[ T - T R A i N ]

What a "Harvard Study" actually means...

I worked on a semester-long group project for my advanced budgeting class, which looked at the cost and efficiency of snow-plowing operations in Boston. We made our final presentation to the city staff on Monday and to Mayor Menino on Tuesday, the latter culminating in an end-of-class celebration at an Irish pub across from city hall. (Unfortunately, the mayor was not able to join us. We wanted to buy him some shots.) There was an reporter (and photographer) from the Boston Herald--God bless the hearts of print media people--present at the Menino briefing, which resulted in the two articles that were published today.

Harvard: Thomas Menino, You Can Fix This Mess

Boston's gas lamps spark high costs

It's funny how they summarized many months worth of reseach and analysis into, let's see, about four hundred words. But such is the nature of the business. We were lucky to be given a few inches. (What? No photo?) Even funnier, though, are the readers' comments.

And now I'm still waiting to know if my group from another class is going to present to the mayor of Somerville our study on the city's emergency preparedness plan. Somehow, I do not see a pub party at the end of that one.

Satisfying VM

To add to my satisfying week, I got a response from the DC Public Schools Office of the Chancellor about my application to their Summer Associates Program. It was the application that I submitted last Saturday at almost 4 am, four hours past what I would assume was the midnight deadline. Obviously they still accepted it and yesterday afternoon I got a voicemail saying that I'm one of the finalists and that I had to schedule an phone interview with the program manager. That is good news because I'm getting anxious about finding an internship for the summer this late in the season. I don't know how competitive the program is but it's something that I'm really interested in doing so I hope this works out (although I should still be seeking out other internship opportunities). I have my interview scheduled for Monday morning. Wish me luck!

Hard Sell

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Run, don't walk, to your nearest computer! Wait, you're already in front of a computer... Well, since you very conveniently have a computer in front of you, why don't you click on this link so that I can share with you a very exciting offer:

Harvard Kennedy School Review

Yes, it's the Harvard Kennedy School Review, the Kennedy School's public policy journal! Yours truly worked as this year's co-senior editor of features and commentaries and we're just coming out with our issue for the year. The KSR staff has come up a product that we are all proud of. All the pieces were written and produced by Kennedy School students (and a couple of alumni) and we crafted them so that they would be appealing and accessible even to people outside of our own little school. (Although we would like to think of ourselves as the New Yorker-slash-Foreign Affairs of student journals. Yes, we're a very ambitious bunch of people. We aim high!) We're a public policy journal but we also peppered this volume with some humor and off the wall pieces.

Have you ever thought about where the cut flowers you buy at the supermarket come from? ("Is the Bloom Off the Rose?" by Nora Ferm)

Are you interested to know where the love-hate relationship between the US and Russia is headed? ("The New Russia: Friend or Foe?" by Katya Gratcheva)

Do you want to know how religious rhetoric is being used in the 2008 presidential campaign? ("Duck Hunting in Heaven" by Emily Cadik)

How about honor killings in Germany? Hungarian presence in Afghanistan? How personal stories can facilitate immigration reform?

Have you heard of Michelle Rhee, Yon Goicoechea, Soraya Salti, Van Jones or Eboo Patel? Well, you will know a whole lot more about them after you read our Rising Stars of Public Policy profiles. We also have interviews with Donna Brazile, Chap Petersen, and Luis Soares.

Do you want to know how actual toddlers--well, with the help of their HKS dads--reviewed Bill O'Reilly's new children's book? About the economics of parking tickets?

The KSR staff also looked at the idiosyncrasies of public transport systems all over the world, came up with some new political terms to emerge from Campaign '08 (if '04 brought us 'swiftboated,' for '08 we predict it's going to be 'caucus-blocked'), and made predictions for up to the year 3000.

(Not only did I oversee, together with my amazing co-editor, TC, the features and commentaries section and edited some articles, I also wrote a short piece on policy gadgets, contributed a couple of artwork, and worked on the layout. I also solicited--which later on turned into nagging--the introduction from CNN regular, Anderson Cooper 360 blogger, and White House veteran, David Gergen. My fingerprints are all over this journal, people! Don't worry, I washed my hands. And you can wipe them off later.)

You can purchase copies online by following this link. It's only $10--so cheap! And that includes postage! And it doesn't matter if it's a non-US address, you pay the same price! So go buy a copy (or two) for you and your friends! Donate one to your local library! If anything, it will make for a great bathroom reading.

Go read! Read! Read!

Where did April Go?, part 3

The rest of April was spent on writing and meetings. After we completed all the site visits, it was time to hand over the reports and summaries. It wasn't supposed to be too complicated since we had our notes with us but I had a site that was sort of problematic. How do you write a report when you had listless and reticent interviewees? I had to listen to the recording several times, including the long silences (which came out as incessant hissing in the recording) in between the short responses, in order to make sure I didn't miss anything. The reports were eventually completed. A couple of debriefings followed, which turned out to be fun. They became occasions to discuss the reports and the visits and partly to recall the little adventures that we had during our trips. Now we're just waiting for our final paychecks.

More writing, however, was waiting for me since I had a fellowship deadline to beat. Never had I had been so uninspired in the last few weeks than when I was writing that essay. I managed to bang out an 800-word piece (exceeding the 500-word limit) that might or might not have addressed the criteria presented. I'll know by the end of the month if it managed to convince anybody that it was any good.

By the way, JC closed on the house on the 20th. (Is that even correct grammar?) Yey! Mortgage payments? Boo! But it's all good.

Looking at how much space I devoted to April, one would think that it's a very special month. No it's not. but it now really seems like a very busy month. May is actually the special month. Somebody is turning 31.

Where did April Go?, part 2

The last time I was in Boracay was summer of 1999, when my JVP 19 batchmates went island hopping. It was on the cheap--we brought our own food, care of AO's family in Pandan, Antique, and we squeezed almost a dozen people, I think, into a single room. I still don't know how we did it but I remember it being a very fun trip. But that was such a long time ago. I was sure that there had been a lot of changes in Boracay since my first visit and I was expecting the worst--dirty, crowded, over-commercialized, and catering too much to the young crowd. It was all that but I still enjoyed it. And Boracay still has some of the finest, white sands around.

Our little jaunt to Boracay was likewise fun even if it was unplanned. And it was really unplanned. We didn't bring 'beach stuff' with us, not even swimming clothes! (Or sunglasses. Or sunblock. I had sunblock, but only for the face.) So, after we found a resort (we made reservations but we didn't feel like walking around under the hot sun, on hot sand, carrying our bags just to look for the resort we had called the day before, so we checked out one that we thought that looked okay and asked if they had a room) and checked in, we immediately went out for lunch. And then after that we went to D'Mall to look for board shorts for myself and bikini and board shorts for ADJ. Of course, nothing was cheap but I was able to find generic board shorts (they're reversible--apple green with white hibiscus on one side, and the words 'Boracay' printed all over a white background on the other side--you can be sure the reverse side is not going to see the light of day) for two hundred bucks. (That's around 4 American dollars. Yes, I was really on a budget.) We did go out for a swim in the late afternoon, enjoyed the water and sand, and watched the sun set. We went out for dinner, bought fruit shakes as an after dinner treat, and took a long walk back to the inn. We were tired and we had to wake up early the next day if we wanted to make it back to Kalibo in time for our flight. We did make it to Kalibo with plenty of time to spare. However, our plane had other plans. The plane that was to take us back to Manila was stuck in Iloilo City due to technical problems. Great. It was Friday the 13th. I'm not a superstitious person but the timing just sucked. We had to wait for more than two hours so Philippine Airlines was nice enough to feed the inconvenienced passengers Chickenjoy from Jollibee, along with some soda. (I'm sure there was no vegetarian option.) The flight went smoothly, though, when the airplane did come.

Kalibo turned out to be my last site visit. A week after going to Kalibo, I was asked if I wanted to join the Olongapo trip at the last minute but I already had plans. That was the day when my mom, my sister and I had lunch with our grand-aunt (my dad's aunt) and one of her oldest friends at Je Suis Gourmand at The Fort. Lunch at Gourmand was a good experience. Fancy-looking but the price was reasonable given the quality of the food. (Definitely popular among ladies who lunch.) Food was tasty although sometime overwhelming and the portions a bit too much. Nevertheless, they had a good menu and excellent servers. We took our time eating and spent a lot of time listening to stories of the grand dames who were with us. That was also the occasion when our grand-aunt mildly manhandled (sounds like an oxymoron but that's the only way I can describe it) a senator, and it was all out of affection (it really was). Very funny.

The next day, I had another lunch date, this time with PP, whom I haven't seen since February, and, quite unexpectedly, CC. It was quite a treat to spend some time these ladies. First of all, this was a day when I hung out in four different cafes, and none of them was the ubiquitous Starbucks! I spent my morning trying to read at Seattle's Best in Mega Mall, where I had some decaf latte, after which I got a call from CC saying that she's 'skipping' an 'appointment' and was on her way to pick me up. We then drove to The Podium and hung out at Dome Café, where I had hot chocolate, and waited until PP was free for lunch. Then for lunch, we went to UCC, which, not many people know, is not only a coffee place but also serve good food. We ordered their Japanese-infused pasta and risotto dishes and some of their very yummy desserts. It was a long lunch and there were a lot of things to catch up on. When PP finally had to go back to her office, CC and I hung out a bit more, window-shopped half-heartedly, and then had our final drink for the afternoon at Segafredo, where the cup of chamomile I had helped digest all the good food we ate and prepared me for the commute back home. (It was rush hour by the time we parted.)

(To be continued.)

 

Where did April Go?, part 1

I'm looking at my calender, the month of April specifically, trying to figure out why I didn't find time to write a blog entry anytime during the month. Was it a particularly busy month? Let's see...

Hilarity and hi-jinks didn't ensue on the first of the month as might have been expected; no pranks were played. The first week of April was also Holy Week. POL, M and I were supposed to go, at the beginning of that week, to Donsol, Sorsogon, home of the whale sharks, but due to scheduling issues, we weren't able to book that trip. I asked them to have lunch in Greenbelt instead, where we were later joined by N2, in spite of the derailed plans. Of course, I also wanted to see POL before her eventual departure (the exact date still pending back then) for Zambia, and I'm glad I did because she had to leave two weeks later with very little notice. Then, it was off to Pansol, Calamba, Laguna, for my family (and extended family) outing. Incidentally, that was also the week that Alanis Morisette's version of the Black Eyed Peas's 'My Humps' started going around the net via YouTube. It which was hilarious and earnest all at one, and very tongue in cheek, and because of my blog absence, I wasn't able to share it. (I'm sure everybody with an internet connection has seen the video by now.)

My work-related travels continued the following week. I was supposed to go to Limay, Bataan, but I was given the option to sit that one out because I went on three site visits consecutively just a week before. (The Limay trip was a bust but that had nothing to do with me.) I was instead fortuitously given Kalibo, Aklan, which everybody wanted but I wasn't really aiming for. The Kalibo trip was particularly attractive to people because it's a (1.5-hour) skip (via van) and a (15-minute) hop (via pump boat) away from Boracay Island. It's not that I didn't want to go to Boracay but I knew there were others more eager than I was. But when I found out that I was doing Kalibo and my travel partner, TDJ, was making inquiries about places to stay on the island, I warmed up to the idea. However, all flights back to Manila were already book for the day we wanted to return, so the plan was scrapped. Or so we thought. Anyway, we went to Kalibo, on Wednesday morning, had a short meeting with the municipal local finance committee before lunchtime, and then decided that we'll do the group discussion the next morning. They encouraged us to go to Boracay anyway and they scheduled the meeting very early, at 8.30 a.m. (these are government employees who work really hard) just so we could rush off to Boracay afterwards. TDJ and I thought about it and figured it was feasible to do that and leave the island very early the next day so that we could make our 10.40 a.m. flight back to Manila on Friday. Even just half a day lounging on the sands of Boracay was good enough for us.

I led the morning's meeting and it was one of the best interviews that we had done, in my opinion. I was listening to a recording of the interview the other day and we were laughing most of the time. We just had a great time talking to each other. And like they predicted, we finished in two hours (and no, I didn't rush through the discussion just so we could leave early), wrapped up our business at the municipal hall, went back to the inn (about 3 blocks away from the government building), checked out, and went straight to the depot where vans that go to Caticlan pick up passengers. We waited a while to get the van filled up but soon enough we were on our way, and an hour and half later, we were at the pump boat station in Caticlan.

(To be continued.)

A Splash of Color

It's the weekend at last! Spent most of my day yesterday on buses and jeepneys having gone to Sampaloc, Quezon, for fieldwork. I had to be at the bus station at 6 am to meet my travel partner, then started rolling and transferring from one kind of vehicle to another for the next four hours. Neither my partner nor I knew where we were going exactly, we were only given a sketchy description of where we should go or what we should be getting on. But we got to the small municipality of Sampaloc anyway. And five hours later, we were on our way back to Manila.

We were supposed to stay the night in Lucban, about 30 minutes away from Sampaloc and the nearest large municipality with a hotel, but we finished the interview early. The staff at the municipal hall seemed to be a bit distracted with all the activities going on--it was the last day of filing for candidacy for local posts and the Comelec office was located next door to the mayor's office, graduation ceremonies were being held one after the other in town and in nearby towns, and it was a Thursday. (The last one probably wasn't a factor. It could have been any day and the day would have still had passed as quietly as it did. It was a very slow and laid back town.) So, instead of spending P1,200 per room a night for a hotel room with no water, we just decided to hie it back home and sleep in our own beds. By 9.30 pm I was back in our house. The ride back took four-and-a-half hours.

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Back at home, I read a couple of emails that JC sent me, and then we chatted sometime late in the evening. The emails and the chat session made me pause and put me in a very thoughtful state, and not only on how to make two distinct tastes and sensibilities complement each other. But I definitely have color swatches and paint chips on my mind now.

Traveling. Continued.

Just got home from the surprise party we threw for our mom. (By 'we' I mean 'them' since I'd been traveling and they did the planning while I was away. I was, thankfully, was in the loop for the most part.) It was a success. The celebrant was definitely surprised. Most of the invited guests made it. We had yummy food and also good live music--piano lounge music, samba, contemporary OPM--it's nice to have a musical family. Now, I have four hours till I have to leave the house again and head to the bus station for our trip to Quezon. I can't wait for the weekend.

Traveling. Pause.

Back from Cagayan de Oro and Iligan a day early. That gives me a day of rest before heading to Samapaloc, Quezon, on Thursday. We're done flying and we're now traveling by land. If only we can figure out an easier way to get to Sampaloc.

Still Traveling

Arrived from Iloilo yesterday around noon. Flying to Cagayan de Oro this morning, and then taking the bus to Iligan tomorrow for our meeting. I only unpacked and repacked my bags this morning. Pack. Unpack. Repeat. Will post photos sometime somewhere.