Ondoy in One Day

It doesn't feel right not to be able to say anything about it. It was devastating, it was shocking.

The previous night, I was with my mom and my brother when they visited me in Manila. News came from them that a typhoon was coming the next day, Ondoy as they told me. I had my own petty experience of it as I braved the knee-high flood in school just so I could go home. But this is not at all relevant to share.

What the rest of Luzon experienced was far beyond anyone expected of a typhoon, it was something no one could ever be prepared for. Until now, I can't imagine how a typhoon, in one day, flood Metro Manila that bad. Having heard of news that unlikely places were getting flooded, it was when I started thinking, this typhoon is not just any other typhoon that would bring no classes the following day and it would be a peaceful study day. No, this typhoon was that which flooded the whole Metro Manila, brought houses crashing against a bridge, family members lost, material goods drenched and buried. It was alarming.

Towards the end of the day, I can't help but cry in my prayers. I was asking Him to make it stop, because it was getting beyond my understanding already.

In one day, people lost their loved ones and their hard-earned goods. Until now, some people could not be contacted, and very certain that their families are dead worried about them. Imagine the trauma it has caused to people stranded on the top floors of a building with nothing to eat. Imagine the fear these people had, not knowing when the raging typhoon would end or be sober. All these damage in one day? I could not help but ask God. Why are you allowing this to happen? Please do something about it. Make it stop.

And though doubt was starting to arise in my thoughts, I knew behind and after all these, we're still in the good and loving hands of God. He was there, in the little miracles He poured over people. He allowed this to happen? Yes. He created this big opportunity for people to do good.

I could never fully fathom what happened on that day, but the succeeding days are just as crucial as that day. These days that we are not impeded by any rain or flooding, should be extra opportunity for us to help out. As they say, whatever little you're able to give is already of great help.

Up to this point, I can't get myself to study for my upcoming exam thinking how many people are still in the middle of their unresolved situations. I can't get myself to think how endonucleases and exonucleases could be of help to those needing simple water and food. How can DNA polymerase III be able to bring back people's missing loved ones? How can DNA replication be able to bring back their already crashed houses and goods.

10,000 hrs

In the book of Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, he talked about popular experts and their field of expertise. He theorized that they became such because they may have spent 10,000 hrs of their lives doing that particular skill.

No, I haven't read that book, but a friend shared it with me. The following conversation transpired from the same topic:

j: Bill Gates, during his HS years, he spent 5 years, 8 hrs a day just tinkering with pc and programming.
k: what? if that's the case, then i may never be an expert of anything!
j: well, it doesn't have to be that mainstream. it could be, expert on listening. soft skills...
k: if that's just to make me feel better, it's not working. maybe i could work on becoming jack of all trades. or not.
j: what if! we reach 10,000 hrs of making someone happy!
k: :)
...
k: then i should start counting!
j: here's the basic stuff, if in 365 days, you make people happy for an hour, in 27 years, you would have accumulated 10,000 hrs. so in your 50's you'd be an expert.
k: can't i count my childhood years? what if my parents were constantly happy with me when i was a baby. Indirect proportional, as i grow old they were getting less and less happy with me. haha!
j: hmm. now if everyday you make an hour, 4 hours on weekends, you become an expert in 20 years!
k: which means i'll be a sure expert when I'm 40 years old already.

10,000 hrs of making someone happy --- creating a trail of happiness has never been this precise and geeky.

it's inevitable.

you happen.

Waking Up

I'm waking up from that long blogging hibernation. That long break wasn't exactly because I had a lot of things to do (academic and non-academic), but it was also because the raging winds in manila has not given me enough time to process things out and make good sense of what has happened recently. Has anything significant happened to me lately? Definitely.

"I heard!"

So you heard! There was a lot of asking around and people wondering whatever happened in between. Sometimes I get the patience to make a summary, sometimes, I just don't know how to put that short span of time, in a shorter talking time. I mean, not that it's really a story to tell, but then, it seems like for them it's a story to hear. It really isn't easy to share. I don't exactly have a concept map for it yet, but i know I'll eventually make better sense of what happened. If it were like two points making a straight line, it would have been easier to tell. the blogging world would have been the first to know about it. However like two points with a lot of loops and squiggly lines in between, that's how things somehow started and happened.

i guess I've been talking too much. and I've been hearing myself over and over again trying to narrate what just happened. And here's what I found out to be the easier way of telling the story: "the magician never reveals his magic," or like, "Poof! it became Koko Krunch!"

share the happiness in different ways, like through a smile, perhaps? no words, no story, but a smile that says, "i'm happy, let's just keep it that way for a little while".

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My wall is filled with post-its of ideas, of concepts, of thoughts, of remembrances and reminders of what happened, of that awful movie, of that windy night, of those study nights, of those coffee days/nights, of those short walks to mrs.fields, of those short meetings at 7/11, of those talking and laughing and sharing pictures of the past, not so past and recent happening, of those podcasts and thrilling trailers and thrillers, of that trip to UP Diliman, of that QC day, of good mornings and good nights, of good dinners and good meriendas, of the food i can't finish, of the food you can't eat like shrimps and crabs and lobsters, and of course, of that future, of our hopes, of those dreams and wonderings, of what's more to come, of what's there to do, of the why's and how's we ask from time to time.

what's for tomorrow? post-it reads, I'll see you.