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I joined the IFS UK program way back, oh well, in the early 90's. It proved to be one of the greatest expriences in my life. Last year, I was fortuntate enough to go on another IFS program as one of the group leaders for the Oxford 2006 IFS Program. It was doubly rewarding because I was able to share this experience with some of my students.

This Summer 2007, IFS is offering two distinct UK Programs. Sidmouth for the Junior Program (15 year olds and younger) and Cambridge for the Senior Program (16 year olds and older).

If you're interested, you may contact IFS through their website at http://www.ifsphil.net/.

EJ Legaspi was 12 years old when he was sent to England by his parents. He is now an English teacher at an exclusive boys’ school in Greenhills. Over the summer, he was our Group Leader on the Oxford Program.

I'm sure that many great things have already been said about IFS's UK Summer Program. I was trying to stay away from phrases like “a life-changing experience” or “a journey of a lifetime”. However, I must confess that those clichés do apply and that my only contribution to the program’s anthology of praises is to reaffirm that the IFS experience really is a life-changing journey.

The early 1990’s weren’t a particularly good time for me as a child. While I was an excellent student, I kept to myself and to a small circle of friends. I learned about the IFS program from a letter circulated in the Ateneo and the promise of a summer in the UK proved intriguing. Luckily, my family thought the trip would be an excellent opportunity for me to spread my proverbial wings and they agreed to enroll me in the program. Upon arriving in the UK in the spring of 1994, the shy introverted boy melted away and emerged gregarious and eager for an adventure. And this is the beauty of the IFS program it forces of out of your comfort zone. Participants do not stay in the relative familiarity of a hotel or a dorm, but with a local British foster family. It is precisely this entrusting oneself entirely to the experience of the unfamiliar that you can actually go on an adventure.

In the month I was in England, I was forced to adjust to a radically different style of living. Rice suddenly disappeared in favor of cereals, bread and potatoes. English was to be spoken at all times and that really tested my communication skills. Money was an issue because I had to learn to budget my pocket money to last me the entire month. Culture was definitely a shocker for me as I discovered that Britain is not all about tea and scones. I remained steadfast and in the end I brought home a treasury of pictures and memories to last me a lifetime.

For many participants, it was a sink or swim experience and I believe that most us realized that we had it in ourselves to overcome that shadow of self-doubt and become a little bit more sociable, a little bit more responsible and a little bit more independent. This is not to say that we arrived home all changed in an instant. Some of us probably did not immediately overcome that reluctance to socialize at gatherings or others didn’t suddenly study more vigorously for school. This is because the effect of the IFS experience does not end with the trip itself, but rather it lingers over time and continues to affect the participant long after the boarding pass has faded. Until now, more than ten years after my trip, I am continuing to reap the benefits of my IFS experience as it continues to enrich me personally and professionally.

Retrieved January 19, 2006 from http://ifsphil.net/content.php?content_id=185.

It took me 65 hours to "rush" through this adventure and it's finally over.

Sure I have a dozen more things to collect, but for all intents and purposes, I have beaten The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

And oh what a journey it has been.


First of all, how does it compare to all those other Zelda games?

It's been said before and it isn't any surprise, but this is the best Zelda game ever made and oneof the best games ever made, period.

I suppose if you have read any other review of Twilight Princess, you already knew that. I'm here to tell you then why this Zelda game is all that and more.

For the uninitiated, The Legend of Zelda seems just like any other game. You're a hero and you save the princess from this evil monster. Very simplistic. It's far from the twists and turns of the current Final Fantasy or Metal Gear titles. It also doesn't have the purported "social realism" of the Grand Theft Auto games. It's not quite an RPG nor is it just an...oh wait...I can't finish this review now.

To be continued.

Much good things have been said about The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and I am quite possibly at the forefront of all the praise.


All the reviews I've read have been unanimously positive (no, I don't read Gamespot. I never read that site because I never liked the feel of their design nor their writing. Which is good anyway since I generally don't agree with their opinions anyway). And you can be assured that I love this game with all my heart and soul.

However, my friends know that I am extremely critical of everything - even of the things that I love. So here is my rant on the latest game in the series that I most desperately love.

 

First of all, I would like to emphasize that all these comments are written in the context of the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess. While both versions are virtually identical, I say this to emphasize that I'm looking at this as a last gen title as opposed to a Wii game.

First of all, the graphics. Like I said in my previous post, beautiful, but lacking in some areas. Given the scope of the land of Hyrule some compromises must be expected. I really don't understand what prevented them from making this a two disc game. I think they could have used higher-res textures and just spread it out onto two discs. Or is it that the Cube can't load all those textures onto its RAM efficiently? The Cube is supposedly a memory-efficient machine.  Then again, there are already more load times that I would have liked. Gamers bred on the Playstation are bound to not notice the load times, they're very short actually and pretty good. However, this is Nintendo we're talking about. I expected non-existent loading times. Or at least the screen didn't have to fade out when I move Link indoors.

Next on the agenda are the NPCs or Non-Playable Characters for you n00bs. Now they all have great character design and very, very well animated (Look out for Telma and the Fortune Teller, both in Castle Town, awesome!), but they're uh shall we say, a lot less complicated and a lot less compelling than the characters in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Granted that fetch quests are less of a focus here than it is in Majora's Mask, but when a Nintendo 64 game features a day-night cycle with characters that actually moved about differently as each day progressed, it's quite disappointing not to see it here.

No, I'm not expecting that they'd do something different each day like in the three-day cycle of Majora's Mask, just a night and day schedule they could follow a bit more precisely. Maybe they do, but I just haven't noticed it yet.

I noticed this because they day-night cycle caught up with me in the Eastern part of Castle Town (night turned into day) and the character I was talking to just disappeared.

I suppose this is just a glitch, but I did see quite a number. Now,I try to understand that a game as massive as this will bound to have glitches here and there. I for one don't usually encounter glitches in games because I don't look for them, so imagine my bemusement when I threw a bomb onto an elevator in the mines and promptly stepped on the switch. Link and the elevator proceeded with their animation as they descended with the bomb left floating where it was dropped.

 This lack of physics in a 2006 is a tad disappointing. Even more so when you contrast it with the polish of the rest of the game. For example, the water effects here are really, really pretty. However there is a gross lack of water physics. Jumping into the water will not really disturb the surface, just an added layer of animated ripples. I can actually live with that, but missing sound effects when you sometimes throw objects or enemeies into the water or over cliffs, is again disappointing.

 
Finally, my last big gripe with Zelda are the bosses. I love the fact that there are now mid-dungeon bosses in addition to the huge boss at the end of each dungeon. However they're all pretty easy so far. It isn't very satisfying to beat a lot of them even when compared to Wind Waker, which was criticized for being an easy game.

Even with all these complaints, I cannot over emphasize how much I love this game. I will post all the things I love about it once I finish the darn thing.

 

With that I log off and play some more. 

 

It's finally here.

The one thing that has caused me much delight and anguish ever since I caught a glimpse of it in May 2004. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The future Zelda game? Not quite. More like a blast to the past and then some.

So what do I think about it?

While I can't give my comprehensive review yet, at 20+ hours I'm only a third through the game, I'd like to scribble down my initial impressions.

First of all, the graphics are really, really pretty. The art direction here is undoubtedly one of the best ever seen in a videogame. Although I don't think that it's the prettiest Gamecube game ever made. That distinct honor goes to the game which can be seen here. Yes, it's true. There are ugly textures here and there. It's can be a bit distracting and the game unfortunately did not leave me rubbing my eyes in disbelief. That distinction belongs to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker that controversial entry to the series because of its heavily stylized take on Hyrule. That game I couldn't believe was actually playing on my TV. It looked like a cartoon and still the best implementation of celshading, bar none.

While my eyes could fathom the beauty that is Twilight Princess, my mouth was literally gaping at the scenes and vistas that unfolded before me. It's not exaggeration. This game is breathtaking in every sense of the word.

Watching Link on Epona gallop across Hyrule field with the lights dimmed is an experience on par with watching Star Wars in the theater.

Pure bliss.


However some cons and pros:

Cons
Low-res textures
Low-poly characters
NPCs disappear when the the time changes from day to night (Castle Town)
NPCs don't really have their own schedule (ala Majora's Mask)
So far a bit too similar to Ocarina of Time
Haven't really heard the Overworld theme yet
Occasionally poor collision detection
Bosses are far too easy


Pros
Beautiful art-style
Enganging controls (even on the Cube)
So far compelling story
Midna! (I LOVE HER)
Returning characters
Similar to Ocarina of Time
Dungeons
Huge overworlds
Wolf Link
Sumo wrestling (w/ OMG&WTF shirtless Link)
Zelda's hot



Here I am. Messy hair and Zelda in the brain.

Hopefully (and I'm pretty sure they will) that future Zelda games will continue this distinguished tradition of fine gameplay.

Every family has a Christmas tradition.

Noche Buena's our de facto celebration, but over the years it has dwindled away into a mere requirement.

I had a couple of students complain to me that Christmas day felt just like any other day. I suppose they were hoping for me to provide some solution  for that particular quandary. Unfortunately all I could say was:

<em>Welcome to the real world.</em>

I'm in the same boat you see. It's been progressively downhill since I was in high school. In college possibly even more so. However looking back, even those days weren't quite that bad. At least in college I had MUSMOS to work on. Kids to make happy. Christmas songs to sing. Spaghetti and Ketchup songs to dance to.

Now, well MRX? Nah.

I think I should be thankful I'm teaching. It's closer to the children's spirits than if I were in a corporate setting.

This year is also the first year we spend without my dad, who's in the US now. I sent him a gift via Amazon and that really surprised him. That made me happy. Gifts don't really make me happy. If I want something, I just go out and try to procure it for myself.

However, the fact we didn't see him yesterday is what really got me down. Add to this the fact that barely anyone visited the house. We didn't go see my cousins. I think this is a start of another new and difficult phase in my life. One wherein Christmas is even bleaker than before.

Maybe it'll be better when I have kids.

Stage FX with the kids of PKK, December 9, 2006. Rekindling the old flame in my heart. Not quite like Krismusmos though.

So I'm left with one Christmas tradition to truly care about.


They say high school is the time when you build your strongest friendships. For me that isn't 100% true.

I think I'm much more in constant contact with my friends from college than my high school classmates. Case in point, I barely saw my three closest friends from section B. Ralph was the one I saw recently, I literally hadn't seen him since college. That was more than two years ago!  Nay, almost three years! BJ, I think I saw sometime this year, but then again, I could be wrong. Af, I didn't see all year since he was in Utah for most of 2006.

So while these guys are great, I see my college friends more frequently. However there's one group that I see only once a year, but it always feels like nothing has changed.

 
That's my barkada. 

 

It's a bit hard when to trace this whole group came together, but since this is my blog, I'll tell it from my perspective.

The first friend I met here is JC Uy (second from the right). We were classmates from Prep to Grade 2. We sort of lost communication in Grade 3. That's when I met Joaquin (fourth from right). We became good friends and we were classmates from Grade 3 to Grade 6. In Grade 4, Dot (Daniel Obordo Tioleco, third from right) joined us but left when we were in Grade 5 because he got moved to another section. In Grade 5, Tony (second from left) joined our group and so did Russell (missing in action). Tony, Russ and I went to England in the summer after Grade 5 and that more or less solidified our friendship. In Grade 6, Dot rejoined the group for good since he became our classmate again. Tony went to another section and became good friends with JC and Aiko (first from right). Russ, sadly, had to migrate to Canada and he hasn't been back home since. Aiko didn't really become my close friend, because of some Black Forest cake incident the cafeteria, which left a negative impression of him on Dot, Joaquin and me. However, Aiko and I became really good friends when we became classmates in Grade 7. Joaquin and I were finally separated and he came friends with Alexei (fourth from left) who was our classmate in advanced math since grade 4. JC and Tony got sent off to different sections as well and Dot's section was right next door. He became classmates with Vega (third from left), who was never really my classmate but my clubmate in Grade 4 & 5, but didn't really become close friends until he, Alexei and I formed our "triumvirate" of sorts in high school. He's sort of the unofficial 8th member of our group and only really joined us this Christmas.

 Whew.  I just realized I traced about at least a decade of friendship, and as far as 18 years when it comes to some of them.

 And what made it certain that we stuck together after all these years?

 Simple.

We trust each other. The group sort of started with the idea that the group only consisted of the people who were classmates. However we realized early on that if we really wanted to remain friends, we'd have to

 
1. accept that we won't always be together

2. make other friends

3. have other barkadas

 
We're not an exclusive group. We've had friends come and go. In fact, I can think of a time when the group ballooned up to 12 or 15 members. That didn't last very long.

 We have similar interests, but not exclusively. Alexei, Vega and I are the ones whom I share the most common interests with. So it's not surprising they're the ones I see most often - every month or every other month.

The others, I'm sure they have other friends. Especially Aiko. He's the most sociable of the group.

 Barkadas fall apart when the lay claim over their members. "You're closer to them than you are to us," some would exclaim. Silly, little rabbits.

Jealousy over friends is just plain stupid.

Thankfully, we learned that lesson early on.

 
And so, our tradition is that we meet each other at least once a year. And that's always during Christmas. Any other reason to meet up is arbitrary, usually someone's birthday.

And ever since then, I was the one who usually fixes it. I usually end up cooking. But I like it anyway.

We've come a long way and from the way I see it, we've still got a long way to go. 

 
My mom, who's pictured with us below, is a witness to all this. She's watched us grow up from grade school to high school to college and now as adults. Wow, I can't believe we're all adults now (and it has been six years). Little kids she used to drive around for, now she drinks with.

 

As one can see from our smiles, we love being together.

This is another Christmas tradition I'll treasure forever.

 

And this is one family I'm not letting go of.