A not so violent reaction.

PGMA ran for president after saying she won't. She emerged victorious.

ERAP insisted he was innocent even after proven duly guilty of plunder beyond a shadow of doubt.When he ran for president again, he ranked second.

GUTIERREZ went into plea bargaining when she should have prosecuted Garcia fervently. Though the beheading scythe of impeachment looms and although technically she is not, she is still the Ombudsman.

YOU ran for senator after making a major (major) blunder, saying you were coerced by the previous administration to betray your folks, causing others to cause anarchy, lying about making a public apology and indirectly injuring the reputations of people who should have known better than giving you that responsibility you messed up. The least you could have done was stage an "Angelo Reyes" and the worst is run for public office. And yet, 

you WON.

-Bongga ang mga ka-level mo. Ma-proud ka.

'Congrats and goodluck to you'- Regine

It occurred to me that everywhere I go, the fact that I am a fan of Regine Velasquez always shows. One example was during my Nestle M.I.L.E. experience where I dined with Bear Brand's brand manager, Ms. Jasmin Estacio. Because the topics usually revolve around business and management ideas, our conversation shifted towards Bear brand's endorsements and commercials. I asked her if she had met Regine-- a stupid question since she sure had met Regine, being the brand manager. She said yes. Before she could even ask me why, I told her that I am a huge fan of the diva in an exaggerated manner (probably forgetting that I am dining in a five star hotel's international buffet with no less than accomplished and high-ranking professionals around me). That sent her the message that my newfound 'close' connection with Regine (Me to Nestle MILE to Nestle to Bear Brand to Ma'am Jazz to Regine) meant the world to me so she offered to bring me along during Regine's new Bear Brand commercial taping. To my extreme disappointment, the MILE program would be over by that time and while Regine was taping her new commercial, Ma'am Jazz would have to bring something else instead.

A piece of paper, I suggested. Regine could sign it and Ma'am Jazz would send it to me. The piece of paper I gave was a Bear Brand stationery with blanks for your name and ambition. I wrote my full name and after pondering for a short while I scribbled 'to be successful' as my ambition. Then I left her my address. 

A Facebook message from Ms. Jazz revealed that Regine Velasquez, my idol, rejected to sign that piece of paper. But it was a different kind of rejection. She proposed instead to give me her soon to be released album sometime in November.( The MILE program was from Oct.26-29). To quote Ma'am Jazz, "with dedication pa ha."

She was referring to "Fantasy," her last album as a single woman before tying the knot with Ogie Alcasid. It was October then and I never heard from Ma'am Jazz until recently when she asked for my mailing address once again because aparently she never forgets her promises.

I used MSU-IIT's Chemical Engineering Department as my address because I was worried that if I use my boarding house address I might not be there to receive it. At least my instructors would be willing to secure the package for me. 

Imagine my elation upon receiving this.

 My reaction was, "Omigad, she wrote my name. Look friends, she got the double L right!!"

 When I opened the package I saw the CD enclosure and a beautiful Regine greeted me with her lips parted.

Great.

But this was greater. Regine postcards.

I remembered the time when I browsed through these pictures in Facebook and showed them to my friend the Renaissance Painter. He refused to believe that it is Regine. As usual, it was a heated debate I insist I won.

To Ma'am Jazz, I could never thank you enough. It was very kind of you to do this and this is something deeply engraved in my memory.

To Regine-- if this can be considered my message to you-- finally, after watching all your videos in YouTube for n times, going to one of your concerts, listening to almost all of your songs original or cover, watching all of your movies and TV shows, a dream of mine came true. I keep on wondering what is next-- meeting you in person, perhaps or singing with you? It is not an exaggeration to say that I would be ready to die when that happens. Thank you, Songbird for this tangible gift of my admiration. I believe it transgressed the electromagnetic waves, radio signals, huge concert venues and silver screens between a fan and his idol.  I cannot help but think that your kindness and compassion to those who admire you as a singer and as a person is the reason why you are still reigning beyond compare.

How island hopping can be depressing.

In three days I have been to three different cities in three different islands in three different modes of transportation. To make it clear enough that's off to the city of golden friendships by land, then to the queen city of the south by sea and finally to the city of smiles by air. From Iligan City I travelled to Cagayan de Oro then to Cebu and lastly to Bacolod.

 And then back.

My classmate and I were chosen to represent MSU-IIT in the 72nd Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers National Convention (PIChE) National Student Congress 2011 Quiz Show in Colegio San Agustin in Bacolod City. They chose us because apparently my classmate is the top student in our class and probably because I often win in quiz show contests at home. There are three members in a team and our third member, a year behind us, once had an overall grade point average of 1.0000 (extend decimal place indefinitely). That just goes to show we were the best that the department could possibly gather.

But we lost.

My classmate and I have joined this for the second time already and the results are, well,the same. Last time we finished 8th place among 11 teams. This time, Tadaaa!! The 9th. Yes, we did not prepare because we thought, without ever learning from the first experience, that stock knowledge is enough. The next thing we realized, after hearing the questions, our stock knowledge is nowhere to be found. It had escaped us and the flow of thought balked at the sight of problems solvable in 120 seconds. One problem especially left me feeling queasy. It asked about the pH of a 0.5 M sodium acetate solution given that the hydrolysis constant is 5.8x10^-10. I went on getting the pH by equating the hydrolysis constant to the ratio of x² over (0.5)(1-x) and assuming x is very small compared to unity, neglected it in the denominator and went on solving for x. This is the concentration of the hydronium ions in the solution, and the negative logarithm of this is the pH. Brilliant.

Big mistake. Sodium acetate is not an acid and x should represent the concentration of hydroxide ions, not hydronium ions. Thus, the negative log gives the pOH and not pH. My answer, 4.77 is therefore utterly wrong. It should have been 14-4.77 or 9.23.

What's so depressing with this is that this is the first time in my quizzing history that I mustered the effort to solve a problem. Usually I leave that to my teammates and they leave the general knowledge and recalling skills to me. But when this question came I felt like having the moral responsibility whatever to answer it. I came a subtraction close but a concept too far. Depressing. The same thing happened to me last year when the question asked for the name of molecules that are mirror-images of one another, that is, chiral. I answered stereoisomers, but it is the larger group. I knew the question asked for a sub-group of stereoisomers but my memory failed me that time. I contemplated suicide after hearing the answer. Guess what, it's enantiomers.

Probably the reason I ace quiz shows at home is because the questions have categories. General Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Current Events, Literature, and General information. In the student congress the categories were Gas Absorption, Reaction kinetics, Heat Transfer, Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics etc. I have always told everyone that I am not the brightest in the Chemineering majors and excellence in these fields almost always determines the winners of this competition. Nevertheless, it is flattering to be chosen again to represent the school. My classmate and I will be graduating this year and I have one advise to the subsequent quizzers:  Prepare and overprepare. The pattern of the questions recurs every year and the instructors have a copy of them.  Our fault is that we were too lenient with ourselves. We did not participate to win but only for the purpose of being there. As for me, I was too preoccupied with our thesis project left behind and too mindful of the expenses. I retained the feeling of being compelled to join the competition up to the competition itself, sulking over the fact that we cannot join the convention proper because nobody wants to pay our registration fee of 3,000. Not even us.

 I admit that we did our best, but only the best of what we were able to prepare. We did not mark our ways with excellence, so success was not able to follow after us. That must have spelled the difference. Sad, probably but on the brighter side, I can always sleep.