Sunday, August 23, 2009

of traffic, oceans, and t-shirts..

I fell asleep last night so I wasn't able to blog this..

yesterday was probably the day I've seen Espana in its WORST conditions..

what started out as a simple traffic situation which I assumed normal since it was already around 8am even though it was a Saturday, turned out to be one of the biggest floods that I have ever seen hit Espana.. It also helped me realize that I'm very very greatful that I'm not studying in UST.. (No offense mean't to those who are Thomasians)

the fx that I was riding made me and my fellow passengers off in between blumentritt and maceda because he was afraid that his fx would sink in the flood.. thinking that after maceda, I'd be able to get a ride, I made my way towards maceda.. the flood in maceda was worse than I expected, and so I had to walk a bit further up maceda before I could actually cross it.. after getting across, I was met by the small corner after maceda which made me decide to go home.. the corner was so flooded that it reached the elevated sidewalk (which was about a foot or two high), and the waves that were made by the passing vehicles would reach my feet at the middle of the sidewalk.. @_@

since I lacked breakfast at the time, and already decided that I was going home, I decided to eat at Jollibee in Welcome Rotonda.. while there, Bryan was continuously texting me to go to school so that we could play DOTA since it wasn't flooded inside Intra, and our professor hasn't entered the room..

after eating, I decided to go home and made my way across the footbridge.. once on top, I looked at Espana and saw that the traffic was only bad up to Blumentritt, which made me think "what if I went to school instead?".. after all, at home, all I'd be doing is nothing.. at least in school, I can be a peer adviser, or hang with friends..

for some reason, I opted to go to school.. probably because even if non-aircon buses and jeepneys that went our way passed, I wasn't comfortable riding those all the way home.. something wanted me to go to Intra.. and so I did.. once there, I decided to cut my class in Inorg since I've finished it last term.. all I do need is to understand a certain topic that was not properly taught to us last time, which is already in the ebook..

I stayed in W501 since I know a few peer advisers who also pass by Espana and wanted to hear their journey along Espana.. since their buses took Nagtahan, I was fortuante enough to see what happened to UST up to Morayta..

I got my bus at Welcome Rotonda, and as expected from a bus driver, he found a way to change lanes in a road that was already in heavy traffic.. after Blumentritt, the bus counterflowed Espana because its nose was already in the middle of the intersection, and the vehicles crossing Espana from Blumentritt were already blocking the road.. once it reached Maceda, the bus didn't move, and I noticed that the air-conditioner wasn't really functioning.. at first I thought it was because there was already too many people standing in the bus that hindered the air flow.. but after we crossed the PNR tracks did I remember that it is important to turn off the air-conditioner of a vehicle if passing by a flooded area..

from where I sat, I couldn't see the road anymore.. just water flowing as vehicles pass by.. across Ramon Magsaysay HS (Espana Branch), there stands a chowking branch.. but it was closed at the time.. it was already around 10am at this time, so I guess it was still closed because the water from Espana could reach the bottom of the glass door of chowking.. oh yeah, it was at this corner that the bus decided to go back to its normal lane..

while waiting for the stop light to turn green at the corner of espana and lacson, there was this "kariton" that had about 6 people on it and the people who were pushing it were being talked to by the MPD.. my first thought was "tang-*** pati ba naman yan huhulihin mo??", but then I saw that the guy was trying to help them get to the sidewalk because the vehicles that would soon pass by would make them wet.. and they did get wet when a bus passed by that was moving a bit too fast to be in 1st gear..

it was in front of UST that I saw the greatest flood that could probably help me understand how Noah felt when God flooded the world.. for those of you who know how high the sidewalk is infront of UST, and how high the gate is, imagine the water level reaching the railings of the gate as each vehicle passes by.. sure the volume of the vehicles have a factor, but imagine the sidewalk man! that side walk has about 3-4 steps before you step on the road!! even the soccer field became a lake because of the water there!! @_@

as if UST was bad enough, the scariest that I saw was at the corner of Morayta.. first of all, 2/3 of the yellow guard rails was under water.. I couldn't even see the bottom of the rails because of the turbidity of the water.. and to make things worse, if you pass by Morayta, then you'd probably be familiar with the greenwich that stands in the corner of Espana, Lerma, and Nicanor Reyes.. well guess what.. the water was able to reach the side walk level of greenwich.. which means if one were walking in front of greenwich, one would appear to be walking on water.. @_@

just how high is that sidewalk?? as insulting as it may be, I'll use a few people's height as reference.. for jasms batchmates - Lubog ang ulo ni Karina pag nakatayo sya sa main road.. for Peer Advisers - Lubog si ate Ruby kahit nakataas ang kamay nya.. for che-chm pipol - lubog si sir Ice.. pwede ring reference si janine/veia.. XD

and now I find myself back again in W501.. wherein I found myself teaching chemistry to 1st year ChE's who are under ma'am Ng.. my initial reaction was "ChE kau tapos magpapaturo kau ng stoich??".. then again, I did remember that I had a few problems in chem 1 myself, so I continued to teach them what they needed to know, and a few things that they might eventually know.. like bromobenzene.. XD

after teaching chem 1, I went out to play DOTA.. didn't notice it was already more than 2 hours since we played, but hey, that's DOTA for us.. XD

after playing DOTA, we hanged out in the Lab Assistant's office (because some of my friends are lab assistants), and I learned of a memo that could have affected my entrance in Mapua that day..

I was wearing a black shirt yesterday.. one which read "Mapua Engineers Walang Katulad" in front, and a logo similar to SMB at the back.. the memo that was distributed earlier that day said that students wearing those shirts would not be allowed inside Mapua.. speculations as to why they did it include "It gives Mapua a bad image because it shows that Mapuans like to drink beer"..

HELLO!! WERE YOU EVEN THINKING STRAIGHT SIR ______?! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT MAPUANS DRINK ALCOHOLIC DRINKS!! HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE MEMBERS OF YOUR ORG DRINK?! I MEAN COME ON! IT'S JUST A SHIRT!! I'D HAVE PREFERRED IT IF YOU SAID WE BROKE SOME FORM OF ARTISTIC LICENSE AND HAVE TO PAY SAN MIGUEL FOR USING THEIR LOGO WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION OR SOMETHING..

@_@

anyway.. that's about it for what happened to me yesterday.. the rest is irrelevant to the blog..

oh yeah.. just an update..

I'm angry at myself with the results of 3 of my quizzes for this term.. these quizzes all have one thing in common.. simple mistakes.. whether it's transcription of DNA to mRNA, or properly substituting values in a schrodinger eqn (Quantum Chem), or writing down the f'ing correct given, these simple mistakes cost me points in my exams in which all are in range of 68 - 75%.. hopefully, my score in Inorg would be much better than these, and that I don't screw up in my coming exam for Thermo.. @_@

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Of Jigglypuffs and Obvious Mathematical Errors..

It's been a while since I posted something here in Multiply.. probably because I've had nothing to write about that I wanted to share.. as part of a college tradition that I've developed initially to tell my HS friends how I am handling my studies, I write about my professors for the term in every subject.. and I'm Thankful they don't have multiply accounts.. XD

anyway, here we go..

CHE320 - Thermodynamics 2.. my bitterness in this subject is that I didn't take it last term, which could have given me a higher average even if I failed Inorg.. so far, this subject's been nothing but reporting of our problem sets.. but at least I know I can handle this subject.. My professor here is Ma'am De Vera, and as far as I can tell, she knows the subject, but is using a different approach which I don't know would be more effective.. but I'll see what happens on wednesday when we have our first exam there..

CHM300 - Inorganic Chemistry.. my second take.. oh well.. what can I say.. It's Inorg! given na un! hindi na un variable.. but since I'm taking this under Ma'am Miranda, I think the tables are turned in terms of difficulty.. XD

BIO181 - Basic Biotechnology.. under sir Perci Garcia.. okay naman ang subject.. last week nga lang wala akong ginawa sa kanya kundi magtext or matulog.. hahaha!! kasi naman, ung ibang topic tinuro na sa amin sa Biology subject namin nung 2nd year kami.. the effect? the simplest questions in the quiz were the ones that ended up wrong.. @_@ oh well, there's still 2 more quizzes to go.. XD

CHE375 - Heat and Mass Transfer 1.. under Dr. Arturo Tapas Jr.. to simply put it.. jigglypuff.. @_@

but I guess things will turn out better.. XD

CHM290 - Quantum Chemistry.. under MMMM.. so far, we've learned to derivatize our schrodinger equations and are told that the square of the first derivative yields to the second derivative.. @_@

I'm still waiting for most of my quiz results since we haven't taken our first exam on thermo 2.. oh well.. we'll see what happens in the coming weeks..