Canon in D Major

Several nights ago, while Alice was busy looking for some songs to be added to her Friendster site, she came across a nice classical piece which quickly got our fascination. The piece turned out to be Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, and in the next few hours we had downloaded more than a few arrangements of it. The piece had since became Alice's default audio for her site. We had selected some beautiful arrangements and would like to share them with you. You may want to visit our family's site at http://lontokfamily.multiply.com for these pieces. (copyrights of the pieces are reserved by their respective owners.)

Johann Pachelbel's Fast Facts:

Johann Pachelbel was one of the great organist-composers of his day, a man who could count Bach's teacher among his pupils (He taught Johann Christopher Bach who gave his younger brother, Johann Sebastian Bach, lessons in music). His life was tinged with tragedy and hardship - his first wife died with her baby son in the plague of 1683, and he had to flee from the French invasion of Stuttgart in 1692 - but he settled in Nuremberg and his second marriage produced seven children, two of whom became musicians, one an instrument maker and one a painter. His church music is highly regarded and innovative in the way it links the pitches of the notes to meaning - steadfast faith denoted by repeated notes, for example. His lilting Canon in D is a throwaway little piece by comparison to his big sacred works, but its charming grace has made it a favorite filler of compilation CDs. The canon in D major was written in or around 1680. Pachelbel was born in Nuremberg in August 1653 and died there on March 6th, 1706.

Where you may have heard of Canon D:

- films such as Father of the Bride and Ordinary People
- some TV ads
- Coolio rap single in 1997, The Farm single All Together Now used in Euro 2004, Go West by the Pet Shop Boys
- in shopping malls
- in the funeral of Lady Diana Spencer

Sound Trip, Part 2

Yesterday, while preparing for our weekend ironing chore, Alice decided to organize her iTunes song list in her computer. There are songs that are repeated, primarily due to re-copying and re-updating of the list over time. Since she is currently 'crazy' over Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, she wanted to add a few of the good arrangements of the piece which she downloaded several days ago to her iPod, and thus before doing so, she needs to organize her iTunes list so that no songs can be repeated in her iPod. While at it, she decided to play our favorite songs done by local artists.. and so after quite a while, we had another sound trip there...

As I already intimated, sound tripping gives you varied emotions... when you're listening to your favorite songs, certain memories flood your thoughts, and you cannot help but just let them flow. Yesterday was the time to reminisce important events about me and my family... it was the time to remember precious events I shared with my kids... it was the time to rewind events of my life once more...

Sometime when you're listening to music and you're rewinding your life again through your thoughts, it cannot be helped that both good and bad memories will come. Good memories are always welcome... they serve to refresh both your body and your soul, and make you face life in a brighter perspective... bad memories... well, you cannot do away with them... good thing about them is, they give you important lessons in life... lessons that helped mold your character, if not made you a better person altogether...

Yesterday, aside from the ironing, I have done another important thing with the help of songs I listened to... that is, meditate about my life again... time and again, I need it.

Friends

It's always nice meeting and talking with friends...old friends that you haven't talked to for a while especially. Yesterday, while chatting with my kids, I chanced upon a friend who was also my student in the graduate school sometime ago... We chatted for a while - the usual pleasantries - and then the conversation later turned into our respective jobs. He said he's currently in the middle east, working as a lecturer in a college there, and right now in the second year of his contract. He further said it is quite boring there, sort of being inside the jail... Well, he said, that's primarily because there's just nowhere you can go to whenever you get that extra time to spend on leisure. (I guess that's the perennial dilemma of OFWs in the middle east). Anyways, he said that he's currently looking for a better job, maybe in another country... one in which he can bring his family, he says, so that he'll not be homesick anymore... we talked for a quite a long time... probably because both of us had nothing to do anyway to spend the weekend rest time, and probably because somehow, when you're in a foreign land, chatting with an old friend is really a time that you can treasure... I told him also about my job, and how I'm having the same emotions as his because I'm far from my family, and other trivial things an old friend will tell another old friend when they talk to each other again after sometime. We parted saying that we should always keep in touch, so that at least we can pass important 'trivial' information between each other :)

The same thing happened to Alice today... while preparing to chat with our kids, she chanced upon an old friend whom she met as a co-scholar in Sydney... they talked about many things - family, friends, work - and they also chatted for quite a while... Alice found out that she also visited Singapore last summer for vacation, and it was unfortunate that we were not able to see each other there, and probably spend some kind of a reunion there. Anyways, she's inviting us to come and see her place, probably in the summer, and Alice said we'll give it a serious thought. Alice and her friend even swapped new pictures of their adventures to further update each other of each one's new experiences... they also parted ways promising to keep in touch, and chat with each other again...

Friends are indeed treasures... they provide that extra 'push' so that we could go on happily with our lives, and continue with our own journey... chatting with old friends fill some space in our lives and somehow make it more colorful... meeting them even in the web after many years still brings us fond memories that provide more colorful pictures to our lives, both then and now... that's one purpose of the Net we should be thankful about.

On this day...

for Alice...

On this day marks a very important day in our existence... it is not because this is the day I first met you (although that is also important) nor is it the day you finally had enough of my "kakulitans" that you finally said 'yes' (it's very important as well!)... more than those, this day is important to us because this day starts our life together... eleven years ago.

I know that so many things happened between then and now... I had witnessed three miracles as you gave me our three pride and joy - River, Rain and Ash. I had witnessed how you bear the pain of introducing them to this world, and your patience of nurturing them to be the good children that they now are... thank you...

Our journey together is not without problems, and time and again, you showed your trust...and love, through all the hardships that we've been through. You had given me strength, many times when I needed it, and you had always been my guide through the times that I've been lost... much more, you saved me so many times already I cannot keep track anymore.

The good times we have are the most memorable ones I have... my time with you, as well as with the kids, are the sweetest... I may not always express it, but your company is the one I always long for.

On this day, I want you to know that you're the best that had happened to me (but you know that already, of course)... I want to tell you that knowing that you're there with me all the time, I could endure and go through anything and everything... I want you to know that my journey is the sweetest because I'm doing it with you.

On this day, as I always do in my prayers, I renew my vows and commitment with you... until my last breath...

Happy anniversary... I love you!

e-Learning

Working as an administrator for the learning content management system of an organization is both challenging and entertaining. For one, you get to meet lots of people, especially learners, and with it, you get to analyze how different people build thought processes and acquire knowledge. I find this very motivating as it is amusing since I learn to understand many kinds of people and their inherent qualities. On the other hand, working as a content administrator, especially for materials concerning training and education, could be frustrating at times. You have to always check whether modules are updated, whether new concerns are raised by both learners and mentors alike, and whether the whole package - the system - is working effectively and efficiently on both fronts - the technical and the social.

One thing that really annoys me in the current scheme of things is the fact that I need to manually enter all the participants whenever a new course, or module, is opened. Well, as there is not much security present currently in the network, I guess I have to bear with this task for sometime... anyways, each training course usually caters to an average of 20 - 25 participants, and so, it is not really a burden if you would really look at it...

As of now, I am proud of the fact that there are currently more than 15 courses being offered by the system - these are really diverse courses ranging from professional workshops to business-related to engineering-based and IT modules - and most of these courses are either created or put up with my help. There are more than 50 mentors and close to 500 learners already. I am equally proud that I am really progressing fast in this new area, which happens to be one of the hottest IT areas nowadays. Technically, I would say that I still need many things to learn and to develop, which I currently am giving priority in terms of time and effort. But then, when you're in a field that you love and doing something that you're just so passionate about, everything will be as simple as they can be, and everything will just come out naturally.

Of course, even though I am currently venturing into this new skill, I'm not forgetting that I am still, and will always be, a teacher. I guess it will always stay in my blood and in my system... I came from a family of mentors anyway, and I guess it really develops in the genes as an end-result of the never-ending human evolution. And thus, I keep a course or two as a mentor/teacher in the LCM system. It allowed me to hone further another important skill - being a specialist in learning development. But more than that, it enables me to continuously interact with different kinds of learners, be they new ones in the field, or old peers that like me, are not easily quenched in their thirst for learning new things. That's where my further development is anchored, I believe. Much more, it fuels my continuous evolution as a human being.