The UN Apple Picking Mission

Even though I have tons of work to do this weekend, I did not pass up a chance to go for apple picking. You probably know how difficult it is to go around Syracuse without a car. So if a friend offers to drive to a place beyond the reach of public transport, accept it! And besides, I figure I should start savoring the remaining good weather before winter arrives.

Kyle organized an apple picking trip with new friends at ESF. Interestingly, he made a good list of international students coming from all corners of the globe. So there we were, just like a UN diplomatic team, doing a mission in an apple orchard somewhere in the outskirts of Syracuse. We went to this place called Beak and Skiff Apple Farms in Lafayette, 20 minutes drive from Syracuse. As soon as we arrived, I instantly got excited upon seeing low lying trees with thousands of red spots. Before I always thought that apple trees were tall and broad. Remember we used to draw apple trees like that in primary school? Damn, those primary school teachers fooled us!




Anyway, I really enjoyed the trip even though I caught myself thinking of how to solve my economics homework several times throughout the day . I think it was time well spent and I always believe that we ought to unwind and relax from time to time.

If you want to see more apple picking photos, please go to my flickr account HERE.

Thanks Kyle and the UN Apple Picking team! 'Til our next mission!

Not quite like Europe

"Syracuse is a charming city", as described by our friend, Chris. True enough, it's a melange of various western architecture and imposing buildings, which kinda gives the place a feel of Europe ... more half-baked Europe though. It's blessed with well-maintained plazas, monuments, and churches, which unfortunately are under utilized. I was actually a bit dispirited because the streets and avenues were empty. I am not sure why, but it could be because it's a Saturday afternoon and there's a big football match (SU vs PennState) going on at carrier dome. It's a Saturday afternoon! Where else people go? And even if it's the world cup finals, I don't think plazas get empty on a weekend in Europe. There will always be old folks not interested in football who will find it more worthwhile to hang-out in the plazas.


Anyway, I still find it very charming though. There are places that I would definitely go back to and explore -- like Armory square and Salina St. There's also little Italy and the museums that are definitely worth seeing. For friends and family planning to visit me here, don't worry, I'm already familiarizing myself with good places to see. For one, I would definitely bring Yas to a craft store in Armory Square where they showcase real works of artists. Kinda expensive yet very original. Anyway, if you want to see more photos, please feel free to visit my flickr account HERE.

I disagree with friends who say there's nothing to see in downtown Syracuse. I know they would rather go to Carousel, the mega shopping mall here. Perhaps that's the reason why the city is not bustling enough -- people would rather go to shopping malls and save up for a drive to the Big Apple. Indeed, shopping malls and sprawl developments are ingredients to making a struggling city. I just see so much potential in this city and it shouldn't just be regarded as "the place you go to because you have no other better choices in upstate NY". I hope downtown Syracuse will make a rebound in the future.

Fish and Energy

This will be my last entry for the week. Whew!

How do you fancy spending a Saturday afternoon in a camp an hour away from the city in the middle of nowhere? Sounds relaxing, eh? Well, wait 'til you get there to realize that you have to wear giant waterproof boots, walk in 2-5 feet of water 1 km upstream, electrocute (alright, more of stun) fishes, record their mass and length on a waterproof logbook under lite rain, and calculate the energy flows through trophic zones. If you really wanna know, that's exactly how I spent my precious Saturday afternoon this week.


You're probably wondering what an environmental and energy policy major such as myself doing in a stream and catching fishes at Sandy Creeks. When Yas heard about this, her initial reaction was, "Woah! You're school really maintains its forestry roots!" (Of course she said it in tagalog. hehe. "maintains" is the closest word I could find for "panindigan") Yeah, that's what I thought so too, until I learned the rationale behind it.

Okay, so here's how it goes. How do you value natural resources? How much are you willing to pay to preserve a primary forest? Let's make it simpler. How much are you willing to pay for the life of a 1-kg salmon? Say 1000 pesos because that's what you would probably pay in a sushi bar. Maybe 300 pesos if you buy it from Farmer's market. Now, do you think that's the true value of a 1-kg salmon? How do you account for the salmon's services in preserving the ecological balance and integrity of the stream? I don't think 300, nor even 1000 pesos, would justify that. That's the sort of conundrum you get yourself into when you try to monetize the value of something that is hard to value in the first place -- like natural resources or a person's well being. You're probably wondering why there's a need for such valuation. Well, here's another example. How much do factories pay to dump carcinogens into our atmosphere? Nil! Governments don't know how much to charge these factories because we don't know what monetary value we can fairly assign for our atmosphere. Biophysical and ecological economists attempt to quantify everything in terms of energy flows in the hope that it would avoid some of the biases of monetized valuation. So again, what's the value of a 1-kg salmon? It may depend on how it affects (and utilizes) the flow of energy in an ecosystem. Cool huh?

I just wanna show this photo because I find it very interesting and fun. Well, the guy on the left most side is not wearing a ghostbusters proton pack. It's an electric stunner designed to temporarily incapacitate fishes that swim near the probe. Once they get stunned, the 2 other folks collect and put them in a temporary fish tank where another team takes them for physical examination. Unfortunately, some of them are randomly selected to be dissected by standby ichtyologists (fish experts). All for the name of environmental science! You gotta sacrifice some to save the world, I guess.

Hail to Skype

Skype, not the airplane or television, is the greatest invention of man. In what other platform can you do video and chat simultaneously and uninterrupted? and for free?! Phone cards are absolutely obsolete!

Just to describe to you how great skype is, the other day I gave Yas and my family a virtual realtime tour of my attic. Amazing! Anyway, that's Yas there in one of our late morning (late night for her) skype conversations. She's complaining I don't mention her name in my blog (I love you Yatsi!). So to all the single women out there hoping to get a chance, sorry, I am already taken. haha! Feel!

NFFs: New Found Friends

It's always sad to leave friends behind when one journeys to a new place. If you think about it though leaving is not about losing friends, but gaining more instead. Here's a bunch of newly found friends whose company I'm beginning to enjoy very much.

We had a movie night yesterday and watched Angela's Ashes, a film about the juvenile life of Frank McCourt. Although the film was overwhelmingly depressing, in the end we still had fun knowing that we had spent the night with good company. We decided to take a photo just to document it, hoping it would evolve into a monthly tradition. Believe it or not, this is almost the majority of the Filipino students in SU and ESF! There's one caucasian there (obviously not a Filipino), our housemate, who has already been accustomed to Filipino company and hospitality. Yep, he's already part of the family.

Just a quick intro, we have friends doing chemistry, biology, policy, finance, and even music! This is indeed a bunch that reminds me of friends back in Singapore: smart, wacky, and just simply pinoy.


More about what we do as a group: yes, admittedly we spend a lot of time in the shopping mall ... only because we have lots of errands lately to prepare us for winter. However, we do find time to just explore and enjoy the remaining few weeks of "none-winter." About a week ago, the pinoy neighbours decided to do a picnic dinner in a park nearby. We had pasta, pizza, my tuna sandwich (haha), and watermelon in the middle of lush, breezy greenery. This is the sort of weekend I ideally would always want to spend. Hopefully I could share this with you when you visit me here in Syracuse (not in the middle of winter though!)