Whoa, it's been a bit of a while since I've last posted.
One mark of a professional writer, in terms of being a blogger, is to be consistent when it comes to posting. That's because your readers (however few they may be) will be expecting something from you on a regular basis.
That's why I admire the likes of Jose F. Dalisay Jr. who not only writes pretty darn good stuff (my rather pedestrian way of writing pales to how he writes --transforming the juxtapositioning of words as an art form -- the piece be a commentary on a recent happening or another anecdote on his eternal fascination with fountain pens) but who is also able to regularly come out with something I look forward to every Tuesday on his Penman blog. Come Tuesday, there's sure to be a new entry posted and in my several years of reading Sir Butch's blog, I think he only missed his weekly schedule no more than five times (with some valid explanation which I would later on read in his blog or somewhere else).
Which is more than I can say when it comes to the upkeep of The Coffee House Chronicles. While a million conversations are being held simultaneously at all times all over the world, this little corner of cyberspace remains quiet and unobtrusive sometimes for spells.
Let's see if we can be more professional about this starting today. At least one worthy post a week. This post counts as one.
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I have to admit I'm struggling with China Miéville's The Scar for some reason. The interest in the book is there, there's no doubt about it. But it seems though that because the action in the book isn't moving along in a faster pace, my reading tends to follow suit. Up to now, some two weeks after I started reading it, I'm just mid-way into the book. And I know for the fact that I'm no slow reader because I managed to squeeze in two other books --and finished both -- just before the Holy Week break ended this week. From April 8 to 9, I got to read Desecration and The Remnant, books 9 and 10, respectively, of The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
So, what gives with The Scar? I guess it's because I'm still trying to get into the groove of reading a new author in Miéville. I'm sure to finish The Scar and my interest in his writing hasn't ebbed. In fact, I'm already on the lookout for two other Miéville titles -- The Perdido Street Station and EmbassyTown.
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I've got a new rig!
Well, not actually a new rig but a hand-me-down. That's because two weekends ago, my parents and I bought a new laptop for the old house in Laguna. Yes, my old folks have gotten a new rig -- a powerful beauty at that -- and because of this development, I was able to take home the old laptop they've been using.
The rig is an Acer Aspire 5572 from Dubai (the prints on the keys have Arabic letters) and this was the first laptop that my sister, Wheng, bought when she first came to Dubai in 2005. If I'm not mistaken, she bought this around 2006 so that makes the 5572 about six years old. Yes, an ancient thing.
But talk about endurance. The 5572 has been kicking since then and aside from busted audio hardware and a short-span battery (a miniscule 40 minutes), it continues to be of service. About three years ago, I sponsored an memory upgrade for it, upping it from its rather weak 524MB capacity to 2GB. It has had its share of technical difficulties like the audio problem and several episodes of it not booting up, but all in all it's so solidly built that it's no wonder my parents still preferred an Acer for the new lappy. So, we got the Aspire Aspire 4752 which comes packing with an Intel Pentium B960 processor, 2G of DDR3 memory, a massive 640GB hard disk drive, and I completely overlooked and was surprised that it had its own video card -- a NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M. And because we were buying the rig in cash (a big chunk of the moolah from my sister), we got a free Canon Pixma printer. I took home the printer, of course :P
But back to the 5572 ... when I finally sat down to have a look at it last night (yes, it's been with me two weeks already but it was only last night that I got to tinker with it) and really looked at the rig's insides, I had difficulty looking at it, literally. Checking the device manager tab, I discovered that the VGA driver for the internal graphics was corrupted. So, first order of business was to download and install new video drivers for the 5572 and voila, after installation the screen resolution was back to its being sharp and crisp. A far cry from its blurry state earlier. Felt like I had a new rig.
Next steps would be to determine what else can be done to speed up performance. I'm still debating whether to re-format the HDD and install a newer Windows OS but I also read somewhere that the 5572 (well, the 5570 family, that is) only supports up to Windows XP. But I'll definitely look to upping the memory to max and updating whatever software or drivers need updating as this'll be my rig for a long while.
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Looks like the workload will be picking up in the coming weeks.
I'm already starting to see long working days so I'm psyching myself up for that. Thank goodness there was the Holy Week break, which of course, is still bitin but good enough for a recharge.
Holy Week was spent in the province. Yes, it's only in San Pedro-Laguna but last time I checked I believe Laguna still counted as a province, right? And our home in Pacita is a quite affair. I grew up there so I should know. The quiet of the house was shattered though by the ruckus created by Ikai and Issa and my parents, the beaming Lolo Ely and Lola Lydia, didn't mind at all the intrusion. They enjoyed every minute of the time their apos were with them.
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There's no way to determine whether Ikai excelled in her Kindergarten in St. Paul's College of Makati (SPCM) but judging from the high marks she got on her report card, I could safely say that Ikai would be one of the Top Ten, maybe even Top Five in her class. SPCM has a policy for its Nursery and Kinder classes to NOT institute a competitive environment. Instead, what's being fostered is an environment where it's fun to learn. The cut-throat competition for honors and awards starts in Prep.
So, while we can't determine her exact ranking vis-a-vis to other Kinder students, Ikai's report card was dotted with O's (Outstanding) and HS's (Highly Satisfactory, the second highest rating), showing a consistent improving performance per quarter. From the shy type she was in the first quarter, she emerged as a star by the time fourth quarter rolled in, literally starring as Snow White in their culminating activity last March. Two awards she got were Best in Communications Skills (which her Mama interprets as being madaldal) and Best in Music, Arts, and PE.
Ikai's teacher, Teacher Paula, also mentioned that she's extremely proud of Ikai's accomplishment especially the 360-degree transformation the little one undertook all in four quarters. It's just a bit sad that Teacher Paula is leaving SPCM for greener pastures but Elvie's adding her on FB so that Teacher Paula can continue to monitor Ikai's progress.
Proud parents moment interlude ....
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Happy weekend, folks!
