With spring now in full bloom, Summer is just around the corner, and I don’t know about you, but I just can’t wait. For many of us, Summer and, more importantly, Summer vacation is like a breath of much needed fresh air. It’s an escape, albeit a brief one, from the daily grind of financial obligations and your daily routine. For just a little while each year, you get to take a break from work or school to do, more or less, whatever you want to do for a change, rather than what you have to do to get by. That’s why it’s of the utmost importance that we make our vacation count every year! While a trip to the beach is a classical vacation for a reason, there are a great many things you can do for your Summer vacation that aren’t simply an excuse to swim, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Here are some examples of vacation activities that can breathe new life into the breath of fresh air that is your Summer vacation.
First and foremost, let’s go ahead and stick with the ocean locale. For starters, while we all have plenty of fond memories of swimming on the ocean’s surface, there’s still plenty to do just under the sea. (Cue the Little Mermaid musical number.) For example, SCUBA diving is a popular choice of vacation activity, and for good reason. While so many of us simply go to the beach to swim or sunbathe, we still appreciate the specific characteristics of a beach, as opposed to a lake, for example. What we often neglect is that under the ocean is truly a sight to behold. From coral and plantlife, to a wide variety of interesting sea creatures, it’s simply a sight to behold beneath the waves. Then, there’s the jet ski. Jet skiing is much like sailing, but think of the jet ski as the motorcycle to a boat’s car, if you will. It’s smaller and faster, and so it has a certain X factor that boats are lacking, despite boats being the more traditional and reliable option for sea traversal. Along with this speed and maneuverability, people use jet skis to perform interesting tricks and facilitate water skiers. Water skiing, despite the similar name and dependence upon jetskis, couldn’t be more different. Imagine being dragged behind a jetski at top speed as a way of turning the water into a road, in essence. However, if you take a look at this video, you’ll see that barefoot water skiing is also an option, and I can’t imagine anything that would make you feel more like a super hero than gliding along the surface of the ocean like a water strider. Then, there’s paragliding. Another activity facilitated by having a friend on a jet ski, paragliding is being dragged behind a jet ski at top speed, but you’re literally flying. Instead of skis or your bare feet, you’d be dangling from a hang glider, soaring above the ocean.
For the past century, modern society has relegated women as the “light†of the family — which felt more like a consolation title to having that heavy burden of rearing children and managing the home. Like most things in life, this is easier said than done and I assure you, having taken the role of a “house husband†for more than 60 months has made me empathise with how we see parenting from the mother’s point of view.
Here are three things I learned (and am learning) to accept for being a ‘houseband’ in charge of a home and two small kids for 5 years:
On having that ‘second wind’
One of the best moments coming home to family were that few seconds where my boys would run to the door and tackle me with hugs (and plastic swords). As a parent, we all know that second wind — the fatigue from a long day at work washes away when we see our family. It’s not as easy when you’ve been at home the whole day. You’re just tired. Imagine now the roles being reversed — if your wife stays home she must probably feel the same thing. Now I totally get why it’s offensive to say “But you were just home! You didn’t have to go out?†A stay-at-home parent doesn’t have an office job that acts like a vacation from the kids.
On celebrating weekends
When I got back to working weekdays full time, I became oddly excited for the weekend. My wife, who works a full-time job all the way in Quezon City (we live in the south) and I woke early (we have kids duh!) and had brunch in one of those garden malls nearby. I told her “OK now I get it. I know why you look forward to weekends.†Being a stay-at-home parent made me complacent with weekends because it felt like “just any other day†except that your spouse is home. On one end, she dug me out of the hole which was domestic life and helped me remember that married life is a lot more than just having children.
On having honest conversations
One evening I almost broke down in front of my wife because there were just too many things that needed to be done. Balancing my work, taking care of the kids (thank heavens for their grandparents being around when needed), chores, our marriage – this was a huge turning point that led me to really do a deep dive into what it means to handle a household and, more importantly, having a supportive partner, who I realize is on the same page. Had the roles been reversed and my wife told me the same thing I could easily have said “Kaya mo yan! You’re so good at it,†but now I know this response would have come from a place of zero empathy. My wife asked me “how can we make it better?â€
Are you a stay-at-home dad? Then kudos to you! Because at the end of the day, there’s nothing like having a home with a father’s touch!
Dr. Conaco documenting the nursery of clams at roughly 5 ft deep
So, you’ve decided you would like to travel the world and work as a travel blogger. Or at the very least, you’re toying with the idea. Heck, maybe you already are traveling the world and are just looking for more tips.
Here are five tips for turning traveling the world into your job:
Tip #1 – Have A Way To Quickly Send and Receive Money
Traveling from country to country means you must have a means to quickly send and receive money and to convert your money from one currency to another. This best way to do this will be to utilize the services of a money transfer business such as Remitly.com. You can either walk into the physical establishment of a money transfer business to use their service or you can utilize their services online or on an app if they have one.
Tip #2 – Don’t Neglect Other Ways To Make Money
Just because you work or want to work as a travel blogger does not mean that you should avoid other ways to make money. Traveling from country to country is not exactly inexpensive and you need to have a steady source of income.
In addition to your travel blog (from which you will likely make money through ad revenue and affiliate links), you can also put your skills to the test through freelancing (writing, graphic design, website design, social media manager, etc.) in order to make even more money on the side.
Tip #3 – Do Fun Stuff
People who visit your blog will always be more engaged and likely to turn into repeat readers if you do interesting stuff while you travel. Don’t just visit hotels and eat at restaurants. Actually do fun activities, like biking, hiking, swimming, camping, sailing, and so on.
Tip #4 – Get A Tourism Card
As was noted above, traveling isn’t cheap. It’s certainly one of the downsides to working as a travel blogger.
But one way you can mitigate this cost as much as possible will be to buy a tourism card, which is offered at most local tourism officers. It will give you free public transportation and discounts to restaurants, tours, and other attractions.
Tip #5 – Create Content That’s Useful To Readers
In addition to creating content that shows you on your adventures, you should also create content that is actually useful to readers. Examples of topics you can write that readers should find value in include, but are certainly not limited to:
Food/restaurant recommendations in specific cities
Tips for traveling on a budget
A list of the cheapest and most expensive places to travel
Activities to do at specific locations
Best places to go shopping in specific cities
Top reasons to travel
Tips on traveling safely
Tips on traveling with children
Working While Traveling The World
Working while traveling the world is a very fun and rewarding adventure, and each of these five tips will definitely be ones you should keep in mind.
There’s a special place in the world for startups and we aren’t talking about Silicon Valley.
Viber. Wix. ICQ. Waze. What do all of these companies have in common? These popular apps all have their roots in Israel, a melting pot of culture, religion and yes we aren’t sugar coating it — conflict. But in the same way that the last decade has been good to the Philippines, lifting itself up from being the “sick man of Asia†to an overperforming infrastructure and GDP growth hub, Israel has been making waves in research and development. The startup scene is vibrant in Israel — namely in key cities Tel Aviv and Jerusalem because of a few key factors that make this small country unique.
For one week I immersed myself into the startup culture of Jerusalem. I toured startups, accelerators, VC’s, co-working spaces. For those who need a step back, a startup is an entrepreneurial venture that is set up to meet a certain demand. But what makes this type of company particularly interesting is that it is designed to be lean and agile — meaning it needs to scale very quickly. As to how quick, some may say that these companies need to grow around 5% every week — whether it be sign ups, page views, or the holy grail of metrics — revenue.
Instagram, Uber, Waze, Facebook, Twitter — these were all startups once and have since exited or become acquired by bigger fish (in the case of Instagram and WhatsApp being bought by Facebook and Waze (formerly called FreeMap Israel — being bought by Google). Silicon Valley painted the perfect picture of a startup ecosystem as the location was nourishing to the tech community in general. But rising real estate costs and other factors made it harder for startups to cut costs – a major impediment to being agile.
Enter Israel, ‘the land of milk and honey’ and now the Promised Land for technology entrepreneurs. From my immersion, I’ve gathered that startups thrive in Israel because of three key situations that are unique to the geography:
Israel needs to innovate because of their geopolitical situation
With negative immigration, scarcity of resources and conflict in neighboring countries, Israel has needed to fend for itself. They invented drip irrigation, engineered crops (the cherry tomato was invented in Israel), built the iron dome missile defense system (the technology which they also repurposed to combat agricultural pests) and made such huge advancements in medical technology and automation. “Adapt or die†is a common catchphrase in the startup world and this has been inculcated into their culture. The scarcity of resources encourages “thinking inside the box†to immediately address needs.
Israel has a unique military
Speaking of culture, the military plays an active role during the formative years of every citizen. By law, all men and women are required to serve in the military — 3 years for men and 2 years for women once they turn 18. Service is considered a rite of passage and since conscription is mandatory, strong bonds are forged which become vital in civilian life as well as employment.
Unlike in the Philippines where the most training a civilian received was with the ROTC, military service in Israel throws you in the middle of a hot bed – military intelligence, tank and chopper pilot, artillery. For many women , they may opt to do what is the equivalent of the NSTP in the Philippines which involves a lot of community work, which helps open doors to being great tour guides and public relations specialists.
It has become such that in one way or another, the military had influenced the careers of these tech entrepreneurs in one way or another: Hanan Lipskin, an entrepreneur who develops an anti cyber-bullying app for children called ‘Keepers’ used to work in military intelligence. Another tech entrepreneur Zeev Farman, CEO of Lightricks (makers of the ever-popular app Enlight) says that although he didn’t benefit directly from military service, he did meet his co-founder while in service.
An Israeli startup immediately needs to go global in order to survive
The total population of Israel is a bit over 8 million people — which by comparison is way below the total population of Metro Manila with about 10% living in Jerusalem and half of that in Tel-Aviv. In other words, you could fit the entire population of Israel inside Metro Manila and it still would not be as crowded as it is now in the city.
That being said, there are over 5,500 startups in Israel, which if you think about it. brings a huge disparity in supply vs demand for tech services. As such, due to their small population an israeli startup always sets itself up to be acquired – such as how Waze was acquired by Google and just recently, Mobileye was acquired by Intel.
FAST NUMBERS
5,500 startups in Israel
500+ in Jerusalem
USD $1B in funding from Jerusalem-based companies
70 VC funds active today
USD $100M funding from government
4.3% of GDP invested in R&D
2nd largest number of companies on NASDAQ next to China
Failure is an option in the startup community, so much so that the culture of failure is not frowned upon, even by the Israeli government. With about USD $100 million in the bank reserved solely for entrepreneurs the government takes an active role as both VC fund and accelerator. Any Israeli citizen can pitch their concept to the government and after undergoing a rigorous vetting system, they receive seed capital. If their venture succeeds, the seed money is returned. If a venture fails, the government calls it a learning experience and the doors are left open to try again in the future.
In his book, Startup Nation, Saul Singer has branded Israel as the new Promised Land for research and development. It is a welcome label backed by astounding facts — Israel has the second largest number of companies on NASDAQ next to China, with more than 4% of GDP invested in research and development.
Israeli Startup Rundown
bitemojo
Dubbed as the food crawl app that doesn’t need a tour guide, bitemojo helps foodies and tourists build custom food tours by availing any of their curated packages. In our stay, we took the Jerusalem Market food tour, one of the most popular destinations in Jerusalem. Husband and wife tandem Michael and Yale Weiss developed the app to help tourists discover the city through food, with everything curated by locals. Since everything is pre-paid, tourists do not need to second-guess prices and potentially be ripped off by tourist traps.
OrCam Assistive Technology for the Visually Impaired
This is the world’s most advanced assistive technology to help the visually impaired. Resembling a camera that attaches to your glasses frame, OrCam makes use of a highly accurate text-to-speech recognition using the camera and hand gestures. OrCam also does facial recognition as well as brand logo recognition and can translate up to 20 languages as of this writing.
EatWith
Imagine the “Uber for family dinners.†Enter EatWith, a “social eating†experience that allows you to book dinner with a family in Israel. During our stay we were graced into the home of Chef Aliza, a Cordon Bleau trained chef who migrated to Jerusalem. She acts as EatWith’s ambassador, creating dishes that speak about the cosmopolitan influences of Israel. As a tourist, EatWith is one of the best ways to experience Israeli hospitality.
Keepers
Hanan Lipskin is passionate about keeping children safe from the perils of the Internet — especially with cyber-bullying. With background in the Israeli military intelligence, he developed Keepers, an app that protects children from cyberbullying on their social media platforms and chat by alerting parents if conversations are leading towards harassment.
ModLi
Nava brief Fried had a career in PR before she founded ModLi, the “first and only modest fashion platform.†Whether due to religion or simply fashion sense, ModLi takes into account cultural and religious nuances into the fashion world. Since launch she has gone global, realizing that the demand for modest clothing went beyond Asia and the Middle East.
Mobileye
This startup darling is the recent poster child of what every Israeli startup wants to achieve: being fully acquired by a bigger fish, in this case, a USD $15B acquisition by Intel for their vehicle automation technology. Although self-driving cars are still in development (and Mobileye is the world leader), current technology includes super advanced dash cameras that can predict accidents and help driver navigation, “turning back the clock 3 seconds†to help drivers make better decisions on the road.
ALYNnovation
Although more of an accelerator and less of a startup, the ALYN Hospital for Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center has its own R&D center inside the hospital. Whereas in other countries, startups are usually “outside looking in†out of the box solutions, in this case, the startup is located inside the hospital to find “inside the box†solutions for their patients. One of their projects is the Wheelchairs of Hope, which aims to mass produce the most affordable wheelchair into the market at only USD $100.00 per seat.
Once you stumble upon the necessity to write a group project report, don’t allow it go with a flow. Take the organizational part under control and keep in mind the following steps to succeed and get the highest grade for your assignment.
Step 1. Think with the end in mind
This idea is not ours, it was presented by Steven Kovi, and it doesn’t lose its actuality through decades. Before you start dividing responsibilities and working on each part think what you want to achieve at each stage. Of course, it is obvious, that you want to achieve the highest grade while applying the least amount of efforts. However, you should write down that your goal is to have a final draft till the particular date, it should have the particular amount of pages and additional materials, such as, for example, a presentation. Give short description to a presentation as well. Finally, you will come up with a 1-page document which will be a skeleton of your future work. Once you are done with this one, move to a strategy. Step 2. Choose the roles and write them down
Use the skeleton you’ve received at the first stage and expand it adding new information. It will take no more than 15 minutes but will save an enormous amount of time later. Divide the responsibilities, but don’t forget that a group project report is not only about writing, it is about organization. Note down who is responsible for technical issues, for instance, who checks the formatting, who answers for plagiarism check, who is accountable for the graph information, for text for slides, for pictures for slides. Many groups make the same mistake — they decide to deal with all that later, as the time comes, but it comes too fast and they often get lost. Finally, 3 people are making a presentation, while no one is checking the formatting the way it should be done.  Step 3. Set up the detailed internal deadlines
It is a no-brainer that you have the external deadline for your group project report. Most probably you have two deadlines — one for the raw draft another for the final draft. However, students are famous for violating them and here is the way to escape this well-known pattern. Use the skeleton again and add dates for each step. If you are really interested in doing things right, set up 2 deadlines for each stage: the first one marks it should be done or written, the second — presented to the rest of the group. Of course, with all those groups in messengers and shared documents online you just have to say “look, I am done with this, maybe someone wants to make some comments?†and call it a day. Step 4. Apply the old-school approach
Print everything you wrote and read it aloud for several times. Each of you. It might sound not just boring, but simply arcane. However, it is the way speechwriters around the world deal with the texts for presidents, kings and celebrities. You should both do it with the report itself and the presentation. It helps you find weak parts and make your writing sound more humane and engaging. More of it, research shows that when reading a printed material we can spot almost twice more mistakes and technical omissions. Underline them while reading and edit later — this way you will not lose the flow.
Diverse Architect People Group Working Concept
Step 5. Cross check critical points
No matter how much you trust each other, your final grade depends on this report, and you should be very attentive to others’ work when it comes to the crucial points, such as plagiarism, formatting and compliance of text with the graphic information. If possible, split into pairs and make a cross check. Make it a peer review experience, and don’t forget about the key principles: emphasize bright sides before criticizing, and if criticizing don’t forget to offer something better. There is a chance you think all this is boring and time-consuming, and the key idea is to get rid of this custom assignment faster. However, if you spend several hours following the described steps you will both stay on the safe side with the quality of your final draft and impress your professor with a creative, diligent approach.
