Which fishes are safe to eat

We know that it’s healthy to eat fish but we’ve heard too that certain kinds of fishes contain high levels of mercury due to polluted waters and thus, can be harmful as well.  I came across a list of fishes that were categorized according to their level of mercury content and sharing with you this useful guide:
Low level of mercury – these are the safest to eat and we can eat up to 2 to 3 servings per week (oh no, I am eating more than 3 servings per week!):
Samaral, dilis (anchovies), hito (catfish), galunggong (mackerel), salmon, tilapia, shrimp, squid and crab, bangus (milkfish). Bangus contains the highest level in this group.
Moderate level of mercury – limit eating to 1 or 2 servings per week.
Banak (mullet), maya-maya (snapper), canned light tuna
High level of mercury – at most, we should limit it up to 3 servings per month.
Fresh tuna or sashimi, lapu-lapu (grouper), sea bass
Ultra high level of mercury – not recommended for consumption.
Marlin, tuna (ahi), swordfish and shark
As a general rule, the smaller the fish is (e.g. 12 inches and below), the safer to eat it.  This is because small fishes have lived in the ocean for a shorter period, thus limiting their mercury absorption.

Photographing Nature Exhibit

During the Fun Photo Shoot Series at Hidden Valley organized by the Filipinas Heritage Library last month, we were asked to submit our best photos from the session where some will be selected for an upcoming exhibit at The Alcove.  I was able to drop by the exhibit yesterday and guess what? One of my photos made it!  Not bad considering I only used a (cringe...) point and shoot camera! Haha...  

The exhibit has been extended until end of November at the Filipinas Heritage Library along Makati Avenue (across Manila Pen).  You can also view the exhibit at The Alcove's online gallery.  My classmates' shots are really awesome.  Mine was probably just a space filler! Haha...

How Innovators think

I read an interesting article on this topic weeks ago where people from the Harvard Business Review and international business school INSEAD tried to explain what makes visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos tick.

To cut it short, the experts (who have spent 20 years of studying global leaders) said that creative people ...
...can make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas.
...they ask "what if", "why" and "why not" questions that challenge the status quo.
...closely observe details, particularly of people's behavior.
...experiment.
...are good at networking with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn (talk about Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs!).

In one word - inquisitiveness.  But the sad story is inquisitiveness wanes as we grow older.  One expert cited that when you're 4 years old, you ask all sorts of questions.  By the time you are 6 to 7 years old, you usually stop asking questions because you realize that teachers value right answers more than provocative questions.  By the time you're a grown up and in the corporate setting, curiosity has already drummed out.  In fact, stats show that 80% of executives spend less than 20% of their time discovering new ideas.  Tsk...tsk... The moral of the story - we should maintain our childlike curiosity as we grow older and the next time a kid peppers us with questions, encourage his inquisitiveness because we'll never know, he might just be the next Steve Jobs. :)   

Fun Shoot Series at Hidden Valley

My friend and I joined the Fun Shoot Series of the Ayala Foundation held at the Hidden Valley in Laguna yesterday. Purely for fun since I don’t even own an SLR. In fact, it was actually my first time to attend a photography session. When the other participants started talking about polarizer and apertures, I couldn’t understand a thing! Haha… And when they started taking out their SLRs, zoom lenses and other accessories, it was time to take out my point & shoot camera! Haha…

Here are some of the photos that I took (too bad though I don’t have a nice shot of the falls).

And when our teacher asked us to submit at least one photo for the critique session, here’s what I submitted -

and I was so happy when he said that it was a very good shot. The colors are vivid, he said, and the spider gives a scale of how big the flowers are really are. Whew, I survived with my plain point & shoot camera! Haha…

Mama Mary relic in the Philippines

My mom and I went to visit the Marian Exhibit yesterday at the Mall of Asia (MOA), Pasay City, which features different statues of the Virgin Mary - a lot of which are original and miraculous statues that were flown from various parts of the Philippines. Sorry I didn’t bother to remember the names since though each statue looked different, they all represented Mama Mary and that is what mattered to me. (That, plus I really have a poor memory. Haha...).

Anyway, we were lucky to have seen a relic of Mama Mary – a tiny piece of Mama Mary’s veil given by the Vatican to Fr. Suarez. The relic is housed inside the cross in the photo below.

One of the statues that I was really delighted to see was Bambi Maria (hope I remembered this right!) – a statue of Mama Mary as a baby which came from Italy and given to the Salesian priests. “Bambina” in Italian means baby girl and it’s only once a year that this statue is exposed for public viewing which happens every September 8 at the Don Bosco Church along Pasay Road, Makati City.

The exhibit runs until October 21, 2009 (Wed) at the Ground Floor of the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City (just beside the skating rink). Hope you make time to visit. :)

Life's challenges - blessing or a curse?

I got a copy of "50 Prosperity Classics", a collection of key messages and excerpts from the classic and best books on prosperity and abundance (a way to save time on reading! Haha...). By prosperity, it's not just about financial abundance but about well-being and giving back. Thus, the book is divided into 4 sections - Attracting Prosperity, Creating it, Managing it and Sharing it.

I just started reading a few pages and came across insightful messages from James Allen's Path to Prosperity. He knew of 2 men who lost their hard-earned savings while still young. The first fell into hopelessness and regret while the other said "worry won't bring it back, but hard work will". The first man continued to mourn his loss and bad luck which snowballed into even worse circumstances. The second one started anew, worked really hard and eventually regained his worth. To one, the loss was a curse. To the other, it was a blessing.

Allen says, "If circumstances had the power to bless or harm, they would bless and harm all men alike, but the fact that the same circumstances will be alike good and bad to different souls proves that good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind of him that encounters it."

So when faced with life's challenges, just ask yourself - blessing or a curse? Move on or wallow in regret?

What's "dolphin" in Filipino?

A friend asked us this question today and we all thought it was a joke. We all blurted out, "Is there really a Filipino term for dolphin?" trying to decipher if there was a punchline to his question. When he said there's really a Tagalog term for it, we guessed dolpin, dolpen... Of course, all our guesses were wrong. Haha...

And the answer is - Dolphin is Lumbang lumbang in Filipino! It's my first time to hear the term. What a shame!

Here are some more to test how good you are with the Filipino language. What are the Filipino translations for -

Bag?

Wallet?

Dike?

Falcon?

Give up? Here are the answers:

Bag - Tampipi

Wallet - Kalupi

Dike - Pilapil

Falcon - Bagwis

Don't worry, I didn't get anything correct either! Tsk...tsk...

Farming and Farmville

In the past couple of months, I've been hearing friends and acquaintances discussing about harvesting crops and raving about their cows and barns and so out of curiosity, while we were at the San Benito Farm weeks ago, I finally decided to install Farmville in FB (I created a virtual farm while in a real farm! Haha...).

Other than curiosity, I am really also interested in farming. In fact, around that time, I was trying to convince my friend to accompany me in an upcoming organic farming seminar but she wasn't interested.:( She said that I should probably test my farming skills in Farmville first. Haha... Expectedly, since I rarely open my FB account, the initial batches of crops I planted just withered! Then the patches of land that I plowed weren't aligned and had gaps in between! Total chaos! Haha...But I did have some kind of strategy - maximize land utilization. I spent all my money on plowing and planting - down to single digit every time (after all, ROI is always guaranteed). Then I put cows, goats and sheep within the gaps. My farm looked like a mess but I can't complain, the strat worked pretty well in growing it.

It's fun playing Farmville. And if you're like me who's hesitant at first because you rarely check on FB, you can choose crops which you can harvest in 3 to 4 days. My favorites are wheat, artichokes and now, watermelon. :)

This is how my farm looks like now. I just finished organizing it a bit. The patches of land look like nothing is planted because I planted watermelon and it means, I don't need to log in to FB until Monday night! :)

Foodtrip: Flying Pig

I seldom go in the Eastwood area but recently, we had a going away lunch for a friend who's going on a sabbatical for 6 months to do volunteer work in Africa. We tried Flying Pig in the new Eastwood Mall.

One of my friends and I shared the house's bestseller - Frying Cuchi Frito. I know it's cholesterol-packed but it's super yummy! A quarter serving costs Php785 and it comes with soup and 1 side dish.

French Onion Soup

Frying Cuchi Frito. Deep fried suckling pig served with balsamic liver sauce.

Back to using mind-mappping

Five or six years ago,I bought a book in Malaysia called Mind-Mapping by Tony Bunzan. It’s basically a technique to organize and/or generate ideas coming from one central theme using colored pens and blank sheets (no lines). I so loved the technique that I used it for meetings and even my task lists. But at that time, only a few knew about mind-mapping and when I used it during meetings, people thought I wasn’t taking them seriously because I looked like I was doodling! Haha… I stopped using it then. :(

About three weeks ago, I was in a meeting and noticed that the person I was meeting with was using mind maps to take notes and I couldn’t help but make a comment. Apparently, that person is behind all the mind-mapping workshops here and I luckily got invited to attend a mind-mapping workshop. How cool can that be?:)

So in the last 2 days, I learned a lot not just about the different applications of mind-mapping but how the mind works. Plus a lot of fun activities to challenge the way we think! Really sometimes, we like to think so complicated that we miss out on the most obvious and simple solutions (which are usually the best).

Anyway, I’m now back to using the mind-mapping technique. At least hopefully now, as more people use it, I wouldn’t be seen like I am just doodling (although ok, sometimes I do! Haha…).

If you want to learn more about mind-mapping, you may visit the Salt & Light Ventures website. They regularly conduct workshops and they also carry Tony Bunzan's books.