calbayog, but a lot of them come through here and the current bus stop is right down the road.

Two very wonderful individuals.  I glad that I know them.

Useless Knowledge: Dogs that do not tolerate small children well are the St. Bernard, the Old English sheepdog, the Alaskan malamute, the bull terrier, and the toy poodle. So now you know what to get your obnoxious nephew as a pet.  (I had 2 malamutes and they got along with kids fine … or I’d knock them into next week.  They were 2 of the best dogs I ever had.  That’s Texas and Tippy for those out there that know them)

Well that’s it for today.  I was going to do June 2nd also, but again, I blabbed enough to get a decent post.  I will eventually get caught up.  Maybe I should stay 1 day behind though.  That might work out better.

Salamat, Palaam

Today in Philippine History

1 JUNE