It's great to be a kid again.

We decided to watch Toy Story 3 in 3D. I was really excited because it was my first time to experience 3D cinema. Even if it's a bit expensive (Php 250, with free large popcorn or hotdog), it was still worth it. No, don't get me wrong, I won't spoil you about what really happened between Andy and his toys. I will just tell you something about what I felt after watching the third installment of Pixar's most successful animated movie.

The story was again simple, like the previous installments. Despite its simplicity, the movie never fails to convey its message to the audience. The three Toy Story films may share some similar plot lines in having the constant fear of being discarded and unwanted when one turns old, or to obsess with the thought of being forgotten and unappreciated, and almost always comes with a distance to conquer.

The movie involves several themes such as facing consequences of inevitable hopelessness, which will affect most of the audience since they already know how much they care for the characters, friendship and courage. It tackles certain things on how someone turned into a bitter soul due to rejection, tremendous loss and abandonment. Although the light hearted moments balance all of these dark elements in the movie.

While waiting in the line, I heard a lot of kids saying that it was the best movie ever. I was really touched. I was only five years old when the first installment came out. I remembered that I used to say that same statement. It made me feel young again.

Moving on is really hard, but we have to accept that not all things are permanent.

Intimidating

There is a thick barrier between the upperclassmen and the freshmen. As you might have noticed, freshies are like flocks of birds. They work as a group, they walk as a group, they eat as a group and they study as a group. Now, let’s take a closer look between these two groups.

On the younger side, freshies tend to ignore their own upperclassmen. One reason is that, the upperclassmen are intimidating. Another thing is, they have this superiority complex. On the older side, upperclassmen tend to ignore the freshies because they are too sosyal for their taste or too maarte.

Mutualism at its best, not.

Three years ago, when I was still a freshie, I would always smile to some upperclassmen or say “Hi Ate/Kuya” shyly. It’s a bit rewarding if they smile back to you. Now that I’m already a senior, I can really tell that the feeling is very rewarding when some freshies (especially in your own course) smile and/or greet you, say along the pathway or in the corridor. You can easily tell whether a freshie is polite of pa-FC (feeling close).

I was really disappointed when I called some of the Bio freshies and they ignored me.

Oh well, I guess they are all different compared to the lower batches I’ve met for the past two years.

Just so you know,

Sex education isn't about teaching the youngsters to have sex, but rather it's a way to properly orient them about it - its importance and its consequence. It is appropriate for a child to know that he came from his mother's uterus, a special place where the development of the fetus takes place. I find it disturbing when a child thought that he came from a special powder requested by his parents or worse, when he thought that he used to be a clay and his parents molded his body through divine intervention and cooked him in a giant oven. A puerile way of thinking.

The problem isn't about implementing sex education to the curriculum, it is the responsibility of how experts explain it to the young ones.

I just want to ask one question about the church's side: If you think that sex education is liberated, can you give us a few examples of 'conservative' sex?

Now tell me.

Please enlighten me.

Built (not) To Last

...and the worse things have finally occurred. When I went to my sampling site a few hours ago to monitor my sea cucumbers, the pond water was really warm, so warm that it was already considered a hostile environment. I together with Ma'am Ruth's RA (Research Assistant) recorded a short underwater video because she wanted to see the current condition of the pond.

The underwater condition was really different compared to my previous visit. It was really murky, which made the monitoring more difficult. While searching for my pens, he told me that in the 27th of May, they recorded the highest water temperature ever... at 42 degrees Celsius! We directly went to my pens and sad to say, we didn't find even a single Holothuria scabra. We surmised that all of them have died due to the extreme pond conditions.

We already did everything the best we could just to maintain the right temperature of water. We have already increased the frequency of pumping fresh salt water from the sea which resulted to an increased electric bill by up to 300%.

All of our efforts didn't pay.

So now, I have to tell my adviser about this tomorrow. I still have the data since January. I have so many possible solutions running in my mind about this predicament of mine. My data have been in jeopardy for months because of El Niño. My babies can no longer tolerate the intense heat of the pond.

And I expect major revisions starting from the objectives of my study. Major overhaul.
Don't get me wrong, I am not panicking right now.