Technology Consulting in the Global Community

Hi again, thought I’d make a quick post to update everyone on some of the things going on over here! For the most part, on weekdays, we’ve just been going to work at the college and coming back to the dorms afterwards to relax.

Work has been good; I’ve personally been doing a lot of coding. Like I’ve mentioned previously, we’re working with an open-source system that is heavily customized. Looking back, I remember us considering creating our own system from scratch. I think we made the right decision, as I realize now just how much work and how many lines of code have to go into a system in order for it to work properly and fulfill the needs of its users. There are so many situations to account for, I think it was smart to take an existing system and modify it to our needs, as it was open source. Now, we’ve created a system together with the college to make it useful and sustainable once we are gone. We also know that the potential success of fully implementing the system cannot rest solely on our shoulders, so the rest of our time working will primarily be focused on documentation and user training. All along, we have been meeting with stakeholders in the project, and Rana and Stephanie have been doing a lot of documentation, it’s important to be extremely thorough (yet still easy to follow) in our walkthroughs and guides.

Outside of work, I’ve been trying to stay in touch with news and happenings around the world and in the USA. The Internet makes it incredibly easy to keep up with everything and keep in touch with my family and friends. I’ve thought about just how different things would be without this constant connection, especially since the technology really hasn’t been around in popular use for that long, relatively speaking.

We’ve also been able to do more activities on the weekends. We all went back to the restaurant that has live music and sat around, talked, and tried new and delicious food. I was able to hang around with some of the teachers a little more at the other house on the hospital campus that doubles as the rehab facility, watching movies and singing karaoke. Another night, Bryan, a student we’re good friends with, brought over a copy of Slumdog Millionaire and we watched it on the roof area using Gerry’s projector. Abhinav was able to explain some of the story and background in more detail, which was cool. Afterwards, we watched Zoolander since Rana had never seen it, and it was funny. Another day, we also played some more badminton, which was a lot of fun. I’ve also hung out with Von and some of the other students, which is nice to take a break, get a snack, and unwind. Abhinav and I also got to play with Ruthy, who is Richard’s daughter and a very cute little girl. Ruthy is so friendly and fun, but doesn’t speak English that well and it’s interesting to see her not really understand why we won’t ever listen to her! I have good memories of hanging around, just watching boxing with the guys.

Another fun night was the Acquaintance Party, which is a party and induction ceremony hosted every year by the Computer Studies department. After a welcome from the dean and some teachers, as well as a guest speaker, the newly elected officers were sworn in. There was a delicious meal provided, and a lot of prizes were given out throughout the night. There were also a few different games. One involved one partner trying to guess a phrase held behind him by asking yes and no questions to his partner, who could see the phrase. Another was a race involving popping a balloon in a chair and answering a riddle. Somehow I ended up playing a game where the first person started by singing part of a song, and the next person had to sing another song that started with the last word of the previous song. It sounds easier than it is – being on-the-spot like that was difficult, even though I lasted a few rounds. The most exciting parts were probably the intermission performances! One group of four students did a choreographed dance to “Down” by Jay Sean, which was really good. Abhinav did a performance of two songs, “I Hate Love Stories” and “Dus Bahane” – both in Hindi – which were also cool. But, the most absurd part of the night was when two first year students came up to perform a song. They were two girls I knew and recognized, since they liked to always call out my name and wave at me every time they saw me, so I was somewhat expecting to be acknowledged in some way during the song. I really wasn’t expecting one of the girls to walk over to me, grab my hand, walk me out to the dance floor, and sing the song “Destiny” by Jim Brickman to me. A very surreal experience!

After that, Stephanie and Rana hung out more with Ryan, an English teacher, while Abhinav and I went out with Gerry, Richard, as well as CS students like Bryan, Shiela, Von, Christine, Gracie, Jessica, Via, and even more. We went to a place right at Bagasbas Beach that had a big table for us and also videoke, where we stayed for much of the night, talking and singing and having a good time.

This past weekend, Abhinav and I also got to go and have lunch and spend some time with the Palencias at the boat dock on the way to Calaguas, which was nice. A few weeks ago, we also experienced Typhoon Basyang, internationally named Conson. The college cancelled class for the second half of the day and there was a lot of heavy rain and strong wind. Luckily, it didn’t affect our lives much more than a few power outages, but recent news articles say that at least 76 people have been confirmed dead. This high number was due to inadequate warning of the path of the tropical storm, expected to hit a different part of the Philippines. So, a large number of people were surprised, including many fishermen, who were out as the storm hit. The Palencias told us that several people from the Calaguas islands were among those fishing at the time (without any radio capabilities on board) and after a part of their boat broke off, several men survived for over three days on a makeshift bamboo raft with no food or water, and sadly some others tried to swim for shore but never made it. It’s a disturbing story and it’s too bad that there wasn’t better forecasting and a higher degree of communication for warnings and alerts.

This weekend coming up is our last one with everyone! I’m sure we’ll all go out for dinner and have a fun night. We’re also set to go to Naga City for the CWC – the Camsur Watersports Complex – for some wakeboarding on Saturday. Friday is also the fourth annual Robotex, which I know Gerry and other CS people are putting a lot of work into. Abhinav is also contributing with a Lego Mindstorms Robot and input on competitions and event details. I’m not looking forward to leaving all my friends here, but I am also really excited to see everyone back home! Until next time, hope everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!

Hi everyone. I’m back with another entry. As you may have guessed, we’ve been doing a lot of fun activities here in Daet in the meantime. The week after my last post was actually the week of Daet’s annual Pinyasan Festival! It showcases the Formosa variety of the Queen pineapple and the town held a lot of different events. We got to go to some of them, including Miss Daet 2010, where we got 2nd row seats to watch the pageant. My favorite part was seeing the girls come out in their pineapple-inspired costumes! We also got to watch a Battle of the Bands and see more of the talents of the area. Watching them perform was also interesting, because none the songs they played were in English, which was different from the bands we saw performing new and old American songs at the local restaurants and plazas. With those bands, it’s completely acceptable to write a request on a napkin and have your server hand it up to the band. If they know it and have time, they’ll play it! Another night, we went to the Beer Plaza, which is a block of the main road in downtown Daet that is sectioned off at night during the festival and closed to vehicular traffic, complete with a stage for bands to play and tables lined up from more than 20 local restaurants, who served food and drinks. A funny thing about these events was that they definitely ran on Filipino time, meaning that they started at least 2 hours later than the advertised time. That was something different for me, and after showing up at the time it said on the posters, we learned that the “hard way.”
One of the most impressive things we saw during the festival was the Pinyasan parade and street dancing competition. The floats in the parade actually were made with real pineapples and were really intricate designs! Then, right after that, we saw groups of local kids perform in the street dancing competition, and they were all really good. The costumes, music, dancing, and props all contributed to make the show exciting and just really remarkable. I’m glad we were lucky enough to get to experience the Pinyasan Festival firsthand!
The next weekend was more low-key, we played some basketball, badminton, and the foosball that’s on the rooftop area at the dorms. I also relaxed a little and basically just hung out, visiting blogs, watching some TV episodes, and playing some old video games. One of the nights, Richard and Gerry came and watched a movie with Abhinav and me in our room, which was fun. We also went shopping in downtown Daet again, where I bought two cool Pilipinas basketball jerseys, and even got a chance to shoot some hoops in them. Rana and I also went back to Bagasbas Beach and walked around. It was nice to just walk along the beach and see more of it than I had before.
This past weekend we got to go to the Pineapple Resort, which had a nice, big pool for us to swim in and also had some water slides that we got to go down. Since it was the “low” season here, there was only one other family there, and they were in the kiddy pool the whole time. We went with PJ and Isabel, who were fun to play around with and get to know a little better. I also went out for some food & drinks with Gerry, Abhinav, and Shiela, which was a lot of fun, and we got to go dancing after.
We’ve also eaten out a few times, at places like Leo’s Cuisine, Alvino’s, Shakey’s, Makshaff, and Caroline’s. It’s fun to do, and the food is usually really good. We also see, though, that the food we are eating on a daily basis comes as a really good variety and tastes great as well. Because we eat this way every day, it’s hard to talk about favorites, since it all kind of blends together, but as a whole I am very impressed with the different meals we’ve been having. Like I keep saying, there’s always fish or squid, then some combination of chicken, pork, and/or beef, veggies, rice, and usually fresh mangos. We’ve even had some good burgers and really amazing spaghetti! The Hawaiian pizza from a place around the corner is also one of my favorites, since the pineapple on it is just so good.
Work has been good but there’s a lot of code there and not a lot of time. It’s definitely hard to jump right into a new system without well-commented code, especially not being entirely familiar with PHP. On the bright side, I have gotten a lot more comfortable with it, after trying to figure out where everything goes and how it all fits together. A lot of the functionality is done for us, but doesn’t really fit with the college, so I’ve been changing that around, not just display-wise, but also in the code so it make sense to the CS department who is going to maintain it. Bugs popping up here and there have also made it frustrating and sidetrack a lot more time than I’d originally thought. We’re trying to get things wrapped up to be able to deliver something that we are proud of and that works well for all it does. That way, we can continue to work with the people here and train them on how the system can be used and maintained. Hopefully, we’re able to produce a sustainable solution that meets the needs of the users, and I’m very confident we’ll be able to.
It doesn’t really seem like that long since the last time I made a post, but after typing it all up, I guess it was! I’ve never really kept a journal, so it’s sometimes hard to try and write these blog entries, but I just have to get in the mood to write and send them out, since I know people like to see what I’m up to and how I’m doing. Thanks for understanding! I hope all is well, and that everyone stays safe and healthy!