Living in the City

Regardless of what his detractors say about him, President Duterte remains someone I truly admire. No,  he does not know me or know anyone I know,  but deep in my heart and whatever's  left of my aging brain,  I believe he truly  cares about  the ordinary Filipino.  

 There should be. Otherwise, what can we look forward to? According to experts, we need to vaccinate70 percent of the world's population to achieve herd immunity.  As of March 16, 2021, 90M people had been fully vaccinated with 390M doses administered. Slow roll out according to experts. And does vaccination ensure we can all go back to our normal lives? Maybe yes, maybe not. Because vaccines do not guarantee  we are safe. Some scientists declare that vaccines might not even prevent transmission. Further, that immunity might not last forever. Good luck then to us humans.

This blog note I posted in my LEARNING blog which I never got to continue developing as I was occupied with developing several other content I was trying to do at that time - 2013.  So timely because today all students are online. And I was on it way, way back. I was almost retired at that time but because I wanted to continue learning I found  out that I could continue learning through MOOCS.    So what are MOOCs? MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses are free online courses asynchronously accessible through the Web. These  courses are offered by educational institutions like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and other big league schools in the United States. MOOCs do not give university degrees but taking these courses could supplement college studies or refresh everything you have learned upon retirement or whenever there is an opportunity.  At the time, MOOCs were provided FREE. Full audit and can participate in the exams. They also gave out  Statements ...

 I was taking the "Live! A History of Arts for Artists, Animators and Gamers!" offered over at Coursera under Jeannene Przybliski, Phd. way back in 2013. The guts.. It is now 2021. I am  living in a world full of doubt and insecurity due to the pandemic. At that time I was full of doubt. Whatever I felt then with the following statements, I have already recovered.  'But whatever gave me the idea that I could mingle with what could be a MOOC class full of talented artists? After all, I am not one and I know I will never be. That is just it. I don't think there's anything wrong about aspiring to become an artist. Having said that, I will be bold enough to declare, I am going to have fun, learn and take what I can from the course and from my fellow MOOC mates; be inspired by the teacher, and most importantly, admire and get astonished with the awesome art works from the best. I dare not be intimidated. Wish me luck.' Because I found out that I could draw, I could...

I published this post on  April 16, 2015 in one of the numerous blogs I wanted to develop at that time.  This was written as a required narrative for one of my MOO classes I was taking at that time. Since I was unable to continue developing that blog now at this pandemic times I am choosing  to share as this is close to my reality as  a city dweller. A piece of fictional narrative  submitted to a MOO class in 2013 entitled C'est la Vie. "That's life. It was a phrase I often repeated after becoming an unwed mother. It was for the best because abortion could have been worse. Life changed.  As soon as the father of my child refused to marry me, and disappeared. At 22, the stigma of life alone, with a child,and without a husband was too much to bear. Call me stupid but poor me, how could I have been irresponsible? Worse, the values of honor and respectability sacredly  honored by my family were all violated, by me.  Epictetus, the Greek sage and stoic...

  There are days we feel lousy. That is fine. Life can never be perfect. The truth is: most often life sucks, so there is no point living peachy if it is not - even for a day, or maybe a week. What's important is we know how to get out of that lousy feeling. We can learn it because it is a skill.

Six hundred  thousand doses of the Sino Vac vaccines  arrived yesterday. Thank you for the donation China. Another 2.0M is expected to arrive next week from the WHO COVAX program. Thank you UK. Thank you WHO.  But true,  these number may seem not enough. But what is this I hear there's just a trickle getting listed to be vaccinated. Is it  the ordinary people's distrust for the donor country? These thoughts are bad. The complaining.. the distrust.. the blaming. Take a moment and do some thinking. These are negative thoughts. Release. It is making most of us tense. Why not flip around. Think: I am still alive. My body is working still. There's some food on the table a roof above my head.  Let go of the negative feelings. Yes easier than done. But what is the alternative?  Happy Thoughts!