Genki desu

Genki desu..Kenji, a classmate in Manila who I saw in San Diego early this year said the expression means more than being fine in Nihongo.
The expression answers a question: Genki desuka? Pronounced like gen key desk ka...students are asked how they are are at the beginning of the class while the teacher does the roll call. Genki desu to a visitor in Japan would mean "I am fine" to make the meaning less complicated.

Through an interpreter, a student asked me about Philippine culture.

"Gloria-San, do you have vegetables in the Philippines?" a lady interpreter translated the question posed by a student in Nihongo to English for me.

Vegetables? I always had the impression that Japanese are healthy eaters that's why they have long lives. That explains the interest on vegetables.

"We have lots of vegetables in the Philippines. We have eggplants, cabbages and many others."

The lady interpreter looked bewildered but she tried to repeat her translation to me. Subhadra Rai who was standing next to me chuckled.

" Oh..I am sorry...oh yes, we have lots of festivals in the Philippines. We celebrate the birthday of our patron saints and we call them feast days or fiesta. They are more of festivals."

time after time

A dead Tissot and a slacking Seiko

A blank blog. It's bloggers' block or I am simply running out of nonesense. Not that I am saying that I make sense when I am running out of nonesense. It's one of those everything is pha khin corny mode. If I can't amuse myself, who else will? I know, Jacqueline will. She is a night nurse. She is funny. I liked her instantly. She calls me 'day. I made her listen to Himayang Nahunlak from my blackberry. She never heard it but she liked it, I know. I like Eva too. I pronounced it right the first time I addressed her: Yva. Ylena? Nah...it's still pronounce like Ella Fitzgerald. Oh well...

Colored

I am titling this blog as colored because I couldn't think of any other tit.

Lady Guada

Piece of art to many and piece of schist to some. Must have been the blogger in me that made me pursue this mosaic a week after it was illegally installed on a concrete wall under a railway bridge at Encinitas.
Awe, not awesome! I am relieved that the artist who eventually was smoked out from anonymity is not a Catholic. A visionary to some and maybe a beach bum to others. About two miles away from the mosaic is the Cardiff Kook. For a moment, I thought the mosaic was installed by the disciples of Cardiff Kook.

Killing time

Skills-a-thon day and am here at cafe Santa fe drinking my coffee. Thank God for wi-fi, I could tattle tale anywhere I am. There goes my favorite supervisor and my favorite educator. I have actually given up on tattle telling, yesterday. Academics call em narratives. My former professor in graduate school call it serious writing. All you need are mile-long sentences to make your writing sound technical and write about the quotient of digital divide in the twenty-first century where women are learning to use digital devices which include smartphones to to find foreign husbands as there are more than hundred and one ways but first the women have to do computer education that now comes in tablets and pills and in conclusion they can multiply the quotient and add knowledge and subtract the ignorance that goes with the divide. I'd rather ramble and tattle tale than do serious writing. As we Pinoys say it in English while thinking as a Pinoy: "Tomorrow again!"

The best place to work in San Diego

I printed the confirmation page of the Great Place to Work Trust Index Survey which I today completed and wondering what token would I be getting this time. Not another Scrippshealth backpack I hope. By doing the survey, I was actually saying thank you to my employer. I would do the survey over and over again and would keep giving all the 5's, the top score to my facility and unit. As a nomadic worker once, I have probably seen the worst and could tell the best place to work when I see one. From the foothills of a coastal town in Northern Mindanao to the 'badou' inhabited deserts of Saudi Arabia, I believe I have seen em all.

I must have started on the wrong foot. ROC situation, ridiculous obstacle challenge, to borrow a co-worker's sport without permission.

I remember emailing Kaitlin M my intent to work at Scripps till I am gray and gay almost four years ago while I was still completing my 90 days probation period. I don't know what the issue was all about but it had something to do with complaints from Kathy and Jane, both then hotshot new grads from San Diego State. Kaitlin M, my then supervisor, was the one who called in Ibsen Valencia from the human resource department to translate for her and Britney what I was going to say in Tagalog. Aghast, I made an appointment with Ibsen which she scheduled in three days.
I told Imee, a former social worker at a Non-government office in the Philippines who had worked with Scripps for the last 10 years as CNA about Tagalog translator incident: "That's nasty. Isn't that harassment?"

The following day, Kathy, then Department Lead who told me twice that she is a heartbeat away from being like Kaitlin M, told me to work on more menus after I have already clocked out. I told her I would work on the menus but I have already clocked out and I am not allowed for overtime. That moment, she called Kathryn who came back to the Department immediately from a meeting with Britney and got me in a closed door meeting. I went home very angry that night that I had to use the back roads of Sorrento Valley, a longer route. The following morning I went back to work but told Kathryn I could not work that day.
"Are you quitting?"
I looked her and our eyes met. "No, I am not quitting," I replied.

From Kaitlin M's cubicle, I went straight to the Human Resources to see Ibsen. Ibsen handed me a box of Kleenex and she asked me to use her computer. From Ibsen's computer, I applied to a non-technical position. Someone must have told Kaitlin M I was talking to Ibsen with a box of Kleenex on my hand at the Human Resource office that Kaitlin came into the office while I was at the computer and gave me my pay slip which she knew I really didn't urgently need. I don't know anyone at Scripps who pays attention to pay slips because everybody seems to be on direct deposit for their wages.
Two weeks after putting in my application to another position from Ibsen's computer, Min Park Lee from La Jolla contacted me and set an appointment. Min was an angel from South Korea and we talked in my usual nonchalant way. Must be that Asian vibe between us. She didn't ask me why I was getting into a lower position and she called me at the house phone an hour after I arrived home from meeting with her to ask me what size of uniform I wear.
"Extra small?"
"Nope medium."
"I wear small and you looked tinier than I."
"Okay, I am small."
It was Debbie Watson who first mentioned about hearing my transfer to La Jolla. Debbie was another Department lead but she never told me that she was a heartbeat away from being like Kaitlin M. It was Debbie who one time asked me if I was okay after one of those cubicle talks with Kaitlin M. I told Debbie I needed a hug. She gave me one: refreshing, comforting and warm. I was given a muffin stand-up on my last day. I knew about about the plan and wanted so much to ditch it.
The muffin stand-up came and Kaitlin tried to find some nice words for me while everybody listened. I don't remember anything she said because I was wondering if she invited Ibsen to come and translate for them what I was going to say in Tagalog. Britta referred to La Jolla as the "big house" and said something about "what happens here stays here". I didn't get a second hug from Britney, she gave me a welcome hug more than 4 months ago as a new hire.

Kaitlin did email me and sent me pictures of the muffin stand-up she had for me on my last day. The pictures was all camaraderie and warmth with the friends on my short stay with the facility. I also heard that she was no longer working with Britta but still in the facility. I got another email from her before our household switched to AT&T from Time Warner.

I have since moved to my third facility. Pride, camaraderie, trust, respect, fairness and credibility: the same factors that must have helped me hurdle the ROC experience when I was starting kept me in the best place to work in San Diego.

Pha Khin Corny

Life is a blog? Too shallow for the deep end! Back then, I still thought myself as a researcher and could still write a few sane sentences. Yep, sometimes I see life as Pha Khin Corny but fun.

It is hard to pick on one's thought. Maybe I'll just start whining.

Just talked to the pig lady, by the way, and I was Pha Khin bored. Shut yours Adria, why would you even refer to her as my nobya. She is not my type. She is too shallow, just too shallow. Pha Khin immigrants who grew up not knowing where they belong!

Stamped

Unadulterated files

Nutrition misinformation creates opportunities for health fraud, quackery, and food faddism. Unreasonable or exaggerated beliefs that foods or supplements or their components may cure disease, convey special health benefits, or offer quick weight loss are just a few among the health and nutrition claims with which the public has to contend. More often than not, the public is at a loss how to distinguish nutrition facts from nutrition misinformation.
Consumers opting for self-care continue to rely heavily on these claims, unaware of their possible harmful consequences. Failure to or delay in seeking legitimate medical care, undesirable drug-nutrient reactions and the effect of nutrient toxicities or toxic components of the products are among the many health risks of nutrition misinformation. When promised cures and effects fail to work and when products are purchased unnecessarily, the consequences extend to unnecessary expenses of consumers.
The federal government, through the recommendations of policy-making and regulatory bodies, has in recent years begun acknowledging the link between nutrition and health. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health defining food quackery as the promotion of special foods or products with false or misleading health or therapeutic claims for commercial purposes has likewise supported the link. Despite these positive developments, misinformation about the role of nutrition in health still abounds, allowing nutrition misinformation, health fraud and quackery to flourish.
The public receives all kinds of unsolicited health information from a variety of sources. Recent surveys of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) cited television, magazines and newspapers as the top resources for consumers continuously in quest for health and nutrition information. The Internet has also become an indispensable source that none of the leading sources cited could contend with.
Consumer interest in health and nutrition information is high regardless of their validity or the sources. However, one in five consumers admits to being confused by dietary advice. The sheer volume and varying quality of information received as well as conflicting perceptions fuels consumers’ confusion about who or what to believe.
Four categories of evidence that could assess the validity of a nutrition information or a health claim are suggested. These are: 1) testimonials; 2) arguments; 3) correlations; and 4) experiments.
Testimonials or anecdotal evidence are the bases of much of today’s nutrition information or health claims. Sometimes highly unreliable, these do not report people who took the nutritional product and did not benefit, as well as those who did not take the product but did improve. Testimonials are not necessarily fraudulent but they could hardly be validated.
Arguments consists of organizing known facts or experimental results and justifying them as valid. Until the argument is supported by studies, it remains just another claim waiting to be confirmed or disproved.
The only kind of evidence acceptable as genuine proof to support a health claim or nutrition information is that of a repeatable experiment, usually accompanied by control data. Different researchers in different laboratories in different parts of the world have to be able to repeat the experiment and obtain results that do not disprove the nutrition information or health claim.
Repeatable experiments or scientific progress, however, do not prevent or eliminate nutrition misinformation. The popular media tend to capitalize on preliminary research data in an effort to enhance audience and readership ratings. Promoters as a result quickly turn to legitimate research findings in sales pitches, products and services.
As the ultimate end-users, consumers must learn how to recognized an evidence-based scientific health and nutrition information to distinguish fact from fiction. Knowing how to access credible inforation is a helpful skill. The Food and Nutrition Science Alliance has summed-up 10 indicators in spotting health and nutrition misinformation:
1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix;
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single product or regiment;
3. Claims that sound too good to be true;
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a study;
5. Recommendations based on a single study;
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations;
7. Lists of "good" and "bad" foods;
8. Recommendations made to sell a product;
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review;
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals and groups.

On Thomas Hardy and Orgasms

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

If Hitler was a gay..

Jews would have been spared from the gas chambers and Germans would have been more proud of their heritage. Ist das richtig? Haben Sie The Producers von Broadway gesehen? The gay Hitler is the highlight of the musical and it was sort of funny. Now I could only wish that Hitler was gay.

Das ist Life

Till I gain my momentum to go literary, let me ramble. A picture is worth a thousand words so fighting the temptation to just paste photos heir. Well, life is a blog, corny isn't it?