Ethel Visits

Ethel visits Los Baños

Feb-Mar 2002

It has been more than 5 years since Ethel's last visit. She came in 95 with Anthony and her three kids (Catalina had not yet become part of the Ringrose-Voase family). So when she came for a visit (Feb 10-Mar 5), one of the first things she wanted to see was how her beloved LB had changed.

On the South Expressway. Makiling hazy in the distance. The Expressway past Alabang continues to be one of the nicest tree-lined highways we have. The spreading acacias that shade the road were badly bashed in 1994 but have since recovered nicely.

Crossing in 2002.

Crossing is now a jigsaw puzzle of fastfood joints that have caused slowpoke vehicular flow.

Jollibee, which sits across Lopez from Mercury, is the oldest, but KFC; Chowking; Shakey's have set their tables here as well. Wendy's had a brief life in the building built over the sari-sari store that was the BLTB bus stop at the crossing (remember that place, guys? You could get puffed rice bricks and sweet sampaloc twists there). On the Crossing end of Lopez, a Robinson's Mall sits where the Rural Bank used to be.

That disputed empty lot on the left side of UPLB Gate is now Vega Mall and houses a McDonald's and an AMA computer school. Leo's Photo and Film developed into a Burger King.	Top end of Lopez.
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New and Weird Stuff at UPLB The UPLB campus has new monuments and new monumental mistakes .

This monumental mistake has been erected on the UPLB Library rotunda. A cross between a carabao and a winged creature, it seems to be the product of a faulty breeding experiment by the College of Animal Husbandry. Ethel and Angie decided to christen it the Carapati.

Really, does UPLB have to memorialize its mistakes?

The second monumental mistake is this dog organ of a monstrosity. It looks like the College of Vet Med dreamed this up, although the plaque says it was conceived by Fernando Bernardo. I don't know but if that thing on top were pink, I can see my dog licking it.

This eyesore sits between the Dev Comm and Admin Building and some 120 meters north of the infamous 'Rock' monument of Class of 1916 or thereabouts. You remember it: that big rock sitting on a pedestal on apex of the Humanities triangular lawn.

Them 1916ers really took the rhyme Konting bato,
konting semento, monumento real literal, huh?


For some reason, Ethel felt that UPLB alumnae (note she did not include the alumni) would appreciate this picture, so here is O. B. Lation's butt.	Angie and Ethel among the Feb Fair booths. The students had not come to man the booths yet which is why the pair look all alone. A carillon now sits at the far end of the football field.

A new building has been erected on the Old Chem lot. It sits in the shadow of O.B. Lation's left armpit.	The Vega Mall is the new building next to the gate and a private dormitory building, the other.

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Bowling for Starbucks

The pair of Allan and Jed team up
against the ladies and beat them by a whiska in bowling
to win free coffee at Starbucks. But before you jump to
the conclusion that they were being ungentlemanly,
see Angie's pictures below.


Red-hot Angie, decked out in wrist restrainer, personal bowling shoes, and wielding her personal pin-toppler of a bowling ball drilled with a fingertip-grip for a finely controlled hook shot, steps up to her mark.	Regardez vous, mes amis, le style de notre Angie! The form, the delivery, the tracking, the pocket hit, the pin action! Voila! The pins tremble and Messrs Allan et Jed fall to their knees in awe!

Ethel exhibits her bowling form.

Allan, Ethel and Jed smile after a well-fought match
Missing Angie is taking a powder room break

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