Reah’s Crib

I am currenty reading the Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. To convey his idea, one of the thing he used was a Diversion Test. What I had to do was write down all the different uses I could think for the following objects:

1.  a brick

2. a blanket

Since I found this activity interesting, I am sharing my answers. Actually, I listed several uses while I was reading page 97. I only  saw the answers of one student that Gladwell mentioned after I listed my answers, so I did not cheat, ok? But I guess, I had plenty of time to list more uses now, since it’s been like an hour since I read page 97.

I am not comfortable though listing the different uses I thought in English, since I will not be that articulate. Sorry. I am going to write them in Tagalog.

Uses for a brick:

1. gamitin kasama ng ibang bricks para gawing dingding
2. papatungan mo para makakita siya ng maayos. Mataas kasi yung pader, o para makasilip sa bintana, kaso kapos ka sa height. Eh di, patungan ang brick.)
3. pantapal / pangharang sa butas
4. pampabigat
5. pambato kapag may gusto kang batuhing tao, o hayop (napakasamang idea no?)
6. laruan ng mga batang maliliit para gumawa sila ng building kunwari o bahay
7. pampukpok sa ulo ng taong gustong patayin ka
8. pampukpok sa ulo ng gusto mong patayin
9. pampukpok ng insekto (katulad ng alupihan) o ng ahas (kaso baka di ko tamaan yung ahas at tuklawin ako)
10. pangharang sa mga libro sa book shelf para dikit dikit ang libro.
11. pantulay kapag mataas ang tubig sa kalsada
12. pangharang sa tubig na umaagos
13. patungan ng kung anu-ano
14. pangharang, hindi ko alam kung saan
15. palatandaan
16. gawing martilyo
17. ihulog sa balong walang tubig para malaman kung gaano kalalim
18. pansulat sa buhangin o sa lupa
19. pambasag sa salamin ng bintana para makatakas / makalabas o makahinga
20. pambasag ng bintana ng kapitbahay mo
21. pampukpok ng malakas sa pader o pintuan para marinig ka ng mga tao (kasi nakulong ka pala sa isang sulok o wala ka ng boses para sumigaw ng tulong)
22. pansira sa lock ng pintuan kasi hindi mo dala ang susi, o wala kang susi
23. pangharang sa uling habang nagluluto para di mahanginan
24. upuan, kung nag-cacamping kayo pero ayaw mo umupo, upuan ang brick na nasa tabi mo lang
25. subukan gamitin para buksan ang buko kasi wala kang kutsilyo
26. sulatan ng reah chris forever
27. ukitan ng message

Uses for a blanket:

1. kumot as usual kasi malamig ang panahon
2. bed sheet
3. tiklupin para gawing higaan ng baby para kumportable ang baby
4. gawing layag / sail ng barko
5. kurtina
6. duyan
7. gawing unan
8. sapin sa picnic
9. pangsapin kapag mamalantsa
10. gawing bag, kapag may sunog. Itambak lahat ng damit mo sa gitna at itali, o kaya pag nagtanan ka gamitin to kasi wala kang bag
11. sapin sa lamesa
12. sunugin para makita ang location mo ng mga rescue worker
13. gawing damit
14. pampalit sa towel
15. pantakip sa mga gamit na ayaw mong makita ng mga bisita mo
16. ikut-ikutin para makagawa ng isang matibay na rope para makababa sa kwarto mo na nasa 2nd floor. Pwedeng punit-punitin muna bago pagdugtung-dugtungin para mas mahaba
17. pantakip habang nagbibihis
18. pantakip habang nag-sesex sa isang public na lugar (siguro sa beach, lol, ewan. O kaya sa isang shared room)
19. bahay-bahayan
20. gawing panlaban sa init ng araw
21. improvised na pangsala (ang laki naman, hahaha)
22. panali sa isang kinidnap na tao. Walang kawala for sure, kung buong katawan niya tinali ng kumot (lol, sama talaga ng isip ko)
23. punit-punitin para gawing basahan
24. pang-murder uli, gamitin para di makahinga ang taong papatayin
25. mag-paint dito
26. gamitin sa rally, isulat dito ang prinoprotesta mo
27. pambitay (sama ng isip ko talaga)
28. (isa ulit na malungkot na idea) kung may nagtangkang pumatay sa iyo at nag-aagaw buhay ka na, isulat sa blanket ang pumatay sa iyo o kaya naman last message
29. magsulat dito ng love letter (hahaha)

When I was young, I monitored my growth by measuring my height against our kitchen wall. Since overjoyed, I was jumping every time I discovered I grew centimeters taller than the past months. My mother also bought me a vitamin syrup to help me grew taller. In effect, I was one of those who stayed at the end or in the middle of the line at school and never became a front liner; and during New Year’s Eve I was one of those hopefuls that jump high as they could, believing that acting that way would make us grew taller on the coming year.

My dream of becoming taller, however, had a limit, which I made myself. I used to compare my height to my aunts and other women close to my parents. I believed their height was ideal for women since most of them stood the same. I remembered saying to myself that an inches taller than these ladies would be enough. One time, at age eleven, I was very glad to learn that I grew taller and was above my aunt’s shoulder. From then on, I believed that my ideal height was ideal indeed, until I reached second year high school.

In my sophomore year, my fancy thoughts were shattered when I found out that most of my gals grew taller than me. And I had to be on the front line. My feelings became worse when I learned that my aunts and those women close to my parents were all just 5’1 below except of my mother who I believed is 5’2. Insecurity began to cloud my self-confidence. Fortunately, I was one of the best students in class that I was able to shun away my insecurity in height. In fact, even though I stopped growing, I was the Battalion Commander of our batch. Could you imagine a five feet lady commanding 204 cadets? I might be small, but I was terrible.

If I had not reached college I might still believe that I had the ideal height. When I entered Centro Escolar University, however, I met number of ladies who are seven inches taller than me and to make my feelings worse we had the same age. I even saw job advertisements that require women at least 5’2 in height. For god sake I cannot grew taller than 5’, now that I am twenty.

My insecurity in height always haunts me occasionally though I already accepted that I came from a race of small people. The feelings become worse whenever I remember that I once wished of becoming a beauty queen. What calms me is still the idea that I may be small but I can make big things possible. Another consolation I have for myself is, at least I reached five feet and never write in my resume the number four at the height’s question.

Whew! How I wish I never had made that ideal height during my childhood. Thank God there’s Cherefer and Japanese are intelligent people, or else, I will never had a chance.

One article that I read today triggered me to write this post. The article was about non-egyptian mummies.

What struck me most about this article were the mummies of Guanajuato in Mexico. These people were buried due to a cholera epidemic outbreak in 1833. And there bodies were mummified naturally–due to the air and weather in the area.

Mummies of Guanajuato in Mexico housed in a local museum, photo from www.guardian.co.uk.

But the interesting part I learned about this event was that some of these people were buried alive, and these could be seen from their horrific facial expressions.

Head of a Mummy in Guanajuato's Mummy Museum. Photo taken from About.com.

If you want to visit the mummy museum, their address is Municipal Pantheon Esplanade, Downtown, C.P. 36000, Guanajuato, Mexico. Find out more through their official website.

Buried Alive

The premature burial of some of the mummies in Guanajuato lead me to another topic to look up to in Google and that is the topic of being buried alive. So I googled “buried alive”, and found interesting facts about it from Wikipedia.

I learned that:

• George Washington feared of premature burial that he asked his servants not to bury him until it passed three days from his death.
• A medieval philisopher named John Duns Scotus of Scotland is said to have been accidentally buried alive – when his tomb was reopened, his body was reportedly found outside his coffin with his hands torn and bloody after attempting to escape.
• Oran, a sixth-century monk on Iona: having presumably been declared dead, he was buried, but was dug up again the following day and found to be alive. He is said to have subsequently been re-buried for heresy when he claimed that after his first burial he had seen heaven and hell.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries

Buried Alive in Philippines Search

Being an SEO writer, I couldn’t help myself thinking how many people searched for the keywords “buried alive“. Surprisingly about 1000-2000 people do search that in Google everyday and most of them come from the Philippines. (Disclaimer: I just estimated the number of people by comparing it to the amount of traffic from a keyword I know of.) I am not sure if location has a value on Google Trends results, but it is interesting to find out that Filipinos do search about it.

I was browsing the Blog Oh Blog site and unexpectedly found an interesting periodic table – A periodic table of famous websites! Since I still consider myself a neophyte on online writing and SEO, seeing this periodic table gave me a quick orientation to the different websites that I should make myself familiar with.

What I was excited to learn about was the sites for webcomics. I was just wondering a few minutes before I stumbled upon this picture, where I can read webcomics, and now I know. So click on the image below to see the table in detail. The sites were grouped according to their relationships, just like how elements with similar characteristics were grouped together. I believe this was originally posted in wellingtongrey.net.