Some friendly requests to professors and instructors everywhere

This probably isn't news anymore for some people, but I recently jumped ship to another college and I do not reside anymore in De La Salle University-Manila. Old news aside, I like my new school, and I'm going to be staying in it for a good two years or so. The place is great (the places around it are better though), and most people there have quite some eccentric tastes and are actually interesting.

However, there are some do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts though) that I'd like to point out regarding my professors and instructors there. These will probably apply to everybody else out who are teaching to at least one other person besides themselves.

Don't put your class's/section's group on Facebook.

I for one try to avoid Facebook like it is an ugly part of town, but sometimes it just comes back like a bad habit and I end up being there anyway. For example, this post gets automatically advertised on my wall and every unfortunate person on my Friends list's news feed. Other notable examples include looking for someone, trying to communicate with people I barely meet every week, and checking out a group my professor made for the class I'm taking.

And the latter isn't really supposed to be there. Facebook is still a long, long way from being a good choice to organize serious groups, like groups between co-workers or, in my case, groups between instructors and students. For one, every privacy issue associated with Facebook profiles apply to groups as well. You really don't want outsiders knowing what your little private group is up to. That's why some companies opt for private corporate "social networks" because apparently people can't communicate on the Internet anymore if it doesn't involve a news feed or an instant messaging platform. I still communicate through old fashioned e-mail, and handle most instant communication through IRC (and sometimes VoIP), so that probably means I'm old.

What's a good alternative for Facebook groups? I'd have gone and suggested Yahoo!, but to me Yahoo! is just a silly company trying to be like Google but instead became a Google clone for those with inept computer skills and awful English. Google Groups is a good place to start, and there are also a lot of other services out there besides Facebook and Yahoo! that you can try out.

Stop handing out documents to students in formats other than PDF.

I like the Portable Document Format ever since it became an open standard at around the year 2008. It does a great job of preserving the original content and format of documents and its sheer portability and commonness is due to Adobe pulling a Microsoft move and telling everybody that their PDF reader and authoring tools are the only things that matter, when there are actually a lot more better readers out there and numerous ways to create PDFs. I can read PDFs on my desktop, my ThinkPad, my tablet, my phone, and my Kindle. And that is good.

However, some instructors thought it was a good idea to hand out documents to their students in their original, editable document forms. The "editable" part isn't the problem here, I actually do not give a shit whether I can manipulate my copy of the document or not. The problem is, handing out documents in such formats hinders portability, because, for example, files that use Microsoft's new formats (*.docx, etc.) look messed up when you're not using something that has Microsoft's name on it to open them. Sure, LibreOffice has done a good job of at least trying to preserve the original formats and looks of Microsoft .doc and .docx files, but when I open these files in my tablet or my phone, things get really ugly. I haven't tried opening .doc, .docx, or .odf files on my Kindle yet, probably because I think that's a very stupid idea.

Instructors should save all the documents that they're going to hand out to their students as PDFs - this goes for presentations as well. This saves me (and other students as well) a lot of time trying to figure out the original format of the file when LibreOffice is having a hard time opening it. Don't know how to save a document as a PDF? Your (probably pirated) copy of Microsoft Office 2010 has that functionality built inside it already.

Don't upload your materials to Rapidshare (or some other bad "filehost").

Right now as I'm typing this, I'm also downloading an economics textbook encoded as a PDF about 69 megabytes big. The size really shouldn't be a problem here - 69 megabytes are downloaded in less than 10 minutes by my connection on average. But right now the estimate says it's going to take a bit like 40 minutes to download (not adjusted to compensate for how badly Chrome estimates remaining download times). The problem lies where the file lies - Rapidshare.

Rapidshare has earned its share of popularity for being the [probably most popular] site that annoys people trying to access it and ripping off people stupid enough to avail of their services by coughing up some euros. The site throttles down your download speed when you're just getting your files for free, and you can't even download more than 2 files at once; both problems are remedied once you've given in to your sanity and you've decided to pay up. They're also not the only one doing this, there are countless of other "file hosts" out there ripping off each other's business models.

The solution for this would be to use an actually decent file host, like Mediafire, or create a Dropbox account and share the files from there. And if the file is really big, it's not too hard to just make a torrent out of it.

Oh, and after finishing the first draft of this post, reading through it two times and doing some edits here and there, my download from Rapidshare isn't even done yet. That means I'm probably going to be staying up late again trying to create a very minimal presentation that no one can understand unless they listen to me talk while I'm presenting. Thanks a lot for making me lose my sleep, Rapidshare!

Final Periodical Exams

And so it is the last day of my Final Periodical Exams today. This will be the final periodical exams, as it will be nonexistent in my college years. I'm going to make this one memorable by dedicating one short blog post in the Sulatang Tapunan about it.

One thing that surprises me every time, is that during big examination periods, such as periodical test and entrance exams, I keep an extremely high amount of composure. I do not feel any need to panic or even to worry about the exams at all. It seems that my rather unique ability to not give a damn about any given object, real or abstract, has helped me reduced anxiety before any given event. I'm glad to know that my habit of not giving a shit about everything at all has finally paid off, in the form of complete anxiety suppression.

And did I mention that I don't review my lessons that much? But I tend to remember more than my classmates who rush through their notes back and fourth hours before the exam. The advice that the human brain can remember things more clearly if you take note of it at least three days before the examination is really real. I believe in it.

Let's just hope my balls don't overgrow my brain (today, for the time matter), so that I won't let overconfidence blanket actual performance.

Catholic school introduces its latest innovation: Cockgrips!

Ah, what a pleasant day here at the quaint, quiet school. I'm just minding my business here, all alone with a few books, English, Math and one titled, 'How to piss on a urinal while sitting on it'. I turn my head to my right and see a very gorgeous girl, all dressed in the conservative uniform for high school girls of the school. Relying on basic human social instinct, I open my mouth to introduce myself, when suddenly some nasty voice screeched behind me and overtook me before I spoke. Suddenly I felt something gripping my crotch - oh shit - it's a cockgrip! I now writhe and roll on the floor groaning and screaming in pain as this inhuman metal instrument force over 9000 pounds of pressure into my pen0r.

That, my friends, is a verbatim statement of your typical student after the implementation of sticking spiky metal rings into every man's dick that steps foot in the school, causing unimaginable pain and a new wave of "dick of steel" jokes.

Latest innovation in dong suppression.

The Idea

At some evil lair...

Sister 1: We've got a problem.

Sister 2: Don't we ever not have any?

Sister 1: Shut up. It's about our student's convulsive public display of affection.

Sister 3: Yet again.

Sister 1: Yes, and this time, it gets worse. It seems that they performed such malicious acts on our Foundation Day. On our Foundation Day!

Sister 2: Such malice!

Sister 1: And it is one of those days, when their parents come to the campus to watch our extremely boring exhibits!

Sister 2: The implications this would cause! Surely they would think we raised their children to be become raging sex machines as adults?

Sister 3: We need to do something about this immediately. Rules would be unnecesary. I think we need to apply some physical force. Any ideas?

Sister 1: Beating the shit out of them when they come five inches between each other would sound good.

Sister 2: No, that would violate their inexistent human rights. Let's try nagging them to death with our sermons.

Sister 3: That didn't even work. Why don't we threaten their parents instead?

Random passing retard: I love cockrings!

Sister 1: Yes, that's it! Cockrings! We'll use cockrings to supress them!

Sister 2: We are agreed. Cockrings, then. (Evil laugh)

Summed up (for those of you who does not understand American humor), what the administrators the schoolwould like to propose is to implement metal spikes to be worn by any male with a wang going inside the campus. Even those fat dudes who have dongs that barely reach an inch in length are not safe, MicroRings, as they have called it, are developed for the men with almost no dick.

The implementation of such horrid instruments would immensely supress the sexual thoughts and desires of any man, regardless of sexuality, walking inside the campus. Even a semi-boner would bring your wood to a "phallus-inspired" iron maiden hell.

Above: Installing the Cockgrip on an unsuspecting visitor.

Mass Production

More than 5,000 cockrings were built in the course of one week, thanks to the unsuspecting force of 5-year old orphans whom the sisters dragged away from the streets in order to work in dirty factories filled with rats and slave drivers. 4,000 of these rings were built for normal sized wangs, 500 built for those rated as "Dongzilla" size, and 500 for those under the miniature scale.

Actual photo of the production.

The cockrings will be distributed by various security guards who will shove these metal instruments of doom to every student passing by, even if they are female. These rings are not disposable and are to be worn by the student for the rest of the school year. Those who misplace their cockring will be prohibited from graduation and promotion rites.

Conclusion

If you're a nympomaniac, or would like to have your dong sent to near death trauma for the rest of your lifetime, head over a catholic school! You don't have to enroll or sign anything, just bring your john along! It will be fun, I'm sure, realizing that every part of your body is granted rights of protection, except for your wood!

Above: Video footage of a student being retrofitted with the innovative Cockgrip.

Aldo writes for the sake of the right of expression and does not hesitate to say what he has to say to anybody, regardless of whom that anybody is and his/her authority over the people! If you've got something to say about his writing, raise your hand and speak up, nigga!

Retreat later

My classmates and I have a spiritual retreat later at around 10PM (+8:00GMT). The whole retreat will end tomorrow at 3PM or so, and we're staying at some big-ass building in Batangas.

Never had any experience about having a retreat before, some say it's just a recollection, only that it takes on a course of two days and it's usually in a faraway place. I'm writing a few recollection letters (or letters where you recollect your recent f-ups with those people) for my friends, I hope they work.

Now I have to prepare, because I'm leaving the house at 9:15 and it's already 7:44 here. Need a quick check on the stuff I'm going to bring before I'm ready to roll.

NCAE is way too easy

Wow, I had a nice nap today. Not necessarily a whole 3-hour nap, but a total 5 hours of little naps I took when I successfully speedrunned the whole NCAE (National College Assessment Examination). The test was supposedly five and a half hours long, but no, I think I can do it in about three hours. Maybe even faster if I'm in a crazy mood for speedrunning.

Anyway the quiz looked like it was built for little kids. The questions, even the mathematical problems were too easy. I'm guessing the DepEd pictured us as little wussies at first and began to give us pussy exams. They gave us eighty minutes to answer the Reading Comprehension subtest. I didn't even need thirty minutes. I finished the whole subtest in about twenty minutes and dedicated the rest of the time in taking a good nap.

It was the same for the other subtests. Every one of them - Verbal ability, non-verbal ability, mathematical skills, scientific ability, and entrepreneural skills, were not even comparable to the ones we have at school. The UPCAT was easy, and the NCAE doesn't even wag its dick at the UPCAT. So why even bother giving it to senior high school students?

Oh well, it's over, so, why should I care?

NCAE: Why it sucks

The NCAE (National Career Assessment Examination) is a national examination held nationwide in all high schools in the Philippines, regardless if the school is publicly or privately owned. It was meant to check which kind of schools fail and which owns. However, students and their parents, being stupid and gullible because the word "National" was included in the label, began to take the test as, "Something to determine which college degree or major is best suited for you".

That idea is absolutely retarded. I don't need to rely on some quiz to know what I'm good at, or where I belong. I can do the deciding part myself. I don't trust a quiz that looks more like the typical Facebook "What college course fits you most?" quiz that looks like it's written by a 6-year old who can't type and has lost conciousness with English. The only difference is that the NCAE is way harder and it's much more formal.

Quoting the cab driver who ignored red stoplights, "I don't need to rely on a machine just to think. I have a brain, and I'm determined to use it". In his story, the narrator describes how the cab driver ignores all red lights but still he crosses intersections with caution. This cab driver is the example of a thinking man. And I bet he didn't even go to college or finish high school. How about the senior high school students, who endlessly brag about their eduacation and how they finish with honors. But they can't even decide their future and are better off letting a retarded quiz do it for them.

No sir, I refuse to be brainwashed, however, I need to go through this tomorrow since as usual, I'm threatened for my balls.

Nerdrage

Translation to English: Your ignorance and lack of devotion to emoness is too low you bastard! You're so pissing me off! your ignorance is so out of this world like me I thought you're "friends" and now there's too many people who are mad at me! They said there's a AC CULB 09-10 trying to become an emo too but is also ignorant!

Or whatever.

No, I'm not talking about those 300 pound douches in WoW that freaks out when their character gets pwned hard. I'm talking about fangirls with no life whatsoever and spends their time influencing others on their beliefs, "Life is shit".

The picture above is actually a serious case in the school, where the authorities (in these case they're nuns) got themselves on the Internets, decided to eavesdrop on the students' cyberconversations and stumble upon this. When they found this profile and its really obscene content, they spread word about it in a recent meeting. Then they began a long sermon about how the teens are so abusing the power of the Internets and their anonymity. Well I have 4chan.org do that for me so I guess I'm not abusing or anything.

I don't even know why these dorks are so pissed off. Must be another case of "follow me to not die", where students force their fellows to follow their false beliefs and to make themselves look popular. Probably this emo kid was ignored by her classmates that she went home, filled a gas tank of a Hummer full with tears, then proceeded to donate blood using a razor blade. Then grabbing her $250 laptop, she starts banging her head on the keyboard, creating words of pure fail.

After the authorities spread the word, the emo nerd became scared. So scared actually, that she thinks there's someone following her every second. Now she made her profile private (so that only "friends" can view her writings) and messaging is now off. Wiping the blood flowing from her wrists, she thought she's now in the clear, but no, she fails yet again. She forgot to erase the status message. And like the average Friendster tard, she pointlessly thought, "Oh well my profile is set to private nobody will see this except me my "friends" and Edward Cullen". Pure fail.

Now you must be wondering why the authorities haven't performed any form of action on the offense made. It's because of the following: (1) The FS profile is a group profile, where it's possible that it is being moderated by the a group of people. So you have a group of suspects, and you can't just point at them and say he/she did it. And (2) There's another case going on, and it's [the other case] is much more serious since it is targeted at a member of the faculty.

So have fun admiring the fail above! I sent a friend request to this dork so that I can read the rest of her "writings". I don't have to worry about her not accepting since Pinoys are so desperate for attention they'll accept anything. Then maybe I'll screenshot moar parts of her nerdrage so that the whole Internets can have another reason to have a National Internet Lol at Nerds Day. Hooray.

1st Periodical Exams

Well, it's the 1st Periodical exams in our school together, and now I'm being bitched to shove my face up my ass while I destroy my eyes reading textbooks, while also burning my memory faster than a car magnet on a hard disk drive by recalling every single discussion in the class since two months ago.

This is a difficult process that repeats four times in a school year. I wonder if other countries, especially the U, S and A also has this kind of system. I'm going to be typing out reviewers that I won't spend an hour fondling with. Another complete waste of paper, probably.

The pros and cons of the "exams" season:
Pros
- I get to get home at 11AM instead of shitty 4AM.
- I can freely sleep without the proctor minding after I have done speedrunning my test paper.
- I have the time to nap at home.
Cons
- Parents will force me to study pointlessly
- I'm dealing with fuckwads, who are crosses of a homo sapien and a giraffe, who bends their long necks towards your paper. Or people with sniper eyes that can zoom in optically without the use of extra lenses.
- I can't touch my computer unless I tell them I'm making a reviewer
- And maybe they'll pull out the modem and flush it down the toilet for a while. No worry, I got a lot of shit on my computer I can have fun with, like GTA2, Demonstar, Plants vs. Zombies, and Duke3D.

Holy shit, already 30 mins left and I've done nothing, I think I'll just bang my head on the keyboard, perhaps my head will spit out everything it knows and then encode it on the computer.

Finished the UPCAT

Was supposed to post this way earlier but I was too bored and tired that I took a two hour nap followed by three hours of Duke fun to iron out the stress.

I woke up at like 2AM in the morning and had a heavybreakfast consisting of meatloaf, a cup of rice, two slices of wheat bread, and a mug of Arabica coffee. Then I took a shower, dressed up, made sure that everything I need is set and began my journey.

It was a very long trip, that it took us preferably 3 hours or so to reach the University of the Philippines. No, it's not because there was heavy traffic, it was early before dawn, hell, nobody's driving at those hours. It's because we were facing a shitstorm and we won't risk running down roads in speeds faster than 50kph. All went well (I think) until I reached my destination.

There were only a few people, about twenty to thirty, waiting in the College of Arts and Letters (my designated testing area) when I arrived. I arrived at 5AM, the exam won't start until the clock reaches 6:30AM. However, when it was at least ten minutes before the planned time, there was already a huge mob waiting behind me, about four hundred to be exact. Most of them won't fit in the waiting garage and just waited outside in the rain. The personnel thought it was a good idea to let us in now (finally), so that the area will not be too congested.

The testing room was nice and dandy, with none of those pre-elementary educational posters posted on different sides of the wall. The only thing stuck on the wall is a whiteboard and a blackboard. The two proctors explained the instructions and etiquette of the examination, and then the test began with a 50-minute time period of Language Proficiency.

It was a piece of cake, and it only composes of "Insert the most logical fragment here", "Which of the following does not follow the formal writing style", etcetera etcetera. I finished in about 45 minutes, and I took the liberty to take a 300ml gulp of water and two loaves of whole wheat bread to power me up for the next round.

The next fight was another 50 minutes or so, this time it's focused on General Science. It's a good thing I nerd'ed General Science in First Year (but stopped in the next year because I had better things to do), so I answered the questions in a breeze. There were some questions I have to skip, since 1/4 of the wrong answers will deduct your correct answers. This is their anti-speedrun system and it worked like a charm. Now the examinees are given brain aneurisms while trying to decide to take the risk of guessing or just skipping the question and moving on.

During the whole Science period, my bladder was against me. I feel excretory wastes (laymen's terms: piss) seriously trying to get out of my system, so I immediately went to the nearest lavatory for relief. The comfort room was clean and tidy, but some parts are riddled with doodles and messages that are written using plain permanent markers. Most of them are pretty civilized and are only there to prove that people are just "marking their territories" or sending a message to the users of the lavatory in form of writings like "Did you enjoy pissing?" on the toilets. It made me lol and gave me more willpower to finish the subtest.

The third subtest is something I'm really pissed about - Mathematics. We were provided an hour and fifteen minutes to answer, which was more than enough ample time to answer 60 mathematical problems. As I expected, it was full of computations that I gave up on remembering formulas and just trust my logic, instead of persistence, on answering the questions based on common sense. After an hour later I took another snack break by finishing a bar of Snickers and another 300 mililiters of water.

The last part was Reading Comprehension, and it was easily the most boring part and I'm fighting my instinct of falling asleep while reading endless, irrelevant paragraphs in either English or Tagalog. We were asked to find the main idea of the paragraph, which is either to give ideal information or just to put us to a short slumber. In the end, I succeeded in finishing the subtest at least 20 minutes before the end of the time, since I just scanned through the paragraphs, munching on another Snickers just to combat the instinct of sleep.

After I'm done, we were led out of the building and I was led into a six lap course circling the perimeter of the College of Arts and Letters, trying to find my ride home. Finally, on my last run I found my mother waiting for me outside the building, and I was so pissed that I asked a barrage of questions about where the hell were they. But walking for a third of an hour around a building perimeter looking for something sure is good exercise. Cardio time!