Review - Tumba Tumba Children’s Museum of Philippine Art

My mom and I recently went to UP Vargas Museum to go see “ Tumba Tumba Children’s Museum of Philippine Art”. This exhibit was presented by CANVAS, or The Center for Art, New Ventures, and Sustainable Development, as a study of an actual operating museum.  

Be prepared for a bunch of blurry pictures. I'm still learning how to take good, focused ones.

That's me standing beside the sign. So small!

When we were outside I noticed that there were colorful strings that act like walls but they are so thin that I barely noticed them, so be careful about that feature. After we went in and avoided the rainbow strings of annoyance, we had to register and leave our bags at the concierge.

After we gave our bags to him we noticed a shelf containing many weird things like a city made out of staples and a dragon/mini flamethrower. These were part of Abubot. These were pieces of art created by found objects like old books, used stapels, etc.

After Abubot, we took a right turn and was presented a room dedicated the works of  Renato “Jojo” Barjo, Jr. The people he painted and made into 3-D sculptures were real people that he came across while commuting.

 Each picture has a sad story like “The evacuee” beside a lovely picture the description says “ I get very scared when I hear loud noises, If my dad were here I wouldn’t be scared but I haven’t seen him ever since the day men shot at our house and he pushed me outside and told me to run.”

We walked through the amazingly creepy exhibit and we saw a book labeled “Children’s stories” It contained every story of all the pictures in the room. Each story made me sad and my stomach felt weird until I went home.

After that, we went into a room about cats! The exhibit is called, "Ang Aklatang Pusa," I love cats, specially the loyal ones. The happiness about cats made me forget about the sad stories for a while! This tiny room was filled with the works of Jared Yokte.

See the cat at the side?

Wall of cats

Trying  out Cats & Ladders

Jared Yokte is a great painter and an even greater sculptor. He even received a reward from Juniors choice awards in the Philippine art awards. 


While going upstairs, we noticed a painting. It was a picture of a man holding a lamp, and beside it was an actual old lamp, paper, pencils, and a sign that said “ Draw this lamp!”. After examining the cool lamp beside it, we saw another thing on the stairs, it was a clock with a man on a bike on it with a crank. When I turned the crank the man on top of the box of gears started to bike! I was amazed! Inside there were a lot of gears that was put together in order to make the clock move and the man too.

When we finally reached the top there was not much of interest for me. First thing we visited was a memory game with pictures of flowers. I played this with my mom and I won!

There was a room called “ Ipapasyal Namin si Lolo” where there were old pictures of houses people, paper foldings and how to make them. After that, there was a corridor showcasing 3 books that are going to be released and a picture of a giant carrying the moon. 

The exhibit will be until July 27. 

Tips: You will have to leave your big bags at the counter. Bring a jacket because it gets cold when it rains. UP students will need to pay 20 pesos as entrance fee. Outsiders pay 30 pesos. Parking is at the back of the building.

That’s all! I hope you enjoy!

How to make a good game

We all like video games, they are entertaining and fun to play. Did you know that if you are the head producer of the game you benefit a lot? You earn money when people buy your game. If you want to make a good game, you will need to know the basics of a normal game.

We like games mostly because they are challenging. To make it challenging we need obstacles to make the player fail and start over. Examples of obstacles are the goombas from Mario or the enemy team players in a multiplayer game.

When you play a game, it is just so satisfying to see your score go up! Add a box or a circle at the top left or right to count the players score.

 Players also like games because of the art, it is just so dull without the art. Based on your game, try to imagine your art style and the entities would look like (the player, maps and enemies) like Mario and Overwatch maps!

You may think that sound affects may not affect the player that much but it actually helps set the mood! Add a specific sound track that you think fits with your game. Examples are the smooth music  in Overcooked or the old timey music in Cuphead!

What’s the point of making a game when you cant even play it because the servers are down or your internet connection sucks! You have to make sure that your game does not crash and it has a offline mode.

Also if your game does not have rewards, what’s the point of playing!

Make sure that your game has a reward system so that people have  a sense of progress! Like the gun and player skins in Titanfall!

The last feature that you need is a goal. Isn’t it so boring when they put you in a arena and give you a gun to fight for forever? You would need a goal for your game that gets harder the more the players progress.  

That’s all, remember to put these main Features in your game to make it as great as you can! Good luck and I hope you make the best game ever!

Dad's story

My dad is in the hospital right now because he has Dengue. He got it when he was bitten by mosquitoes. Dengue is a sickness in the tropics caused by mosquitoes. It  can bring sudden fever and loss of platelets. It has many other symptoms. My dad had blood transfused into him because his platelet count is going down. His last count was 9,000/μl which is way below the normal range, 150,000/μl. The problem is that it is so hard to find the platelet units that he needs. My aunts have contacted almost all of the blood centers and big hospitals but only got 3 packs when the doctor asked for 4. The next day, they needed 7 bags and we were lucky to access all 7.

Platelets are tiny red blood cells that form clots to stop bleeding, so these little cells are the ones that help you recover from nose bleeds, wounds and other physical pains that can cause bleeding. To help recover platelets during dengue we get blood to replace the platelets. We get blood from blood banks and the blood banks like Red Cross get their blood from donors. Here in the Philippines, it is hard to get blood because there are not much blood donors. That is why it is SO important to donate blood because if someone suffers from a sickness like dengue, the patient will need blood. When I grow up I will repay the world for giving my dad blood by being a donor to Red Cross and I will donate at least once per month.

Creative Writing - Expressing a Favorite

Fine print time!!

I have finished a book called The Lightning Thief. Grover, the satyr, is my favorite character. The first reason why I liked him the best is because he is funny. For example, when they slayed Medusa Grover landed and said, “That was not fun! Well, hitting Medusa with a branch, that was fun. But bumping into a stone bear? Not fun.”

Another reason is that he follows his dad’s footsteps while at the same time believing that he can accomplish what his dad did not. Grover was a searcher. A searchers mission is to find the god Pan but no searcher has found him nor came back alive.

The final reason why is he knows how to be supportive but does not know when to be supportive. For example, when they were close to the underworld Percy’s morale went down and Annabeth kicked Grover near the hooves then Grover realized that Percy needed some cheering up because he left his mom at the underworld so he gave some useful moral support by saying that we made it far and don’t worry we will save your mother etc.

All in all, Grover is friendly, funny, and he is a good follower. By follower, I mean follows his dads path to being a searcher.

Until the next blog this is Alex for the A.L.E.X project.