An open letter to Anton Diaz

This post serves as Part II of my Halloween trilogy for 2008 which is also an advocacy shared by other believers such as JJ, AM, AG, and I almost forgot, LD. This post was inspired by AM. Part I of my Halloween is located here. Plurk comments are located here.

Dear Anton,

First off I would like to thank you for your hard work on Our Awesome Planet, a wonderful blog about travel, food and culture in our quaint little archipelago. It is a fine piece of work that you have done for your career and have thus rightly earned the title as one of the more influential bloggers in the country.

However I would also like you to consider, in the best interest of this country, and perhaps modern human civilization as we know it, that in the event of a zombie infestation we would all probably bleed to death (scratch that, Solanum has immediate clotting of the wound in the 1st hour) become reanimated within 24 hours as walking corpses.

Thus, as one of the more popular mainstream bloggers in the Philippines I implore you to help educate the masses on the potential safety measures and precautions one must take in the advent of a zombie invasion. The dawn of the zombie apocalypse can only be classified under the premise of “possible, but improbable.” But in today’s age of wonder and bewilderment, “anything is possible” might just leave an open door towards the potential spread of Solanum or any such virus that can contaminate and reanimate the living into the walking dead.

Thus I have reached the crux of the matter, the purpose for which I write this letter: I would thus like to request if you could include, in all your restaurant reviews a separate rating that determines the level of safety the establishment is to be “Zombie Proof,” a five point rating for every establishment’s survivability and safety whence the dawn of the dead matriculates.

Is your establishment prepared for the zombie apocalypse?

Yes, it is urgent that consumers should know if they are safe within an establishment if and when an apparent zombie infestation occurs while they are dining. Mang Rudy’s Puto and Tea might have the best Filipino delicacies, but will it survive the apocalypse lest the zombies turn Filipinos into their own delicacies? Although White Hat Yogurt may be one of hte best in the country, will it be able to survive a different kind of fermentation?

The Zombie Survival Guide recommends each establishment to have a machete and M1 Carbine on hand to survive advances from the living dead. Do establishments have long, cramped halls for running with waning dead ends? Is there a supply of oil to spill on the floor to catch these reanimations off balance (you don’t use the oil for fire because what’s worse than one zombie is one zombie running to you in flames — thanks, AM)?

With practical suggestions and honest critiques on making establishments “zombie proof” you can assure the safety of the human race, avoiding an apocalyptic nightmare which one can only see in movies such as Dead / Alive, Masters of Horror, Shaun of the Dead, and … Talladega Nights. Variety is the spice of life, and such I would like to suggest such section titles as “Our Gruesome Planet” for this very purpose, an urban survival guide to the living dead.

I hope you consider my request to be in high priority.

Your friend among the living,

Jayvee F.
www.abuggedlife.com

Tenure. Or what’s close to it.

I abandoned myself to certain realities when I was a lot younger. That first, in order to keep to a certain lifestyle, a job in education would definitely be noble, but not practical. I was young and restless. Second, I believed in the philosophy that you can’t teach what you don’t know and being a fresh grad with barely any experience in worldly things would pale me in comparison to Richard Dreyfuss (who bares a startling resemblance to Rico’s dad) in Mr. Holland’s Opus or Robin “O Captain! My Captain!” Williams in Dead Poet’s Society.

So after college, I had in my arsenal a whole bunch of theories on andragogy (adult learning), child psychology, “best practices” and teaching philosphy. I was envious of friends who worked for the big agencies like Ogilvy, the McCann group, BBDO, etc. It was then I began to doubt having taken the wrong course. Deep inside though, I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe not entirely. But I guess being hard headed (dalawa ang puyo ko) I wanted to convince myself that I was right.

Steve Jobs, in his “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” 2005 commencement speech addressed how past decisions will only, but always, make perfect sense much later on, …you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future..

So I trusted. I gave up Integrated Marketing Communications for a Development Education course. I gave up working in PR or advertising so I could do some work in Batangas with farmers and in Negros Occidental Oriental for a family farm school, not to teach, but to develop curricula. (Hyuk) I guess the joke’s on me as I’ve wounded back working with agencies for PR and advertising.

And my units in Education? Well, this letter only proves one thing.

My acceptance into the Institute

That Steve Jobs was right. 🙂