Patterns in Chaos

I am still a teacher after one month of trying to be one. Hehe

This profession is not in-line with field of expertise. But I want to try it and here I am, teaching a bunch of college students in a faraway and rural place.


The school is still anew that's why the place is still a construction site. There are seven rooms which shelter the 173 students everyday. One small faculty room which provides space for the 15 faculty and staff (including the director). There are three desktop computers which are shared by the 9 faculty who don't have laptops. One dot-matrix printer is at service. We also have the hi-tech printer (with scanner) but it needs repair. The campus library shares a room with the laboratory and computer room. We don't have internet at the moment because the only means of communication available is the Smart Network through SmartBro. It's like a dial-up/broadband which cannot sustain shared network use.

But there is one thing I really love about this place, the people are so warm. And I can have fruits like coconut, banana and dalanghita by just asking someone to pick one. I am so close to nature while I stay there.

The back part of the school is still a grassland. In the next 5 years, it will be different.


This is how the school looks like in front. Not much welcoming because of the mud especially during rainy days. But it's a place where one can learn something. On the left is the greenhouse; the place where the agriculture students cultivates organic tomatoes and eggplants.


Some of the students during Do-Day. They have to transfer all the stones and flatten the pathways.


This is where I stay during schooldays.


Just a pic from my usual sight. Note the small house above the tree. The tricycles are rare to pass through our place. But here, you can see two of them. It's usually the big trucks and buses.

The longest total eclipse will happen tomorrow in Asian region. This is believed to last for 5 minutes and will occur in India to Burma to Japan.

It's been 64 years since Japan has been able to witness this scenario so they prepared firework displays to celebrate this rare phenomena. As for Indian people, they were expected to stay inside their houses due to their belief that the invisible rays will strike on that day.

Two countries, different beliefs, different ways of looking at this one event.

Hope the Philippines can also witness it. I only remembered one total eclipse that happened during my childhood days. That time, sunglasses are not very much worn so we used film negatives to shield our eyes as we directly look at the fusion of two heavenly bodies.

As I was hanging out with my guy friends, one of them commented that I am one of the boys. But I am not offended.

Our conversation got in to the computer games. Then I said that I used to play counterstrike, War Craft, DOTA, Age of Empires. But now, I only play Crazy Kart and NBA Live. He was like, "So you like guy stuffs?" and I said, most of the time. I can play basketball (with girls), bowling and running; I don't mind getting dirty. I tired easily when I go shopping with my gal friends (I am no fashionista and I don't find shopping as exciting). I am active that sometimes people see me as tomboyish. Excuse me, but I am not a lesbo.

I just arrived from the mountains and checking my mails, then I have a mail which asks if I am a girl or boy? And then in the forum, people always mistake my identity as a boy so they call me bro or kuya (big brother). I don't mind those things because I know most people only assume gender based on names. I got confused, my name always appear as Lechylon. So tell me, does that name suggest that the user is a guy?

As my Windows OS crashed due to Win32 virus, I was faced with the problem on how I will retrieve my precious files. I got interested to Linux when I read somewhere that some people are using it to retrieve their files.

I had the resource of unlimited and reliable DSL while I was staying in a dormitory. It had become my hobby to download softwares, antivirus, tools, editors, etc. then I burn them in a CD (I haven't upgraded to DVD RW) and compile them or lend to my classmates and friends if they need them. The first Linux I downloded was Puppy because of it's small size (easy to download) and for the sake of my curiosity. I ran it and I got impressed with the fast speed of internet browsing. It had become my OS whenever I need to surf the net during my college days. I can even watch the movies stored in my HD. It's preloaded with apps but I don't know how to add one and configure the theme. I had looked for more distro and downloaded Zenwalk, Freespire, the newly released Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (that time) and Alinux (iso is still on my laptop because it won't fit on a 700mb CD).

To solve my problem, I used Puppy because I am somewhat familiar with it already. I successfully retrieved them and transfer them to my sis laptop. But when the stage of OS installation came, my laptop won't install any OS, it turns off everytime I reached the partitioning and formatting. The Linux live CDs that I had downloaded before were also no use, not one was booting properly and I can't get to the installation screen. Due to desperation, I tried and tried and finally installed Windows. The next day, the new Ubuntu and Kubuntu CDs that I ordered from shipit.ubuntu.com arrived, much to my surprise but it missed the exciting part of my experience.

Having lots of Linux in my CD case now, I tried them all last night to know why they won't boot. The Gutsy Gibbon that I have downloaded has a Wubi installer inside, I installed it and was able to ran the Live CD but it only gave me an unresponsive desktop. How come that the instruction says just reboot and it will do its task automatically? The Zenwalk and Freespire are leading me to the Caldera DOS DR boot and MD suggested that I type startx but the command is not valid. Then, I tried my newly arrived Kubuntu and Ubuntu CDs but still the unresponsive desktop and white screen. I thought it was my RAM but MD said he had run Ubuntu on a 192mb RAM. So, I can also ran it to a 256mb one.

I am persistent and won't just give up. I want to know why the Ubuntus are acting like that. I read some blogs and was able to discover the F4 SAFE GRAPHIC MODE during installation. I did it and voila, the desktops are now working on both Kubuntu and Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. The Kubuntu ran faster than Ubuntu even it was loaded with lots of graphic effects. I don't know why. I am still in Doubt if I will install it as a permanent OS (along with Windows) since it's running slower than normal under my laptop specs.

There's also an Xubuntu on which my specs will be suited but my prob is how I will download it. The fast connection that I have is at my Aunt's house and I haven't got the time now. I had taken a snapshot of the Kubuntu desktop.