Malditang Librarian

As I posted before, I attended the HALA study program from May to June of this year. We had a variety of lessons and activities, and one of the most exciting ones was the Vegetarian Cooking Class with Teacher Susan Tung and Teacher Ah King. For two months every Monday, we spent it in the Kitchen of Fo Guang Shan Mabuhay Temple in Manila learning special vegetarian dishes. I can attest that "All Buddhas come from the kitchen," saying is true. One of my classmates in HALA had an idea of creating a small 'cookbook' of recipes we learned in this class. I helped out as compiler and editor, and here is the finished product, a simple 23-page recipe booklet. Note that some recipes here are classified as 'lacto-ovo vegetarian' which means some contains animal products such as milk and eggs. This has been from the effort of all 6 HALA Batch 13 students: Me, Kat, Adrian, Rezza (four from the Philippines), Rosario (Argentina), and Tiago (Portugal). Thank you also t...

Updated invitation: http://bit.ly/2vRoiTR Online Registration: http://bit.ly/2MK6X5t Program: http://bit.ly/2BeaKGQ The Philippine Librarians Association, Inc.—Western Visayas Region Librarians Council (PLAI- WVRLC) in partnership with John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University—Molo, Inc., and West Visayas State University is holding the PLAI-WVRLC Regional Conference and General Assembly 2018 with the theme “Librarians Engage! Moving Forward to Student-Centered Learning  Initiatives” on September 6-8, 2018, at John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University—Molo, Inc., M.H. del Pilar Street, Molo, Iloilo City. This conference has the following objectives: Upgrade librarians' skills and competencies towards student-centered learning initiatives. Train librarians to facilitate creative thinking and collaborative learning. Design information literacy learning experiences for diverse populations. Conduct the Regional Competition for the 2018 National Book Week Celebr...

I watched Solo... well, solo . I had been following Star Wars since The Force Awakens (I only watched the original trilogy after that, I know I'm late). In the first movie Star Wars: A New Hope , when the hero Luke Skywalker leaves his home planet Tatooine, he needed a fast ship. Here's when Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi meets the charming smuggler Han Solo, an iconic role played by Harrison Ford. Han Solo, his ship the Millenium Falcon, and his loyal Wookie partner Chewbacca have been very popular among Star Wars fans. Solo is the second of the Star Wars stand-alone movies, next to 2015's Rogue One . The movie tells the origin story of the young Han Solo before A New Hope , how he came to be a pilot and his relationship with his frenemy Lando Calrissian. In The Empire Strikes Back , it is implied that Lando and Han had a long history together and the Solo movie attempts to tell it. It tries to tell the story of what makes Han Solo: how he got his name , how he met Chewbacc...

I quit Instagram. My profile is still up and I'm still getting regular e-mails about the pictures I've missed, but I have no desire to be back. This is not a post preaching about the ills of social media and I'm not discouraging anyone from using Instagram, Facebook, or any social media platform. My point is that we must use the tools best for what we need and enjoy, and not just sign up for the latest craze just because it's trending. Many people say that social media often makes people depressed than happy. We just see the best versions of people we know and the highlights of their lives. Social media has trained us to respond to attention and grow addicted to them. They have their advantages, but everything has a dark side when we use it too much. Facebook has come under scrutiny lately because of privacy issues, and I think more and more people are also being wary. This has been the decade of social media, but I think many more people are questioning it too. ...

My first *official* job as a librarian was in Guang Ming College , a free college established in 2014 by Fo Guang Shan, a Chinese Buddhist organization in the Philippines. I have long been interested in Buddhism even before that, and one of the reasons I worked there is because I wanted to learn more about it. It's been two years since I left, and I still wanted to learn more. I read books, but I wanted to experience meditation and learn more about the teachings. The college is currently located in Mabuhay Temple in Manila but will eventually move to a new campus in Tagaytay, Cavite. Fo Guang Shan Mabuhay Temple in Manila, Philippines has an annual program called Humanistic Academy of Life and Arts (a.k.a. 'HALA'), a free educational program lasting for 3 months. This program started in 2007 and we're now on Batch 13. I was interested since it includes a month-long retreat in Taiwan, which will be on July. I applied and fortunately, I got accepted. We started last ...

Next month, I will be off on another journey! My free time will be limited so I might not be able to update this blog as often or even have time to read many books. I will write about that experience here, as well. I read seven books this month. I wrote two book reviews on this blog: God's Grace in Your Suffering by David Powlison Layb Life: mga kwento at karanasan ng isang Librarian by Michael Pinto Here are my other book reactions, we'll start off with the fiction first: Bloodline: a Star Wars novel by Claudia Grey I’m a new fan of Star Wars since The Force Awakens, and I’ve also been reading novels set in the Star Wars Universe. So far, I have read the Rogue One novelization , Guardians of the Whills   (links to my reviews), and Knights of the Old Republic: Revan . This book centers on Princess Leia Organa and her political career in an unstable Senate. The Senators are divided into two popular parties, the Populists, and the Centrists. Leia is with the ...

Avengers: Infinity War , directed by the Russo Brothers, started showing here last Wednesday. My sister and I have been semi-regularly following the MCU movies since Avengers in 2012. I have written my movie reactions to previous MCU movies in this blog: Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther (which I still think is the best). The Russo Brothers also directed two Captain America movies,  The Winter Soldier  and  Civil War.  I loved both, so I also had high expectations for this one. I'm just your casual fan, I don't have any more detailed knowledge of MCU lore than the average fan of the movies. Infinity War is the third Avengers movie, and they try to once again save the universe from a new enemy, Thanos. This movie also features characters from Guardians of the Galaxy, where Thanos was the main antagonist of the two films. As I'm writing this, it's pretty difficult to explain it to non-fans of this franchise. If you just watch Infinity War without previous knowledg...