Bonsai Philosophy and the Karate Kid

(Guess the end of the world was postponed...)

I didn't know when I first saw a bonsai but I have been fascinated by the miniature trees since I was a child. I thought that there was something mysterious about the art but, thanks to the internet, I found out that it was quite easy to do. Of course, the difficult part is finding bonsai materials..

I have been doing bonsai for almost a year now and I got acquainted with a few people who also engage in the art. Unfortunately for them, bonsai is simply a business. They have none or very little knowledge about the history and the philosophy of bonsai, but they are quite knowledgeable in the process of miniaturization and the training of the trees, and they knew local species suitable for bonsai.

After some googling, I found varied methods of making bonsai which are scientific and surgical and is quite "artificial" compared to the methods used by the Chinese and the Japanese.

If you have seen the movie Karate Kid (Ralph Machio and Pat Morita), Sensei Miyagi used bonsai to teach Daniel the art of meditation. 

Sensei Miyagi teaching Daniel how to clip a bonsai. Sensi Miyagi: "Close your eyes, concentrate. Think only tree..."

The joy of bonsai hunting.  Sensei Miyagi with Daniel hanging on a cliff collecting a bonsai tree. I saw the new Karate kid and I was disappointed to see that the bonsai was replaced by a car. I mean...it's all about inner nature and what could be an apt symbol of the self but a tree., but a car being assembled and disassembled...too mechanical for me. Jackie Chan is too physical for my taste, too.

In the movie, Sensei Miyagi takes Daniel bonsai hunting on a ledge of cliff. For the Japanese, bonsai is a highly philosophical and mystical art. The Japanese hunt for unique trees miniaturized by nature hidden among the giant trees and in the crevices of rocks, and the discovery of beauty is the beginning of the lifelong journey of training and the shaping. So, the search for these unique plants takes on a mystical journey of self discovery, a symbolic search for the inner self and the survival against the elements and the training and forming of the tree as the shaping of the self and destiny.

Of course today and in the west, bonsai has become a hobby which is more concerned with the perfection of the tree. It has become a science that involved a lot of surgical like procedures like grafting and air layering the use of stuffs like enzymes and fertilizers and growth hormones. The gist of the art which is patience and waiting, meditation and self discovery, battle with the inner nature is compromised by the obsession with speeding growth and perfecting form

It is worth recalling that the art of bonsai originated with Buddhist monks in China, who gave the growing of trees in trays an almost religious significance.For them it is a way of establishing link between God, creator of  the universe and nature in all its forms including mankind, striving to follow the divine path by controlling the process of growth and form in trees, though on a human scale.(Pessy)

Good Bye Lesson Plans

The traditional lesson plan was finally phased out by the department. Instead of using the lesson plan, we are now using the daily lesson log. Technically, it is still a lesson plan but it is not as detailed as the traditional lesson plans that had been used by generations of teachers. Lesson logs still require lesson plans or teaching modules, pelcs (Philippine Elementary Learning Competencies), books, etc. as references, but they are not to be re-written everyday on the daily lesson planner as was the norm before. So, instead of re-writing all that stuff, we just write the objectives, lesson for the day, references and materials, the method for the lesson, and the number of pupils who have passed the lesson evaluation and the action to be taken for those who did not, whether they are for remediation or whether the lesson is for re-teaching.   New teachers with below two years experience are still required to use the detailed lesson plan.

When I entered the public school system about three years ago, I saw the time and the effort it required for teachers to re-write lesson plans that they (or we) copied either from modules or from old proto-type lesson plans that they (or we) have used for years. Lesson plan writing was simply an automatic effort on the part of the teachers because it was required and was checked on a daily basis, but in reality, there were no real lesson preparationS; it was just copying--the time needed for “real” preparation was taken by the long and laborious time for re-writing lesson plans especially for teachers teaching multiple subjects which in the case of elementary teachers was the norm. And to be fair for the veteran teachers who from experience have memorized their lessons almost to the letter, detailed lesson plans were superfluous. I thought that the effort was a waste of time--time that the teachers could use for materials preparation and/or for reading related and relevant materials about the subject they teach or simply reading for general knowledge which is a must for teachers.

There are withdrawal syndromes, I think, because for almost three years, I got used to writing on my lesson planner on my vacant time. I am also used to seeing teachers head bowed, writing furiously on their planner trying to finish their multiple-lesson plans as early as possible so that they would not have to write after classes.

Anyway, this is the end of an era, I hope, where teachers have to bring their lesson planners, teaching materials, etc. at home to work on them.

 A relaxed teacher is a productive teacher, if I must say so.

Hearse, dreams and blah, blah, blah...

This is how it's supposed to be!

I was motorcycling along downtown Taytay one afternoon when I saw a slow moving Toyota Innova being followed by a group of people some wearing black dresses and most of them were under their umbrellas, many were in tears. Of course, I instantly knew that this was a funeral procession, but I found it weird and hmmm… inappropriate and, to use stronger words, cheap and disrespectful of the dead to use a minivan to transport their remains to the cemetery.

Call me traditionalist but I am used to seeing big, wide bodied, majestic and powerful black station wagons carrying the departed’s remains. The design and the bodyworks of these vehicles radiate grief, solemnity and the macabre and that’s what makes these vehicles special-they symbolize the dignity and the mystery of death. The mere sight of one of these vehicles instantly invokes in the mind a sense of grief whether they are just passing by or on their way to the cemetery.

When I was a boy I had this weird dream. The back of our house was a rice field (now, its a squatter colony) with ipil-ipil and banana trees and the soft fresh air that blew especially during the afternoons never fail to lull me to sleep. The backdoor was open to let the air in and I was lying on a cot when I saw a big black hearse passing by. I was puzzled because there was no road, not even a dirt road there, just rice field with dikes or pilapil. What scared me most was how the hearse traveled as if it was floating on air, so relaxed, so serene.

Of course, afternoons dreams are vivid especially when one falls asleep without noticing it and the line dividing reality from dream was crossed so smoothly that it becomes difficult to tell. Anyway, I rose from the cot making up my mind if what I saw was real or if it was just a dream.

Anyway...

There is culture surrounding these vehicles and with the slow disappearance (or phase out) of these vehicles, I fear the superstitions and the stories inspired by them would also disappear.

I mean I had experiences of cock-fighters (sabungeros) backing out and going home upon seeing these vehicles. They look upon these big black vehicles as an omen of bad luck. How would these gamblers react when they see a Toyota Innova or Mitsubishi Adventure hearse? I mean these vehicles….I cannot imagine…these vehicles are not ominous; they are harmless and they evoke family, outings, fun, even when these vehicles are painted black.  

Hmmmm....times are really changing.

Neglected

Hmmmm…it’s the beginning that’s difficult.

I am thinking about my blog and not having posted anything for weeks makes me feel guilty about it. Somehow, like my fish in my tanks and my bonsais and other plants, I have developed this feeling that my blog is somehow a living thing that requires attention and care.

Hmmm…maybe a symptom of OCD or something,

Anyway, I was thinking…”I haven’t written another stupid thing on my blog and what could be the reason?”

Maybe, I gotten so used to teaching in Filipino that I have forgotten how to use English (bad as my English is, I try to keep in practice by writing inane stuffs on my blog).

Or, this is what I fear, after being swallowed by the “system”-nilamon na ng sistema-I have become a zombie, one of those forlorn, weary, tired, haggard semi-dead human being that goes to school in the morning carrying classroom materials—a zombie bent on doing one thing alone: to drone in the class.  

PBB

I heard from the news that the government is now doing away with the uniform Christmas bonus that amounts to ten thousand pesos which, as have become the practice, was named after presidents like during GMA’s time it was called Glorification something and during President Noynoy’s time was called Pnoy.

Anyway, instead of the uniform bonus, the government will now be implementing the PBB or the performance based bonus. This means that the bonus each government employee could receive will range from the minimum 5,000 pesos to the ceiling 35, 000 pesos. Hmmm…I am thinking that this is an administrative nightmare for the personnel involved in the processing of the PBB. Of course, the positive side is that the incentive would encourage civil servants to perform better but the thing is, I bet that this system could be used by bosses to favor their pets, which is not unthinkable and actually happens.

As a government employee, I am adapting a wait and see attitude. 

Iron Sky

Yesterday I had nothing to do and I envied my neighbors DVD marathoning, so I went to the nearest bootleg dvd vendor and bought a movie collection. I opted for European movies some of which are in Germanic or Nordic languages with English subtitles superimposed on Chinese subs that, unfortunately, gave me headaches for the rest of the day and up to now I still feel a little hangover.

 Anyway, one of the movies I saw was Iron Sky. The US sent space mission over the darkside of the moon. Two astronauts, one a model and the other a real astronaut,  was sent there as a propaganda to boost the re-election campaign of the President of the US, who by the way was a lady with treadmill addiction.  Unknown to the president and the model astronaut, the other mission was to look for Helium 3.

While exploring the darkside of the moon, the astronaut discovered a Nazi base.

The Nazis evacuated to the moon in 1945 and constructed a base. There they continued on their plot to re-conquer the world in 2018.

Anyway, better look for the movie to enjoy it. The movie was low budgeted but it had good CGI effects and the space battles between the Nazi's space zeppelins and saucers vs. the US, Japan, UK etc. space ships was quite entertaining. There was also some racist stuff in the movie which was really inevitable since this was a movie about Nazis.   

There was funny scene about computers. The astronaut was caught and the nazi scientist, who by the way looked like Einstein, took a look at his iPod and asked what it was. The astronaut told him that it was a computer. The scientist laughed and showed the astronaut his computer which occupied the room. Anyway, the ipod was the key to run the space Nazi's giant space warship.

If you're a sci-fi fan and really love movies that doesn't take itself seriously, watch this movie.

Monotheistic polytheism

I have been thinking about God. Being a personal God, that we could relate to literally it is then safe to say that believers have different and may I say individualistic conception and understanding of God that depends upon the individual's need. There this psychological vacuum and this vacuum shapes or influence the conception of God. This is undeniable. The idea of God during childhood is different from that of adolescence, adulthood and old age. Each stage has its own development of the understanding of God and though they may be called developmental, but there is also that element of  conceptualization involved with it--creating personal ideas of God, I suppose it could be called revelation.

What I imagine this to be is that each individual have this doctrinal understanding of God as taught be religious teachers that becomes the framework or the skeleton for the developing idea of God. 

On the theological level we have the doctrine of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, perfection, uniqueness, immutability, transcendence, immanence and all that stuff and fancy words that no ordinary folks ever think about or may not even attempt to understand.  

There's the moral or ethical side of God being good, hates evil, punishes sinners by sending their souls to hell and rewarding the believers by sending their souls into heaven and that good and bad stuff that goes with ethics. 

There's the mythological and anthromorphical side to God like the talking bush (I think 'botanical' is more apt), the story of Noah, Jonah etc. The virgin birth, resurrection, etc. 

There's the historical controversies that killed a lot of people like the trinity (this is not a clear doctrine since this is not clearly taught in the scriptures), the hypostatic-union of the natures of Christ (again, the teachings are implied but not directly taught and I sometimes wonder if the first Christians even thought about these things); the war on the interpretation of the word "body and blood" in the Lord's Supper that also almost split a nation; baptism, clerics, church organization,...etc.

Then there's relational side of God, the master and servant, potter and the pot, father and son (and daughter, may I add). All these things (hmmm...did I forget something?) Ohh, I forgot the prophetic or the eschatogical things but, as complicated as things are already...let's just, let's leave the second coming and the end of the world alone fr the meantime.

As these characteristics or picture of God or idea of God are slowly assimilated in our mind, the idea then becomes too bulky and heavy and I don't think ordinary Christians even knew or bother to think about these stuffs, which, may i say, is very, very understandable.

Clearly many or most philosophers and scientists (may I add theologians who may like to play in theological arena but personally...I mean what can I say to a theologian who thinks of God as the ground of all being but that his foundations are shaken...)  could not accept such a personal being for a God. Which quite understandable because it smacks of polytheism.

Polytheism? yes, this is what I think it is. There's this two level of the understanding of God.

First is what is taught about God by the revelation of scriptures, whatever the scriptures maybe. God is presented together with his characteristics as defined by inspired revelation or the scriptures (or holy books). So, this is the superficial picture of God; the doctrines, the creeds, dogmas, etc. which gives an illusion of uniformity. I call it an illusion of uniformity because, like I said before, these theological concepts are too abstract for the common folks and that's why symbols are used to represent these concepts, but the oversimplification created by the use of symbols created more problems for the church, like the adoration of idols and icons.

The first layer, unfortunately, is superficial and may I add, resides in the cognitive faculty of the mind. This knowledge of God is what gives this idea of  unity or the idea of monotheism--that is worshiping one true God. well, this could be true at this level. 

The idea of a personal God is what gives me some discomfort because in espousing this idea that one an relate to God like relating to a father or a friend etc.somehow creates this secondary understanding of God to which most of the times is a self-ish conception of God. This has become a challenge because the unity or uniformity of God is also being diluted (or even polluted) by the diverse way in which God is being understood and related to.

So, there's this second level of grasping God and at this level, the identity of God is somewhat dissolved in the psychological...hmmm. At this level, we each have our own God--uniform at the top but diverse, different and unique at the personal level.

Of course one could argue that, like in a family, the chidlren have different idea about their father but this does not make the father different for each children. But then again...this analogy is inadequate because fathers are physical beings.

(Why o why do I even think about these things!)

Einstein, God, blah, blah...

I was oft amused whenever I see quotations supposedly made by Einstein about God with the idea or intent that Einstein believed in God, as I would supposed, the Christians conceived God to be. This is kinda weird because Einstein and other thinkers for that matter, who we may assume(d) to profess belief in God do not really believe in the personal God in the tradition of the Judeo-Christian faith.  

The man who is thoroughly convinced of of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of natural events--provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that man's action is determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, anymore than an inanimate object is responsible for the motion it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behaviors should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

The main source of present day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God...

In their struggle for ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God...

The further the spiritual evolution of  mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie in the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. (Ideas and Opinions, Albert Einstein)

Einstein's conception of God is that of Spinoza.s God, impersonal, cool, and that everything is in God and that nature is the expression of God. So, Spinoza's conception of God is antithetical to that of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Cyber-libel thing

Though I’m an internet user, I am not really that interested in the newly implemented anti-cyber crime law because I consider myself a law abiding citizen with no intention of engaging in any cyber crime. I mean, I don’t do hacking, phishing, identity theft, cyber sex, etc. All I do on the net is watch video, listen to music, read and share articles, write badly about some stupid stuff, look for weird things on the net,  etc. I mean these things are harmless and no one, I imagine, would persecute me or other people like me for these things.

But then again, I was watching the news when a lawyer, who opposed the libel clause of the law, explained that even the act of liking or sharing what could be considered as libelous stuff on the internet especially on the social media is tantamount to breaking this law, being a party to the crime. Well, that caught my attention because I and most people share stuff on the net openly without really thinking about whether the stuff shared is true, relevant, nice, okay, morally aligned, politically correct, holly and blessed, etc. 

People share stuffs on the net because they maybe interesting, weird, thought provoking, stupid, gory, yucky,  insane whatever and sometimes people “like” stuff on the internet not because they like what was shared but simply because they like the person who shared and sometimes they do not even bother to view or read what they liked. What is worrying is the thought that I or anyone could be --real or hypothetical—charged with libel for sharing or liking some stuff that friends shared for whatever reasons.

Imagine the thought, even if this is just hypothetical, that I could be or anyone charged libel for writing libelous stuff like saying that Senator ______ ______ is a nincompoomp, ignorant, no good do-gooder, for putting that libel thing in the law. (See I could not even put the senator's name for fear of being charged with libel!)

This is taking the fun out of the internet. I don’t go to rallies and carry placards name calling politicians and I do not do burning of effigies (why are these people not charged with any crime, by the way? They burn things, pollute the atmosphere, cause traffic jams, use children to hold placards etc.). I and many of my countrymen and country women and the youth (the elderly) have the net to express our disgusts,  anger, frustrations,  #(&^()*(^&a***_%$, against the government, politicians, and petroleum companies etc. and  we do not burn paper, pollute the environment, or cause traffic…now internet freedom is being policed.

Of course the Department of Justice assured that what the opposers of the new law are saying would not happen that’s why the word “prima facie” was in there. DOJ can not shut down or persecute anyone without prima facie evidence (what in the world is a prima facie evidence and how could they determine it? Keywords?). Have no fear because the DOJ would not just sweep down on sites or arrest anyone for writing or posting or sharing libelous stuff, there are rules and stuff that has to be worked out.

I don’t know much about these things and I try not to think about these legal blah, blah, blah, and I do see the need for this kind of law but I would sure feel better and freer and safer if the good sneators would just scrap that libel thing because then it would really be…hmmm….hmmm…this is stupid: really be more fun surfing the net in the Philippines.

Blah…sue my neighbor.

Schopenhauer: Will

I have been reading a little about Schopenhauer. I was sort of chipping away at his book, the World as Will and idea. 

Schopenhauer developed Kant's idea of the thing in itself. Kant thought that beyond our perception and experience, there is an underlying reality which is beyond the grasp of our understanding: "understanding cannot go beyond sensibilities." this underlying reality is what Kant called the "thing-in-itself." Simply put, what we see is what our mind make us see. A chair looks like chair to us because that's how our eyes perceive it, and this is how our mind process the perception but the chair is not limited to what we see. The chair has properties that our senses and our mind cannot perceive because of the limitation of our senses and our minds  and we cannot go into the "thing-it-self.". Our understanding is like an a air-jet. The higher the jet fly to the atmosphere, the lesser air it gets and in the process, it will crash and burn. (Heard this from Prof. Cahoone).

Schopenhauer thought that the underlying reality was the will. (Other philosophers, especially the idealist, proposed  mind/s, or ideas, as the underlying reality.)

The Will is the thing-in-itself. Schopenhauer's Will is not the individual psychological will, but a universal metaphysical principle, spaceless and timeless and uncaused, even as Hegel's Reason, as he held, is not merely an individual function. The Will, says Schopenhauer, manifests itself in the individual as impulse, instinct and craving. The Will, again, it is that appears as consciousness and body. Thus the true self of man is identified with the Will.

Everything in the world, too, becomes an expression of the Will. The world is Will and Idea and has no independent material existence. The Will is above the Idea and is the only reality. The Will is blind, unconscious, and the Idea which is conscious is only its appearance in the intellect. We see nothing anywhere except the Will and the body which is the expression of the Will. Right from unconscious matter up to the self-conscious man the Will alone reigns supreme. It appears unconscious in something and conscious in another. It is all strife, activity, yearning that we observe everywhere. Desire is the cause of all things. With the Yogavasishtha, Schopenhauer would say that there is the eye because there is desire to see, there is the ear because there is desire to hear. The body and bodily functions are the expression of the Will. The digestive organs are the objectifications of hunger, the feet of the desire for movement, the brain of the desire for knowledge. There can be no body, and no world, without the Will. Longing, craving, or function, determines the nature of being, of the kind of organisation which becomes the body of the Will. The Will-to-live is the root of all things. It is the cause of struggle, suffering, pain. The Will is the great evil that accounts for the misery of all beings.

Schopenhauer's concept of the Will is fascinating. The Will is the Reality and it is blind urge. Consciousness or intelligence is its phenomenal effect made manifest in higher organisms in order to pave the way for the work of the Will in the world. For Schopenhauer intelligence is not the essential nature of the self. It is only a production of the brain created by the Will for its own purposes. Consciousness is an appearance, Will the Reality which is the immortal force that never dies with the death of individuals, never perishes through change. It may manifest itself in a mortal shape as individuals, but it cannot itself cease to be. The Will is imperishable being. (Swami Krishnananda)

Ran out of fuel

I was on my home for lunch last Friday when my motorcycle conked out. I kick started it, then I heard the engine start and then choked again. I kick started it again and it ran for about a few meters before finally stopping,  for good. I was lucky because I made it a few meters to the Shell station. I pushed the motorcycle  to the pump and then I asked the attendant to fill a hundred pesos worth of unleaded gasoline (which was about a glass of fuel).

An old photo.

I was getting my wallet out of my pocket when the realized that I forgot my wallet; it was still on the table in the house, a few kilometers away. I looked at the gas attendant, gave my riding jacket and told him that I forgot my wallet; I had no money to pay him. I left him my jacket as a security and told him I would be coming back for it. I did not gave him any time to reply; I kick started the motorcycle and rode out of the gas station. After having my lunch at home, I passed by the gas station to pay the gas and then I picked my riding jacket. The attendant smiled and said thanks.

Well, what could I say but welcome.

This was the first time it happened to me, but I think this was the fourth or fifth time my motorcycle ran dry of fuel. Gas is just too expensive.

Early Christmas

Christmas season has officially started in the country what with the Christmas songs already being played on the radio and on TV. The days are shorter and the nights are getting longer as the -ber months started. Also, its getting more and more difficult to wake up in the morning and to take a shower because of the cold climate.

At the school, the teachers are now busy decorating their rooms and one could really feel the yuletide spirit in the classroom this early. The decorating is also part of the beautification of the school because we will host the Filipino Pres Conference.

...it's still less than four months before Christmas.

...really not been blogging that much.

A lot of things....habagat

Our eskinita becoming a river. (no these are not my motorcycles)

A lot have happened since my last post, which was about a month ago, which was about some roots on rock bonsai blah, blah, blah. Typhoon Gener entered the country bringing along rain and wind but Gener did not cause that much damage compared to the habagat (the tagalog name for the southwest monsoon) that brought with it almost ten days of non stop rain that inundated the whole metro-manila area as well as the other parts of Luzon. 

What was troubling about the flooding caused by habagat was that there was never even a storm that entered the country yet the magnitude of the damage caused by the incessant rain was comparable, if not worse than the flooding caused by typhoon Ondoy. Of course, looking back, typhoon Ondoy sort of change the paradigm of weather broadcasting when this quiet typhoon gave the Filipinos a lesson about a new way of appreciating hmmm...well...typhoons. Instead of bombarding Luzon island with hurricane like wind, to which most pinoys prepare about whenever typhoon signals was announced,  the quiet typhoon which was classified with storm signal number 1(wind velocity a little higher than an ordinary person's fart)   showered the island for about twelve hours, non stop, causing flash flood that broke the divide between the poor and the middle class (well, to the rich, the flood was just an inconvenience).

The middle class with their installment houses and cars submerged under water and the poor with their barong-barongs and their caritons floating...for just this one day, it was not only the poor who was ravaged by the typhoon. It was not only the poor who had their tin roofs blown away, their plywood walls torn; the moneyed also got a taste of nature's wrath when flood water submerged their beautiful landscaped and tiled homes short circuiting their thousand dollars worth of fancy appliances and entertainment systems.

Well, well, well...according to the experts, Ondoy was a freak of weather of some sort that was not supposed to occur again...hmmm... well, at least not in the next fifty years. so counting the probabilities...it happened again after three years, this time there's not even a wind to speak of, just water. That's why I never did like math, the figures are wrong...

Anyway, we Filipinos are waterproof and learn-proof. Yes, we did survive Ondoy, but; yes, we also did not learn from Ondoy. The garbage, the squatters along the waterways, the DPWH asphalting drainage manholes...

To paraphrase an urban planner's words:" The flooding in metro manila was not an act of God; it was the product of the Filipino's lack of...hmmmm..."

Making a chinese banyan rock bonsai

I enjoy plants so my new found hobby of bonsai-ing is a natural progression from planting decorative plants to "sort of" sculpting plants. Anyway, I am just a few months old into bonsai and for an art that takes months and years even for "instant bonsai " to produce results, a few months is nothing. 


Here's a Chinese banyan  (ficus microcarpa) that I am training into a rock bonsai. 


The banyan is a very mystical kind of tree in the way that it grows and develops. It looks both reassuring and forbidding at the same time. Many Asian countries have a deep belief that spirits and ghosts reside in banyan trees. When you can apply it's majestic beauty and turn it into a bonsai, you will truly get an exquisite work of art. (Ezine)

 

This particular banyan was given to me by Mr. Bernardo, our school's agriculture teacher, a bonsai enthusiast and the eldest male teacher of the school. I planted it first in loam soil for a few moths so that it would develop roots. Loam soil is a must so that it would be easy to uproot; planting it in sticky soil would damage the root network when uprooting.

I am using a porous rock locally known as adobe. For a more interesting look, the rock can be chiseled to a desired shape but in this particular project, I am using the rock as is.

I chiseled a groove into the rock.

The groove should fit the trunk to anchor the banyan.

I arranged the roots in a way that when it develop,  the roots will envelope the rock. 

To keep the roots hydrated, wrap it with a rug and then stabilize by wrapping  it with wires..

Train the banyan by wiring. Ideally, aluminum or copper wire is used but here I am using an ordinary GI wire which is not good because it would injure the stems so I doubled the wire to thicken it so as not to cut or injure the plant. The good thing about this kind of banyan is that it's a very flexible plant unlike our local banyan, the balite. Here I am training it for a cascading rock bonsai.

Keep in a damp place so that the roots will be hydrated and so that the rock will grow algae and moss and give the bonsai a more natural and aged look. 

Chinese banyans can survive with very little sunshine, its an ideal indoor bonsai.

I don't know how this project would turn out, but here's the beauty of bonsai making: the pruning and the training and the waiting. A good hobby that develops patience and teaches the art of waiting.

Note: plant your cuttings for future bonsai material.

Broken chord

Dirty finger not intended. This is how they play E chord with the two lower strings open and they do this with the A and the B chords. Drives me crazy especially since the guitar is the main rhythm instrument in the church , so instead of adding flavor to the music, the droning two lower string confuses the singers. This is good if there are other guitars playing conventional chords, but if there's none, its quite irritating.

I am having problems with the 9th chord. I am talking about guitar chord that does not contain the third note, and instead of the the third, guitar players replaced it with the second or the 9th. Guitar players in the church especially the youth like to use this chord because of what they see on Hillsong videos. I mean they think it was a cool way of playing the guitar.

I have tried explaining to these guitarist that removing the third note and replacing it with the second makes it difficult to sing and there's that droning sound of an open string playing with the bar or something. So, I kept telling them, don't play that kind of chording because its not cool, you are giving me head aches and you are abusing the minor 9th. But instead of listening, they kept using the chord even on songs that do not need them. I mean, popular and simple songs do not require broken chords.

Be careful with my heart blah, blah, blah...

Absent from work for four days, still reeling from bronchial asthma (or asthmatic bronchitis, whatever the difference maybe, it's beyond me) that gave me chills for many nights, I am not quite that excited about going back to work. Well, I guess nobody would be what with the lesson plans and lessons to catch up with, the deadline for the submission of test papers, the charts, the quizzes...whew really glad that I have no advisory class.

Anyway...the good thing about the absence is that I was able to follow the new ABS-CBN series "Be careful with my heart" starring Jodi Sta. Maria and Papa Chen. I have been seeing the series on-off because I go home for lunch and am able to see portions, but it was only last week that I was able to see several full episodes. 

The series was about an aspiring flight stewardess, who, through circumstances, ended up becoming an airline executive's babysitter. She was attracted to the much older father of her ward, but he was too busy to even take notice of her and so on...of course the story is as predictable as a fart, but the development of the character is something that made this series quite likeable. Richard Yap, is good, whose bearing, by the way, reminded of the Capt. Von Trapp from the Sound of Music movie. 

Anyway, I am not a critic, just watch the series and be entertained by Jodie's and antiques and Papa Chen's  hmmm....minimalist acting because it gives the series a relaxed and relaxing ambiance, which is a sort of a relief compared from the tensions from the so-called-heavy-drama-actors whose facial expressions even when expressionless radiates pain, suffering and struggling  .

another dolphy blah,blah...

Okey, this is another blah, blah, about Dolphy but I couldn't help it.

I really felt sad when I heard that the King of Philippine comedy died last Tuesday, July 10. I was watching some of his movie and TV shows clips and I couldn't help but feel nostalgic about my childhood and my late father, about my classmates, about eating aratiles and catching fish using tin cans...I mean all my childhood memories came flashing back to me and suddenly I felt my age.  

The black and white movie has this  magic like a time machine of some sort. I was never was and never is a Dolphy fan and I couldn't remember ever watching his movie in theaters because I never took his movies seriously. I mean, its not that I never liked his movies; I did and still do, its just that I never liked his slapstick comedy but I did like his singing and dancing. But even though I did not like his slapstick, I did laugh at his antics.

Dolphy was like one of those things hmmm...a fixture on TV and movie that just was there, always there. one does not have to take him consciously and seriously because he was always there, a part of, to borrow the word from a scholar, collective consciousness and memory of  the Filipinos especially those who were able to see and follow his movies and TV shows.

Anyway, just attempting to express how I felt about his death and I felt the lost... hmm... I thought he was ...hmm...immortal. 

_____________

My childhood friends and I used to go hiking and trekking at Antipolo and we used to pass by Valley Golf Country Club where a house allegedly built by Dolphy for Alma Moreno was being constructed. We would look at it and tried to peek and peep looking for Dolphy but we didn't even catch a glimpse of the man.  Anyway, the house is now rotting.

CS Lewis:Time and sin

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble. As for the fact of a sin, is it probable that anything cancels it? All times are eternally present to God: Is it not at least possible that along some one line of His multidimensional eternity He sees you forever in the nursery pulling the wings off a fly, forever toadying, lying, and lusting as a schoolboy, forever in that moment of cowardice or insolence as a subaltern? 

It may be that salvation consists not in the cancelling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humility that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God's compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe. Perhaps in that eternal moment St. Peter - he will forgive me if am wrong - forever denies his Master. If so, it would indeed be true that the joys of Heaven are for most of us, in our present condition, "an acquired taste" - and certain ways of life may render the taste impossible of acquisition. Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place. Of course I do not know that this is true; but I think the possibility is worth keeping in mind.

Repetitions...

I was watching TV while my wife was pulling out my white hairs, scratching off patches of dandruff here and there, when I asked or rather shouted what day it was. My wife replied that it was Tuesday. Aaahhh...it was Tuesday and tomorrow will be Wednesday. Then after Wednesday, it will be Thursday, then Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday, then Monday again, then Tuesday again, then Wednesday again...drives me crazy !

doesn't anybody notice...

I sometimes wonder why the whole human race does not commit suicide en masse and be over with the never-ending cycles, repetitions, ennui, etc. 

Repetition is bad. 

I mean... when people go to zoos and they see the animals doing this strange repetitive movements like walking back and forth, raising their heads and then bobbing them left to right they (I mean the insensitive people who love  zoos) think the animals are dancing or performing or doing these thing for their benefits as if the animals, like portrayed in inane movies and cartoons, are happy that they have audience, but actually these animals are developing nervous disorder because they are confined in cages are not only small but also do not emulate and simulate their natural habitat. Their will to live or their essence and life force is slowly dying and what the zoo gawkers are seeing are nothing but zombies that moves without or with very little consciousness.

Zoos are evil places and are not educational places because the animals do not show their natural behavior and  nothing is learned except seeing these animals suffer from the torture of captivity. Animals that are put in there are virtually dead animals. 

People also suffer from this disorder called stereotypy. Of course, the pathology of the disorder points to conditions like autism...well look it up at Wikipedia. 

Anyway,  all of us, generally speaking are already suffering from it. I mean,  from observing people, I found that though the symptoms are not as classic text book case but its analogous and it's there: the habitual looking, texting and checking of cellphones though there are no messages and notifications. There's the repetitive motion of opening FB accounts first before doing anything productive, drinking the same brand of soft drinks, scratching something, etc..

Then when I look into the larger picture, at the macroscopic level of our existence:  going to work in the morning, taking lunch at noon, eating dinner in the evening, sleeping at night, going to the comfort room, taking a bath, marriage, childhood, infancy, death....come to think of it its like we are all animals trapped in a cage doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over ... I suddenly realized that our life, the whole gamut is nothing but a divine pantheistic-reality-mind-psychological-disorder (I mean, if the whole of reality is one emanation from a cosmic sentience) we are all just exhibiting the symptoms of the disease of the whole: cosmic stereotypy.

 Hmmm...not making any sense and not supposed to, anyway.

What the Fact! We are no better than the animals in a zoo!

Lorenzo's piracy, Earthquake drill

I saw the teaser of channel 2's newest tv drama called Lorenzo's Time and again I was dumbfounded at the blatant intellectual piracy. I mean, the least ABS-CBN and its people should have done is to acknowledge that the show is an adaption, or loosely based, or inspired by the 1992Mel Gibson movie Forever Young.

Lorenzo's Time is a touching journey of a young boy named Lorenzo (Zaijan Jaranilla) who was diagnosed with progeria, an extremely rare genetic condition wherein symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at an early age. In order to preserve his young body, he was subjected to cryonics until his parents find a cure for it. After 30 years, Enzo will wake up to face the world with missed precious moments of his life—including his family and the only girl he loves.

A 1939 test pilot asks his best friend to use him as a guinea pig for a cryogenics experiment. Daniel McCormick wants to be frozen for a year so that he doesn't have to watch his love lying in a coma. The next thing Daniel knows is that he's been awoken in 1992. 

I mean..the cryogenics, the waking up a la Rip Van Winkle  thing was there. The only original thing that, I think, could be added to the idea of the series as based on the Gibson movie is that the show  would have the usual recipe: terrible writing, very very predictable twists, mediocre acting and cliche dialog.

But anyway, it entertainment and maybe that's what's important in the end--to escape.

________________________

The school conducted the national earth quake drill. The drill was conducted at 9 in the morning with the police and the Taytay MDRRMC. The school was teeming with unformed people: the police, the orange rescue guys and the--I don't know why some wear black--and the para-police , para-rescue guys.

The pupils were pissed off. A grade four pupil even complained that this was recess time. Don't we adults understand this, recess time is inviolable even by earth quakes, fire and nuclear war! (Photo: Ms. Redgie)

Anyway, there were lectures and all that stuff that goes along with the drill.

Teaching Filipino

This class drives me crazy.

Filipino is now one of my teaching loads, aside from music, arts and character education. I was offered to teach one English class but I have taught English for almost five years and, to tell the truth, my English sucks so I opted to take up teaching Filipino since I haven't taught this subject.

It's a new challenge for me. Maybe next school year I would ask for a math teaching load for fun and, maybe, to kill the monotony of teaching: a little bit of everything, so to speak but subject to the chief's approval, of course.

Anyway, I was quite troubled when I found out that quite a few Filipino words that were not that deep, really, and was quite well used during my childhood were now virtually unheard of and unknown to most of my pupils.

I was discussing Filipino sentence structure, which is reverse to that of English sentence pattern because in Filipino the predicate comes first before the subject... well...this is grammar stuff which I hate. 


I was discussing sentence pattern and the sample sentences used words like "aso" (thick smoke), "dukwang" (to reach and grope), "parang" (plains), etc. I saw puzzled looks from my pupils and they started raising their hands asking for the meaning of these words.I scratched my head and told them, irritably may I say, that these words were plain, simple and not-that-literary words that Filipinos use daily. But they gave me the look.

With little reflection, I realized that these words are not that popular anymore because nobody uses wood fueled stove anymore; there are no more plains, and there are no big tables filled with food to make dukwang  with. I had to illustrate "dukwang" by telling them news stories of how celphone thieves steal items from display counters.

Anyway...

TV Controls

 I was having fun with my camera when a kid form our church borrowed and tried to look at the pictures by touching the screen; he thought that my camera was a touch screen camera but it was not. Anyway, got me thinking and got me nostalgic about controls especially TV control which I think was the paradigms for designing control interface for devices...or whatever.

I spent my childhood with dial controls. We used to have a vacuum tube cabinet type Zenith television and all the controls used dials.  To change channels, a dial was turned.  The on/off control was also dial, and so was the vertical and horizontal controls; everything was controlled by turning knobs and switches.

Not our TV. I remember the horizontal and the vertical and horizontal control was located at the back panel.  In retrospect, the sound these old tvs made when turned on and turned off was horrifying by today's standards.Also, the static created by the crt was so powerful that they could literally make the viewers, when near enough, hair stand on its end.

When I was small, I used tot think that any house that had a telephone was owned by a very rich resident.  I think I may have used this kind of telephone maybe three to four times because it was a sort of a technological novelty especially for a child like me.

Then after a few years, the push buttons came. Everything then was push button. In fact, when our neighbor’s new TV arrived, we were there to witness how this push button control thing worked. It was quite a change because the TV controls had no dials. There were buttons for each channel, which during those years, numbered around four or five TV stations. Also the antenna was indoor and that meant no climbing up on the roof to rotate the aerial to look for better reception. 

No dials, just buttons. A church member had one of this. We used to watch betamax tapes on this TV. No more fine tuning dials...

Of course the next stage was the remote control. ( Then there was the rotary something called the click-wheel made famous by the  Apple IPods for the personal devices.) 

And then it was the touch screen but now some TV are responding to gestures...

I mean, even Spock didn't anticipate this. Hmmm...what's next?