Longest Evaluation

It's windier today and the water's green. I think I'm getting stronger everyday. My backstroke's looking good. It just gets sloppy and get water up my nose if I'm careless. I just need to be more patient and I'm definitely seeing the gains already. My learning for today on the backstroke:

1. It's difficult to start from a dead stop so a little momentum (hey, the Olympians JUMP out backwards, don't they?) is needed. Without turning my back, I'd do a glide with an arm forwards and then twist to assume an elemback. I push arms backward doing a single short elemback stroke with the arms and a quick frog kick.
2. After a short elemback, the legs now flutter kick.
3. Raise the left arm for the initial backstroke.
4. To avoid too much water washing/ dropping on the face, assume a narrow 'Y' position with the arms.
5. Push out the arms hard but avoid splashing too much water. This means keeping the arms just below the surface.
6. Keep practicing at the deepend. Even if the length is short, get accustomed to not stopping up to the end. Don't stop moving using eggbeaters and move to back to the starting point. Build endurance. In time, one whole length will be easy.

I was surprised to see the advanced manual left on my table as I arrived this morning. It looks like it slept in a sack for weeks! It's been rounded on the edges and isn't the same neat flat manual I was keeping. And the verdict? A repeat. Ah well, I'm not too totally surprised, but I don't think I SO deserved that.

The Old Road, Still No Evaluation

Yesterday:
I passed thru my old route and avoided the CPM road that's under renovation. It seems a bit faster. It wasn't so sunny today so I wore a cap. I could immediately tell since I didn't have the sun in my eyes.

Today:
There was a slight breeze today. I managed to do some decent backstroke today. Again I need lots of conditioning for backstroke for this to become part of my ready arsenal. And that, I mean I can call on it anytime. I sense a pattern here. I'd rather do strokes where my face is mostly out of the water now - HUfree, Treading, Elemback, Sidestrokes. I'm very much at ease with these strokes and now, I'd like to add backstroke albeit a slow one. Even with a couple of hard backstrokes, my right knee didn't act up at all.

Still no evaluation from last week's speech. Wow, this is so disappointing. D did apologoze via email giving the excuse that he wanted to do justice(?) to the speech and promised to give today. But still, nada. Hmmm, I'm just fed up already why have some more expectations, huh? I mean when will I get it, on the 4th meeting? D, you'd automatically get disqualified in an evaluation contest if you tell the judges that your evaluation of the test speaker will be submitted a week (now almost 2 weeks) later!

Funny I even had a short talk last week where my joining the contest was the topic. D hates contests. No wonder he wasn't keen when I told the audience that they could join contests, if they want to. Upon seeing the speech medals, he said something along the lines of: "You have (done something)/become I'd rather not (do)/become." Yeah, right. Now I know what your real stand is on contests.

NOW, I'm REALLY thinking of joining the ACT club. It's a little clearer now. I think the old club isn't really gonna make it far. Without any reinforcement from the senior TMs, what is there to look forward to? The 3 of us cannot possibly be there ALL the time, EVERY time. See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

Poolside Coach

This morning the mom-and-girl tandem were there again. It took quite a while before the girl jumped in the pool - and she didn't even shower. Mom kept prodding her coz it's late (for whom?). The girl seemed sick coz she stopped to cough several times. But coach mommy would have none of it. I hate it when you have poolside coaches (lumped with backseat drivers and armchair leaders). They bark out orders from the poolside, never shedding their clothes and donning swimwear themselves. Corz they only give the impression that they're somehow better or smarter. Hey, they're the coach, ayt? So c'mon momma, show us what YOU'VE got!

It's Summer!

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You know it's summer when you realize you're not the only one in the pool anymore. Aside from P, a girl was there with her mom for some competetive laps. They too were in a Revo. I was very early actually coz I took Sandra to school as their Homemaker's Club were sponsoring the mass.

I passed by the apartment and was dismayed to see the newly installed sensor's bulb was blinking wildly. Ugh, I may need to rotate the sensor so it faces opposite the building.

I called up D today and ask about my After-Dinner speech evaluation only to learn that it hasn't been started yet. What the heck is that? A week has lapsed since my speech and nothing has been written? So I kinda joked that I wasn't expecting a novel or anything. It's just a one-pager with less than 10 questions for crying out loud. What's there to mull over? After running out of excuses (too busy etc.), he even hinted I might have to repeat! Excuse me? See, that's what happens when an evaluation is held off for so long. I remember getting a good verbal evaluation AFTER my speech. THAT was never written. Now, a week later, I might need a repeat. That long delay removed all spontaneity and candidness in the evaluation. He probly looked for areas for improvement and thought of flaws in the speech.

There were questions and comments like: "How was it an after-dinner speech? It had to be light." Uhmmm. It WAS light. I joked most of the time. I engaged the audience in most of the speech. Was that heavy? I referenced an event in the program and that was the club milestone of Icebreaker deliveries. It's true, I managed to inspire some of the audience as I later found out from them. But that was not the intent! I talked about my story when I gave my Icebreaker. Was it my fault if the audience was inspired? See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

Shed the Cap

The weather's getting warmer and so is the pool. This time around I no longer wore my swimcap. P was there today and he seemed ecstatic with my radio. He said it beats the heck of the loneliness and boredom.

After leaving the pool I went to the apt to switch off the main powerline in unit C. I'm wondering why I'm getting a bill when it's vacant. On the way to the office. I took some pictures of "progress". I've long lauded the present Carmona Mayor Dahlia Loyola for helping ease the traffic over at the Carmona Public Market road by building a rotonda. Now, I'm even more amazed with a long span of road that's almost finished.


The downside in the above is they had to fell several old and big acacia trees for the new road. And there's the new school, the Carmona State University that's rising:


Some students have already started attending classes in this school. Here's the roadwork near the market itself. It's now slightly clogging the road. Notice the heavy machinery using this road. I better start using the alternate route next week to avoid the buildup of traffic here.


Finally, the requisite photo of the mayor for this project. Everyone does it, but so what? For me, I see it as a sign of progress. I've never seen much new infrastructure in this sleepy little town but with what the mayor is doing, I'd certainly vote for her - if I lived here.


DH sez she looks like "Helen Vela".

A Sinister Plan

I was surprised by what Prince said to me yesterday. There appears to be a sinister plan at the pool for them to make more money. He said they're no longer accepting the annual renewal fees at the pool. Prince was supposed to renew last January and he was ready to pay the Php 3K. Whoa! The girl said it'll be "pay-per-entry" now! Gosh, if I swam everyday at Php 100 per day, that'll be hefty! My renewal is on August, so maybe I need to REALLY swim everyday from now until then. There's a couple of good news: I'm feeling fine, having recovered recently from colds AND the water is getting warmer. It looks like the cold days are over. It is so unlike 3 weeks ago when the weather was so cold in the mornings, there's a chilly wind and the pool water would be miserably cold. So, yes, I plan on going EVERYDAY until August.

Prince was there today and pleasantly surprised I had a radio which he thinks is cool. Yah, the dreary silence get to you sometimes. He confessed though that he has this fear of the water which came out of the blue just very recently. I knew he was swimming like several kilometers already, so I didn't expect that coming from him.

3rd TM Meeting

Have too much to do at work. Today I copied the "20 Years of 'World Championship of Public Speaking'" DVD at the Helpdesk. Thanx to Vic DLR for this. He bought this at the National level Quartethlon held at the MMLDc Antipolo last year. I didn't attend that one coz I didn't advance beyond the Division level. Anyway, I was dismayed though that the DVD burner at Helpdesk couldn't do a "DVD copy". Mark tried it 3 or 4 attempts, I think. But still the "Error Reading Data" kept showing. And this after I even promised Leo I'd give him a copy. So, finally, I just did a "Data Copy" to get it over with and I did it myself. I thought I could just click the .vob files themselves on the computer and they'd play. Though long, the burn process didn't give an error. I clicked on the files and they played individually. I was much surprised though when I played the disc on the DVD player at home coz it played just fine!

At the 3rd Toastmasters meeting today, Dan showed the audience some scene clips from the movie "Coach Carter" for the members to react to in the Impromptu Speaking section. It was interesting. Today I delivered my After Dinner Speech. It went great. I had to look my notes once and was worried that I may not have covered everything - but I did. Some of my observations:

1. I Looked at notes once. Funny, I did this non-chalantly, like it's a natural thing to do.
   
2. I felt I really moved a lot.
3. I went forward for the "step-up, raise-the-bar" action. I moved sideways when I asked Edwin.
4. My body shifted left to right to attain that panning eye-contact.
5. I thought my enumerating the TM skills were funny.

Comments from others: "Nakaka-inspire", "May patawa - pero ayaw tumawa, kasi masyadong gulat/amazed", "Relaxed at Confident", "Use simpler words".

See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

The Velcro Connection

We went to pickup Sandra's report card yesterday, Saturday. Her grades have gotten better in the 3rd grading period. We also went to SM Southmall since DH wanted to get some "Cracs" for mommy. What she looked for wasn't in stock. Me, I bought some boybands videoke cds. I also looked for the adaptor with sensor but the Ace there didn't carry it. Maybe only Handyman carries it. I also found a low-wattage night light with sensor at Ace but didn't have the white color.

On the way home, we had merienda at Billones. We got Goto, Tokwa't Baboy, Sago. Me, I had rice and lumpiang togue. Here's a shot I took of the hungry pack.


That shot took some attention though. My camera is enclosed in a tight camera case and is secured by velcro as shown in this entry. Naturally, opening the velcro creates a distinct "velcro ripping" sound. The kids are familiar with that sound by now and immediately recognize it as a camera about to take a picture. I overheard Che whisper to Renz: "Huwag kang titingin kay Papa. Kukuhanan ka ng picture." Hence, nobody faced me here. Hmmm, maybe it's time to change to a silent camera case where there's no sound to alert the subject. Well, here's Karen below:


Che and Karen taught me some tips on MS-Word! And it is something to do with Outline Numbered lists. For the longest time, I've been confused in creating these #$%^&* bullets! It really helps that kids nowadays study Windows Powerpoint in their computer subjects. Thanx Che and Karen for teaching me!

Staff Presentation

No Swim. It was raining and gloomy.

I gave my presentation for our project's system design today and it was fantastic!

A mistake I made though was to put too much text on the slides. They're less than what others would present, but in hindsight, I should've just removed them all or made them less conspicuous and relied on my mastery of the subject which is more than adequate anyway.

Eye contact was there, gestures, vocal variety, and more. There wasn't much body movement though, coz the screen was huge and there was no other place I could move. I thought some of the staff found the presentation relaxed, funny even. There was the anti-climactic sudden flipping of the slides on the part that I said was exciting. There was a part about the "look only, no touch" on the expense reports. There was creative use of the term "CBD" which only meant "Cannot Be Done". It went really well for me. Credit goes to toastmasters and I made that clear to folks who commended me:

MM said 'Ang galing mo naman!'
JP said 'Good presentation. It's clear and you took out the irrelevant slides'
AD said 'Modulated ang voice, malinaw kang magsalita! Meron lang repetition sa mga slides mo.'
HK (an unlikely person to compliment) said 'dre, gamit-na-gamit mo yung pagiging Toastmasters mo, ah'

Lungs Finally Clear!

Yesterday: Noon swim.

Despite the midday sun, the water was still cold. And it surprised me. So, I wore a cap. Workout wasn't too strenuous after 2 weeks of no swim due to colds and cough, I needed to transition into my former workouts. But it's certainly nice to know that the skill sets I've accomplished especially for eggbeater kicks are still there. They probly missed me there at the pool. As I was going out, Len said "malamig po?"

Today:
Did 3 hufree and it felt tiring although I managed it. Either the water's too cold (I didn't get used to it) or I've been out of the pool for too long. So I asked DH to buy me a bottle of Acete Alcanforado (Camphor Oil). With this cold weather up in the air, I'd feel better with SOME of it on my skin before and after the swim. Corz, it'll be a little hassle.

I have to do the 'Running Man' rather sparingly. I notice I feel my right knee pains in the car after the sessions where I did the 'Running Man'.

Last night I helped Che on her SpeDra (Speech and Drama) schoolwork. I was a bit fascinated by her homework. The homework called for creating a story using several words/phrases. The story could be about anything. Sounds easy. Now here's the tricky part. You need to have 5 sentences or more before you can use the words/phrases in a sentence. You get 5 bonus points if you use the words/phrases in their given sequence. The words/phrases in their given sequence are:

1. hand
2. bloody murder
3. good son
4. by a church
5. back in the bus
6. fondle
7. corner of one eye
8. bunch of people
9. 7,500 pesos
10. very generous

Wow, what a hodgepodge of words and phrases! If you want to see the story we weaved, click on here! You might actually like it! See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

Once More with 'Say'

We planned on going to Pampanga and so we left at around 8am. Yeah, them movies tired the kids out! We've always passed by the Total gas station at San Simon in the past but this time, we decided for a look-see. DH went to Tropical Hut to buy their yummy burger and spaghetti. The rest hanged out by the wishing well/falls and had fun throwing coins. Just not sure if they wished at all.



Here's Karen giving Sandra a spin.


In Pampanga we sang lots of songs on the Extreme Magic Sing Videoke machine. Here's Dada "The Gardener" on the mic. DH is busy looking for songs - for Sandra to sing, that is.


Later, Ninong Jess came with Say-Say. She's gained a few pounds.


Here's a shot of the two taken two years ago (Feb.7, 2005) jokingly dubbed as "The Beauty and the Driver". Notice their attire and you'll understand.


In this shot, Karen appears to be wearing some kind of a headdress with the metal grills behind hear.


Renz finds something really funny while Tita Divine coaches Say-Say on a game.


Here's them playing hide-and-seek. Here they're hiding - like they can actually hide behind some bonsai plants.


The two played hide-and-seek with the rest of the kids. Here's them playing 'it'.


Singing "Ako ay may Lobo" to the tune of "Atin Cu Pung Singsing".


Djok Taym!

(In the kitchen, lola brings out a piece of cake)
Lola: Renz, gusto mo nito?
Renz: 'No po 'yan?
Lola: Ang tawag dito ay "Food for the Gods"
Renz: Bigyan mo si Mama mo dun sa labas.
(Renz goes out, bringing the cake outside)
Renz: Mama O!
DH : Ano 'yan?
(Renz, trying so hard to recall)
Renz: Ano po 'yan... hmmm... "Good for the Bad"!

Night at the Movies (Museum)

After taking antibiotics 7-day Amoxicillin and Bisolvon (after no effect from Carbocisteine), I'm now feeling better. The weather's been too cold and I've not swum for 2 weeks.

It's been three times now that I notice bird poo at the rear right side of the car. I park near an open field and I suspect a large bird (by the mass of the poo) perches on the mirror.



I looked for a rag to clean when I chanced upon this small sando. I suddenly had this nostalgic flashback of DH lovingly sewing the Minnie Mouse patch on the sando for Baby CheChe! And that was 13 years ago! Now it's a piece of rag but all of them, including Renz, had worn this. Yup, Renz had the priveledge of finally ripping it.


Che, Karen and Sandra wanted to watch "Charlotte's Web" today and so we went to Festi just for that. But we were pleasantly surprised to learn there were other nice movies showing that day. There was Rob-B-Hood, Apocalypto, Eragon and Night at the Museum. After a long deliberation, it was decided that "Night at the Museum" was it! Tita Gay joined them. DH and I just agreed not to join them and instead take Renz's attention somewhere. All three of us joing wasn't too cost effective. Here's the 'movie' gang eating with us at JB.

After dinner, they proceeded to the theater while DH, Renz and I went to the hardware to look for stuff. DH looked for a ref bulb at Makati while I looked for daylight shut-off (photocell) that will work for the apartment. Well, I found one setup and I think will work! We went to the open (exhibits) area where Renz rode on a giraffe-like animal 4 times! Here's me and Renz on the giraffe.

We then proceded to Shopwise for some groceries. Apparently the giraffe-rider became hungry. Renz, the giraffe-rider and I went to the second floor at Shopwise and looked at the toys. Some of the toys we even tried. By the time we got out of shopwise, all the shops have closed. We wanted to go to Ted's but even that was closed. And so we just proceeded to the 4th floor. We didn't wait long when we saw the 'movie' gang. They were all excited to tell stories about the movie! Ah well, at least they enjoyed themselves.