5 Bits of Happiness for July 2013

It's time for July 2013's 5 Bits of Happiness (and contest). This time around, I won't just be concentrating on food. About two activities made it to my list and am I ever so thankful that I have been given such wonderful opportunities.

As for those who are interested in participating in this contest, you can scroll down at the very bottom of this post for the rules. Anyway, my list:

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's pasta selection. I love their menu and I'm glad to see their options are consistent in all their branches. I have yet to try any pasta of theirs that I did not appreciate (especially their Spinach and Cheese Ravioli). Pictured here is the Tomato and Herb Linguine, which costs about P170ish.

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Grad Pic Shoot with Benny Reginaldo and M2 Studio

One of my biggest gripes about information flow in my alma mater, the University of the Philippines Diliman, is how...well, sometimes, it doesn't flow. Like in this instance, my classmates and I were left out of the yearbook. I don't even know who's responsible for the yearbook even though I asked, left my number, and no one called.

This graduation photo was important to me because of three things:

1. This PhD (which I actually obtained last year) is my very last degree. I would like to have a memento of it.
2. My first time to wear the Sablay as a graduate. I got my first degree from the University of the Philippines Manila, and thanks to a Philippine Daily Inquirer article, I found out that the reason we wore toga was because: "Except for those in medical courses, graduates in UP Manila also wear Sablay".
3. My grandmother collects grad pics of her grandchildren. I would like to proudly give her an evidence of the final fruits of my student life's labor. I doubt she'll appreciate my transcript of records. LOL.

So there. 

I decided to contact my friend Mike Mariano of M2 Studio. He had just come home from studying photography in New York and had built his studio very near where I live. After that was set, I contacted one of my students, Benny Reginaldo, for make-up because I was on a budget and he's actually pretty good at aesthetics, being a graduate of Multimedia Arts at the Asia Pacific College. I've seen his works on Facebook and I liked what I saw.

Errr...yeah, we forgot to take a "BEFORE" photo, so I'll just post a snapshot of myself that was taken the day before (at Harbor Square with one of my favorite friends Elvert Dela Cruz Bañares):

This serves as a perfect "BEFORE" photo because we were both hungreh and the smiles were forced. Hehe.

Here are shots taken behind the scene. Benny also happened to be a former student of Mike's, so he was also able to assist in the shoot. Oh and...yay for bigger curls. Hehe.

Off course, we need a group photo because everyone did a spectacular job. Aaaand I wanted something sorta less stiff.

And the final edited output. You can actually request how much editing should be done. Mike is not going to go all out and make you look totally different. Well, I wanted to look like the stiff people traditionally found on grad pics. Still, the editing was minimal.

Notice that my Sablay is on the left. I think placing the Sablay on the right is only for college graduates. I will be marching this weekend (UP's graduation rites only happen once a year, so those of us who graduated earlier in the school year will only get to march almost a year later). I think they're supposed to pin something on master's and doctoral graduates. Looking forward to that.

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National Communication Research Conference 2013

Sorry to post another interruption to my P100/Day Challenge Series. It's just that this event had been one of my goals for 2013 (Goal #7) and I never imagined that I'd actually accomplish half of it in the second month of the year!

Academe related post, hehe. One of the things I had been looking forward to for the past year was going to conferences and presenting my researches. I had been absent-minded enough to erroneously submit my abstract to a nation-wide competition: The National Communication Research Conference 2013.

Thank goodness, it looks like they decided to make me into a special guest speaker instead. Since I seem to be the only research doctor with a paper in there -- the rest are college students -- they decided to not let me compete. I'm wondering what happened to the other graduate students' (master's and doctoral) submissions...

In any case, one of the things that excited me about this conference is not my speaking engagement itself. It's the fact that His Excellency Former President Fidel V. Ramos was the inspirational speaker for this.

(Forgive the fuzzy photo, my Galaxy Note is not for zooming, haha.)

I was too young to have voted for him at the time but if he would be allowed to run for president again (and if he would like to run), I would vote for him.

Imagine my delight to find out that he is actually the ultimate nerd: master's degree in civil engineering, master's degree in national security administration, master's degree in business administration, 28 honorary doctorate degrees from various local and international institutions. And these are just his educational attainments. The former president is so busy implementing many things throughout the country that his business card title is already too long. His accomplishments (not without its share of controversies) span decades, and are two centuries worth.

(With Dr. Florinda Mateo, Dr. Lourdes Portus and Dr. Elena Pernia.)

He has a strange sense of humor and I found myself laughing, especially when he told some bespectacled people in the audience that their eyeglasses were no good. He then proceeded to poke his forefinger through his own eyeglass frames to reveal that they didn't hold glasses at all!

Ok, let me take a break from all that nerd fangirling to insert another ultra nerd, university heartthrob's photo:

(Again, sorry for the blurry pic haha.)

That's University of the Philippines Mass Communication Dean Roland Tolentino, whose manuscripts would make my nose bleed (especially the ones written in Filipino).

Unfortunately, I don't have photos of myself for posterity's sake. I will have to wait for official photos to come out. Will probably just edit this entry once I get the snapshots of my actual presentation and my acceptance of the special guest speaker's certificate.

My topic, Filipino Women Social Gamers Co-Creating Images (you can read my abstract here), was actually a super chopped up version of my doctoral dissertation, which I reduced from 348 pages to 25 pages just for this conference. I had a lot of fun with the topic, I suppose because I could see that many of the participants could actually relate to the games I discussed. It also gave me an idea on how to shorten my presentation further and tailor it to fit a wider range of audience.

Whew! I was hella nervous but that actually felt good. I had always wanted to speak about things I'm passionate about, like my research and my advocacy. My previous speaking engagements had always been peppered with commercialization. (Well, I still am passionate about my job in the game industry but I'd really rather talk about the craft instead of advertising my wares in important nation-wide conferences such as this).

Hopefully, I'd be able to sit down with my editor so I can present my research findings on an international scale. If I manage that, then I have accomplished 2013 Goal #7 completely.

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10 Reasons Why 2012 Had Been Good To Me

Strange haircuts aside, 2012 was a good year for me. While 2011 was a hellishly wild roller-coaster ride, it prepared me for the battles ahead.  I won most of 2012.  Let me count the ways.

10. Had another cat, the Persian-Himalayan Arya
She's kinda dumb and simple, but isn't she a beauty? Here's a photo of her being groomed by our Siamese cat, Kirara.

9. Short vacations at Boracay and Bataan.
If it weren't for the long travel time between Manila and Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar...well, I still say the trip was worth it. Especially after seeing the first UP Fine Arts building.

8. Moved to Makati
Not only did this move make it easier for me to get to Makati Medical Center (5 minutes walk), it also assured me that my entire system would get the circulation it needed. All that walking actually helped me overcome an accident (fell off a Greenbelt5 escalator earlier this year).

7. Healthier lifestyle, less hospital visits
Cooked my own baon. Well, it was mostly budget at first, but became a health concern later.

I gave myself a P100/day food allowance and upped it to P250/day when I got promoted and became the highest-ranking Producer at work. One thing about being a Producer and a PhD student at the same time...it made me so much more conscious about my health (more than 3/4th of my net salary went to medical bills!!). I learned how to balance my meals, found ways to exercise (lots of walking), learned how to calculate my liquid intake (3.5-4 liters, mostly water). The routine is still not perfect, but the food experiments have been fun.

6. Released Puzzle Pets Adventure on my birth month

5. Released Grave Mania: Undead Fever on my birthday
It also peaked at #5 in Japan and had a fairly great review rating in the US.

4. Spoke at the Youth for IT Congress
Made me realize how much I missed the academe. I still have stage fright, but knowledge sharing has always been a fulfilling experience for me.

3. Survived game development AND PhD studies
I had been (endearingly) called crazy for doing both at the same time but there were actually many factors that conspired for me to achieve this:

• I had a boss who would bake me goodies all the time. (Pastries are the best stress busters!)
• A super friend who thought I was the smartest pretty/prettiest smart girl he has ever met (di ko na to papakilala sa friends ko, hahaha, lalawak ang coverage, hahahaha!) and rewarded me for it with more stress busters (coffee, cakes, reams of paper).
• A best friend who acted like my personal assistant during critical paper submissions (and lent me her colored laser printer).
• Talented work teammates who never gave me headaches because they didn't need micromanaging.
• Friends and family who never stopped believing in me.
• Have a mother who is also finishing her PhD while working in her industry (so it kinda helped me see that I was not the only crazy workaholic nerd at the Lapa residence).

French macarons perfected by my boss (COO) Michael Carranceja

2. Grave Mania: Undead Fever and Puzzle Pets Adventure WON
Best PC/Mac Game for Grave Mania
Best Browser-Based Game for Puzzle Pets

at the Philippine Game Development Festival 2012. Was told that it was 70% jury, 30% public voting. The 70% was a result of all my teammates' hard work and dedication. Every single one of them had loads of talent, intelligence and resilience. The 30% is probably thanks to my entire family and my teammates' students. LOL.

1. Obtained my PhD in Communication
I am definitely not the sharpest tool in that particular UP shed, but I was cursed with ADHD and was indirectly told by a psychiatrist that this was actually the reason why I had been so focused on getting my PhD.

Told myself that I would graduate in 4 years or less and despite the naysayers in my previous employment (and those who thought that my ADHD would be my greatest enemy), it came to pass. I am thankful for my adviser and critic, Dr. Arminda Vallejo Santiago and Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, who had both provided valuable readings and insights that have helped me bridge game development (my work) and research (my studies).

Truly, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. (Oooh, and RH Bill had been passed!) Thanks be to God, the Supreme Architect.

What about you? Was 2012 good to you?

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Let the Pinay emerge!

I totally missed the Human Nature Pinay and Proud campaign because I'm currently at my busiest.  I will probably have enough time to get back on track by August. This blog entry is probably the only contribution I can make for this effort. :(

As I was reading through the campaign, I was brought back to the time when I was defending my doctoral dissertation proposal (November of 2011, defended/presented the results in June 2012). My topic is about Filipino Women Social Gamers and my panel members asked me to define the word "Pinay".  Apparently, you have to differentiate these terms because "Filipino Women" could mean something different from "Pinay".  The former exists in reality while the latter is a concept defined by social construction.

Plus, I'm not sure if a lot of women are aware, but I have been wielding my nerdy pen in defense of the Pinay ever since I noticed that the keywords "Pinay" and "Filipino women" seem to produce...less than desirable Google results. While doing my research, I am bombarded with nasty images and descriptions of Filipino women and sadly, a lot of those are from Filipino men who are self-proclaimed geeks and new media practitioners. Tsk. No wonder you cannot walk the streets of Manila without receiving catcalls and whistles. If educated men can openly promote the sexual objectification of women online, you cannot expect the uneducated ones to behave better offline.

Anyway, after reading the campaign, I am suddenly curious as to how our readers would define the word "Pinay". And since it has been months since I've been wondering what kind of contest I could run so I could give away my Human Nature lipsticks, this gives me an opportunity to hit two birds with one stone.

So, in this blog, let us begin to raise better images of the Pinay!

Here's my contest:
In the comments section below, define the word "Pinay". Best answer wins.

Additional points will be awarded to those who like/join Skysenshi's Hermitage FB Page and/or share this blog entry to Facebook and Twitter (of course, please leave the link below your answer as well).

It's that simple. I will pick the best comment on 12 August 2012, at 11:59PM.

Good luck!!


WINNER ANNOUNCED:
Thesa Ursal! Your comment wins. Please send me your name, contact number, mailing address and email via this form: http://www.sarimanok.ph/contact-us/

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Becoming a doctor & the price paid for finishing early

I just defended my Ph.D dissertation last Friday, 22nd of June 2012 and the panel passed me.  It's a bittersweet victory, however. There are a lot of things going through my mind and half of it makes me smile, the other half makes me worry.  First, the things that make me smile:

This poster at the UP Film Institute caught my eye while I was waiting for my adviser.  The funny thing was that my critic/reader had just granted me the go-signal to distribute copies of my dissertation to my panel.  In my head, I was already singing:

Unti-unting mararating

Kalangitan at bituin

Unti-unting kinabukasan ko'y magniningning

Hawak ngayo'y tibay ng damdamin

Bukas naman sa 'king paggising

Kapiling ko'y pangarap na bituin

Ok, I was too young to have seen the movie but I do remember the theme song that Sharon Cuneta sang, which was about triumph.  Considering that I finished my course work in two years, took a break for one semester, and then finished the manuscript 6 months after defending the proposal, which I defended 5 months after passing the comprehensive exam...that is pretty fast.  Especially since I come from a university that has been known to cause delays for graduate students. (I had been warned by naysayers, and I said, "Challenge accepted!")  So there's a feeling of pride somewhere in there, that I could actually do this. That despite not being the smartest in class, I had incredible sense of determination (and totally supportive friends) to pull me through.

It came with a price, though.  

That's the thing that makes me worry. I've actually been running on adrenaline and I don't know how much more I can hold on to before my body fully recognizes that it is exhausted. Couple this with the fact that a psychiatrist said that I have ADHD...well, the disorder went on overdrive this past year as I tried to juggle work and school.

Before I left my previous employment and while I was doing the exit interview, the president called me crazy for not going full-time as a Ph.D student. And he was right. Boy, was he so right! No sane person would go into a full-time job (and in game production, to boot!!) while taking that much load as a graduate student.

The result? Weekly visits to the hospital because of:

• Internal Medicine (acid and digestion problems)
• Orthopedic (knee injury, fell off escalator due to inattentiveness)
• Dentist (weakened gums resulting in root canal, not covered by Maxicare)
• Dermatologist (ironically, it was the oft-dismissed "beauty doctor" who told me that I was so stressed that my body's resistance has dropped, making me susceptible to all kinds of bacterial and viral attacks, but the resulting damage is not covered by Maxicare)

Plus the other important things?

• Death of love lives
• Nearly dead social life
• Missing family gatherings and activities

But you know what? Another funny thing is that I don't think it's my studies that have led me to this. I was more stressed as a student when I was still doing my course work because I had to run to UP three times a week after office hours back then. And during the summer of 2010, I had to take ENG 295 everyday, running back to the office at the end of every session.  Now, it's doubly harder, because I had to get into grueling production work in the name of auto-ethnography. (I've come to realize that it is the production work that's killing me, even though I've already dropped all other game dev organizational activities.)

I clearly abused my body and have pushed it to the point of being trapped in this unhealthy routine until I graduate. My mom had been right when she scolded me: I should not have gotten a full-time game industry job while still finishing my Ph.D.

My solution? Eat right, sleep well, and drink lots of water as I try to meet the end of July self-imposed deadline for the revisions. Jennent!

And uh, yeah, those are copies of my dissertation that each panelist has commented on.  The revisions are supposedly minor, but considering that my manuscript is 343 pages long and there are 6 copies of them to go through...whew! Looks like I'll be spending my Saturdays in the UP-CMC library and Sundays writing again.

Wish me luck!  After this, I will do my best to go back to my regular activities...such as blogging.

And to all the aspiring graduate students out there:
PLEASE DO NOT DO WHAT I DID. There's a reason why working students take time before graduating, and that's because your body can only take so much damage. Please listen to it. What use is a doctorate/master's degree if you will only enjoy it for a short time? =P

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New Game: Puzzle Pets & Anino Anniversary

Sorta New Game
Well... Puzzle Pets Adventure, the second game I produced for 2012, is not entirely new.  I mean, it was softly launched at the end of March. (Yay, we released two of my games on my birth month!)  We're still doing some tweaks based on user feedback and some other qualitative data we've been looking at, but I would like to urge everyone to try the game out and tell us what you think.  We believe the constructive comments would help in tremendously improving everyone's gameplay experiences.

Puzzle Pets Adventure is a match-3, pet-capturing game published by Gamoji/6Waves and developed by Anino Games, Inc. I'll post more about this on my portfolio site next week.

My First Anniversary in Anino
On 2 May 2012, I celebrated my first year anniversary as a Producer for Anino Games, Inc.  It's funny how I remember introducing myself to the studio as a Ph.D candidate looking for a dissertation topic about games and I initially applied as a Game Tester (it's my way of telling people I'm trying to become an intern).  The interviewer promptly laughed at me and gave me two options: I could choose to be a Game Designer or a Game Producer.  I chose the latter because that was a job I had not tried before and the teams I handled have assured me that I made the right choice, that it would give me the perspective I needed in writing my dissertation.

I had difficulties with paradigm-shifting.  Not only had I come from a vastly different, older culture (where I was among the youngest, plus organizational development and business processes were already smoothly in place for decades), I was also an academic director previously.  The job demands were different, even though being an academic director was cerebrally harder.  Being a Producer entailed a rather unique sort of creativity...and I'm not sure yet if I like being a Producer.

Don't get me wrong.  I completely love Anino's environment of geeks.  I feel right at home.  The creator/designer/researcher in me, however, is getting restless.  I kinda miss art and I do want to hold another exhibit.  I miss going to museums and poetry readings.  I miss writing for myself.  I miss designing systems and seeing them get implemented.  I miss the introverted me.  Luckily, I have my own room for when I need to recharge. (Yes, I have some sort of extrovert battery that runs out every two hours or so and only isolation could bring it back up.)

Heh. This is my new office space, which I moved into last month. I kind of miss the huge window in my old room, though, so I will have to do something to liven up the place.  I'd need shelves for my books...and toys.

I also need a couch.  Two couches?  Because for some reason, my office has become some sort of a guidance counselor's clinic, where people could rest when they feel a little bit pressured or fatigued.  I also need those couches for meetings, so my developers wouldn't have to bring their own chairs whenever they come.

Aaaand...this is a new FB profile photo I took just before lunch break yesterday.  The room may look like a scene out of Silence of the Lambs, but I'm obviously a happy camper.

So far my first year has been rife with ups and downs and I emotionally struggled at the beginning of my stay, landing in the hospital several times in 2011 because of the stress.  2012 has been kinder to me, though, and I hope it stays that way throughout the year.

As for my dissertation?  It's about female social gamers and the images of identity and empowerment that their gameplay experiences bring.  I'm hoping to defend it on June 15, 2012 so I can officially call myself Dr. B by the end of the semester.  (And maybe finally have a social life.)  Heh.

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2011: The Good, The Bad and Some Changes

First off, I would like to greet everyone a HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

From the multimedia industry (game development companies and associations) to the academe to the blogosphere to my wonderful colleagues, my readers, professors, classmates, former students, fellow bloggers, friends and family: Thank you all for being part of my 2011. You have made my year very memorable.

You may have noticed that I started updating less and less during the middle part of the year, but the irony was that I was in so many places -- seemingly at once -- and that there were a lot of stories to share. I just hardly had the time to actually sit down and actually savor them all. Hence my online life had been reduced to 150 characters per post on micro-blogging/social networking sites, posting while on the go. (Thank you, Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab!)

Anyway, 2011 had been a year of victory for me, even though half of it was spent dealing with a lot of self-esteem issues (for both work and my studies). Let me just be thankful for the following.

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com


The Good

• Bagged two multimedia (web-related) awards. Won at both the 12th Philippine Web Awards in April and the 2011 Philippine Blog Awards in December.
• Held an exhibit (Transitions in February) that had me exploring various traditional and new media techniques.
• Became a Producer for Anino Games Inc. I was also a Communications Director for a short while, but requested to step down because visits to the hospital (due to stress) became a regular thing. Haha!
• Passed my PhD candidacy exam in May.
• Successfully defended my doctoral dissertation proposal in November.
• Meeting some of my readers during the earlier part of the year.
• Collaborating with heads of various CHED and TESDA institutions (DLSU, FEU-EA, UP, DLS-CSB, APC, Informatics, PLM, FEATI), ironically when I have already left the academe.
• My company winning in two categories at the Philippine Game Development Festival 2011. One for Best Browser Game (Lords and Colonies) and another for the Cultural Award (Jan-Jan the Jeepney, a project with CCP & CICT).
• Getting warm feedback from the production teams I have been handling. I have been blessed with developers who are extremely intelligent, talented, industrious and ultra supportive of each other. I want to win awards for our games in 2012 so... Hahahahaha! (Ambisyosa ba?)
• My brother Pau getting married to the kind and beautiful Keng, resulting in a very hectic but productive October - December.
• Traveling to Cebu, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• On mentoring: I consider it a victory that even though I no longer am teaching, there are still students and graduates from various schools that contact/visit me for consultations and they have successfully passed their defenses/presentations/interviews. I am honored by the trust these extremely talented students have bestowed upon me.

Truly, 2011 was so generous to me that even my former boss, Gerard Cadlum, said: "Congratulating you is getting boring =)"

So if I had such a blessed year, how come I had self-esteem issues? Hahaha. Well, it can't be helped. Some of my friends say that I am too hard on myself, but sometimes there are things that are out of your control so...

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

The Bad

• Delayed projects due to forces beyond our control.
• For some reason, I became insecure of my own dissertation. After passing the defense, I suddenly felt like I don't know what I'm doing. Heh.
• Loss of time for myself and my friends. Hence, the lack of blog updates.
• High levels of stress causing me so much physical strain (and weight loss) that I am now on a special diet in order to manage it. (Broke that diet during the holidays and ate everything the doctor forbade and gained back the weight I lost. Hahahaha! Made up for it by drinking lots of Yakult and staying on meds. xD)
• Deaths of people I consider important, both personally and those I idolized from afar. There were just too many of them in 2011.

Changes to Blogging Habits

Since 2011 has been my year of individuality, 2012 is actually going to be the opposite even though my forecasts for the Year of the Dragon indicate that I will be very successful in individual endeavors. (It also says there is a possibility of seeing dead people. Wah!!!! Thank goodness, it's superstition.)

On blog updates: Because I will have lesser time for myself in 2012 -- as I will devote myself to being a Producer (I want to win awards for games I produced this time, di ba? Hehe) -- the content of my blogs will be severely...hm. Let's just say I want to concentrate on posts that have deep significance to me.

The biggest irony of 2011 for me, blog-wise, was that I have been receiving a deluge of event and commercial requests when I hardly have time to spare for myself. I was afraid to log into my personal email because there were hundreds of stuff to read. (And many of them are still unread, huhuhuhu!!!) I don't want to break my ties with my favorite PR companies, though, so I have decided that press releases and product endorsements would be relegated to my Facebook page, Skysenshi's Hermitage, where I will also be holding contests from time to time.

From now on, the only time I will actually post a product-related event on any of my blogs is if I have personally attended an event and experienced the product for myself. How's that for compromise?

I hope this turns out to be a win-win situation for all.

Again, happy new year to all and I'm wishing everyone a great 2012. In the meantime, do enjoy a bit of fun with astrological (both Western and Eastern) forecasts. Hehe.

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Geeky thoughts and friends I've sorely missed

I was already compiling my thoughts on the things that I have wanted to write about but didn't have time to do so and I guess it's only now that I've stolen my own office space that I've actually given myself a brain breather. Goodness, I've got two games to release by end of the month and a dissertation defense sandwiched in between. (Plus a game development competition and a festival to help organize.) Lemme just breathe for the next 15 minutes as I write this.

The world loses another genius.
I'm actually grieving right now. When our Communications Officer, Vana, told me that Steve Jobs died, it took a minute to register. Tears involuntarily (and embarrassingly) fell on the exact moment that my team leads arrived into my stolen office to have our production mini-meeting. I guess I'm taking this hard (probably as hard as how the MJ fans received the music legend's death) because it bothers me that I cannot download all the information from a person's brain and he takes it all with him when he dies. And well...I'm a Mac user. I may not love everything Apple, but to me the Mac makes perfect sense. Right now, I don't really feel like being a good researcher by putting in quotes from Bill Gates etc. Ok, I'm getting all depressed again now so let me just move forward...

(Apple's tribute to the amazing visionary, as it appears on the official website.)

Congrats to Jenny on your Palanca!
My dear classmate in graduate school, Jenny Ortuoste, just won a Palanca. I've always admired the way she wove words so this didn't come as a surprise. I guess, it's about time. =^.^= And goodness, girl, I've missed all of you, along with our other classmates! I miss our discourses and how we make each other sounding boards for ideas and concepts that later bloom into geeky research papers. Hope to see you soon!

Uh, but what is this I see on the tarp? Naman, UP! Kaloka ang typo ha! It's literally gigantic and it's right smack in the middle of a very public place. (And I still haven't forgiven the college scholar certificates you've given me that are written in Comic Sans Serif.)

On cloud computing.
My friend Michelle's (MyMomFriday) husband has launched Arcus:IT. It's the first cloud computing company in the country. So what does the company do, exactly? According to their website, they provide "IT infrastructure that is available on demand, elastic — a user can have as much or as little of our service as they want at any given time; location-independent, and fully managed by us. You need nothing but a personal computer and Internet access. Whether you are developer, an enterprise user, an SMB, a start-up company, you do away with the long deployment times and huge capital outlays associated with hardware infrastructures. Talk to us and we’ll help you chart a roadmap to the Cloud."

For business owners out there, this might be worth checking out.

And Michelle! I miss our chika sessions with Rowena and MichelleM!

A Song of Ice and Fire.
Since I have about a month left before I defend my dissertation proposal, I took advantage of my free weekends to devour George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Many of you might have heard of (or watched) Game of Thrones, which was shown on HBO. Well, that was based on these books. The characters -- and gosh, they're numerous -- are so addictive, I just want to curl up in bed and read all day. I'm already on the fifth book and I'm lamenting the fact that GRRM took 14 years to write all 5. That means, I'd probably be a grandma by the time he finishes.

The books are:
A Game of Thrones (1996)
A Clash of Kings (1998)
A Storm of Swords (2000)
A Feast for Crows (2005)
A Dance with Dragons (2011)

Game On!
Calling all college students who are interested in games: In line with the upcoming Philippine Game Development Festival 2011 (PGDF2011), the Game Development Association of the Philippines is holding an inter-school competition that aims to showcase student abilities throughout the country. We'd like to grow our talent pool and this seems like a great place to start. For more information about the competition, visit the PGDF website.

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Why I haven't been blogging lately...

(Offline Blogging: Saturday, 30 July 2011 at 19.14
Because there is no internet and I can't complete my thesis.)

I haven't really been blogging lately and it's been a while since I have written about something on a really personal level (well, my deepest personal stuff I don't post on this blog because those are meant only for my LJ, as they've always been for the last 10 years I've been privately blogging).

Anyway, last week, we had our company management seminar at "Da Farm", this beautiful farm where we ate really great meals. Our CFO (also the wife of the CEO) is such a wonderful vegetarian cook, I thought she should run a healthy canteen. Aaaaaand the farm animals are…amazing.

Before I go to the real meat of this blog entry (I keep getting distracted by thoughts of food and cute little furries), I better post the photos first.

Tilapia pond. We have a tilapia pond at our Tagaytay farm, too, but it isn't nearly this big.

The tilapia pond from afar.

The house situated at the center of the vast land. Its contemporary design is in contrast with the hunter-gatherer feel of the area.

A fun place to read.

You wake up to these fat little puppies.

Kulit, too.

Aaaaaand that's sheep.

It sorta followed me around during my tour of the place.

This is my favorite area, where the goats are.

The huge-ass grandfather goat with a creepy smile. I heard it was imported.

You can touch its horns, but I was too intimidated by it.

Snobby kitteh.

This white cat had one blue eye and one yellow eye. I couldn't take a photo of it up close since it was too paranoid.


Ok, now lemme segue into the real story I wanted to tell as I'm hoping this could help people (especially graduate students who are also working full-time) find their balance. The seminar we took in this place was about loving your job. Fortunately, all of us who were in that training already love our job. What I realized was that -- while being asked about our goals -- I have actually worn myself thin over so many things I wanted to do in so little time.

Let's see. Everyone knows I'm taking my doctorate studies and hoping to finish by the end of this school year. I am also a Game Producer and now also handling the Communications Department. This makes me automatically active in industry organizations such as the Game Development Association of the Philippines (GDAP) and the International Game Development Association (IGDA) and these associations need to coordinate with government bodies like TESDA, CHED, the now defunct CICT (and we're still talking!) and so on and so forth.

So basically I divide my time like this:

Weekday office hours = Work as Producer and work in Communications, including org meetings that may go way beyond office hours
Week nights (or week dawns) = Try to blog, if I get home before 9PM (which is now rare and I can't stay up till midnight because I need to wake up at 4AM)
Saturdays = Work on my Philippine Online Chronicle articles, if something industry-related doesn't come up
Sundays = Work on thesis (the average PhD dissertations here in the country is about 10x as thick as college theses...why so long????)

And whatever free time I squeeze out of that, I try to do some personal art (because I want to compete again this year and hold an exhibit again next year)…which I can barely manage. I barf at my personal works now. They all look and sound so bleh.

Something has to give.

Well. My health did.

So here I am, unplugged, recovering (should have told that nurse that my vein is not a Tetrapak box), and thinking about things I could let go of. Well, that was hard. So, I decided to concentrate on the three goals that we were asked to name during the seminar:

1. To become a doctor by the end of the school year. (This is the key that unlocks a number of other quests, including #3.)
2. To own a museum/gallery.
3. To help the Philippine education system meet industry needs. (This, instead of World Peace, is my Ms. Universe dream.)

So all other decisions or activities I'd be doing from now on must be headed towards those three goals. That is still hard. The decision to resign from The Philippine Online Chronicles was difficult enough but I'm now reserving my writing energy for that gargantuan PhD tome I'm supposed to cough up on September 9. (August 2 Edit: Apparently, I'm now chasing after an August 15 deadline.)

I'm also not accepting any commissioned writing or web gigs from now on until I graduate. I will just end up disappointing/angering clients because my brain is all over the place. I've been pretty cranky, too.

Here are the other problems:

• Half of what I'm doing in the Communications Department are related to #3. (In fact it's ironic that I'm doing more high-level education stuff now that I'm in the industry than when I was in the academe. I guess you can move more fluidly when you're not tied down to one school.)
• What I do as a Game Producer is what will help me get #1 (and vice-versa). 
• I shouldn't give up my blogs completely (though they haven't been updated lately). They will help me get #2 because they're related to my personal art.
• Social life is almost completely dead, since having one will not lead me to any of my goals. That's just plain sad.

So…I haven't really totally unloaded much, except maybe my blogs. I feel bad seeing them decline, as I just watch helplessly. I miss replying to my readers and reading everyone else's blogs.

But anyway, once I get #1 off that list, I suppose I'll be able to manage my time more freely so I'm now concentrating on accomplishing that as fast as I can. Until then...I just might need an assistant.

I do promise that I will be back and I will be back with a vengeance. =^.^= In the meantime, maybe you can talk to me about your personal life goals and how you want to reach them? Just drop a comment below so I'd know you guys are still there.

Thanks, y'all!

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