At the End of the Semester

More than two months later, it is apparent that the warning regarding the programming course are completely well-founded: even with the smallest laboratory among the four accumulated groups, I barely caught up with the timetable. Of course, requirements on weeks four, six and nine, coupled with the other courses, kept me plenty busy through the weeks. 

I still have an assignment to check for the largest of my courses, then some more examination-related duties, all as the semester winds down. Some paperwork is needed in addition. 

Either way, slowed down enough for some words. 

Medical Facilities

So the on-campus facilities have been moved from the admittedly cramped infirmary nearby to the more remote but snazzier medical center, which had its open house today. Went there intentionally for a goodie bag, but also to check for an appointment, which I likely take at month end.

I guess an additional bit of exercise prior to getting a check up makes some sense. 

Pisay at 50

I've been seeing the excitement on social media leading up to the 50th anniversary of Philippine Science High School, which makes me sad for having skipped on Foundation Day celebrations for a solid decade now. Jubilarians were the silver celebrants, which was my eldest sister's batch.

I recall my high-school sections even without my yearbook: Diamond, which we had figured had the top ten finishers of the second screening, or at least we thought, and started our dorm lives, and was full of Star Trek novels, comic books and other reading parapharnalia; Sampaguita, a calm section that I recall was when I watched Akira, and was exposed to the depth that the medium promised at the hands of masters, and I had failed to help a friend from failing out; the last Calcium, where we lost Sarah Adriano early in the school year, and a controversial Foundation Day had us lose the services of one Aureas Solito, my only year at the Main dorm; and the first Graviton, in that exhilarating final year which makes me think of Filipino like Defense of the Dark Arts, trading Battle of the Brains for Inter-Bayan, and, of course, Le Miz. Those four years, memorable as any anime, gave me friends, some of whom I have been happy to have kept in touch with, others somewhat more tentatively, more easily now in the age of Facebook and Twitter. 

My friends are not restricted to our batch, full of personalities and spirits - participating in competitions broadened my acquaintances and deepened relations considerably. Whereas math competitions with Joel Caisido and Roy Tang, under Banjo Bautista, acquainted me with Alf Gonzales of '94, our batch's Angel's brother, and Jun Navarro of '96 from the Toronto IMO - associated with a guilt of mine before the end of the millennium I have not made up for - programming competitions brought me as an elder into a group of superstar programmers, largely from '97, most of whom have advanced degrees or extensive careers in technology: first with '94's Jojo Bañez, Jaime Godinez and Natnat Tacuboy, the following year under Jaime with Chipi Buenafe and Eric Vidal, and while they teamed up with Jerome Punzalan and I ended up with Joel (his multiple awards were no fluke - he had IPhO as well as PMO honors) and Amiel Malay, it was us three with Jojo in Pakistan late that year - we had also seen what I'd coin as GBS algorithm play a key role in 1994. Chipi spearheaded my return to training from the other side of the whiteboard in '97, and I met Neil Ongkingco, Orland Gonzales, Mario Carreon, along with Anna Gabutero ('98?), Ivan Orozco ('99) and Sacha Chua ('99). Many of this group, mostly under Chipi's initiative would host the national competitions of secondary level, and led to the arrival of ACM Manila regionals under UA&P, continuing after a short hiatus now under Doc Raffy Saldaña, and leading into (finally? hopefully soon?) IOI. 

But for a truly broad swath of alumni, one only need to check the faculty rooms. Even during my years, we already had the services of EJ Baranda ('89) and Ana Chupungco ('90), but the ranks of teachers and administrators have been full of alumni - in one faculty meeting we estimated half were alumni at Diliman, in 2003. The CST had Ana, Chipi (for a year), current Director Gene Andres, Tess Paccarangan, Monica Xavier and Mich Zabala, while Math had Eden de Joya (who I was under for third and fourth year), Dinah Gutierrez and Petri Español; the system director was Dr. Ramon Miranda, while Doc Raffy was Diliman director in my last year.  Many more from other batches have come and gone before and after my three years teaching there, and I have met a number of them, mostly online. Those batches I have had the privilege to teach, alumni I have handled in UP at DCS, while I reconnect with the '97 programmers, and all those above I have been able to share the bond of the experience found through the gates on Agham Road.

I don't want to exclude those from other campuses, who I may yet meet in the future, but the fire burning in the logo of our alma mater continues to light sparks and burn brightly in our lives, and in those we share ourselves with. 

Back in Business

So, merely a week and a half after starting the semester, I am a fully functioning staff member, albeit one that has to make sure that my set-up is in place (salary, medical benefits, remote access, leaving a change of footwear). In between the paperwork and the legwork, I haven't resettled the extra time I have yet. That's for this week, then. 

Access

So, after mistakenly assuming that a class would be eaten today by Union Day (which turns out to be on Thursday, leaving my tutorials unaffected), I got my staff access from the University. There's School-level stuff to fix, and my staff email to configure, but that will be mostly for tomorrow. I need to get my work pass paperwork done, as well, this afternoon. 

Relay

A side effect of not having a good pace yet is the domino effect this has on classes following. Whereas, on Mondays, only I follow myself, my second classes on Tuesday and Wednesday are immediately followed. Aside from the mandated (and sensible) finish-ten-minutes-before-the-next policy, which I fear does not get unanimously adhered to, there's also the (usually massive) amount of board wiping and resetting expected - in addition to occasionally cleaning up after careless students. I've had one trip to the lost-and-found, and it's barely been a week.

Nonetheless, this is more than mere courtesy - tutorial classes are often sqeezing as much as they could into the hour or two per week allotted, and these nontrivial tasks need to be budgeted in. Case in point: I've been lucky enough to have no classes ahead of me (so far), allowing me to set up projectors ahead of the designated time.

I always feel pressed for time, but that is mostly to ensure my cogs in the campus machine don't jam up. 

Passing Through

First couple of days trying the new schedule. My pace needs some adjusting, and I need to give a bit more face time. Need to read the material earlier than on the way there.

As usual adjustments must be made, and notes shouldn't be forgotten.

Nomadic Once More

So, while my paperwork is still being processed, I find myself with no staff card or lab space.  This isn't really a worry for me, since I'm doing purely teaching this semester, but this does cause some logistic problems:

• No consultation venue: not likely to cause problems at the moment, since students very rarely consult at the start of the semester.
• No access to rooms: again, not a problem, since the tutorial rooms are open access for classes.
• No log-in: here's a problem, as I cannot use the PCs without one, so this will be the tricky part.  Also, this locks me out of the system software for classroom management.

Either way, used to the nomadic lifestyle.  I'm likely to bring the laptop to work for a few weeks, but it is a bit unwieldy, so hopefully some temporary solution can be devised for the near-future.

... aaaand Back

Almost a six-month hiatus, but I have resettled, albeit hopefully in a fleeting fashion, and after having finally acquired the latest upgrade of status.

For the upcoming semester, I find myself again handling Foundation Mathematics at two different contexts, but now with the addition of heading a lecture/laboratory combo for contextualized Algorithms and Complexity.  This latter should prove to be an interesting counterpoint to previous, individual takes on the programming instruction paradigm, through the prism of a large cohort of hundreds splintered into 50-75 person chunks - the key will be that assessment is somewhat centralized.

Thus, back in the saddle again, so to speak.

#20PHnet

With twentieth anniversary celebrations for the Philippines joining the internet held in the previous week, I think back to far along that timeline where and when I got to experiencing the internet.

For the actual end of March 1994, I was likely panicking over how much of a mess my third year in high school was.  Then I spent summer being an unused alternate for the programming team, and then I spent most of my graduating year on normal things.

Things happen late in that year.  I remember being sequestered by the CISD chief with Joseph Gilbuena to one of the Strata buildings in the Ortigas district, and we were being taught how to use email.  Can't even remember what the program was (Pine?), but what kept in my mind was how difficult it'd be to remember an email address (blahblah@blah.gov.ph?).

Graduate, go to college, spend a semester being decent, then pick up on the internet once more, this time in an internet cafe on Katipunan Ave. (Compass Pacific?).  This was at a time when net access would go for 100 pesos an hour. (And we would be there for afternoons at a time.)  I'd go get dial-up at home in a year or so (at i-manila, though I think we tried edsamail for a while), and made sure to get internet access for the home since 1996.  (One of my friends had net access earlier, and from a country backbone, if I remembered correctly.)

Went for broadband (Destiny) in 1998-9, luckily in a low-concentration area, so it actually felt broadbandish.  Did One Internet Day for digitalfilipino.com representing our org (UP League of Internet Communicators) at the turn of the millennium.

I've lost a hotmail account, the edsamail account, the local ISP addresses and a few websites (mostly from Geocities), but I've kept most of my other contacts, including an ICQ account (though I may have lost an earlier one), and most mail-groups.  I've used Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer while they were at their peak, Firefox and Chrome when they came out, Eudora through to Thunderbird, Trillian and Pidgin.  mIRC is familiar, AVG and ZoneAlarm were early protection, though I've only really recently picked up Avast.  I've lost track of a number of net contacts through the decade and a half, but I've been present on a larger number of networks than I'd personally like to keep active.

It firmly entered the window of my life that Douglas Adams says provides excitement, and has it ever.  Now, to start rehearsing the "get off my lawn" speech for whatever new comes along.  That won't be mobile, since we're in the thick of that, so maybe the VR paradigm care of Oculus and Facebook, or the wearable paradigm care of Google Glass and smartwatches.  I'm personally looking forward to Sony's e-paper notepad.