Race Against Kungfu Master!

Tonight I went on a footrace with some unknown Kung Fu master.

Not having worked out at the gym the last few days, I had got it into my head that I would walk home from work today. It’s a good 30 minute and I usually get to the house feeling nicely fazed. There are some challenges to this walk though. One of them is you can’t walk on one particular side of the road because the pedestrian path goes right under some trees that local egrets have decided to call home. Unless you’re willing to take your chances with highly acidic and fishy bird poop, you can’t pass there. The other challenge is the sidewalk isn’t anywhere near even. It goes up and down very abruptly, with many camouflaged obstacles like telephone pole stumps, brow-height street sign edges, missing cobbles, missing manhole covers, phone pole guy wire anchors, and parts where the sidewalk had collapsed completely into the sewers below. Just to make things more interesting, there are large intervals of the sidewalk that are in complete darkness. Nevertheless, as I have walked this way many times before, I know I can negotiate it with a grain of caution.

One other option is to go off the sidewalk and walk on the roadway itself. I do not often do this as both motorcyclists and public utility minivans think nothing of running mere centimeters from you at high speeds. An imprudent leaning to one side could easily spell grievous bodily harm and even an untimely demise.

So there I was walking when I noticed up ahead, on the roadway but close to the shoulder, a man in a tunic like outfit, clad in flip-flops, pulling an old-fashioned bamboo cart, you know, the one with two long handles and rests on two large wheels? The outfit he had on reminded me right away of Bruce Lee, because he wore loose trousers, and his Chinese-collared long-sleeved tunic was also loose. He was going my direction.

I quickly dismissed him from my mind, half-expecting to draw up on him and then pass him at any coming moment. I only had an empty knapsack and was wearing comfortable track shoes besides. My eyebrows went up when I noticed that not only was I not catching up on this KF Master, but inexplicably, he was steadily pulling away from me. Now how could he do that? I watched his legs in action. No, he wasn’t running. If anything, he looked like he was taking both slower and shorter strides than I was. Besides, how fast could he go? He was in flip-flops for heavens sakes!

So why, even as I watched, did he seem to be pulling ahead? I shook my head. Nonsense! I quickened my pace, but taking care not to appear that I was running. I’ll show him! With a quiet sense of exultation I closed the distance. But what should have been a quick sprint to close the gap didn’t turn out to be a sprint. It took serious effort! A glance at him showed that no, he didn’t seem to be trying to walk any faster. How the heck was he doing this?

I passed him! Hallelujah, I passed him. I was practically running now. In the half-dark, dodging trash cans, plant pots, phone pole stumps and trying to fall into a manhole. My breathing was rapid now and I was seriously pumping those legs. I imagined in my head that I was pulling rapidly away from this impudent stranger and quelling the urge to look over my shoulder to see how far back he was.

Of course, I looked. And there he was, KF Master, languidly walking in flipflops, about 12 paces behind me, keeping apace and threatening to overtake should I ease up on my frantic rapid strides. Oh my gosh! This was not looking good! Did this mean I would have to maintain this pace till my house? That was miles ahead!

I could feel the beginnings of shin splints, and my calves had begun to ache. No, I steeled myself. I would not fall behind this man. Besides, with any luck, he’ll probably arrive at his fruit stall or maybe veer off to a side street. Just keep walking, man, and pretend he doesn’t exist. For the next 10 minutes I did my best to look nonchalant while attempting to break into a run. I also told myself that no, I would not look back.

And so I looked back. And there he was! 10 paces behind me! Walking as leisurely as you please, still pulling that cart. Ye gad! I had long since broken out into a sweat. The hope that he would quietly disappear into the darkness had itself disappeared. At this point I gave up trying to give a semblance of subtlety. I began leaping up and down the uneven sidewalk, dashing to the sides of open manholes, ducking under low streetsigns, and sprinting when the there was enough even ground to see. I would not, no how, be beaten by Kung Fu Master! No kungfu way! I ignored the pains in my shins, the stitches at my sides, my ragged breathing.

Farther on, much farther on, I came to a traffic build up. I was near my home too. There was no way he could get through that traffic. Wherever he was, if he was still back there, he would have been stuck. I dogged between close-packed cars and motorcycles to get to my street. On an grassy island, the last one before the turn-off to my street, I paused to catch my breath. I also paused because I wanted to know if Kungfu Master was still behind me. If I had managed to get that far ahead of him.

When the light turned green and most of the cars had passed, there, coming implacably in that deceptively unhurried pace, was Kungfu Master and his cart. Backgrounded by passing traffic, he kept going, going up the road to heavens knows where, maybe the next county.

Soundly beaten, I reverted back to a sane pace. Good night, Kungfu Master. Your Kung Fu is stronger than my Kung Fu.

Old Dog Does New Tricks with Dialysis Machines

Abigail and Mon, a photo by Uberdoog on Flickr.

Everyone admires excellence when they see it. A pilot smoothly landing a plane. A ski jumper slaloming down a course. Or Roy, head nurse of the Hemodialysis Unit, setting up the arterial blood lines of the dialysis machines. 


What’s that? Did I say dialysis machines? Yup, you read right. You’ve heard of dialysis, right? That’s when your kidneys decide to go on ahead of the rest of you. The rest of you gets messed up because your blood builds up toxins and water builds up too. For that you need dialysis. Dialysis machines are machines the size of two personal refrigerators stacked atop each other and they do the job that two little kidneys, individually smaller than your fist, did. Better than any dialysis machine. But what choice do you have? 


Let’s get back to Roy. It's 4 in the morning, he's racing through the set up of the machines. Washing this, plugging that, pushing these buttons, inverting cartridges, purging excess, heck if I know.
Watching Roy is watching excellence. Working with an economy of motion, purposefulness and fluidity, he got one of the machines harnessed and ready to go in no time. 


Admiring excellence is like admiring the tip of an iceberg, 90% of their mass is out of sight. With excellence, what you don’t see is the hard work, perseverance from day to day, or the bad hair days with their terrible balls-ups. But I guess it that would be an unfair comparison. Excellence probably hides at least 99% of practice and work. 


“Great!” I thought to myself, I have 98 more days to get a little better, but most likely nowhere near as good as Roy. But I was just being flippant and was not actually bothered. The good thing about Nursing is it’s not a competition. At least, not in the usual sense. 


All I want these days is a new bag. While the rest of my contemporaries are packing up and looking forward to retirement, I’m moving into new and unexplored territory. I’m having to toughen up, physically and mentally. I’m having to become game, quick, flexible, alert and responsive. If you’re young, you’ll find it hard to imagine how inertia can slow down a middle-aged man. The habits of seeking comfort and familiarity, formed of earlier decades have to be gradually broken. It hurts, but then I have seen the changes to adapt.   And the changes feel good. I can see the banner in my head: Old Dog Learns New Trick. So Roy , how do you set up the dialysis machine again?


Originally posted Jan 6, 2010

Java Homecoming

Being Filipino, I have the tendency to think that all roads lead to the Manila, it being the center of the universe. I fail to add of course, my universe. And being the center of the universe, it builds its own reality, an overwhelming preponderance of seriousness and gravity which travels with me, along with the actual baggage that I have to weigh and check in. Can you imagine how much more the airlines could charge if they could only figure out a method of weighing the local worries and concerns that passengers bring with them when they check at the airport?



Fortunately, and with satisfying consistency, the premise that Manila is the center of the universe thoroughly shatters on each trip. There are, it seems, people and world out there that don’t give a hoot about Manila and could not care less if it sank like Atlantis into the sea. They have the right idea. The right
perspective. That release and relief is why I must travel. To get my head right, I need to break free of Manila’s mind-numbing concentricity.



The last trip I took was to Java. No, not the programming language which takes precedence when you Google up Java. No, not the hoary World War II-vintage term for coffee that’s quickly
going the way of the dinosaurs, if it hasn’t already. I mean Java, the island in Indonesia. Yes, it’s still there. No, it’s not an island off Bali. Bali is an island off Java. Java is much bigger than Bali. Yes, it is.



I enjoyed my trip to Java without once seeing Bali. I’m saving Bali for another trip. My trip to
Java was akin to a surprise homecoming. How could I have known that I actually had family – cousins twice, thrice removed if you like - living in other parts of Asia? They looked like me, they spoke a language that strangely sounded like mine but was just slightly on the edge of my comprehension, they had a similar
temperament, had rice with their meals, and wore shirts that looked like colorful renditions of the Filipino’s loose and ivory colored national costume. It was a great trip!



My first hint of familiarity was the language. There were so many words in Bahasa Indonesia that
meant pretty much the same thing in the Philippines. Its words seemed to be derived not just from Tagalog but from the entire gamut of Philippine languages.
Nasi from Kapampangan in Central Luzon, ikan from Northern Luzon, ini from the Visayas, putih from Tagalog and a slew of others. When I got back from that trip and did some research, I discovered that Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia were actually sister languages that shared words and word characteristics, that my Tagalog had ties to languages as far away as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Taiwan. Now that
is so cool!



For the longest time there had been this anguishing about how the Philippines had lost its real culture because it was all alone there in the middle of the water and the big bad Spaniards, Americans, Japanese etc. etc. had come along and had taken its soul away. But as it turns out, the Philippine languages continue to link it to its regional identity! I don’t have to go to one extreme where I am abashed about
being messed up by the colonizers, as one camp of social anthropologists would have me believe, and neither do I have to go the other way and get defensive about the fact that colonizers did have their way with the Philippines. Filipinos are still part of the Asian family. What a relief!



Then there’s food. Indonesians, like Filipinos, eat rice. It’s a staple. That solves more than
half the problem of having to adjust to the food. In my trip to Java, I discovered that they liked a lot of vegetables in their diet. Filipinos, the Manila Filipinos anyway, eat a lot more meat. Indonesians replace the protein requirement by a heavier consumption of tofu. Tofu is also commonly found in the Philippines but is not eaten as much. But all that’s a minor difference. Rice remains the staple food.



Whenever I’m in a new place I want to walk. Walking lets you see things and in Solo, Indonesia, I saw the national flower of the Philippines – the Sampaguita - growing by a wall. The Sampaguita (Jasminium sambac) does that in the Philippines. Grows by walls. But doing here what it does 1031 miles away in Manila gave me pause. A little later, I found Atis (Annona squamosa)happily growing near the Solo train station. Again, I had to stop. Later on, I discovered that these plants are endemic to the region. They were not my plants, they were our plants. Now how do you like that?


I didn’t get to stay in Indonesia very long. Just two weeks. But I’ll be back, longer this time, and I’m looking forward to it. I sure would like to poke around my cousin’s backyard and see what they’ve been up to all this time. There’s nothing like having family.

Originally posted on April 29, 2010 11:38 am

And They Said It was OUR National Flower

There are many things we assume when we are given bare facts. One of them was when I was taught at school that the Sampaguita was the (Philippine) national flower. Oh, ok then. If it was the national flower, then it was ours. The unspoken premise was no one else had it.

In the course of my travels however, reality has been chipping away at these hoary assumptions. One was when I discovered the Philippine roast pig called Lechon, happily existing in a Laotian marketplace. (Yeah, yeah, a Laotian Roast Pig). The latest to take a fall has been the Sampaguita (Jasminum sambac) which I encountered happily growing on a sidewalk in Solo, Java. Research on Wikipedia has since shown me that the Sampaguita ranges from Southwest, Southeast, and South Asia.
Great. I feel betrayed. I want to punch someone. Whoever led me to believe the Sampaguita was uniquely Filipino. Arrrgh!

Originally posted on Nov 1, 2010
-----

Man, Take a Hint!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Life is not easy. That much is clear to most people. Nor is life fair. It has many circumstances that are not in our control that nevertheless have bearing on our lives. In any case, we have to deal and live with those circumstances of fate as best we can.

We need to be mentally strong. The waves that will batter us in life are not predictable and may come singly or in a long punishing spell. One cannot, must not, break. To break, to give in to the vagaries of fate is to squander one’s strength, will, and determination. Lose that and it’s a downhill spiral.

Man cannot live by himself alone. He needs his God, his family, his friends. In that order. When a man finds sanctuary in his God, then he takes on God’s power and might. You might physically destroy such a man, but you only deceive yourself. Such a Phyrric victory nothing against the greatness of God.

Man insists on living by himself. He eschews the company of God, spurns his family, and avoids friendships. He convinces himself this is proof of his strength. He takes great pride in it, much like a toddler wields a twig or a ball, filled with self-importance and accomplishment. He is proud of it until he loses it or it is taken away from him. And then he is dejected.

God would have man seek him. It was God’s plan that man should not go about this world stumbling about in ignorance. It was God’s good plan that man should come to the conclusion of his own inadequacy and the sufficiency…nay, the abundance, of God. Men who keep the counsel of God are those who accomplish the most in the life. The are the ones who are protected, guided, and rewarded with a full life. In contrast, those who seek their own way apart from the direction of God are those who eventually fail.

Psalm 91:1-2

1. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High

     Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2. I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress

    My God, in Him I will trust.

The person who trusts in God and lives close to Him can dwell "in the secret place" or in the shadow of God within a secure fortress. Stop for a minute and think how comforting that "secret place" is.

Psalm 91:3-4

3. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler

    And from the perilous pestilence,

4. He shall cover you with his feathers,

    And under His wings you shall take refuge;

    His truth shall be your shield and buckler.

An image of being saved from bird traps and various "perilous" diseases appears here. Stop and discover the feeling of complete protection that a baby chick feels when the mother hen tucks him under her protective wings. The shield and buckler indicates that God is the believers shield against all harm.

Psalm 91:5-6

5. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,

6. Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
God will protect us from all evil at all times of the day and night.

Psalm 91:7-8

7. A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.
8. Only with your eyes shall you look,
And see the reward of the wicked.

Psalm 91:9-10

9. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place,
10. No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

Psalm 91:11-13

11. For He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways.
12. In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
13. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra,

Psalm 91:14-16

14. Because he has set his love upon Me,
Therefore I will deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he has known My name.
15. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him,
16. With long life I will satisfy him,

And show him My salvation.

Time and again, God asks me to trust him. To walk with him, to keep his counsel, to depend on him. God is no beggar nor is God an opportunist. Man is doomed to fail if he acts only by himself. It is the man who walks with God who is the complete man. The complete man cannot fail for God empowers him, shields him, and answers for him. The complete man cannot fail for God cannot fail. The complete man may die in the service of his God, but such a death would ultimately be a victory for God is the ultimate destination of the complete man. Meanwhile, the incomplete man, he is lost.

I should listen. I should do. And keep on doing what God wants me to do. Walk with Him through life.

The Belles Of War

One moment school photographer, war correspondent the next. We were in a resort on the hills of Java, Indonesia not 30 kilometers from Mt. Merapi, the volcano which only weeks ago had started to erupt. The team building games were winding down when I noticed a small militia of boys and girls breaking off toward the lower resort grounds. They were ominously armed, albeit, with bright yellow-and-orange-colored weapons. The boys favored the long arms and machine guns. Some were even in camos, flack vests, and had bandoliers slung over their shoulders. Their deadly intent was clear and they were scary. The girls were armed with pistols, which they swung about with grace, like handbags, while they walked. They were, uh, well, pretty.

In the flurry of preparations for this field trip I’d heard there would be a Nerf War and this must have been it. A Nerf gun is very expensive. The battery-powered weapon fires a projectile made of a cylindrical tube of styrofoam tipped with a thin cap of slightly heavier plastic. The result is bullet that will fly about 15 or so feet but will not have enough mass to hurt. The downside is, should it hit an eye or a face, it can still cause injury. No other faculty member was present, so I jumped in to set the rules of war. No head shots. Ever. No going on precipices or roofs.  All combatants were also to take time to write their initials on their bullets or lose them. The battlefield was to be in an area were the projectiles could be easily found. Three hits equaled an out. Flack vest counted for 2 extra hits. It was hard to lay down the rules though, the boys were spoiling for a fight. Rules declared, I stepped back to watch.

The first skirmishes broke out early. The boys’ imaginations were very fertile and had set up headquarters over a hundred meters away from the girls’. This presented some difficulty because the bullets had a maximum range of 4 meters but were reasonably accurate only in the first meter. Premature fire was going off with nary a girl in sight.

When the two camps finally engaged, the boys gamely took shelter behind hedges and nursed their shots until the big charge. The girls’ battle strategy was to stay out in the open and dodge the silly bullets that the boys were shooting from afar. They figured early that since the boys couldn’t hit anything, it was safe to come up on the other side of the hedge, wait for the boys to stick their heads out and shoot them. Now didn’t I say no head shots? But fortunately, the girls’ aims were none too accurate either so there was just a lot of shooting from both sides of the hedge.

“Bang! You’re dead! No I’m not, I got 2 lives left!” “Teacher, am I dead yet?” And so it went. War is hell. But not for me though. As I watched this war I was simultaneously viewing a long forgotten war I had fought in the 60s. My cowboy revolver with the antler horn grip used to fire with a “bin-yang” sound (I made the sound, of course) while my kid sister’s Winchester rifle went “ee-bang!” No Nerf guns in those days. And here I was again, in the midst of murder and mayhem. Will men never learn to eschew the horrors of war?

The boys were impressively grim. Scrunched down for cover, they must have seeing hordes of enemy approaching to overrun their camp. The girls were not cooperating though. They traipsed in the open. They took time to pick up bullets and reload. They aimed, they danced close, they fired, and they hit. When finally the boys couldn’t take it anymore they charged with guns blazing in full auto. The fleet-footed darlings, on the other hand, scampered away giggling and unscathed.

Hostilities ceased when there were no more bullets to fire. Then it became a mass search for expensive bullets in the grass, under the hedges. Some of the girls complained about the nasty mud which soiled their sneakers. One exasperated girl observed that this war was too much trouble. Meanwhile, the boys stolidly reloaded magazines and ammo belts. But all good things must come to an end. It was 11:30 and we had to be packing for the ride home. So I declared the war was over, and peace was restored in Indonesia.

Totem Poles

Let me tell you a funny story. Last week, I asked the OB (office boys), a euphemism for the maintenance people of this school I teach at, to go help me plant a tree I had acquired for the school. I make it sound so simple but it's not. I don't speak the local language well enough to say a proper sentence and can only speak enough not to starve in front of a food counter. What makes things more interesting is I'm new to the school and haven't quite made my presence as a department head felt yet. I'm still testing the waters so to speak and making sure I don't tread on the wrong toes...only the proper ones.

Getting back to that tree planting thing, one of the men was clearly not obeying me, choosing instead to post himself at the entrance where the primary school kids came in. I went back to him, signaling for him to plant. He wasn't having on it. I said in English, "C'mon, let's go!" and he answered back, looking full in the eyes in the local language and indicating that he was staying right there.

Well, I went off and got the thing planted. But I didn't forget. Just as soon as the thing was planted I went off and called him into the office for a local teacher to translate for us. I felt that I had been disobeyed and disrespected. I was ticked.

The teacher said that he was supposed to be where he was, something about a rotating shift. The translation was not perfect, I suspected, but still I was not appeased.

I dismissed him and went off to the school's director, explained the situation, and - in so many words - demanded satisfaction. A pound of flesh would do nicely.

The school director promptly called him on the carpet and this time, she spoke with him. Their department's head was there too. Well, the director told me that standing instruction were that an OB was to be present at that time to help any arriving students with their bags as they alighted from the cars. That his refusal to help was due to those instructions and not intended to disobey a summons for help. This explanation I had to accept but did not buy. What I did buy was that this time he was visibly deflated, that he was genuinely aware he was on the carpet. That was what I needed to let the matter slide.

It was later that day I realized just how petty and proud I had been. It was so embarrassing to come to that realization. But there it was. What a jerk I had been!

One Week Later

Today, something of a similar nature happened.

Rewind: One of the school's major shareholders called me a month ago suggesting the services of her beloved nephew who she said was very good at debate and could help me develop a debate team for the school. As there was a Book Day coming where a debate competition could be help, his knowledge might come in useful, or so she said. Where was his salary coming from and what were his rates? The school director didn't know, and neither did the school principal. Enter the doting aunt. She calls me, asks me to please not let the boy know that she was paying his salary.

The first week, the precocious fair-haired boy comes in. Initially deferential. Second week comes, the classes are held in a different classroom, some students do not show up. He seems surprised but game. Finally, today comes.

The kids are different again. Some can't make it, some are coming from other regular activities, some have gone home and aren't interested. Now he's talking with the school director and now he's visibly upset. Why are we moving around classrooms so? Why aren't "his" students ready and waiting? In so many words but what he's really asking is for me to account to him. This so-and-so pup is demanding that I have run around and rolled out the rest carpet for him!

I finally have to tell him to his face that his is an ad hoc class, that he was not expected to be here for the rest of the term and on that basis did not need to be concerned with other school matters. The dear boy will not be thwarted. "Would it not have saved him the trouble of repeating his lesson if he had been advised beforehand of present circumstance?" (What circumstances? That the kids were - as usual - doing a thousand and one things and so were we teachers?). I shot back, "what had I withheld from him that prevented him from teaching today what he had been hired to do?" He persisted and tried to follow the argument that he could have been more effective if blah blah blah... to which I replied "I repeat myself, yours is an ad hoc class and talk of what might have been and might be is moot.

But what really got my goat was this whippersnapper had the gall to point his finger at my chest why he was venting!

The class finally got going and the kids were sent on their way. That's when I had him to myself and told him he'd best not point his finger at me again because I resented it. I also told him to take that talk about him staying on with a grain of salt because the matter was still to be decided.

It's early in the evening now and the day's dust has settled. Still when I think back about it, I realize that I have been - today - in the shoes I put that OB in. And come back at the Jerk in exactly the same way.

And so the world goes around. Ha!