When the songbird sings

• Rowling: Albus Dumbledore is gay
  JK Rowling outed Dumbledore after a brief reading of HP at Carnegie hall to audience’s gasp and applause. And who else does he fall in love with but his former pal, Gellert Grindelwald, who he defeated in a duel over good and bad wizards.
  (tags: harrypotter gay jkrowling albusdumbledore)
• Citizen reporters post stories, videos and photos about the Makati bombing
  Bloggers and news content contributors–the typical camera phone wielding guy on the street–supplement news stories and complement journalists, not replace them. This is a good example.
  (tags: citizenjournalism journalism makatibombing terrorattack blogging youtube multiply web2.0 content)

Thank God for friends. There are friends you hang out with for fun, there are friends who hang out with you when they need you, there are the ones who will take you under their wings when you’re battered and bruised. And then there are the ones who are ALL these things rolled into one.

• 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT
  It’s almost funny, it’s painful. These are some of the secrets that you should know when you’re in the IT industry: you can’t always own your time, you’re a knowledge resource, you’re tech support.
  (tags: funny career list work)
• Digital age kills off the hyphen
  The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has dropped some 16,000 hyphens from its entries. And thus we have ice cream instead of “ice-cream” which I didn’t know should’ve had a hyphen anyway.
  (tags: dictionary english grammar language)

• A Newbie’s Guide to Bit Torrent
  Lifehacker gives a good introduction to BT noobs. I have never used BT but I just might give it a try…to look for public domain content, of course, LOL! Check the comments too.
  (tags: bittorrent download guide howto reference tips tutorial)
• Four rules in understanding people.
  Yet another from LH. What strikes me most are their thoughts about empathy and conformity. People think of themselves more and we are naturally wired to conform (which is not always a good thing.)
  (tags: culture empathy people psychology relationships society)

It’s refreshing to see Daniel Radcliffe without the Harry Potter glasses for once. Although sporting a not-entirely-convincing Australian accent, the actor best known as the boy who lived can act.

December Boys tells the story of four orphans–Maps, Spit, Spark and Misty–who are all born in December. To celebrate their birth month, the nuns at their outback orphanage send them on a summer vacation at a cove hundreds of miles away through a benefactor who they soon figure out is dying of cancer. When information leaks that a young couple at the cove is planning to adopt one of them, a fierce competition arises among the boys whose only reason for living so far has been to be adopted. Maps (Radcliffe), the eldest of the four, has given up hope of finding a new set of parents, thinking that they are “overrated anyway”. He instead finds comfort in the company of a young woman with whom he, as expected, falls in love.

The cove where less than 20 people reside offers so much story to fill up the boys’ time amid fighting over who will be adopted. There is the old fisherman who has developed an affinity that borders on obsession to a gigantic fish that he calls Henry. It is not clear at all why the character developed this regard for the creature. On the other hand, the boys’ religious benefactor appears too strict at times for their own comfort, but eventually emerges as a loving woman whose reason for inviting them into her house is to fill it with “young energy”. And then there is the young couple who can’t have a child. The husband tells everyone that he is a motorbike racer only to be discovered by Maps as a helper at a nearby circus. Lucy, the young tempest who gives Maps his first sexual encounter, eventually leaves him without even saying goodbye.

The boys soon figure out that they already have a family, and that they don’t need to be adopted by new parents since there already had one–the eldest among them, Maps, who has always acted as their older brother and leader, the one who willingly saves one of them from drowning even though he cannot swim himself.

December Boys is told from the recollections of Misty, the most competitive among the boys. Set in the 50’s, the events of their summer vacation at the cove tells how seemingly simple things appear in such a small place. But events soon unravel to unmask the people in that community, that no matter how serene life appears, it almost always is not. However, more than anything, the film gives an alternative description of the word “family”.

• The world according to social networks
  Interesting world map, this one. It is color-coded according to social networks–though Facebook and MySpace are both in navy blue. Two trends: Social Networks, except for Hi5, spread according to language and geography.
  (tags: worldmap socialnetwork socialscience facebook myspace friendster)

The past four days have been unbelievably hectic, marked by unexpected requests for interviews and checking of papers. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to travel. I just didn’t expect that the chance would come around so soon. I say “chance” since the plan is just about 99% sure. I was supposed to have filed my Visa application to the UK embassy last Tuesday morning, but I had to change my plans ASAP and instead file a Visa application to the US embassy.

As it was my first time to do so, it was probably one of the scariest moments of my life since if I’d have been denied, then it would be absolutely difficult for me to get other Visas, whether for the same country or another. I’m glad that my paper was approved, so I just have to wait for up to three working days to receive my Visa by courier, pack up things and necessary papers, make sure that I’ll have enough money for the trip (that is, until my daily allowance start coming in), badger our very lovely and helpful travel assistants about hotel room reservation, get my plane tickets, spend quality time with the boyfriend since we wouldn’t be seeing each other for a month, and then fly off to NYC. Goodness, it’s my first time to set foot on US soil, and of all places to visit for the firs time, it would be New York. And I will get a training from a top-notch financial institution. It can’t get any better than that. I just hope that I’ll be up for the job. *Crossing fingers*

I was already kind of psyched up for a UK trip when I received the news that I would be sent there for the training. Then things changed, so another colleague would be slated there for six months. Lucky dude. Oh well, New York is New York. Who the heck am I to complain? There’d be lots of places to see and stuff to do outside office hours. I used to imagine that just setting foot on any city in the US would be okay with me, but hey, it’s NYC…like, it’s the center of the known universe. I’m so excited.

I’m also very excited to lead a documentation project on my return. I’m very thankful for this chance and I can safely say that I have made the right decision to sign up with my current employer at the right moment. Not all technical writers get to have this chance. I’m just thankful, I’m excited, I’m happy, I’m in-love. That’s the best reason to return to the Philippines. I can’t wait to celebrate his birthday in December.

Too much emphasis has been put on the “racist” comment by Teri Hatcher’s character on the Season-4 opener of Desperate Housewives. Hatcher’s airhead character, Susan, remarked, ““Okay. Before going further, can I check these diplomas ‘cause I would just like to make sure that they’re not from some med school in the Philippines?” Much of the Filipino community in the US is incensed over the line, and more so are Pinoys in the Philippines.

I received invitations yesterday to sign an online petition that demanded an apology from the DH actor, writers and producers. Links to forums and blog posts were also forwarded as indirect ways of saying, “Hey, check this one and work yourself out over a stupid line.” Frankly, I can’t bring myself to the level of emotional furor over the stupid remark about our homegrown medical professionals for a number of reasons. For one, the US requires ALL medical professionals to get certifications before they can work in hospitals and clinics. Therefore, whatever country you come from, you have to pass those exams before being allowed to work as a doctor or nurse. And if you have been in the medical field in the US, then you’re no less brilliant than the average medical professional who graduated from somewhere else.

Hollywood has been taking a jab at all ethnic, political and other groups in the US, as well as in other countries. Hello! Anybody ever heard of those tired Canadian jokes spewed by stand-up comics, late night show hosts and other TV characters? Yet Pinoys didn’t question this decades-old practice. Filipinos are no better at treating ethnic groups with respect. We make fun of other people’s accent (even our own), religion, skin color, hair, gender and ethnic background. Now that we become the target of a joke, we fall into the victim mentality. Garbage in, garbage out.

A lot of Filipinos–not all, but a lot–who have chosen to settle in other countries do have a habit of looking down at those who elected to stay in the Philippines (starstruck ignoramuses, anyone?). I don’t blame them for giving up on this country. With loads of incompetent buffons in the government, corrupt politicians that bleed our coffers dry, grimy cities, mindless entertainment, poor public infrastructure and hellish traffic, it’s just so easy to throw in the towel. I was at the US embassy last week for my visa application and it just amazed me how the immigration line seemed to have no end. Entire families, grandparents, children, executive types, yuppies and jologs were filing for immigration like there was no tomorrow. I guess that on any given day, there are only two lines at the said embassy: immigration and others. This brings to mind how incensed my boyfriend was as he told me how a pinoy “overstaying visitor” working at a restaurant laughed at his face when he informed the ignorant sod that he was returning to the Philippines. I wonder if I’d get the same treatment.

For all our self-proclaimed glory, we have allowed cheating and corruption to flourish. Jumping on the throat of any foreigner who pokes fun at what is wrong is not the way to deal with our problems. I say, prosecute the ‘tards that attempted to game the medical and nursing board exams.

That Malacanang joins in the call for an apology makes the whole fiasco stink to high heavens. You just know that the OA-o-meter has shot up when the palace and the DFA have joined the mass hysteria. Doesn’t this petty government have anything important to dip its toes into? Cleaning up the professional regulatory board is a good start.

Desperate Housewives is insipid. Teri Hatcher is not funny. The script was lame. The remark is dumb. But I don’t think that it reflected the truth about the degree of professionalism and excellence of Philippine-trained health care workers. They are not barred from working in the States because of poorly written TV scripts, but because of the cheating fiasco that backfired on the honest.

Insulting those who make your loved ones’ stay at the hospital a little more comfortable is a poor way to pay them back. However, the furor over Hatcher’s line is too much.

PS: Has anyone watched this episode on HBO’s Entourage where Drama (Matt Dillon) asked his masseuse about “that little Filipina girlfriend of yours”