WHERE TO READ AND STUDY?

 
One third of my life I invariably spend inside campuses. I must say that I have a very good vantage point for comparing them, in terms of being friendly to students, friendly to academicians, and to the environment. 

In terms of being friendly to students, i think university X has a library that is easily accessible to all the people -- students, faculty. The books are new and heavy. It also has an art gallery and beautiful Filipiniana collection. 

University Y is beautiful architecturally speaking. It has both old and new buildings. The library is fantastic -- looks like the building is one hotel -- spic and span, glass doors, not agoraphobic at all. The computers are numerous and I don't think no student would be sent out just because there is none available at the moment. Then it even has a canteen, a few steps away from your desk where you can have coffee, delicious baked tarts, etc. And the interior decoration is also sophisticated. It also has many historical vignettes signifying the value the university plays on their past.

University Z also has old and new buildings. But it has outdated interiors. The personnel are dedicated but look glum, too serious. When you visit them, it seems as if you are being told: "Hey, when you enter here, you better think and think well." No I didn't get that at all from the the other two universities. In fact in University Y, my feeling is that  the institution is telling us: "Here are the facilities for you to savor and hope you'd get the brightest ideas for your course." 

In University Z also the libraries are located in different sites so that if you want to read culture, you walk one third of a kilometer to it. If philosophy, you walk again, climb up the stairs and walk several meters again. No, it is too taxing to navigate the directions. If you want to read up on science, take the jeepney and go to its building. 

University X gives a different feeling: "This is the library and here are the books. You may read them." No personal touch. Bahala ka sa buhay mo. 

But the library I like best are those with music books. I devour almost all, except that I wish they would all have listening facilites. University W has such, plenty of scores to look at, books to read and a nice computer with composition software which is top of the line so you can create your own music. But that computer is reserved only for those who know how to use it. 

University Z music library lacks the listening facilites and has computer facilites but only for surfing, not for listening. The last time I went to University X, computer facilites are not available but you could use you own computer inside. University Y has plenty of computers available for use on prolonged time but only for research also. 

I think senior citizens like me will be very happy to visit the libraries of these universities as it is one way of keeping Alzheimer's disease away, and of being in touch with the world, no matter how vicariously, through books and the internet. 

These are just impressions though. I hope that you'd still continue to visit the libraries. 

YIKES

I THINK INTERNET SHOPS SHOULD HAVE A SIGN ON EVERY WALL: WE KICK OUT WOMEN SEXUAL HARASSERS,

Some young boys have learned the art of swiping at women's chests and pretending that they are talking to someone else. These are rotten eggs in the computer industry and should be wrung out of the internet shops. 

Help! DEP-ED please include sexual harassment as a subject for deep and serious study in every grade. 

DTI - please require establishments to have notices about respecting women and the punishments for violators. 

also include the hotline that women can call up to report violators. 

JUST THINKING

I was meditating while lying in bed and after twenty minutes woke up to have this issue whirling in my mind:

If the United States is not able to solve the problem of intervention in the elections this year and just let it pass on to the next election period, the people will have a very, very big political problem. The perpetrators will hold on to their powers, after having tasted being on top for four years. The rest will go down the hill. Pray that it's not going to be a bloody battle for the presidency. 

GOTCHA

These are the instances when I ask myself why don't I have a haircut?

1. When I get out of a restaurant, ask a waiter to help me put down my trolley three steps below to the road and get a response like: "Baka ako hanapin sa loob." He has a strong physique but seems to be blind to the plight of senior citizens;

2. When women enter a jeepney in short shorts and parade their thighs while an old man seated beside me peers secretly at them; 

3. When I ask a postclerk if I could send a box to a cousin in LA whose address I do not know and if I could ask the postmaster there to hold on to it while I call my cousin on the phone to pick it up from there, and then get an answer no we don't do that;

4.When listening to a radio program and hear a familiar song being abruptly cut by chatting which I think is a disrespeact of the intellectual property of the composer;

5. When I go to an internet shop and the headset have only one ear function or not at all yet charge the same amount as the other shops with excellent facilities; 

6. When condominium dwellers do not discipline their children and teenagers who scatter the foil wrappers around as if they own the property alone; and also the smokers who drop their butts around. Just because these buttes are small does not mean that they are not garbage;

7. Internet shops that have not alarm or when they do, have such an earsplitting reminder that whatever mental calisthenics I go through gets interrupted right away;

8. When cashers ask you for change when they should be the one doing so; and many many more. 

WHEN THE DIGNITY OF COUNTRIES GETS SOILED

                           

When we read or listent to news from USofA we are so nonchalant about it. It seems that the only things that get attention to us are those where there are shootings or flooding of California. Yet the graver issue now is the Mueller investigation of the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. 

Mueller has indicted Russian conspirators but we do not know why they were doing it at all -- against Hillary. Who asked them to do those criminal acts of penetrating the election system of America?

I think that the dignities of countries get warped once other countries truly defame their people. 
This is why I think Kuwait should receive more than a slap in the wrist -- that of indemnifying the OFW victims. We should make them pay our country millions of dollars for reducing our workers to great indignities and even allowing their being killed there in their own countries without ... I say... without having lifted a finger until after the government put its food down. 

Such transgression of countries' dignities must not go unpunished at all. We are in a world with a so-called unity to be together through thick and thin, and then in this new milleneum we are victims of such atrocities and horror of horrors in the workplace. 

Maybe it is also time now to stop labor migration all throughout. The effects on the Filipino families are terrible. The Church preaches about the sacredness of the family but how do you maintain a family that is broken geograhically? Children need hugging and kisses and constant reminder that they are the best that ever happened in this world. How could parents do that when they are thousands of miles away?

Let us not kid ourselves. Labor migration is the worst method of finding work for our people. 

WHY?

Do we deserve our communications system to be awry all the time?

1, I am inside my residence, a few feet away from the window and my celfone cannot connect properly. My voice is choppy says the person I have called. Then I have to peer out the window to get a good signal. But oops, the call is cut off and so I have to call again.

2. While calling, my calls get dropped and I have to dial two or three times to get connected.

3. How much do we lose in a month for such dropped calls, including texts that do not get relayed?

4. When I call a certain Telco from my Sun sim, my goodness, it says, "sent" but the person hardly calls right away.In other words, the connection among the different telcos is shot. 


So aside from having a telecommunications system that is third-rate, we have to deal with the lack of sense of immediacy for our people for calls. If the text is an offer of a product, I would understand that the recipient would not answer right away. But if the text is something important like a question about a certain herbal treatment, I would presume that the recipient would answer right away. My goodness, our people must be educated on the value of communications.

Apart from all these, we have recipients of our calls who readily disappear after we have just stated our intention? Why so, he or she needs more time to reply as research for the answers is needed. So why can't they say "Just a moment please"?

A little bit of courtesy training is needed by all who use the celfones or the telephones for that matter.

It's time to speed up to our millennial goals but it seems communications is a great drag in our life.

WHY??????         HELP!!!!

WHEN TECHNOLOGIES HIT THE GUTS AND AROUSE LUST

The world is getting smaller and smaller as new technologies arise. Businesses are being managed and monitored miles and miles from across the globe. Contents of foreign magazines easily reach almost all countries through online insertions. News travels so fast in a split second so that reporters or columnists are on edge on whether their writings are accurate in terms of facts or not. Even the meanings of words of the different languages can readily be deciphered and easily used in  writing so that the printed dictionaries are almost always considered obsolete already. 

It is only in Third World countries  where there is still respect and greater use for the printed medium I guess. The proliferation of printed tabloids on the sidewalks, the use of flyers to advertise business offerings, and  notebooks for writing rather than on the computer are still around thereby allowing us to read, reread and if writing, edit the contents. In the rural areas, where electricity is not available, the schooling children invariably use notebooks and paper to do their studies.  

Let us admit that the computer technologies revolutionized the cultural spaces in our world, in the key cities especially We are either at the mercy of these gadgets, or the victims of misuse of individual villains, and sometimes addicts due to habits formed by computer games, showing the over permissive character of the system being paraded under the guise of freedom of expression. Instead of being the controllers of these gadgets, people become mere robots following its rules and being a slave to its surprising moves. 

Actually, online selling is the greatest beneficiary of the computer development. Some people find greater ease in transacting online for the products they wish to acquire instead of moving about from mall to mall to search and haggle for their prices. 

But what are the disadvantages of this so-called revolutionary way of communicating for us?

What does it make us do to bequeath a rational, peaceful and socially-conscious world to our children?

Why rational?   This is because we cannot afford to commit mistakes when using the computers. It can be sent to thousands and even millions of individuals with one click and to commit a mistake is to commit it a thousand or a million times like that instance when the geographical location of a volcano was erroneously placed in another city.

Pity the children who would be reading and misunderstanding facts in the computer screens as their minds are highly  absorbent  of right and wrong data. 

Secondly, a rational world would provide us leaders who would be caring of all peoples in the planet, not just thinking of boundaries and territories. Ergo, if they are conscious of others then they would be nurturing as well in order to have peace in the world. Is that a logical conclusion? I guess so. A rational individual bred by humane societies could find ways and means to solve problems instead of contributing to the demise of the world. An irrational individual on the other hand seeks to blow up the world, and live only within his or her world. Or an irrational individual is anti-human. An irrational individual is after sheer power, unqualified and solely possessed by him or her. 

Socially-conscious world 

Now why the need for a socially-conscious world? And how can the computer technologies provide us the steps, the standards, the methods of achieving or attaining a rational, peaceful and socially-conscious world?

There is no more a time in world history when social consciousness is abjectly needed. No one can brag that social consciousness is passé as he or she was able to attain economic sufficiency without thinking of the other fellow. The fact that money revolves among different hands shows already that society needs a consciousness of others, and that no one is really an island. 

The presence of socially-conscious individuals means that no one will be left behind, literally and figuratively. No one will be a stumbling block to the progress of humankind. No one will use any means to eradicate or cripple human kind. Racism will be a thing of the past, and economic inequalities shall be overcome with ease. 

Ergo, we should make the use of computer technologies a very important part of the human activities. 

At the mercy of gadgets

Unfortunately, in our country, we are more at the mercy of these gadgets than controllers of them. A young lady got on a filled bus and held on to the railing with her celfone on her hand. Can you see that excessive hankering to display her celfone? It is almost an obsession for many of our young people as we can see. How they hold on to them as if they would be nothing, no identity without their gadget. They guard it with their lives as can be shown by the number of people who have been killed by celfone holduppers and robbers. 

Inside churches, do you think that the worshippers are dutifully performing their religious prayers? No sir, no madam, many are reading text messages, and who knows others could be playing games. 

Thus I think that all churches must have an announcement before commencing the mass that all celfones have to be muted; or the religious order must have a jammer to stop all users from using them. 

More than being controlled by these gadgets, our women fall prey to the goings-on in the foreign countries where there is less and less Prudence in dealing with sex. I watched videos of sexually-explicit scenes being projected on the screen of an east asian restaurant in Manila. The young customers come from religious schools of the College of the Holy Spirit, the Centro Escolar University, and the University of the East, among others. What is the effect of such Video screens on them? They induce them subtly or overtly to copy, imitate the acts which could be hazardous to their trying to achieve a scholarly destiny.  

Despite our favorable assessment of computer technologies in the previous sections, the negative benefits seem to surpass them. What are these:

1. They breed self-centeredness and egoism;

2. They spawn alienation in the family and in society;

3. They draw in the young to the issues of pornography, racism, so easily. The availability of information on them makes them think of imitating the acts, experimenting on what it makes of them should they follow these issues;

4. It inclines individuals to be materialistic, to shun contrary opinions despite the country’s immersion in a democratic system;

5. On the matter of sex, computer technologies are reeking with different presentations. Some trivialize it. The available lessons on sex in the internet raise the question on whether sex has lost its value or that people are now demeaning sex as a sacred act between married couples or consenting free adultsl

Families which exist for technologies are definitely already alienated from each other, unless they are together in doing a project that requires everyone to use one equipment each.

Technologies could be used for political purposes to hit at people with contrary opinions. I saw a video board in front of a barangay and as soon as I approached the screen was shifted to how waste management is done. That is familiar, this presence of trucks that carry wastes. They immediately appear as I leave the house. During the time of Bayani this scene was very prevalent, and it has continued until now. Then I heard that a political commentator over the radio also experiences the same. I guess that is how the State conduct psychological warfare. But who cares?

The polarized lifestyles between the haves and have-not countries are very stark on the internet. Hence, when people from the latter start surfing and find how healthy-looking the residents in the former, it is axiomatic that they would want to attain the same lifestyle. And so the internet could arouse frustration or inspiration on the viewers. 

Alienation is the biggest result of these computer technologies.  The one-on-one character of using these equipment makes the individuals think that they are in control, they are the power behind the transfer of scenes on the screen from one point to another which is false. Technologies are never free of tampering. An art connoisseur showed me a series of photos of her family on her celfone and she was surprised to find that the slideshow was categorized pleasingly -- without her lifting a finger. The celfone put together those photos of one child, the next child, and so forth and so on. It did its own categorization which was rationally done. 

Now I am really wondering what kind of generations we are breeding when they spend two to three hours or more a day playing war games on the internet. 

So in truth we are like the polar bear above who is standing on an iceberg that is slowly melting and soon she will no longer have any ice around. How could our ice animals survive the onslaught of capitalistic urges to accumulate wealth using fossil fuels that heat up the earth?

Technologies are like the ice that fade in and out of our lives depending on the innovations that are brought in. But at the same time, humankind who are just human, after all, could eventually lose half of their humaneness to that insatiable lust for computer power. 

LOVE?

   

I don't understand why our celebration of Valentine's Day always revolves around heart and f____. On the radio, I hear announcers waxing sentimental about their spouses, and then in another program, a couple of men joke about how others cheat on their wives. 

It looks as if love is only experienced by those who are married or partnered. 

Yet, if you look at modern, liberated and ... and feminist perspectives, love is broader than all these. Love means loving animals and therefore not eating their meat as lunch or any other meal. 

Love means giving assistance to and hope to the abandoned, the widowed, the orphaned, 

Love means making the children enjoy their childhood and insuring that they are not thrown to livelihood activities right away. 

Love means the politicians caring more for the marginalized instead of seeking to grandstand all the time and hug the video cameras for advertisement or publicity. 

Love means, Folks, loving ourselves, and asserting our right not to be taken for granted by the powers-that-be, while those who made a mess of our lives in the past continue to enjoy the booties that they had stolen when they were still in power.