I’ve spent several days looking for the best gift to give andrea on her birthday. I’ve browsed several sites and seen numerous items on sale - PDA phones, new laptops, even some Seiko watches - but unfortunately, nothing available is within my budget. Especially after Mateo’s gruelling and costly ordeal recently with some kind of pneumonia-like disease, my budget is almost next to nil.

So instead of trying to surprise her with something fancy, I just approached andrea and asked her directly what she wanted. She told me that new graphire tablet is enough of a birthday gift so she really wanted nothing else. I surrendered.

In the end, I bought her nothing. And before her birthday ended, I just simply gave her a relaxing foot and full-body massage. Heck, I told myself if I can’t buy her anything, I’ll just pamper her to sleep! I guess it worked!

Starting this week, I’ve started on my resolve to go back to exercising. I used to be really fit way back in high school and college and I miss not getting out of breath after going up several flight of stairs. I’ve joined Andrea in jogging around our subdivision and I also plan to use my weights again. I figured I should do something about my body and health now before I get to a point when I would resort to taking allie. Unlike Andrea though, I have no plans on going on a diet so I might as well  do more exercising.

Health is probably the most important treasure that one can have. I know that now especially after having mateo’s compromised. All other possessions only come second because everything else would mean nothing if one is sick or deprived of good health.

This is why andrea and i are vowing to take on a healthier lifestyle - not necessarily a life of orovo detox and vegetarianism, but more of an efficient and active one. In fact, andrea has already taken on a no-rice diet for several weeks now and she says she already feels much better. I, on the other hand, am not so willing to give up on regular eating so I’m planning to make up for it through additional physical exertion.

Aside from the jog that we’re planning to include in our afternoon routine, I’m thinking about doing a little lifting again. Heck, if we can’t be filthy rich then we might as well be really healthy!

I’ve been itching to sell my laptop in order to buy a new, hopefully better and lighter one. But it seems like no matter how much I lower the price, people can’t seem to see it as a best buy product. I really don’t understand. My 15″ laptop is powered by Centrino, backed up by 1.5 Gb of RAM, stores up to 60 Gb of data, reads DVDs and burns CDs. Most of all, it comes with a 320$ tag price.

Sure you can get a new ASUS, MSI or even an Acer netbook for the same price but then again, this is a laptop,  not a netbook. It beats any Atom processor anytime. It packs more RAM and storage space. Plus, it has its own optical device. I know it’s heavier, bulkier and even has some scratches on the casing, but it is a notebook. It’s a powerful notebook for the price of a netbook. How couldn’t that be a best buy? Huh!

There’s a false sense of security brought about by egotism. That is why we often feel confident that any sickness or disease around us won’t affect us. Simply because we think we’re fit, we don’t worry about germs or other agents that are recklessly coughed out by sick individuals in school or at work. It is only when a family member or when someone close to us becomes sick that we start realizing how arrogant and vulnerable we really are.

Yes, arrogant, vulnerable and now sorry. Now that mateo regularly experiences low-grade fever and coughing, andrea and i start have started thinking about the places we’ve been to. Have we been to the hospital or any other area that might have had people with the same symptoms? Where could mateo have gotten this condition? If we had been more careful and conscious, could we have prevented it?

Up to now, we don’t know for sure what mateo has contracted. He’s been checked by two doctors already and the diagnosis is still inconclusive. He’s on medication to address the coughing and the fever. We’re hoping he gets better really soon because the longer he remains sick, the more stupid and sorry we feel. Get well soon little babsy!

Paydays are usually good days. These are times when we actually feel like we have some dough to spare even if we really don’t. Haha! At least that’s what we used to think. This time, however, it wasn’t the case. That’s because andrea and i both got a large deduction courtesy of canteen expenses. Apparently, we either ate too much or paid too little attention to how much we’ve spent on snacks and other meals.

I guess having mateo and his nanny eat with us at school is now taking a toll on our canteen expenses. But what else can we do? Having mateo at school with us is the best way to make sure he’s well taken cared of - that he eats well; that he gets enough interaction and stimulation; and that his yaya doesn’t take him for granted when they’re at home.

The only solution I could think of is to cook enough food during breakfast to last us till dinner - that is to bring some food to school to suffice for lunch. We should try going back to casserole recipes and some fried stuff for breakfast so we’ll have enough for lunch (in order to cut down on canteen expenditures.)

The way I see it: it’s either this or mateo stays home with his yaya. If it was just me, I’d choose option 2!

I’m not in the habit of uploading my presentations for the simple reason that, well, they’re mine. But in the spirit of the fast approaching midterms week, I’ll make an exception.

Here are the presentations you might use for review:

For my grade 6 students, if all goes well, you can just click on these links for rocks, rock breakdown, soil, earthquakes, and plate tectonics presentations. I’ve even thrown in some SWF animations on earthquakes as well. They’re all in PowerPoint format and in Kidprint font except for the animations. So if, you haven’t installed the font in your computer yet, then just click on this.

As for my junior students, you can review your topics in magnetism here or go straight to wiki or even howstuffworks sites for more thorough discussions.

Take note: even though I’m the one who constructed the presentations, most, if not all, of the materials inside, including the information and illustrations, came from other internet sources as well. Also, my presentations do not contain complete details because I use them mainly as visual AIDS. The meat of the info, we took up in class. So if in case you desire more thorough discussions, you may consult other sources like wiki. I found wiki sources already sufficient.

There’s no substitute for the real thing. That’s an important lesson I’ve learned through my years of teaching children. No matter how creative you think you are, or how eloquent you hope to be, mere words can not replace the learning brought about by experiencing the lesson itself.

Take for example, the concept of aerodynamics, drag and lift,  and Bernoulli’s principle. These are very complicated lessons especially if they were approached mathematically. But if you let the students experiment with making aircraft designs and with manipulating wing shapes of their planes, they’d at least get a practical sense of what’s happening. It may not be as profound or as detailed as the algebraic approach, but it’s a more basic and grounded learning - the type that you’d remember because there’s deeper understanding.

Then again, not all lessons could be experienced first hand. There are just some topics that we could only approximate in the classroom - lessons that are just too abstract or too difficult to gain access to, no matter how many used tape drives, or magnets, or old and broken computer parts we ask the children to bring (for hands on activities). For these difficult times, the teacher just has to become the living visual aid himself/herself - a puppet, a clown, a storyteller, a playwright, whatever it takes to drive a lesson home.

It is for this reason, that I got a new-found respect for the profession and for the people who engage in it. If I hadn’t experienced it for myself, I would not have known how hard it is to actually make studenst listen, laugh, participate and learn. I feel so lucky that I’ve had lots of good teachers that taught me well

I can’t remember exactly when I started wearing shades. All I know is that ever since I was young, I was always fascinated with them. I liked the sporty types, the formal navigator-type of shades, Wayfarer sunglasses, and even the shiny fully reflective ones (although andrea doesn’t approve of the last type very much). Maybe it was because I was already insecure about the way my eyes looked even when I was still young that’s why I subconsciously wanted something to cover them up. I don’t know.

One thing I’m sure of is that I like them and I always make sure I have a pair in my bag wherever I go.

Unfortunately, however, putting them in the bag was the very reason I broke my favorite pair last week. You see, I forgot to tell andrea where the shades were and when I saw her leaning against my bag, I just knew I’ve seen the last of my favorite shades. When I took them out of the bag, I already had a feeling that they were destroyed. It turned out, the damage was beyond repair so andrea just promised to replace the shades with any pair of my choice. Oh well, I guess I just have to go looking for a new pair!