theSpoke.net

One of my favorite poems
Tuesday, October 31, 2006 5:00 PM

The first line of this poem is well-known, but how many of us have read this poem in its entirely? This is one of literature's most eloquent expressions of love. How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. How do I love thee?

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posted by Didith with

Still a lot to learn
Monday, October 30, 2006 10:06 PM

I took a first crack at editing the work of a colleague. I thought I got most of the errors. Another colleague did an edit and found maybe 10 times the number of errors that I found. Clearly, I still have a lot to learn about editing.

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posted by Didith with

Congratulations, a reality check, and a wake up call
Monday, October 30, 2006 12:14 AM

Congratulations toTeam Persistence Akie MejiaKendrick SaavedraMichael Tan for ranking 14th out of 82 and being named BEST PHILIPPINE TEAM in the ACM ICPC! Team TheBig3 Neill LiJan Vincent LiwanagJason Salvadorfor scoring three points Team NPtoPWilhansen

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posted by Didith with

Disappointed
Friday, October 27, 2006 5:57 AM

No, this is not about the ACM ICPC. I blogged about a feeling of dread a couple of days back. Well, the dreaded event finally happened and I am, of course, very disappointed, though not surprised. There are some people I think of as being "natural

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posted by Didith with

Day one
Friday, October 27, 2006 5:31 AM

Day one is over. We had many of the same problems as last year. The big advantage was the mall was next door to distract the contestants. Day two begins.

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posted by Didith with

ACM "Angels"
Thursday, October 26, 2006 4:58 AM

The contest has not officially begun yet, but I wanted to write about our four ACM Angels, Justin Co, Erin Laborada, Krizia Raymundo, and Kate Sandoval. They helped us out on a purely voluntary basis last year. This year, we contracted them to be our

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posted by Didith with

Dread
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 8:43 AM

Remember all the negative feelings from yesterday? They've progressed into dread. I have a feeling that there are still more disappointments to come.

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posted by Didith with

ACM; Oh, well...
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 10:26 AM

Thanks, first of all, to chelchel_am and to Aids for their comments in the last post. Blogging has really been an opportunity for me to make new friends, and I am grateful for all your feedback and good wishes. *** I find myself in a situation again

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posted by Didith with

Countdown to ACM
Monday, October 23, 2006 10:17 AM

Three days to go to the ACM ICPC! Looks like we're only going to have 85 teams participating this year. Money is hard for local teams. I think this is why relatively few signed up.

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posted by Didith with

Finding flow
Sunday, October 22, 2006 10:05 AM

I just finished reading the book Finding Flow by Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi (pronounced chick-SENT-me-high). Flow refers to a state of engagement. When we devote our full attention to something, we are in a state of flow. This "something"

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posted by Didith with

Editors, hairdressers, makeup artists, and Photoshop
Saturday, October 21, 2006 1:37 PM

A model or a celebrity scrubbed clean and dressed in regular street clothes is still very attractive. Add hairstyling, makeup, and clothes, though, and wow! Add a few hours of Photoshopping, and double WOW! An editor, to me, does for text what

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posted by Didith with

Training day
Saturday, October 21, 2006 7:18 AM

Our ACM teams are off for training today. Good luck, everyone!

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posted by Didith with

Beauty and the Geek
Friday, October 20, 2006 7:10 PM

Here are a couple of true-to-life conversations with geeks: Geek: I just met the woman of my dreams. She smiled at me. She touched my hand. She even spoke to me! Me: What did she say? Geek: "Your change, sir." *** Geek: I just had a long, deep

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posted by Didith with

Keeping egos in check
Thursday, October 19, 2006 9:53 PM

This started out as a comment in response to Punzki's comment, but it was getting too long. Punzki, I'm sorry to say I don't know you well enough to reassure you one way or the other. I'll say this, though: all of us fall into that category--even

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posted by Didith with

Subic cooking; Fallability
Thursday, October 19, 2006 6:11 AM

To Punzki: Yes, Grace is "team manager" again this time. She's handling food, room assignments, transportation, and all the other support details. We've asked the students to help, though, because taking care of 25 people is no joke!

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posted by Didith with

Embroidery; Breakfast of champions, again
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 9:24 AM

To Aids: The embroidery was sponsored by Ms. Cherry Franco of the President's Office. You're going to have to ask her for the exact cost. *** The ACM teams are going for stay-in training this weekend. I had to go to the grocery yesterday

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posted by Didith with

This year's jacket
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:18 AM

Here's this year's team jacket, courtesy of Microsoft and the Office of the President, modeled by our very own Ms. Lisa Agbay:

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posted by Didith with

The challenge of working in a multidisciplinary field
Monday, October 16, 2006 8:58 AM

I was reading a back issue of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (March 2004). The editor at the time, Jonathan Grudin of Microsoft Research, wrote an interesting article on his views on publications in the field of HCI. His

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posted by Didith with

Grrr...
Sunday, October 15, 2006 1:43 PM

Stupid. Moronic. Idiotic. Incompetent. Unknowing. Ignorant. Misinformed. Uninformed? Clueless. Lost. Blind. Meandering. Pretentious. Presumptious. Deluded. Unworthy. Unfit. Inappropriate. OK, I feel better now.

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posted by Didith with

New Pamana contributer; ACM ICPC organizers
Saturday, October 14, 2006 8:44 AM

Thank you to Gino Ledesma for his contribution to the Pamana Fund! *** We took a group photo of the ACM ICPC organizers yesterday. From left to right: Kate, Justin, Paolo, Erin, Krizia, Christine, Jal, Andrei, Girlie, myself, and Raffy. Dig

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posted by Didith with

"Artista"
Friday, October 13, 2006 10:09 AM

I'm involved in a project that requires a lot of art work from different artists. The first round of artists that were invited to join were fairly well-known, established players in the field who drew and painted for a living. The problem

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posted by Didith with

Pamana Funders
Thursday, October 12, 2006 8:45 AM

The fund drive isn't over yet--technically it doesn't end--but I just wanted to thank everyone who has donated so far: Geebee Bulanon (CS'04) Jonathan Howard Chan (CS'93) Gian dela Rama () Audrey Dy () Michelle Dy (CS'91) Paul Ignatius Echevarria

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posted by Didith with

Non-fiction narratives
Wednesday, October 11, 2006 1:21 PM

To Alfred: Yes, it is interesting to read about history from different perspectives. It underscores the point that history is relative. I heard from a colleague that some universities outside the Philippines are abolishing their history department

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posted by Didith with

Powerful images
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 9:20 AM

Yesterday, the Kondrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University and World Press Photo launched the diploma course in photojournalism. Their guest speaker was a Shahidul Alam, a scientist, photojournalist, and activist from

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posted by Didith with

Quekiam; The time off worked!
Monday, October 09, 2006 9:05 AM

I'll try to take some pictures and post them, Bernard. *** This is the most normal I've felt for a while now. I can breathe without gasping, I can speak with my almost-normal voice. I think the time off did the trick. I also forgot

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posted by Didith with

Family time
Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:04 PM

My dad has an obsession with recreating dishes he remembers form childhood. This week, the challenge was to make quekiam, a type of Chinese meat loaf/sausage. There are commercially available quekiams but he isn't happy with any of them.

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posted by Didith with

The tipping point
Saturday, October 07, 2006 8:57 AM

Several months back, I caught an "entertainment documentary" entitled The Tipping Point. It talked about people or fads that were teetering at the brink of big time success for years but kept hitting a glass ceiling. Finally, something--the

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posted by Didith with

Couple days off
Friday, October 06, 2006 8:29 AM

This is really unusual for me, but I've taken a couple of days off from work. My occasional out-of-town trips don't count as time off because I do actually work. In most cases, they're much more hectic than work in school. This time,

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posted by Didith with

Farewell to the freshies
Thursday, October 05, 2006 8:25 AM

I wrapped up CS 21 a class yesterday. They still have a final programming assignment and a final exam but we don't have any more lectures. I always try to end my classes by saying something personal. I'm not into long speeches, so I keep

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posted by Didith with

Getting to know you
Wednesday, October 04, 2006 9:48 AM

Some time back, Akie made a remark that convinced me to change the way I choose my classes. He said that I never handled their batch. And he was right. For the past few years, I've tended to handle electives that only the upperclassmen or

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posted by Didith with

Breaking away; Life goes on...
Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:22 AM

To Alfred: I feel exactly the same way. *** So we lost. The Eagles fought valiantly, but at the end of the day, UST bagged the championship with a difference of just two points. I remember when we lost in 2003, at the mass after the game,

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posted by Didith with

Playing safe, taking risks
Monday, October 02, 2006 9:53 AM

As parents, we want to keep our children safe. We opt for conservatism and caution becasue we do not want the to get hurt, physically or emotionally. As children, some of us are ok with having decisions made for us. We trust our parents and

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posted by Didith with

The Eaglets are Junior Champs!; Aw, crap!
Sunday, October 01, 2006 5:50 PM

Congratulations to the Eaglets! I saw the last part of the game--they played a great game and they did us proud! *** The senior's game yesterday was sooo disappointing! UST played brilliantly. Ateneo...gosh, I don't know what happened!

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posted by Didith with

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