letters in the dark

Emerging from the Mess: Writing and Revising Poems

2009-10-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

At the surface level, the beauty of a poem is first felt before understood. With this I mean poetry that affects the senses before engaging in a cerebral and even technical dialogue between reader and text. To the new reader of poetry, this could mean getting the overall feel of the poem without any effort of probing into the poem’s technicalities. What then emerges is a shallow and restricted communication between the text and the reader, who is unable to exhaustively experience the meaningfulness that a work of art carries.

It is with this concern that poetry should be experienced not only with one’s own personal feelings and taste but also with the proper knowledge of the matters interplaying in the nooks and crannies of it. It doesn’t suffice that one just feels it; in order to live and interpret it one must see how its anatomical parts perform on the liberal spaces of the page. Indeed, the writing and reading of poetry becomes more momentous and pleasurable once it is understood based on its sets of function, with its various techniques being unlocked in the mind of the consumer himself.

As a person attempting to write poetry, I make sure that I communicate with my reader, which means to say, I aim for accessibility and understandability. While fully aware of the divide between “accessibility” and experimentation, I would like to think that I operate more, fortunately or unfortunately, with the former. It is a deliberate effort on my part to write “the seemingly easy poems,” which bear coherence and clarity in both image and meaning. I have high regard with the craft that I really pay attention, no matter how difficult and taxing, to the images, the statements, and the meaning of the whole poem. I would like to see my poem come to life in its sheer vividness, equipped with the ability of sparking a conversation with its reader.

The way to achieve all these of course is through the act of revision. To be honest, I didn’t give much premium on the act of revising back when I was just starting to write poetry. Maybe it was smugness on my part, or maybe it could just be my ignorant self. After all, I was young to give too much effort on thoroughly and endlessly assessing and re-assessing my work. Perhaps I was too scared to face the fact that revision, then and now, means facing one’s own ugly and pathetic work. Needless to say, it was as if revising would dishearten me in pursuing the craft of poetry. Maybe I was just too blinded by the fear that I wouldn’t succeed had I tried chucking out those soggy lines and even “slashing and burning” the whole poem itself, along with its utter shakiness, absurdity, and heavy-handed melancholy.

But times have changed, and sure enough I am way past my innocent, hard-headed days. I have been kinder to myself and more open to the countless possibilities that such discipline as revising has in store for me. If not for the creative writing and comparative literature classes I enrolled in, I wouldn’t be more absorbent to and keen on criticism. Now, it is easier for me to confront and review my works, in all their starkness and incompetence. While revising, I often assure myself that for every word that I alter, or every sentence that I tweak, or every poem that I delete in totality, the more I hone myself as a writer and thus do service to literature in general.

In revising however there are factors that I need to contend with, if only to successfully emerge from the act with my aim of being a poet still intact in its proper place. It is here where I realize that being a writer, as it is in any serious profession, is not just a breezy walk in the park. Rather, it is a discipline that needs hard-work, focus, intellect, and a dogged desire for learning, all of which become one’s defense in moments of discouragement and failure in achieving beauty and effect.

During the act of revising, I need to have faith in the piece that I am working on; faith that it can still improve and meet the standards of poetry. It’s only with this that I can go about with revising and never easily surrender to all the taxing demands of the act. Having the faith also means laboring all night and not watching TV and not surfing the net just to get things done and over with. On the other hand, having no faith in the work means not recognizing even a single word or phrase that may carry promise. I just click the delete button and say goodbye to a seemingly desperate piece without any feeling of remorse.

For me, the questions “Where am I?” and “For whom am I writing?” are valid queries that I always take into consideration. They help me in deciding on what to write about and the treatment in which I should function. These two questions also situate me as a poet, giving me the opportunity to probe into my poetics, if any, and ascertain whatever notions of poetry I have to begin with. This also means clarifying whatever ideology I have, whatever picture of the world I have, or whatever portrayal I would like to achieve in my work. It is from here where I proceed to “touching” the poem. Touching a poem means weeding out the unnecessary “events” in it, tightening the syntax and the thought, keeping in touch with unity and coherence, and asserting the poem’s relevance and urgency.

Moreover, the processes of writing and revising entail good amount of reading. In my case, I read the poems that speak to me and which raise questions that I want to answer. The equation seems to be easy: read the poems that talk to you and write the poems that talk back. In an attempt to carve out my own space and search for my own voice amid all these noise happening around the literary landscape in this country, I try to grapple with the many challenges surrounding me. This I do by first establishing myself—that is, my voice— in my works and try to infuse my own language and thinking in it. There are times when I am not contented with the end results, but most often than not, they turn out decent enough to make me happy.

Indeed, the poems in this collection are created around this set-up. They have been written under these circumstances, plus the fact that they are penned under pressure as they are requirements for class. Adhering to traditional forms has also been a challenge. Being a writer who is more comfortable with open forms, I needed to write these poems with great struggle.

But surely, this writing life will continue and, with the help of my muses, flourish. Writing after all is a choice. It is up to me whether to sail on or not, do good or not.

In the meantime, the search for my own space goes on as I learn more things from artists and non-artists alike that surround me. And as my current works are put under the tough scrutiny of some “fellow-feelers” of the craft, the more I realize that there are a lot of things to catch up. So far, the writing process for me is on the borderline between tribulation and joy. But I need not be afraid and weakened. What make me stay are the real experiences that I get from both writing and revising, from both creating and re-creating. For in the end, it is a new me—intelligible and creative—that will emerge from all this mess, like a charming flower after a rainfall.

“What else was there to want?”: Life, Pleasure, and Identity in L. Lacambra Ypil’s The Highest Hiding Place

2009-10-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

(An excerpt)

Collected into what is now the book The Highest Hiding Place (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009), Lawrence Lacambra Ypil’s poems show a collective yearning for desire, voice, and identity. They tackle the various topics that move us and shake us in this sun-tanned country of ours, such as childhood, love, alienation, gayness, and other discoveries that an individual enamored and challenged by both the demands of art and memory confronts day by day.

The beauty and pleasure that one can meaningfully experience from L. Lacambra Ypil’s first poetry collection is hinted on the book title itself. Through the poet’s perspicacious and artistic eye, a reader is brought and introduced, in fits of nostalgia, surprise, and humor, to the varying zones of the present and past, to the characters of a different time hooked up to the now, and to the various events packed with sincerity and frivolity that one may only witness, albeit in a stealthy distance, in “the highest hiding place.” There is certitude in the vibe and rhythm of these poems, one that affects the reader as he or she flits about from page per revelatory page, inflicting him or her, fortunately or unfortunately, with a sense of regularity and occasional surges at the heart. The Highest Hiding Place seems to be a collection borne out of internal longings, of wishful remembering, and of attempts at memorializing people, places, and events that are once confined in and need to liberate from the landscapes of childhood and current memory.

In this collection, Ypil carries his readers back on to what the poet Merlie Alunan calls the “infinite dimension of the world we experience daily.” We see in this book a swarm of unnamed individuals (boys or girls alike in their sheer playfulness and drama), the plain sensible things and events (a picnic, a revisit to an old, alienating place), and the many ruminations on both reality and art—all of which become the poet’s ultimate sources of topic. Also, the pieces in this book seem to be engaged in a sort of dialogue—dueling or otherwise—with one another: talks between mother and son, father and son, among men, among men and their significant others, etcetera. It is in the highest hiding place that the poetic eye finds a vantage point to watch all these and, consequently, lock them in the mind. Ypil constructs a world that is able to evolve and come to life, disturbing or placating the reader with both the personal and the private, the spoken and the unutterable.

Needless to say, the book’s primary goal is to celebrate memory, as it always is in literature, no matter how excruciating or exciting the modes of memory are. It thrives in emotions and associations, affirming the confluence of pain, seduction, fear, love, and desire that the poet feels about the world and the people filling it up to the brim, including himself. Because most of the incidents that the poet yearns to reminisce are interminable, they crop up us mere semblances—dramatic and symbolical as they are—of the actuality of things, presented with restraint and wisdom, and become the total interpretations that transform from the real to the imagined.

(Dis)placement, (Dis)covering: Life and the Self on the Page

Within the context of The Highest Hiding Place, the search for, or the assurance of, identity is what’s being contended with. Identity here is hinged on several personages and its evolution on the relationship it has with them. Through these relationships, the reader takes a glimpse on the pieces of the self as it forms and coheres into one unified whole. Because of these private moments of being a son, a friend, and a poet, the poems live a life and open themselves to the public sphere. The reader will soon realize that the poems, despite their intimacy and isolation, are not really too personal, because these are the same roles and relationships that he has in reality.

An example of this construction of identity is seen in the poem “Being a Son”. Ypil relives his childhood which was filled with expectations from his dad, who is a doctor. He starts this memory with his dad as the central character and describes how he was subjected to a repetitive life of “touching other people’s/ bodies, opening, holding a stick/ into a woman’s mouth….” This same life was what seemed to be expected of him back then. But he chose to stand at the “Edge of the bed./Edge of the world as I knew it./And I could be anyone” despite being “part of [his father’s] making, part of his wish.” At the tail end of this poem, Ypil suggests his personal preference of art over the medical profession. He writes:

I could be anything, really.
Even if I knew I was part
of his making, part of his wish,
part of the bad dream he could not wake up from
when he was young, in an old afternoon,
sleeping, the well outside his house
opening its secret mouth, deep into the world

where he knew fish were moving,
the earth shifting its feet, and his son
of many suns of many years
to come was making
his mind move the wind. (Stanzas 5 and 6)

Ypil also presents the dichotomies between the past and the present, youth and maturity, loss and life. Ypil tries to reclaim, recall, interpret, reason out, and reveal a life that is far-fetched in reality but can always be present in the poet’s mind and, consequently, on his works. As he walks down memory lane, he conjures up the places and things of remembrance. In “Visiting Danao”, for instance, Ypil tackles alienation and detachment from a childhood province, from its people, and from its ways. He goes back to a town whose language he does not know, and where he is confronted by people’s bucolic manners and beliefs. Having no cable, aimless talks under the heat of the sun, plant syrups as medicine for an itch are some of the specific situations that Ypil glosses over. With a tinge of resignation and pity, he concludes: “At the back of the knee was the space/ for the breath of a word: Taga-diri./ At the back of the head was the roof/ of a lonely, lonely mouth.”

Indeed the poems are often internal moments, shifting from one terrain to the next, from one frame to the next, described in a poetic vision. We feel the palpability of these thoughts and events and revel in their comfort and familiarity. And as readers, we “become the eye/ that shouldn’t be. The one/ that stays awake when no one sees” (“My Mother’s Dolls”). The life that exists on the page reflects our own and pulls us toward the nexus of art and reality. Ypil shows that whatever the poems talk about, act out, and live are the same circumstances that we, the readers, share and go through.

The Highest Hiding Place evidently carries Ypil’s deepest ambiguities and certainties as a poet. From one poem to another, an overall identity is formed through the various recurring and converging images, situations, and personages introduced. It seems that in most part of the collection, Ypil’s gaze is towards the past and to the various people coloring it. The physical and mental spaces that these poems inhabit move from the province to the city as the memory of the poet flits about from the then and now.

One can never get enough of Ypil’s chartering of the self and of identity. After all, his concerns are also ours. When he writes about his family, he also talks about our connection with our family, however embittered or impassioned it may be. When he deals with displacement, and aloofness, and amazement, aren’t those the same feelings or conceptions that we have as we embark on an alienating journey in the city? When he tackles lust, desire, and the stealthy life and love of a gay man, aren’t those the same surges of intensity that we, the desirer, feel towards the desired? Aren’t those the same quandaries that we share as we stand in the crossroads of our lives?

Indeed, most of the poems in Ypil’s collection are rich in identity. They try to carve out their own discursive space in the way they are presented. Through the narratives that Ypil meshes up in his poetry, we make sense of the identities inherent in them and, concomitantly, are able to map out the insights about their experiences. These poems carry a voice, recognizable and so true, that reverberate in the same fields of experience that we have. The self in these poems partially becomes the selves that we contain in us.

Helen Vendler writes: “Poetry is the great means in which one identity reaches out to another, tries to explain itself to another, brings up images to clarify itself, finds a diction that speaks its mind, and finds a stylized form to enact its appeal.” Because poems are merely constructions, they reflect the poet’s milieu and thought processing. And given the many factors found in the poet’s everyday lives that are akin to one another, it is the poet’s responsibility to emerge from all the stereotypical identities and modalities surrounding him.

Almost always, silence is what remains after reading Ypil’s poems; an evident technique that the poet employs in order to leave a lasting impression on his readers. Louis Simpson writes, “I believe that all true poets feel a sense of dedication, and that this comes to them in solitude and silence…. To apprehend the silence of the universe is to wish to break it, to speak to those who are in the same boat with ourselves.” Ypil’s poetry “feeds on silence” and indulges in it; that when a word, or phrase, or stanza, or even a whole poem crackles and extends its playfulness on the page through its imagery and sound, one relishes the occasion with equal or greater satisfaction.

Every poet’s task is to recreate into words the ruminations carved out from silence. Poetry is a strong compulsion, a need—an overflowing of emotions, as Wordsworth once put it—that must be extracted, painstakingly or not, from the mind of the poet, who now accepts the sole role of being the conveyor, the medium of this force. What is admirable in Ypil’s poetry is being able to establish itself—its tone, its images, the shifting personas speaking behind every poem—amidst the complex calmness of the writing process itself.

Lastly, Ypil’s poems bring his voice to the fore and let it speak the identity it bears. This ownership of voice and identity in the poems of L. Lacambra Ypil is surely the start of its ascension into being one of the better works published and read in our country today. And in the light of the voices and identities being heard and seen in the Philippine literary landscape, it is up to Ypil how to sustain its own self and remain steadfast with whatever it has impressively started.

To Articulate the Meditations: Attention and Astonishment in Joel Toledo’s The Long Lost Startle (UP Press, 2009)

2009-08-14T08:23:00.001-07:00

While there is so much promise in Joel Toledo’s second collection of poetry, The Long Lost Startle, the kind which can be “considered a major work in Philippine poetry,” why do I still feel doubtful and uneasy after reading the poems, despite them being in touch with nature and the human spirit, beautiful moments and figures contrasted against a world “on the brink of annihilation”? Toledo prefers to handle topics that deal with the natural and spiritual world, childhood and fatherhood memories, the writing life, and the urban landscape, serving as chronicler of the ubiquity of the world’s wreckages that inhabit our daily lives. There seems to be a deliberate negotiation happening among the pages of this collection, since there is a sameness that evidently floats and flutters in these poems: animals (birds, dogs, crickets, frogs, etcetera) that recur, the image of God (or the sense of Him) that insists, the city’s terrain that tries to re-emerge amidst childhood nostalgia. The details here are almost always persistent, teeming in comfort and familiarity, coming from the similar strands of beauty, hope, and despair.

It is undeniable that I am amazed by the way Toledo shapes his poems. There is a stimulating mood in these pieces, nudging the reader, from time to time, to look around his surroundings and gasp at the sheer presence of the “all many rising objects revealed only by refraction” (“Dusting”), or grieve at “the complete corrosion of all things beautiful” (“Ruin”). But what makes me unconvinced here is the way Toledo wraps up his poems; that after realizing the pattern that Toledo is following, I end up feeling unmoved, almost vindicated. Also, at some concluding parts, there is a feeling that the poet attempts to teach me an insight—perhaps something moral, perhaps something unknown. Take for instance the final lines of “Time”: “So that our children,/alive with their bursting blue souls,/could once again leave us inside, staring/ out of windows and growing even older.”Or “Equatorial”: “So that/encountering the heart along the way…I can bear/the chaos and stand in the middle,/pointing to sure land.” It is funny that when, in the preface, Dr. Gemino Abad collated some of the “strong” lines in the collection to constitute his introduction, he seemed to be writing an editorial about the human condition.

But to be sure, the poems here are not all written in this vein. In finer poems such as “Attachment,” “The Same Old Figurative,” and “The Past Imperfect,” among others, Toledo asserts his deftness in crafting form and content, as reflected in his mellifluous lines and razor-sharp images, events that “lead the blind to occasional vision” (“Drunk Leaning into the Poem”). The Long Lost Startle arrests the world, pins down its elements on the page, laces them with meaning, and infuses them with astuteness. Here, the “eye again trains itself to vision”, showing both the intensity of life and the various forces that both fail and flourish around it. Toledo shows that the most mundane things can still reclaim their spot in our own disorderly world.

Indeed, this collection possesses a certain charm and is aware of its own methods to madness. The insights and the artistic skill are intact in this book. At their best state, the poems make us encounter imagination anew. It is with this that the reader feels uncomfortable whenever laxness in language arises. If only Toledo could add more texture to some poems and be watchful of identicalness, this collection will surely surpass the state of perfectibility and be able to claim the attention and praise that it rightfully deserves.

Sestina: The Island's Name

2009-07-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

In the beginning was the name
of this island hidden in the unknown.
Myths detailed how it floated
in the sea’s surface, or how it bloomed
like a flower at random evenings. People
gathered together to scavenge for the answer.

It was suspected that the answer
wore many guises. Perhaps the name
was inscribed on a spiraling leaf. People
thought of it located in a crevice, unknown.
As trees aged and light bloomed
from the sky, they waited for signs that floated

and fluttered. But the name floated
like mote in the air. It was tricky to eye such answer.
Searching, the people’s minds bloomed
in devotion for the mystics of a name.
For such was the curse of the unknown:
when they closed their eyes, people

would disappear in this terrain. The people
chanted for days and nights, until the name floated
above them, enshrouding the unknown.
Awed-stricken, they adored the answer.
What did it bear? What could a name
bring them, after it had settled and bloomed

in their mouths? The promises bloomed
like butterflies fluttering about. Soon, people
turned to directions and bartered the name.
The seas devoid of creatures that floated,
the lands bereft of branches and stones. No answer
could be given to where were the gems of the unknown.

People turned oblivious to a past life. Unknown,
it might have preserved its own. Once it bloomed
but also wilted in this scenery. This answer
to what was desired and lost. People
tried recapturing every particle that floated
in air: dusts, strands of hair, a fatuous name

of a child. Now gone they’d answer. These people
waned in the unknown. Yet the tales still bloomed
and floated in this deserted island without a name.

The Coffee of My Memory

2009-06-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

Any cup of coffee can be a taste of pleasure. Take away the deep white cup, the small pack of powdered coffee, the steaming hot water, the granules of sugar, the powdery cream, what else is left for me in a night of hard research and review? Given the tons of work I am subjected to each passing day as a student, there really needs to be a reliable companion to this entire quandary. Time and again, it has always been said that a student’s life is both fun and taxing. Once exams, quizzes, and research works get into the picture, one can just expect to stay up in the stillness of the night, laboriously accomplishing all the work that need to be finished.

I am a self-confessed grade-conscious student. The idea of having high grades after every semester thrills me to no end. I am very willing to stay up late in the night, or go to the field for more extensive research, or hole myself up in a cold corner of the library just to get things done and over with. Needless to say, I really don’t mind skipping breakfast, lunch, merienda, or dinner just to fulfill whatever responsibility that needs to be achieved. Indeed, all for the good academic record!
But despite all these, I really don’t waver much since a cup of coffee can always be a reliable remedy to all these stress and gastronomic sacrifices.

Outside my favorite library in the University of the Philippines—Diliman, there is a coffee machine ready for any thirsty soul who yearns for a minute of comfort and satisfaction over a cute cup of warm coffee. One time in the library, in between an excruciating headache and a looming deadline for a subject I sincerely dreaded, I was having a hard time concentrating on the things that I then needed to do. So I first decided to step out of the library, head onto the Nescafe machine outside, and have my much-deserved coffee break.

Amidst fellow students who were also busy studying, I sat down on the library steps and contented myself with hearty sips from my cup. As I was finishing the brown mixture, I scanned my surrounding and looked up at the gunmetal sky, then turning indigo, gradually transforming into nighttime. It was around 6pm, and yet I was still there together with fellow harried students of my university.

Upon further scrutiny, I noticed that most of them were also holding cups of the famous coffee that we students always turn to before, during, or after our daily grind in school. Then it dawned on me that apart from being an individual thing, the habit of drinking coffee has also transcended into a social event which peers share with one another in either high or low times!

Ever since childhood, I have always been fascinated with coffee. I remember that during breakfast, before going to school, I would usually insist for a cup or two. In hindsight, this interest in coffee might really have been borne out of curiosity, since I would always see my parents concocting their own mixture (too sweet! too bitter! without sugar! without cream!), adjusting the taste based on their own personal liking.

During weekends, when my parents would be out of the house or inside their room, I would silently sneak into the kitchen, boil my own water on the stove, and carefully tear out a pack of coffee. Afterwards, I would excitedly rush back toward my room, onto my bed, with the flavorful cup tugged toward my chest.

Back in our province, drinking coffee has been a custom among my family members. When I was a kid, my parents and other family members would usually gather around the dining room to share stories in between cups of coffee. I still remember how delightful it was to see the white china mugs and the old thermos alongside with the little packs of coffee, cream and sugar on top of our round Narra table. Furthermore, I have even stood witness to both my grandparents’ and my parents’ way of welcoming visitors with brewed coffee and oven-fresh buns of pandesal during summer afternoons.
As I entered high school, a big part of my student life was also spent during coffee sessions in houses of classmates, in cafes, or even in school. Before group meets or play rehearsals, I, together with my classmates or friends or both, would often go to the grocery store and buy packs of coffee for us to indulge in. Back then, we unanimously agreed that there was—and still is—something about coffee that energized our dampened emotions.

Until now, I personally believe that above anything else, coffee has that element which maintains relationships, smoothens rapport among friends, and elates the weary mood in times of pressure.

My mom has also gotten used to the right mixture of coffee that suits me. Whenever she learns that I need to accomplish several school requirements—all of which require me to stay up till the wee hours of the morning—she would surely go out of her way and wake up in the middle of the night and prepare the ingredients of my coffee drink. When the moment comes that I feel tired and drowsy, I would just go out of my room and go straight into the kitchen. There, I would prepare my own mixture and derive pleasure from the aromatic steam rising up in a paisley pattern from the cup’s brim.

As the irresistible aroma smothers my room, I would again feel rejuvenated and ready to face work. Inhaling the sweet scent and letting it settle on my veins is like going back to my childhood’s breakfast table, in the middle of an engaging conversation with my parents and siblings, embraced by the alluring steam of early morning coffee.

Now that I am in college—and at a tough university at that—I have proven more that coffee is not just a drink; it is a companion. Upon learning that coffee is rich in antioxidants and that having the right dosage everyday is beneficial to one’s health, I have even gotten more addicted to it, making sure that I can’t last a day without a cup or two. Moreover, I also make sure that each cup is a savor of quality and contentment. With the perfect brand, a cup of coffee can always be divine!

And now, as a student battling the daunting challenges of college life, I still find the old familiar relief in my favorite drink anytime, anywhere. It has aided me during sluggish mornings, in ravenous afternoons, and in languid nights. Certainly, it is one of the factors that fuel my efficiency as a student. There are times when it is very easy to just close my eyes and fall asleep in class; but because of the promise of coffee, the burden of non-sleep becomes so easy and manageable.

Indeed, the coffee of my memory will always be full of nostalgia and fondness. It will always be connected to my own notion of family and home, friends and school. Definitely it plays a vital role in my study habits, as it helps me sustain my impetus in staying up late without the fear of having a headache the following day. Moreover, it also never fails to give satisfaction for every group gathering that I have with friends. Then and now, coffee has surely been a source of joy.

Apart from being a family tradition, coffee—or the art of drinking it—also remains a personal favorite. In many ways than one, it is part of my student life, my personal life, and indeed, my humanity at large. Each flitting day, I wake up in the morning with that wonderful taste of coffee in mind. I rise up from my bed, rush down toward the dining table, and prepare my own cup of coffee. And for every careful sip of my own warm concoction, I still look up with delight as I savor the unique flavor of coffee that settles on my tongue and slowly trickles down my throat.
Once again, I am back to the landscape of my sweet old childhood.

From Flashing Panties to Reality TV: The Concerns and Comfort in Carljoe Javier’s And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

2009-06-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

If there’s one thing impressive about the essays in Carljoe Javier’s And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth, it is the swooping and ascending energy that trails and clings from page per geeky page. While reading these pieces, the senses are attuned to the explosive happenings and experiences that are about to unfold, such as the infectious viral outbreak in the world of computers, his ruminations regarding the divide between the rich and the poor, the pressing dilemma on peeing, among others. These are essays loaded with novelty and character, the types which comfort you while waiting for progress in the middle of a traffic jam, or maybe those kinds that keep you in company while having your daily bout inside the wash room. Indeed, these pieces bear the hilarity of a self-confessed geek and the reflections of a man steeped in the social ineptitudes of his time.

Javier’s concerns are diverse on the one hand and predictable on the other. Undeniably, there are fits of laughter and pleasure in store for the reader. “Hilarious essays on diverse topics” promises the publisher on the back cover. No contest with that. There are times, however, when one can just cringe and drop the book for a while, to mull over whether one’s still on the right track, guided by the sharp humor of the author or blinded by the sheer comfort of the texts. From being a certified geek to flashing panties of celebrities to teaching at a school for girls where “residents turn to their own sex of titillation” to rock bands and regurgitated adobo in toilet bowls—the range seems wide in scope and varied in humor. But despite the variety, one cannot just be alienated from the experiences; after all, these essays know its readers, speak to them, and somehow share their concerns.

The danger with these personal essays though—and I am quite sure that in our habitual shores they are many—is how they end up like decadent confessions on the page. To use Cristina Nehring’s words, in her essay Our Essays, Ourselves: In defense of the Big Idea: “A frenzy for cozy, complacent, and oddly insular self-revelation.” These are essays that usually recount the firsts (first year in college, first sexual experience, etc.) and other whatnots in a writer’s life. These are pieces that lack that punch and pull, stir and shake— ideas that attempt to challenge one’s perceptions and beliefs toward particular certainties. Ultimately, these are works that look at themselves inwardly, indulging in their own immensity, and contenting themselves with the plain activity of navel-gazing.

Though the essays in Geek are personal—often cute, sometimes jarring—these are works that question and provide situations open for pondering and interpretation. As one flips the final page of the book, several inquiries and realizations race to the fore. Concerns regarding the society, one’s self, and even the mode of literary production in the country linger, albeit in mute hints. To be sure, this book is not just for certified geeks but also for people who suspect on the possibility of being one. And for those who in their lifetime have never dared to question nor seek answers of whether they belong to the whole shebang that is the Geekdom, now is the chance to negate or confirm that unidentified self.

Writing the Truth, Writing the Personal

2009-06-30T07:01:00.001-07:00

The writing process has never been easy to me, given that I consider myself as a relatively incompetent writer and a late-bloomer as far as literary concerns are involved. Being a probinsyano, I really didn’t have the exposure to books that are considered literature. Except for the various textbooks that we have had back in elementary and high school and the other children’s books at home, there was no excitement in my mode of reading. Needless to say, my appreciation for such books was also equally boring. Most of the time, our teachers would teach a poem or a story in terms of the morals and values one could gain from it. During English month, we were even obligated to memorize lengthy poems by William Wordsworth or Alexander Pope. But, on hindsight, my teachers didn’t really give much time in explaining and letting us experience the pieces.

It is with this background in which I have molded and transformed the way I currently write my works. A huge chunk of my time goes to reading, arguing, and opening myself up to other literary pieces available within reach. Indeed I am still swinging myself from both sides of the spectrum just to keep up. However, it is this ineptitude that has challenged me to push myself to the limits, however slowly or rudely, if only to pursue and hone my craft as a writer.

Now, after almost two years of being part of a writing organization in UP and having the chance to be a fellow for poetry in the 10th UST National Writers’ Workshop this year, I can say that I have somehow decided on the general manner in which I write. Most of the time, it starts right after a cool bath at night. This surely needs to be part of the routine, since a day’s dust and smoke makes me feel irritated and, therefore, easily distracted. So my writing process occurs during the maturity of the night, when the lights are low and the bed is inviting for a comforting sleep. Nighttime offers a certain calmness, which is a prerequisite before I start to write.

As a young writer who is sometimes ambitious but always struggling, I admit that the range of my topics isn’t still that diverse. Mostly (and this I know by intuition and self-assessment) the themes of my poems revolve around my personal experiences and observations. From time to time, they are products of my wild and often bizarre imagination. Moreover, I often choose my topics based on their nearness to me; the closer the experience, the more possible for me to write it down. Usually my poems touch on the subjects of memory, city living, childhood joys, family, lost loves, etcetera. Indeed there’s homogeneity, and this, in the long run, could turn out as a drawback for me.

But I believe that this indulgence in personal matters is a natural problem among beginning writers. While there is that ambition to cobble up something “new”, I still find it difficult to escape from the confessional mode, mainly because of its ability to devour my incompetent self, letting it sink in in the comfortable crevices of nostalgia. Nonetheless I am optimistic that there is more to come and more to achieve as I go on in writing.

Writing has always been pleasure to me. I am the type who finds bliss in seeing a poem take shape on the page. But while others enjoy the sheer sight of ink blooming on the whiteness (or yellowness) of paper, with each swoop and ascend and curl of the letters adding delight in the writing process, I prefer not to write in longhand. There’s something in it that stresses my mind and therefore, derails my train of thought. Especially when my emotions are too strong to handle, writing a poem on paper, with the additional effort of dragging a pen across the page, seems to disrupt the impetus. So I use my laptop instead in encoding my works. For me, it is more convenient (and environmental) to go digital in terms of writing. Also, it is easier to correct one’s work when using a computer. By just pressing the backspace or the enter button, the intended effects of those enjambments and gaps can immediately be seen and assessed. No more confusion in scribbling words, or any ambivalence of how my poem would look exactly, once finished, on the page.

After writing a poem, I make sure that I neither publish it on my blog nor let my writer-friends read it right away. From the moment of typing the last word of the piece, I usually save the file first and incubate it for a day or two. It is during incubation that I mull over the things going on in the poem. Questions regarding the images, the luminosity of lines, and the compactness of the whole piece come to mind, often leading me to uncertainty toward the unfinished work. However, it is with these unsure thoughts that I find enlightenment on how to better the work—form and content wise.

Moreover, getting back on the work after the incubation period would be like confronting the hard reality that I am indeed a sordid writer of poems. Here I usually frown at those buckling words, hackneyed images, loose lines, and cluttered ideas. Mostly it is also at this stage where the dilemma of whether to revise the poem or to completely forget about it confounds me. Fortunately, I often choose the former since I still consider my work, no matter how ugly it is, a work of art. I often ask myself: Wouldn’t annihilating the whole poem in just one blow be so rude? And despite the self-confessed lack of skill, shouldn’t I still be my own number one fan?

In my own writing process, I consider my poem “sharable” once I have already concretized what I want to say. Furthermore, being able to understand the internal messages and the theme of the poem is also essential. However, I also make sure that my poem, to some extent, still contains its mystic. As the writer, I want my work to possess parts where even I feel unsure about. I believe that a poem needs not to be filtered into perfection; for me, a little nuance and grit makes it more communicative, more emotionally appealing. After all, a poem is a mode of expression rather than impression.

I also understand that the writing process does not end in publication. But one needs to publish his works in order to move on to the next project in mind. Like a parent who needs to set free of his child once it reaches full maturity, writers must also let go of their works and allow them to be seen and read on the page, virtually (through the Internet) or physically (through books, magazines, etc.), ready for the scathing eye of their readers or critics or both.

In conclusion, writing is learning and exploring both at the same time. It is a search for what has not yet been said or what cannot be contained in ordinary speech. It is both an attitude and a discipline, where the main motive is to look at things in a different and refreshing light, transforming them into well-wrought, meaningful art. Giving life and essence to the written word—isn’t this the writing process is all about?

Possibilities and Realities: A Speech Major in the Workplace

2009-05-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

It has always been said that the academe molds a student based on the impractical theories written on textbooks and manuals. Given the ideologies taught in school, which are mostly dealing with the whats and whys of the “scheme of things,” one is almost kept shielded from the unkind realities outside the confines of the university. Often, a student who has imbibed these theories may experience culture shock and, worse, resistance once steeped into the so-called real world. And at this point, one gets confused on which to follow and believe in: the mastered mechanisms of academic ideas one has immersed himself into for the past three or four years of his college life; or the given and often unexpected chunks of facts—often rude, often uncompromising— ushered into one’s realizations as he enters the workplace? Oftentimes these ideas clash with one another as the student, now part of the labor force, acts based on the intuition nurtured by school against the unquestioned customs and traditions which everyone has learned to live by in the office place. Indeed, it is never easy.

For the past three or more years as a Speech Communication major, there surely are doubts on whether this course can do me good. Apart from the issues of profitability and practicality, there are also issues on the competency and comprehensiveness of the course. How many times have I heard the phrase, “Jack of All Trades, Master of None,” or the infuriating tags and stereotypes such as “Pang-call center” and “Puro dada lang”? Surely, the labels are as many as the questions howling in the hollowness of my mind. Yes, we are trained to speak and deliver well, to delve into the “human communicative experience,” and to master the art of oral, visual, and written communication. However, the fact still remains that an English major with an exceptional mastery of the figs and trunks of syntax and whatnots will always be first in line above anyone else in the research industry. Or how a Broadcast Communication or Journalism degree holder—who can skillfully define what a news peg is—will always have the upper hand in terms of employment in media organizations. As a speech major who dabbles his feet in various subjects—and more often than not lose track on his concentrations—I then become more skeptical of where my course may lead me in the long run.

In my first bite of reality, I somehow found relief upon learning that there are pieces of knowledge which I can put into practical use in the line of work that I have now. Despite the fact that there will always be someone better than me in terms of organizational knowledge and presentational skills, I still feel confident that in one way or another I can step up as a leader and speak my mind like a pro—in competent, grammatically-correct English at that! If anything, Speech Communication has largely improved my oral skills, given the type of training—and the lambasting, I must stress—that majors undergo in mastering effective communication. Furthermore, years of studying the communication models—from Aristotle’s to Schramm’s to Dance’s—also helps a lot because it gives me ideas on how to sift messages and to even process understatements from my co-workers and bosses.

As a Speech major, I believe that I am equipped with the practical theories that help me in directing my manner of handling situations in the workplace and my ethics as a co-worker and employee. The Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts provides a plethora of subjects that guide and equip a student with the proper skills on and mindset about work. Subjects such as organizational communication, intercultural communication, and rhetoric are deemed important in the line of work that I have now. Personally, these subjects stand out the most because they make me knowledgeable about the theoretical transactions of companies, about dealing with other people of different backgrounds, and about the keys to competent speaking and writing.

I will start with the good concepts that I learned from my organizational communication class under Dr. Celia Bulan. This class taught me that employees are more of a company’s assets rather than liabilities. This means that a boss or a supervisor should treat his colleagues as potentially productive members of the organization, not as burdens which the company carries. One of the basic theories under the human resource development is about tapping each one’s ability to yield into a greater and more dynamic working place. All members of an organization, if given the proper guidance and nourishment, can possess an element of success for both himself and the company as well. Moreover, it is also in my organizational communication class where I learned about the concept of “replaceable clogs.” It is argued that a boss must assure that once a worker goes absent, it is easy to find a substitute for the job that has been vacated. Though this concept may seem inconsiderate and insensitive, this I guess becomes highly important to a company which value efficiency and productivity. Another thing I learned from OrCom 101 is about the organization being an organism, whose body parts are interconnected to one another. This means that every member has a role to play, and that the outcome of such role can slightly or greatly affect the systems and procedures of the organization.

Intercultural communication is also an interesting subject in which I imbibed from a lot of concepts and theories. What comes to mind is Hofstead’s Five Cultural Dimensions. This includes the ideas of power distance; individualism vs. collectivism; masculinity vs. femininity; uncertainty avoidance; and long-term and short-term orientation. Through this, I have become more sensitive to my co-workers and more on-guard with my judgments toward their ethics, their beliefs in life and in work, etc. These concepts remind me that people come from different social backgrounds and that they have their own approaches toward work. No one must feel ethnocentric about his own standards, given the many ways in which things can be created. Moreover, it is through intercultural communication that I learned about respecting space. I have high regard with people who have been in the work longer than me, since they are the ones immersed in the work and have earned this certain degree of knowledge and expertise.

The commonly dreaded Speech 130: Introduction to Rhetoric surprisingly helps me in my work as a researcher for Storyline. Since we are asked to do write-ups for stories that we ourselves researched, it is very important for one to know how to string out words in a manner that is appealing and engaging. With Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric—namely invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery—I find that these too, apart from being effectively used in public speaking, can also be applied to writing. Largely, through these canons writing and processing of thought is made easier. Organization and structuring of ideas is so much easier once one subscribes to the canons laid down by Aristotle. Indeed, one cannot go wrong!

Despite this, though, there is still that lingering feeling that we, as speech majors, can deliver more if only… The problem with our department is the seemingly diluted curriculum that we have, thus the confusion on focus and specialization. It would help if the curriculum would be classified based on specified fields, such as speech in the academe, in the media, in advertising, etc. With this, students’ knowledge wouldn’t drown in the dense pool of subjects that they are taking. Granted that speech communication hones good speakers, but this does not suffice for jobs that demand for more skills than just merely speaking. Skills such as writing, events organizing, or marketing would always be asked from an employee. And given our curriculum, this is quite difficult to pull off.

With these things said, I still have great confidence that a speech major is competent enough to shine and lead in his work. Oral communication is highly important. However, as time passes by, this criterion will wear off, too. So there needs to be a concentration in the course. It is not enough that one does excel in the work; he must also set the trend. If these things are achieved, there indeed is, for a speech major, a bright future looming in the horizon.

UST National Writers' Workshop 2009 Day 2: Quotable Quotes

2009-05-05T06:59:00.001-07:00

Today was rather mentally exhausting. Given the tough panelists for works in English poetry—consisted of Dr. Ophelia Dimalanta, Dr. Cirilio F. Bautista, Mr. Lourd De Veyra, and Mr. Carlomar Daoana—it was a day of cerebral masturbation of poetic images, poetic commentaries, and poetic description. Words and statements like “vagueness,” “off-tangent,” “purely descriptive,” “cannot access,” “poetic currency,” and “this is not a poem, it’s prose” ferried across from panelists to fellows and back.

The day started with Dr. Dimalanta’s mini session about poetic comment and poetic description being infused together to come up with a good poem. She stressed that purely poetic description would make the poem suffer from lack of weight and substance, leaving the reader asking in the end the curt but loaded question “So what?” On the other hand, giving more focus on poetic commentary without the description would make the poem propagandistic, didactic, and too general.

And because I am too tired to elaborate on the details, I am just presenting here the interesting lines and ideas I got from today’s session.

1. Dr. Dimalanata said: “ The balance of poetic comment and poetic description makes a good poem.”

2. She emphasized that: “A poem is not didactic, should not be propagandistic; it must only be written well.”

3. Pertaining to rather vague poems, she maintained that: “Think the idea, feel the emotion.”

4. Mr. Carlomar Daoana, in response to a piece which had the elements of sky and ocean in it, remarked: “These are poems with poetic currency. I appreciate works that have a rather complicated poetic landscape and a narrator who has a nuanced eye.”

5. After expounding on the concept of centripetal and centrifugal images, Lourd de Veyra emphasized that: “In using descriptive words make sure that the adjectives are yours.” Also, he furthered that: “There is no such thing as a “neutral” word.”

6. Commenting on a poem that has sparseness in language and seemingly borders on cliché, Dr. Dimalanta pointed out: “Poetry is writing what others have not yet seen.”

7. Dr. Cirilio Bautista strongly stressed that: “There are no new ideas, only new forms.” Furthermore, he shared that: “The building blocks of poetry are myth, metaphor, and imagery.”

8. Lourd de Veyra criticized the use of italics in poetry, calling them “typographical blackmail.”

9. Dr. Bautista, commenting on a rather vague and inaccessible poem, said: “A poem is not a puzzle, it is an enlightenment.”

10. Lourd de Veyra stated that: “Walang tekstong inosente.” He also quoted a writer by saying:“Poems are first felt before understood.”

I really had a great time learning and listening today, despite the fact that one of my poems had been declared as “not a poem, but prose.” However, it was more of a reminder for me not to use language laxly and not to extremely depend on purely the surface, the literal level, the description. In a workshop like this, the so-called poetic metaphor is extremely guarded and hunted.

At least I now know, right? Hihihi. Then again, this workshop is all about sifting through and imbibing the knowledge presented to me. Rather than changing my stand on poetry, it is more of opening my mind to the various concepts of proper poetic craftsmanship.

This day ended at one of the cool bars along Lacson Street, where I and my co-fellows bonded over bottles of beer. Of course being the wholesome person that I am (sarcasm intended), I didn’t grab a bottle of frothy beer—Lights man ‘yan o ‘yung sumisipang Kabayo.

Tomorrow, it is the turn of the fellows for Kwento to have their first initiation rights.

Good luck, guys! Ang daming babasahin.

UST National Writers' Workshop Day 1: The Beginning

2009-05-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

And after all the waiting, it has finally started today! The 10th UST National Writers’ Workshop, in which I am a lucky fellow for poetry, has finally begun. Early this April, I received an email from Sir Al Dimalanta, our coordinator, announcing that I am one of the fortunate eighteen writers who qualified for this year’s workshop. Just imagine all the giddiness and excitement that I felt all throughout the weeks of waiting for my first official “baptism of fire,” so to speak. As my fellow amateur writers know, writing workshops have always been the primary step of the literary ladder, if one is really determined of honing his craft. It is a pathway leading to many possibilities in one’s writing career, which of course may either inspire one writer (or someone who just wants to write) to pursue the discipline or otherwise.

I have always dreamt of joining any writers’ workshop. Upon entering my writing organization in UP (hello, UGAT!), my orgmates, both past and present, have always given much premium on such venues, where one can examine and even shake the core of his works based on the perspective of esteemed literary scholars and creative writers. Given the various UGAT alumni who had been fellows in various local and national writers’ workshops in the past, the present crop of writers who are now running the organization have always been asked—often with resent and brooding disappointment—as to why there has been a dearth of fellowships granted to recent affiliates. And personally, as part of the current generation, this gives me so much skepticism on why this is so. Though I am still in search for the answers, various hints of evidence resurface from time to time. Does the problem lie in the writer-member? In the kinds of work we, as an organization, read, know, and produce?
That’s why it is with unexplainable joy that the organization’s present members—or more accurately, their bodies of work—are now being noticed, however slightly and slowly. Apart from me who’s been accepted to this year’s workshop in that pontifical University, whose antiquity rolls across the length of Espana, Manila, three other members—Pat, Pol, and Bote—have also qualified to the 2nd Rogelio Sicat National Writers’ Workshop of the Departmento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas (DFPP) in UP Diliman. If anything, these qualifications once again kindle the seemingly dying flame of our literary craftsmanship, as projected in the shoddy and sketchy writings produced in the past semesters.

So back to the 10th UST National Writers’ Workshop, which is the central point of this essay really. The first day, as I may describe, was quite silent and lenient. With the fellows just newly introduced to one another, there were indeed some inhibitions and holding back during and after the first day of workshop.

This year’s group of fellows is comprised of a mix bunch of “elitist” students (to use Dr. Ophelia Dimalanta’s description), with the inclusion of a handful of professors and graduate students from both state and private—as in Blue, Green, and Yellow—universities. During the orientation, Dr. Dimalanta swore that the UST Writer-in-Residence herself had a hard time sifting through the works and choosing the final eighteen successful applicants. Of course, upon hearing these words from the dowager of Philippine Literature—alongside the indefatigable Edith Tiempo—and a constant candidate for the National Artist for Literature Award at that—my heart of course overflowed with pride on the one hand and humility on the other.

Today’s workshop was teeming with so much wisdom and literary tips and techniques. After a sumptuous lunch of buttered vegetables, rice, and the most sosyal adobo I have ever seen and tasted in my entire life, the workshop for Tula started. Sir Eros Atalia, Professor Michael Coroza, Professor Ralph Semino-Galan, and Mr. Gerry Gracio paneled. It was indeed a tough—but I must stress, funny—bunch of panelists, since everyone was rather light and open-heartedly ready to share their knowledge in whatever way they could. For me, each of them has a distinct trademark: Sir Eros was the jester who often cracked jokes regarding the text or the author or both; Professor Mike was the toughie guy who didn’t mince words and whose comments and views, albeit tinged with the LIRA school of thought, I found exceptionally interesting and amusing; Professor Galan was more of the cutie-cutie guy whose opinions were loaded with literary criticisms that deemed to be very essential; and finally, Sir Gerry whose casual repartees and insights never failed to make me laugh and feel absorbed, respectively. Of course there was also Dr. Dimalanta who would join the panel from time to time, giving her precious and perceptive views and opinions toward the text and the author at large.

These are few of the notes that I jotted down in the process of listening and participating in the workshop for Tula:

1. In response to a text that seemed trite and too telling, Sir Eros Atalia said: “The page is a big space—write what is unsaid….”

2. Again, on the same piece, he remarked (and I paraphrase): “In writing a protest poem, make sure that propaganda won’t take over craft.”

3. According to Mr. Gracio: “I believe poems that have social relevance are the ones to last.”

4. Professor Coroza maintained that “Protest poems must be rooted in historical setting. There has been a wide range of protest literature in the past. The burden now is how to reinvent it.”

5. “Essays operate based on evidence; poems function through images, metaphors, tone, etc.”

6. “Ang pagsulat ng tula ay parang pagkanta. Napakaraming karaoke singers sa Pilipinas, pero kakaunti lang ang dinadakila sa kanila,” said Prof. Mike Coroza.
7. Sir Eros Atalia added: “Poetry is not a habit; it is a discipline.”

8. Dr. Ophelia Dimalanta butted in: “One technique I can teach you in writing poetry is: Objectify the subject, subjectify the object.”

9. She furthered that: “In literary criticism, there are three sovereignties: sovereignty of the author, the text, and the reader.”

I would love to amplify these statements as perceived by me, but I guess kapag nagkausap nalang tayo personally. Hehe!

Tomorrow, Dr. Cirilio Bautista and Dr. Ophelia Dimalanta, together with Professor Lourd De Veyra and Professor Carlomar Daoana of UST, will be paneling the session for Poetry. So: there.

Ayieeeee!

The Culture of Fans

2009-04-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Behind a famous celebrity lies a die-hard fan.

Thus says the aphorism popularized in the entertainment industry. In the world of glitz and glamour, of lights and sounds, of sparkle and shimmer, throngs of fans behind and around the galaxy of celebrities are screaming and heckling their hearts out just to both impress and express. Indeed, there is an underlying community at the back of the spectacular curtains of show biz—the world of the fans!

I had the chance to be a fan for a day last Saturday and experience the feeling of standing for three grueling hours just to wait for the gates of ABS-CBN to open. For the class assignment, I right ahead asked our kasambahay, Ate Nene, who’s a member of the Luis Manzano Fans’ Club, if I could be with her group in watching Entertainment Live in which the said celebrity is a regular host. Despite my impatience and crankiness, I still lined up and tried to endure the seemingly endless time of waiting.

The packs of fans—which, during that time, were composed of Toni Gonzaga’s, Mariel Rodriguez’s, Bianca Gonzales’, the group which I belonged to, and Ryan Agoncillo’s (who was a guest that day)—were commonly boisterous and somewhat upfront with their emotions. While in line, they enthusiastically talked about their idols and recounted, almost detail per detail, the latest gossips and happenings concerning their favorite artists. Furthermore, I also observed that they generally used colloquial words in communicating with one another, which often sounded harsh and rough to the ear.

It was also a blast seeing these hoards of people huddling together with their huge and pricey tarpaulins as props and means of expression. I view these banners, tarpaulins, and other whatnots as artifacts that symbolize a statement coming from beings who view these artists and show biz in general as one alternative form of reality. Whatever they meant to the fans, I just have a modicum idea about that. But initially, at a surface observation, what else could they mean but appreciation and idolatry?

Moreover, their behaviors gave me an aggressive and assertive impression. They, however, were also patient and congenial, because they easily turn to you (in spite of the strangeness to each other) and ask you various matters about either the purpose of your presence or a comment about their idols. Apparently, with these fans, the concept of the Stranger is blurry, making them more amiable toward people and, despite the intermittent cankerous and crass behaviors, still look pleasant in my eyes as an observer.

Of course, the age and gender of the fans affected my observation about the kind of culture that they have as a group. During my initial investigation, I noticed that the young fans—specifically the teenagers and those ranging from early 20s to early 30s—were more insistent and upfront. During the program, they were the ones who heckled stronger, clapped louder, and reacted greater as compared to the older pack inside the studio. As with gender, females and gays dominated the group, with only few men in the studio.

Also, the groups of fans easily jelled with one another when an issue about their idols was tackled. Though there were strong cliques within the groups, they were also those who’re open to others that have had the similar sentiments and commentaries about various matters. Theoretically, this kind of behavior rings a certain truth because these groups shared common fields of experience, putting them closer, more related and more open to one another.

On my part, it was also important to observe the fans’ proximity toward strangers, or those who were considered “outsiders.” Like what’s aforementioned these groups of fans were mostly congenial. Being a stranger myself, I did not feel any feeling of intimidation from them, or any insult or mockery, for that matter. Though they have had their own jargons and ways of communicating with people, I found it easy talking with them. In fact, when talking with someone who looks educated, they have this tendency of speaking to you in a humble way and treating you with a certain uneasiness (or perhaps awkwardness) borne out of too much respect.

Of course, these are only initial observations on the culture of fans. Indeed, theirs is an interesting and colorful world, filled with the real drama and comedy that life has to take hold of. In this kind of world, reality takes a different twist as the glamour of showbiz goes center stage and luring every fan, spectator, audience. After all, as the saying goes, “That’s entertainment!”

UP SPECA: Higher Now

2009-04-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

As a socio-academic organization which fosters speech communication as a field of higher learning and as an important facet of our everyday lives, the University of the Philippines Speech Communication Association (UP SPECA) has been actively spearheading and involving itself in various activities and projects that are deemed beneficial to both the academe and the community. Since its founding in the academic year 2000-2001, UP SPECA has established itself as one of the leading organizations in the UP College of Arts and Letters (CAL) and in the whole University as well, which openly renders its service and manpower whenever the need arises. For the past years, the organization has organized seminars, competitions, workshops, and conferences that further the study of speech communication- all of which, most especially those organized this year, have gotten overwhelming feedback from the UP community as well as from participating schools outside the University.

UP SPECA prides itself as the most competent and dynamic CAL organization. With a total of 70 official members to its name, UP SPECA views its affiliates as assets rather than liabilities, which it can maximize, develop, and rely on as it pursues feasible venues, productive programs, and viable plans for the future. All throughout the year, UP SPECA has been able to tap its members to organize and participate in a variety of academic and social activities that have involved not only students of UP but also outsiders who are willing to partake and share the same interests. Such activities include the Alternative Classroom Learning Experience (ACLE) held in both semesters, the UP SPECA Speech Craft (a public speaking contest open to all UP students), gadget and food sales, and the successful UP SPECA Speech Cup 2008 which showcased various Metro and Mega Manila high schools and colleges and their talents in solo and group oral interpretation and extemporaneous public speaking.

Apart from enriching its experiences by helping in various academic pursuits in the college and in the University, UP SPECA also believes that there are people more in need outside the confines of the UP. Being a socio-civic organization, it has also extended its services by organizing visits and performances for the Comfort Women and the cancer patients at the East Avenue Medical Center Cancer Ward. Some of its members, mostly the officers, also joined the Rotaract Club of Wack Wack, one of the youth counterparts of the Rotary Club which is a worldwide organization that aims to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

This academic year has also made milestones for UP SPECA. As the organization matures through time, the tasks that it tries to handle have also become more interesting and more challenging. This year, the organization had a week-long celebration of its anniversary which was ended by its first ever Alumni Homecoming. Moreover, it has dabbled its feet in events organizing through the much celebrated Tutti-Flutti: Exploring Flute Music, with the UP Collge of Music’s renowned flutist, Dr. Antonio Maigue, as the main performer. It was also the sole student organization in CAL that helped in terms of man-power during the Pambansang Komperensya sa Sarsuwela last February, too.

Given these major accomplishments of UP SPECA, the organization stands tall as a student organization that is committed in serving its mother department, the college, the University, and the Filipino community at large. Its mission to promote the significance and power of speech communication remains unwavering, as it faces the daunting challenges and abundant opportunities that come on its way. While confronted with the dynamicity of our everyday lives, UP SPECA never stops in enhancing itself to be the best in its field. Fueled by the core values and thrusts that have guided and molded it throughout its seven years of existence, it continuously moves forward for the betterment of the people that it serves.

UP SPECA believes that human communication is pervasive in our society, and that people should be giving much premium in improving it. It is with this belief that UP SPECA steps up as a student organization that plays an essential and critical role in promoting and maintaining a harmonious communicative experience among people. In a world where too many stories are left untold and too many voices left unheard, UP SPECA chooses to come to the fore, break silence, and take on the challenge of recounting the unuttered narratives, the unspoken truths, and the unrealized awareness that people should be rightful of knowing.

Hired!

2009-04-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

It was through the Internet that I learned about the internship program of Storyline, a documentary show which is being aired on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) every Friday, at 10:30 in the evening. At first I was quite hesitant about the work, despite my own personal admiration in the works that the show has produced in the past—and still is producing—and the reputation that the people behind it have. As the second semester of last school year was about to end, and as my fellow speech majors and I started to strategize our own plans for this summer’s on-the-job training, I had then pledged to myself that having my internship in any media institution would be (and I was pretty sure during those times) my last resort.

Later on I was informed about Lyanne and Lady’s application to Storyline, together with other speech majors who were hopeful to clinch a job from Pat Evangelista’s production company. Back then, I felt that they were too much in a hurry and that their application might probably be based on either their amusement on the prospective work, or their fanaticism over the famous speech alumna turned executive producer. In my mind, I wanted something else; a work that would perhaps expose me to the goings-on of the academe, events organizing, human resource, or advertising. Though I have always been fascinated with the glitz and glamour of media, there is a certain haggardness and superficiality in both the line of work that one is tasked to do as well as with the lifestyle of the people involved in it.

Little did I know that sooner or later I was also then veering toward the same path that some of my co-speech majors had trudged on. I found myself attaching my own resume, typing pat.evangelista@gmail.com on the send space of my email account, putting the words APPLICATION FOR STORYLINE INTERNSHIP on the subject space, and finally clicking send. I really don’t know what urged me to do so; what is clear to me now however is that my parents have been influencing and budging me to try the landscapes of media ever since childhood. Perhaps, I was just in a state of denial all this time!

And there I was, in room 203 of SJB Condominium at Panay Avenue, clad in my business outfit, as if the concept of ethos was clothed primly around me, half-heartedly ready to be interviewed by a person whom I just know based on what I watch on television and read in the dailies. That was my first job interview in my entire life, and honestly, the tension that I felt really crumbled inside me, seemingly crushing my entrails. Four of us were scheduled for interview during that day: one fellow speech major, two students from DLSU-Lipa, and I. We were that Pat Evangelista was still on her way and that we should wait for her. While waiting, the four of us couldn’t help but bask in one another’s cluelessness and nervousness.

Soon, we saw the interviewer herself boarding off a service van, looking sultry in her mini shorts and bohemian-inspired top, her pair of dark shades protecting her eyes from the sun’s rays, her long curly hair draped like a black curtain. If not because of the guard who informed her of our presence, she wouldn’t notice us. “Oh, come with me,” she said, confidently walking her way straight ahead toward the condominium’s hallway. Then we followed her until we reached the left end of the condo’s second floor. “Who likes to go first?” she asked. We were dumbfounded. “I will,” I said, braving myself if only to end all this excruciating agony.

She first queried about my personal information, followed by my purpose for applying, and then finally probed into my knowledge of the program. The first two things came quite easy since they were all just about my identity and intention; however, the last one registered more of a surprise because it spurred a lot of tough questions that made me stutter and tremble most of the time. Good thing that I researched a little bit prior to the interview, or else I might have remained unemployed until now.

I realize that in finding a job, one would really encounter various forms of intimidations and superiority. Given the general mindset and stature that supervisors have and usually take pleasure from, one should prepare and anticipate the goings-on that may happen in an interview. On hindsight, I think I wouldn’t have been accepted had I not exerted effort to browse the Internet and watch several episodes of the show over Youtube. Moreover, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the internship program if not for the good communication skills, confidence (this albeit the intermittent stuttering and beads of sweat on my forehead) that I suspect to possess.

What companies want now, I guess, are people who have competent communication skills—competent being the operational word there—a reception and willingness to learn new things, and keenness in rendering service to the organization. In this time and age where people are more concerned with the production process above anything else, efficiency has turned into the name of the game. When an interviewer asks about service and dedication, one must wholeheartedly agree with the company’s terms of procedure, enthusiastically accept the challenges of the work, and sincerely show interest in the kind of job he is ought to do.

Now, I am working for Storyline, under the helm of Patricia Evangelista, our executive producer, and Paulo Villaluna, our director. I am told that my line of work is that of research, which means that my duty is to scour the nooks and crannies of the Metro (or beyond it) and search—no, no, no, hunt!—for stories that are sensible, inspiring, and worthy of human interest. As part of my job, I am required—albeit with a heavy heart, hehe!—to go under the toasting heat of the sun, ride on buses and jeepneys, and forcedly subject myself to Metro Manila smog, all of which I am very willing to do for the sake of my boss’s warm appreciation and commendation of course! Furthermore, it is also my responsibility to contact people, look for numbers and addresses of possible guests, and to pen write-ups of viable subjects for further scrutiny of my bosses.

According to my supervisors, as a researcher, my stories serve as fuel for the show to keep it moving. What does the show mean if not the lives of people after all? It is with this frame of mind that I am pressed to do my best in scavenging for the most interesting narratives there is. Never mind the scorching sun, the squalid slums, the horrible wet markets, and the eccentric people along the way. It’s just that at the end of the day, what matters most are the stories that I have in hand—ready to be narrated, ready to have its own enlivened life on screen.

Indeed, the virtues of patience, determination, and resourcefulness are essential to accomplish the work. It is not enough that one does what he can; he also must try his utter best to face and respond to the things that he cannot do. Upon entering the so-called “real world,” I appreciate my course now more than ever. It is through this job that I see the importance of competent communication skills, with a large focus on interpersonal relationship. Because my work demands for everyday contacts with various people who may or may be not similar to the kind of environment which I grew up in, it greatly helps that one becomes more sensitive and receptive to differences and changes.

Lastly, I am keeping my hopes high toward this job, and how it can give me fresh insights on how the workplace really operates. As far as it goes, I find the work both taxing and appealing. It’s the type of work that makes you think and work—outside the box indeed! No sluggishness is needed, no inefficiency. And if these are the conditions that my chosen work demands from me, then I am ready to brave myself and embrace the challenge. With the rate of how I am going, I am certainly here to stay.

Good, Old Friends

2009-01-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was riding on a Victory Liner bus. Once again I traveled for more or less eight grueling hours. For sure, during those times, my fellow passengers were as harried as I was. At the bus station, a lot of people were waiting for available buses to board at. As early as New Year’s eve almost all trips were fully booked. Good thing that my Tita Loren has friends who're bus drivers.

So I was on the road last night with the usual heavy heart and fatter body that I always carry back home to Manila from Santiago city. I have no choice but to face and go back to the hanging responsibilities left here in the Metro. Despite the almost more than two weeks of rest, my body still wants to relax and delight in the goodness of the province, with the niceties that the parents are always ready to give albeit the looming financial crisis that they often complain about.

While my relationship with Metro Manila is purely academic and professional, my love for Isabela is quite personal and, yeah, quite complicated. It is, I must admit, a hit or miss thing. The province never fails me with its mysteries and surprises, with its slow progress and decrepitude, with the funny and shameless tarpaulins of politicians sprawled straight across the parochial church, with the grimy and wet market at the heart of Santiago city. On the other hand,who can’t find pleasure in seeing former classmates and familiar faces in line for holy communion during Sunday mass, in juicy scuttlebutts about friends and former schoolmates as main topics of phone conversations and online chatting, in attending debuts without any formal invitation from the main celebrator, in going home at seven in the morning together with friends who, like you, are either feeling groggy due to lack of sleep, or feeling tipsy and smelling like a whole bottle of Generoso brandy because of a long night of booze and talk.

Yesterday I was with two young friends who are now in fourth year high school. The fancy and sudden meet up happened because of the exhilaration I felt upon learning that they just passed the DLSU admission exam. On my part it brought up a lot of memories, and even ushered me back to a whole region of regrets and failures when I was in high school. I unfortunately flunked the exams for that school, which I honestly expected since I was totally poor in Math. It even made me remember the time when Mama and I first learned about the results online. Honestly I was really shameful of not passing DLSU, since everyone then had high hopes that I’d make it. But I did not, sadly.

Which all the more makes me prouder of my long-time friends.

Paula passed for ECE and Noel for Computer Science. Though I wonder what made these two aspiring writers turn to courses like these? However, in spite of passing DLSU and being extremely happy about it, I sensed in them the same giddiness and anticipation and frustration that I had had before over passing the UPCAT. In this time of psychological torment and pressure on what school would they end up belonging to after high school graduation, I did not care to find time to fool around with their hopes and even dampen their emotions. Now that they had already taken the UPCAT and are just impatiently waiting for the results, all I advised them was to pray harder and focus on the requirements and responsibilities that they’re liable for as of the moment. Wracking your nerves like there’s no tomorrow would just take the sanity out of you, kids!

Whenever we’re texting and chatting, these kids always say they miss me. And honestly I miss them, too! Last night I was touched by their subtle gestures of affection, by the cute and shocking stories that they told me, by the reminiscent tone in their voices, by their attempt of paying for my tricycle fare, by their company on my walk to home, by Paula’s subtle yet warm hugs every time I kidded her about getting fat and girlish with the dress she wore on a family picture posted over Friendster , by Noel’s casual yet heartfelt high-five as we parted ways. I missed those simple gesticulations of friends whom I was not able to meet up with in almost a year.

Though we’ve been texting and chatting with one another constantly, there was still that different surge at the heart when I heard the lilts in their voices, the awe in their eyes, and the uncontrollable laughter upon meeting face to face. Indeed, albeit the more mature thinking and the various fields of experiences that now gap us from one another, they for me still remain the Paula and Noel whom I know of. These kids who never fail to sweetly call me Kuya Oj. These kids who never waver in trusting and believing in my talent in writing and speaking. These kids who never fail to update me about the latest and hottest gossips and developments in our school from the day I graduated. These kids who never stop sharing their thoughts and experiences in love, life, and even sex.

Oh, these kids who never fail to amaze me in various ways!

Little Reports

2008-12-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

The room is silent, with the ticktock of the clock behind me attempting to break the monotony of the night. Outside my window, darkness is framed on a panel of wood, laced with the apple green curtains that Mama draped on upon my arrival from Manila. My feet are getting cold as the nippy wind enters my room, giving me chills along my spine from time to time. And here I am in the middle of a tender night, amidst the calmness and laxity of an evening in Santiago City, clad in my favorite loose white shirt and my five-year old puruntong shorts. Alone in my room, the light emanating from my laptop serves as guide in writing this blog entry.

At this point I want to believe that lists are too childish, and that as I age, they become pettier and insignificant to my life. Gone are the days when listing up the things that I wanted would mean a dream come true. Gone also are the days when childhood dreams and wishes translated to satisfaction and tangible things. Now, with all the hustles and bustles of life, and the hard times that everyone claims to be affecting them in one point or another, listings for me have been keys that unlock a make-believe world of fantasies.

In this time and age, it is be better to be realistic. Sometimes it is much better to keep your heart and mind grounded in the demands and supplies of the now, to the limitations that yourself could only possibly subject itself to. Most of the time it is with life's realities, and not with what you dream of, that you get contentment, enlightenment, happiness. Sometimes you expect too much, wish too much, yearn for too much, only to end up greatly disappointed in the finality of things, if there is such to begin with.

It is with these (shaky) reasons that I decided not to have some New Year resolutions and whatnot, if only to fill the year ahead of me with unbearable pressure and hazardous expectancy. While almost everyone is busy whipping their latest concoction of proposals, I would like to have a brief breakdown of the things and happenings that came in and took place in the year that, in a few hours, I would bid my farewell to.

Year 2008 has been kind to me in terms of material things. And for all of these, I would like to thank--who else?--my parents for being so generous, in spite of... (and there goes the litany about our trying times) Nonetheless I am still lucky to have my first ever precious gadget in years--my laptop Leda!

After all the nudging and cajoling--that I have been a consistent honor student in school, that every student needs a laptop for convenience sake, that I am in my third year, fast approaching fourth year, which means thesis, etc.--I have finally gotten that hard-to-earn yes. Thus, Leda. Though I still remain a self-confessed technophobic, this gift is one of those I truly treasure and appreciate this year.

Last 2007 I promised myself to haul my ass off my comfort zone, do some serious grind, and find a work that could give me a good amount of wherewithal, to sustain my then looming financial crisis. Look: The requirements in UP are unbelievable, with all the demands to photocopy readings, to contribute to a group project, to pay org fees and other miscellaneous. And since my sister entered college, Mama also had to scrimped on on our weekly allowance, slashing nearly fifty per cent of it, to my and my brother's chagrin and dismay of course.

So what else is there left for the capricious me?

This year I was lucky enough to find a job that decently paid back the hard-work and service that I rendered. Albeit the short-lived duration of my work (that lasted for only three tiring weeks), I learned a lot from it, earned a lot from it, and enjoyed a lot because of it. They say that being a teacher--or a tutor, for that matter--is not an easy job; now that I experienced what's the like of being one, I can attest to the veracity of the statement. Doing lesson plans, pondering on what activities to let your tutee work on, dividing your time for academic and personal stuff just to give your tutee--and a 28 year-old Korean tutee at that!--the right treatment that his money deserved--all of these were totally taxing on my part, exhaustively exhausting me to the bone at the end of a week's tutorial service. But then again, the patience, the knowledge, and of course, the amount of money I gained from the whole experience remain, up to this moment, priceless!

However unfriendly and harsh I may seem to others, I am always thankful for newfound friends who come into my life. Any friendship, either long-term or short-lived, is for me an investment. What could be more touching than a friend whom you haven't seen in years saying hi to you and giving you a warm hug upon bumping into each other in an indifferent corridor in UP? What else could be more inspiring than to see a bunch of giddy, frustrated writers conversing and converging inside a deteriorating kubo, sharing their often rickety and sometimes uncertain views about life, love, and writing? And finally, what else could be more heartwarming than to be considered--even as a second choice--and to be trusted by an organization (in which you are a new member of) to host a big, spectacular event of theirs for the year? Indeed, I keep my old and new friends as precious as gems that continue to give shine in my life--high tide or low tide!

Modesty aside, I feel brighter this year. Thanks to the friends, classmates, teachers, and other people whose presence I stumble upon in one point or another, in various settings, moods and swings of my life. If there's one thing that I love about life, it is the continuous learning process that all of us are subject to, or so I like to think. I believe that in terms of books read, experiences experienced, ideologies in mind, the totoy in me has matured a lot. And I hope this continues as the years pile up...

Of course, however nonsensical this may sound, Booksale has been rubbing on me with such divinity! It's paradise, guys! I remember years back when all I wanted to read were brand new books purchased from National, Powerboooks, or Fully Booked. Those were the years when Mama was always there ready to shoulder whatever I wanted. But now, with the tables turned, I have to save on my budget big time, always thinking thrice before splurging on whatever luxury and niceties that life has to offer.

That, basically, was how my sweet relationship with Booksale and its ilk started. From Booksale Cubao to Booksale Megamall, from the Pick-A-Book branch in ABS-CBN to the Manila Book Fair in Pasay, I have had doggedly scoured them like crazy! And for the coming year, there's certainly no way of stopping me in doing so.

My family also, as always, has always been a blessing to me. What and where am I now, after all, if not for my family? 2008 has been tough on us though, but thankfully, we generally survived the tests of times. With my lolo's health once again taking the nosedive because of complications in diabetes and his heart ailment, our family really have had a hard time adjusting. Now, apart from the expensive medications, it is more of vegetables and fish and chicken for the old folk, which most of the time he really detests against, being the man that he is who wolfs down igado, adobo, lechon, asado, and the likes like a hurricane wiping out an entire city!

Another thing that I am utterly thankful about is the good diagnosis on Mama's breast tumor. It was August of this year when Mama started to feel pains on her breasts. After several self-tests, she then discovered some lumps. Upon learning about this I was really taken by shock, since my mother's side has a grave history of cancer. Good thing that the tumors were benign and that they, according to the doctors, were just hormonal, whatever that meant.

I love you, Mama!

Finally, this year has been good to me academically speaking. Despite all the pressure in school, the responsibilities in organizations, the timidity that takes the good out of me from time to time--I am able to maintain, thank God, a good academic record. Whenever asked about my school life and about me being a conscientious student, I always answer back and reason out that it is my duty to do good in school only because I want to see my parents proud and happy of me at the end of the semester, when bank accounts are poorer, the parents' gusto for work damp, and my body worn-out of schoolwork.

I love you, Mama and Papa!

Tonight we'll be once again bidding an either acerbic or glorious bye-bye to year 2008. Time indeed flits so fast, that we are left aghast or in-awe with the things, people, and happenings in the year that has been. No matter how cliche, a brand new year after all always means hope...transformation...wisdom...

As we look forward, may we find happiness to the lessons learned in the past years of our lives. As we look forward, may we find peace in the phases that ended and the chapters that are about to open for us to cherish, savor, and indulge in. As we look forward, may we find strength in building a better present, a better now, a better self, so that the world's future will be brighter and merrier to our eyes. As we look forward, may we consider the past as the present and the present as our future, for us to relish and experience whatever we have now with so much enthusiasm, enlightenment, and ebullience. And as we look forward, may we fully enjoy and improve on ourselves with the gift of a new year mainly just because...

Cheers to 2009!

A Buddhist Experience

2008-12-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

Buddhism is one religion that has been deeply embedded in Philippine culture and society. As Chinese population exponentially increases in the country, the influences of Buddhism have also become more evident and significant to our daily lives. Because the Chinese have been part and parcel of our collective history as Filipinos, it is also but proper to understand their religion as well as the various factors that spring from this.

The Buddhism religion reached the Philippine shores when, between 7th to 8th century, Malaysia’s Srivijaya empire gained prominence in the region (buddhist-tourism.com). Today, there is a relatively small number of Buddhists in our society, estimating around 2-3 per cent of the total Philippine population. However, almost all schools of Buddhism are well represented in the country, with the Mahayana in domination.

My friends and I had the chance of visiting a Buddhist temple along the length of Narra Street in the core of Manila’s commerce, near Tutuban Center. As we entered the Seng Guan Temple, the statue of a golden Buddha was the first image that welcomed us. Like what we expected, it foreshadowed our entire experience in the temple, which was filled with momentous and interesting events. On the temple’s first floor were Chinese who first offered strings of sampaguitas and diligently hanged them on metal hooks located at the both ends of the temple. Right after the offertory of flowers, they lighted up their incense sticks, went straight to those red kneeling pads, and started shaking their hands, which tightly held the fumigating sticks. One might find this ritual peculiar because of the way and the innuendos before they bow to Buddha.

I learned, however, that this is the way they meditate and concentrate for them to be ushered to enlightenment and spiritual freedom. According to the website www.religionfacts.com, Buddhist meditations are divided into two: the vispassana (insight) and the samatha (tranquility). Vispassana is practiced to still the mind and train it to focus. Moreover, this is said to progress in four stages: detachment from the external world and a consciousness of joy and tranquility; concentration; passing away of joy, but with the sense of tranquility remaining; and passing away of tranquility, but landing on a state of pure self-possession and equanimity.

On the other hand, samatha or insight meditation is employed in the realization of the important truths of Buddhism, such as impermanence, suffering, and “no-self”. In the Buddhist religion, in order to attain full liberation from the suffering of life, one must first realize the significance of these truths.

While observing from the back of the temple their ways of meditating, a woman who was standing right in front of the three Buddha statues caught my attention. She was holding two red wooden chips, circling them in the air, seemingly following an unfamiliar pattern, and abruptly dropping them on the floor. This act became stranger to me and my friends when she repeated this not just once, but for many succeeding times.

It took quite a time before it dawned on me that this is the Buddhists’ way of seeking answers from Buddha himself. We were told that if the two chips face upward upon dropping, it means Buddha is laughing at your question. Conversely it means a no. But when one faces upward and the other downward—that, accordingly, means yes.

Like any other religion in the world, Buddhism also has its own sets of mantras and hand signals that gesticulate the symbols, meanings, and messages that they mutely want to convey to Buddha. In Mahayana Buddhism, mantras and mudras (their sacred hand gestures) are believed to secure the mind and exorcise evil spirits away from the body. These are believed to posses supernatural powers whenever performed in Buddhist meditations or rituals. Moreover, they are also believed to generate forces that “invoke a particular Buddha or deity”.

On our second visit to the temple, my friends and I were expectant of witnessing an actual Buddhist mass, since we felt that this would make the whole experience truer and more complete. Lucky enough, we arrived at the nick of time just before the 9 am mass. As we reached the temple’s second floor, throngs of Chinese, both young and old, greeted us. This time around the smell of incense grew thicker and clingier to the skin, as several of them were holding incense sticks, doing the aforementioned routine all over again. At this time, the mood of the place became more festive and grandiose since various fruits, candies, and flowers were generously offered to Buddha.

Before long the mass started with the signaling of the sound of the gong. Four Buddhist monks clad in yellow robes came out and delivered the mass. Almost everyone was holding a red chapbook, which served, we were informed, as their guide or copy for the hymns that were sung all throughout the service. This was followed by a sharp, sonorous sound coming from the monk’s musical instrument. As this sound pinged on our ears, all worshippers obediently knelt down. The temple, then, was filled with incantations which had, now on hindsight, quite an unusual intonation pattern. In the middle of the worship service, one of the four monks held a glass with water, dipped a flower which had dainty red petals, went around the hall, and sprinkled water at the peripheries of the temple the way Catholics do with their holy water.

Since we were positioned at the right front side of the temple, we had a good vantage point of the worshippers. We noticed that most, if not all, of the people in front were in red. A lady who was seated beside us explained that this was the family of a dead Chinese man. The color red symbolized the happiness and recovery that they were feeling at present, after three years of mourning for their bereaved loved one.

The practice of wearing red to signify happiness is slightly similar to the Catholics’ as well as to other religious cultures around the world that associate the color to a blissful emotion. Furthermore, the Chinese wear white in times of bereavement, much the same as we do in moments of anguish.

For Buddhist worshippers, colors do represent different emotions and states of mind. For example, blue means coolness and infinity; black means darkness and hate; white means learning and purity; and red means the sacred and preservation, among others (religionfacts.com).

Near the tail-end of the mass, the four monks led the followers into what we called “the slither of a dragon or a snake”. The crowd followed the trail, creating a motion that was similar to a snake’s movement. This happened two times, signaling, again we were told, that the service was about to end. Shortly thereafter, the monks enthusiastically spattered the candies and coins that were offered to Buddha. Surprisingly, the crowd turned into a rowdy, excited one, like delighted kids swimming their ways into puddles of goodies during children’s parties.

After the mass, my friends and I roamed around the temple and were amazed by the architectural designs surrounding us. If only not for the limited time, we would have asked and interviewed some Buddhist worshippers. But seemingly, this attempt was also deemed impossible for most of the followers were pure Chinese and, therefore, were not able to understand or speak English or Filipino. Nonetheless we indulged ourselves with the amazing culture that the Buddhism religion has, and fed our curiosity about the way Chinese do their rituals during mass.

As we stepped out of the Seng Guan temple, the hustle and bustle of Manila commerce welcomed us back to our own realities. While walking to the main street for a jeepney ride, I once and for all looked behind me and saw again the temple’s green and golden stupa. And I couldn’t help myself but smile for the things that I learned about the religion and for the experience that was truly worthwhile.

About Death and Other Reflections

2008-10-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

In this day of rain and gloom, a friend is shrouded with grief. When she has all been very vocal about how she misses her family, her brother passed away from a car accident in the least expected time. It just gives me the creeps knowing that everything happened fast, and that everyone was caught off-guard of the sudden demise. Being the great betrayer, death comes in with no innuendos; at first it gives hope for a happy ending, but in an instant tick, it just grabs one in the neck and curtails whatever bliss one has at the beginning.

Anything about death gives me that chill along my spine. At this point, I just feel unprepared of any talk about death, about corpses, about coffins. I have great admiration to those who treat death as a celebration of life, as a moment of memorializing those good, old memories. But to me, it is first, above anything else, a curtailment of life. Needless to say, I hate the agony that death gives. I hate the sleepless nights, the whole theatrics of burial time, the excruciating I-know-you've-been-a-good-person-when-you-were-still-alive-and-that-you'll-be-in-heaven-by-now monologues of the living toward the dead. I hate it especially when death arrives in one instant, in one blast, in one kaboom of a second, abruptly taking away everything that has been established and shared through the years.

I have experienced a lot of deaths in my family. But, if truth to be told, I can just count in my fingers the deaths that I truly grieved for, that I mourned for for months (or maybe years). But I agree that every news about death in the family or in my nearest circle of friends always has that shocking factor that makes me feel afloat in the air for quite a time. And I must admit that, apart from the fear of ghosts, remembering and that chasm in one's life caused by the passing of a loved-one are what I am truly afraid of.

Also, there is this masochist and condescending thing about death. It controls all the affected ones for months of anguish and reassessing. Death makes people thrash about, then jaded, then melancholic, then afloat of memory, then nostalgic, then melodramatic...until they reach that point of saturation, wherein the only thing they can do is look back, shed a smile or tear, light up a candle and say a deep, soulful prayer of acceptance.

Going back to my friend who is in this low moment of mourning after the sudden death of her brother. The sheer news of her brother's death leaves me bereft of words, since, for the past weeks, my friend has been constantly blogging about how she misses her family, how she loves her brothers, how she really wants to be in the province to have some road trips, how she's excited about Christmastime with her family. Until this abrupt news of pain and death.

In these rainy days, it is quite dramatic (and cinematic?) to talk about death. It leaves me with this eerie feeling that everything is just wrong. It turns me skeptical about life, and makes me really think that life indeed is really one big bitch that orchestrates its plans in helter-skelter.

Now, my friend, in one of her latest posts about the death of her brother, asks "why him?" Like any other Filipino family who usually questions every death, she is also on the process of internalization, of seeking for that perfect time when everything would dawn on her. Being friends with her since elementary days, I know that she has more than a hundred queries aimlessly roaming on her mind. Despite still being in the city, far-away from the province where the true drama is unfolding bit per hurtful bit, I can still feel my friend's lamentation. The moment she replied a curt "Tnx oj" to a text message that tried to console her, I knew that she is taking everything heavily.

On my part, I cannot tell her that I understand her and that I feel for her. Because no matter how hard I try to feel the pain and understand the sorrow of the family, I know in my heart that theirs is a million times more afflictive and more grueling than what I have, and that no amount of hurt could capture the lowest of low times that they are in now.

Few days from now I will be back at the province. Our circle of friends is fast communicating about what to do and how to comfort our friend. The news is spreading fast. Inevitably, everyone is casting a feeling of sadness toward the death of Cathe's brother. After my own moment of solitude and reflection, after having my own version of pain written in this blog, I will leave the house, face the rain, and head for school for a group meeting. Today, as the notion of death clouds my mind like a veil, I once again learn how to say a soulful prayer.

Notes of a Stressed Person

2008-10-03T04:46:00.001-07:00

I just miss writing about myself. It has been some quite a time now since I really blogged about the goings-on in my life. I have kept this blog thriving by re-posting poems which I wrote in different moods and times in the past. A lot of things has been happening lately. Saying that I am extremely preoccupied would surely qualify as an understatement. But ironically, now that I am assessing what life has been after undergoing too much pressure from the previous weeks, I still cannot give an honest estimation of progress and productivity on my part.

The semester is now on its last leg, and seemingly, it turns out that the laxness that I portrayed all throughout the semester is now taking its toll on me. Perhaps that is what one gets from having too much confidence about himself. With the rate of things, I can now conclude that this semester has been the most hectic and bustling of all semesters that I have had in my whole academic life. Usually, in the tradition of obssesive-compulsive students out there (read: grade conscious), I fulfill the requirement days before the deadline rolls down in front of everyone, giving me the time to rollick on my own smug complacency while everyone haggles for life just to accomplish things.

But now the tables are turned upside-down. Like a student desperate of finishing the burdening requirements, yesterday I even resorted to gulping down two large cups of strong, dark coffee just to keep me sane and awake all through the night up to the wee hours of the morning. To my fellow batch-mates and me, this is one of the many looming signs of the coming of the apocalypse, or what, in our own UP academic jargon, is more popularly known as our thesis days. Inasmuch as I do not like to jump into conclusion and go way ahead of my academic life, the signs are now lurking around, as if ready to pounce on every unprepared and disgruntled student anytime they want to. Thus, the understandable pressure.

In these punishing times, the only consolation that the poor self gets is patches of happiness brought about by tranquility and some little delights that, however mundane they seem to be, still unfailingly bring back the childishness in one's self.

On my way home today, I passed by a Seven Eleven store located at the busy length of Quezon Ave. Surprisingly, I decided to get a large paper-cup of GULP and have some taste of that particular green-colored drink flavored in apple and kiwi. I found it strange that I was smiling all the while like an excited child as I was waiting for the drink to fill to the brim. Various thoughts played in my mind, like a joyful rollercoaster ride. In one snap, I realized it: I was zooming back to some memories of my sweet, innocent childhood.

As I was about to pay the drink over the counter, my eyes darted to a basket filled with the luscious yet cheap local toffee. Without any contention, I grabbed one and excitedly paid the bill. Then, as I left the store with the cold apple-kiwi-flavored drink on my left hand and the saccharine piece of Cloud 9 sticking out its brown, nutty complexion from the plastic like an inviting tongue on the other, it dawned on me that it had been a long time since I treated myself to such infantile pleasures. But then again, it also occurred to me that, from time to time, one needs to go back to the sheer delights associated to his childhood, for him to have, although fleeting at times, a sense of vitality, a sense of grounding.

It is just crazy to think that after a grueling week (which would obviously still continue till the last two days of the semester next week), it is in this trivial stuff that one finds splotches of bliss. Sometimes, one just tends to be gravitated to the immensity of things, that he forgets about the little joys in and of life. On my part, I am somehow lucky to discover some tinge of ecstasy from these simple things amidst the events that I went and am still going through at the final part of the semester.

I may sound like an evangelist coming straight from Net 25 or any Christian station on boob-tube---but does it matter now? To a self-confessed and self-absorbed cynic like me, reprieve and ecstasy come not so often after all. So why not just celebrate the joy?

Pieces

2008-09-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

Machismo is what keeps our society holding back from expression. The thoughts and consequences that it has made are innumerable. Years and years have passed for women to see the bright light of autonomy. Until now, gays and lesbians are still advocating for respect, parity, and understanding. Indeed, machismo affects everyone in the society. But above all, the foundational notions and assumptions that machismo brings have unimaginable, harsher effects on—who else?—men themselves!

The strong and seminal culture that males created is an infectious one. On one hand, it keeps our sense of tradition and history intact. (How were things invented? Who mostly invented them? Who explored the world and gave name to things?) But on the other hand, this way of life has hampered many forms of expression, many voices waiting to be heard, and many souls anticipating their own emancipation.

Given the expectations imposed on men, the male world is made up of a conventional way of life, which is characterized by routines and layered with pretentious symbols. It is however, like any other world, still on the process of searching its form. It just assumes conclusions; it imagines itself superior among others, but it still is, if truth to be told, also waiting for its own nascent bloom.

As time passes by, males find ways to confront and explore the other sides of masculinity. Gone are the days when men are just known for sports, for construction working, for farming. In the past years, men have been designing clothes, doing cosmetology, hemming the household work, among others. It is with these diversions that men are channeled to different routes, to different genres, to diverse kinds of receptiveness to areas that are far-out from manly prejudices.

In the public’s consciousness, masculinity is a dominant force that is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and superior. It is in this world that dichotomizing prevails (what is black is that which is not white, what is left is that which is not right). It is a world that struggles to be specific and compact.

But a male's life is filled with snobbery and false conceptions. Deep within, a men’s lives have a great sufferance of inexpressiveness. And in the silence of their selves, men do cry, sob, sulk. Oh, how men learned the art of keeping emotions and masking intentions!

Silence is a deeper language than speech. Men’s own silence is brought about by an intimate choice. They have to be reminded every now and then about the pain that silence may bring. Underneath silence is a self that wanders to some other places unreachable by the physicality of things. To men, it may also be a speechless and excruciating form of resistance.

The male world is a public domain which is filled with a lot of strengths and flaws. Its flaws, however, have been overshadowed by the potencies that males have. To write something about men’s lives is challenging a culture, a being. Writing about the excesses and transgressions that are embedded in the male world is scarring something that is deemed to be preserved and held solid for a long time.

And these ways of testing the stability of the male world need to be transcendental to survive. Without giving them too much thought and action, these challenges would easily die down. As people’s challenge to change the landscape of masculinity moves further through expression, through choices that are unlikely male, confronting each reality would be trickier.

Tradition may be the culprit. It influences decisions, it shoves off choices, and it ushers in biases. And masculinity is driven by a lot tradition; it is a smug world that gives no room for extras, for those who are breaking free, for those who are trying to search for their real identity.

To a male world, conversing about sexuality and individuality signals a sacrilegious act. But these kinds of talks are the means of other genders of subverting masculinity. Language may be the first barrier among genders; but now, each distinct voice of each gender is on its way to audacity.

Despite still groping in the dark, those who endeavor liberation in terms of their identity and their gender are now fast emerging to the scene. These attempts on autonomy, on creating a trademark separated from masculine convention, and on not just being called “the variants” of masculinity, are getting stronger each passing day.

In the past decades, we have heard of men who cook, who stay at home and do the chores, who teach gymnastics and ballet, who do dressmaking, who do various activities that veer away from the normalcy of a masculine world. These are indications of our changing times. Albeit the factors that encumber this emancipation from the common notions of maleness, more and more men have been seeing the light. Now, responses are somehow being heard and given notice.

The independence that the ‘other’ genders have been advocating in years is now in the stage of maturity. Somehow, our society has been more open to ‘gender diversity.’ In our contemporary time, the use of the term ‘gender’ as oppose to ‘sex’ is now more widely accepted as compared to before. But this however does not dispel the fact that there are still gender biases in the praxis of our everyday lives.

Identity has always been an issue. It is easily pressured and affected by too many influential forces—from the psychological, to the emotional, to the social. To others, identity is a choice. And to some, it is organic. But whichever side of the spectrum one is at, living an identity calls for equality and acceptance.

I am now thinking of those people who still fight for their rights to expression. Will they ever remain victims of a male-dominated world? By the portrayals and perspectives created by males? The search for equality in gender has gone a long, long way; some have already surrendered the fight and decided to live on their own tranquility in the dark; but there are still some reawakened souls who have stood firm with their choices and have in fact turned into advocates. I cannot help but ask: Why does the world become so harsh to those who want to break-free, to those who attempt to deviate from the norms? What people seem to forget is that those who try to liberate themselves from the dark are those who are courageous enough to desire for the unmasked realities of life.

As I conclude this essay, print out this piece, rise from my desk, and leave my laptop behind, it seems that more questions will roam in my mind. One can spend an entire lifetime inquiring and probing, I think to myself, and still hardly find clear and concrete answers. After all, it might just be the beginning.

Salt

2008-09-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

Before it was given name, salt was water aimlessly covering the ends of the earth. It was water that was heavy, was pulled by gravity, and was carried with so much weight. After it had meandered the nooks and crannies of the world, it decided to go into a halt, to have its own stopover. And this stopover is the endless seashores, the kitchen corners of homes. Salt was playful water that ebbed and surged, which danced out of season, out of reason. It was water that got tired of its own fluidity, of its own reckless insensitivity. So salt was water on the verge of drowsiness; it was water which tried to break-free from its own desultory nature. It was water dried up, played up in a relentless alchemy. But salt wasn’t the weak structure of water; instead, it was stronger than its former form, than its erstwhile rhythm, than its own previous silvery flow and motion. Salt was water that escaped from the throes of drowning, of scaling down the depths of the earth. Unsatisfied of its own dynamics, of its own decrements and increments, of its unpredicted scattering, salt turned solid, snobbish, superior. Being able to roam every direction that there is, it became unmoving, gracefully sitting on its own opaque existence. However, salt, with its enthusiasm to get away from volatility, preferred to relate with gems. And salt became the crystalline form of water.

Now it is the royalty and relish of all palettes. For salt is the inventor of the civilization of taste, of the whole society of flavor. And how salt savors this kind of highness and reverence! Unlike water, salt avoids the curse of tastelessness, and resists the act of speechlessness from its own judges, from its own obeisant tasters. For salt is water that has aspirations and ambitions. Without it, imagine the blandness that might linger, the strangeness that slips out from a community’s mouth. But salt proffers an opportunity for sensation, for reaction, for reconciliation. Salt is guided water. It tells the world when to decrease and increase the amount of experience. Anything that contains salt is an interpretation unto itself. Distinct from water, it is a liberated allusion of concreteness. It will never be out of date, out of sight, out of reach. Salt is our pallet’s greatest teacher.

Salt is the answer to our greatest cravings, to our delectable raveling for sumptuousness. It is the proficient companion for our responsiveness. Indeed, salt knows no disguise and concealment; it piques up the blandness of our lives, without jumping too fast to conclusions. For salt demands ingestion and digestion before we reach that certain realization of its value, its essence. Without salt, the country of delight and the continent of tastiness would have been impossible. Salt, however, is the culprit of our endless traditions. It connects generations of cooking, it bridges both young and aging, it links the imagination of consumption to the act of eating itself. Thanks to salt, our life has various choices: feasts of servings on our tables, joys in the ways of our cuisines. Salt, despite being the simplified structure of water, really does conjure the enchantment of appetite. It tightens ties and grants an enduring smile on them. It is not selfish of gratification; it applies pleasure through zest, through gusto, through yearning.

Had salt remained water, we would have not appreciated the exuberance of its benefits. We would still be subject to water’s dissonant living, to its inclination for austerity. Deprived of salt, our notion of deliciousness would just forever be prowling on our tongues. We would exist without labels, but also without specifications. Water yearns for routes and routines. It desires for placidity and redundancies. Salt, with its infinite longing for work and play, demands for experimentations and extemporaneousness. It tries to belong to whatever available passage there is, in any form there is, in any style there is—it just naturally…fits in. As water attempts to veer away from shape, salt mixes up with other things to find pulchritude in the unknown, in the plain, in the unelaborated. And this pulchritude brought out by salt leads to a better understanding of the ways of the world. Salt, then, is one of time’s crucial products.

But salt is eternally troubled with a fragility that cautions and a history that sticks. For having too much of it may lead to salt’s own default structure. Perhaps it is curse bestowed upon salt. When taken with extreme fondness, salt still connects with and even goes back to water. Also, salt needs regulation and moderation, if only to preserve its own grace and stature. Abused, it easily crumbles and jumbles in the mouth of the faithful taster, to the master eater. So anything embellished with salt should be treated with a keenness that is still grounded on consciousness.

Salt, therefore, is the royalty of taste, bequeathing everybody with a choice for gastronomic grandeur. It is through its seemingly simple crystals—a dash or a pinch of them—that precision and finality for flavor is identified and attained. Despite its drawbacks, salt still unfailingly adds conviviality to our everyday needs. Salt is one of those keys to our eagerness to cook, to eat, to live. Unlike water which basks in its own complacency and commonness, salt favors intricacy and delectability, in order to come up with a culture of stimulation, a tradition of satisfaction.

Coming (Back) Home

2008-08-24T04:26:00.000-07:00

I am in a state of retreat right now in the province. It is good to bask in old provincial sunshine and wake up in the glory of an eternal morning with fresh air caressing you down. Because of a scheduled radio visit to one of the local FM stations here in Isabela, I have packed my Metro Manila stuff, boarded on a Victory Liner bus last Friday, and traveled for an eight-hour journey back to the province.

What my parents knew was that I would be leaving Manila on a Saturday night, but since I was already free last Friday night and was quite in the mood for surprises, I right away decided to go on a Friday-night trip. Since everything was not planned ahead of time, I had a difficult time before successfully boarding the bus. At 11:15 pm all buses were fully booked; everyone who was waiting at the bus station should wait for either another extra bus to travel or a reserved passenger to back out, for them to have a seat. I was one of those chance passengers, and during that time, I was already getting nervous. Of course it would be easy for me to go back to our Quezon City home had I not been able to grab a seat, but I would be such a sore loser if ever I do so. So I had no choice but to patiently wait till forever, until finally, a 12 pm bus to Santiago City was made available for passengers.

And here I am now in the province, savoring what I always call "the simplicity and sheer silence of life." Here, I can have my own indulgent time without bothering too much whatever tasks should be accomplished for the day. The parents are such big spoilers to give whatever I want to eat, to buy, or to do (maybe they are also aware, after all, that their son is such a hardworking boy in the busyness of the Metro).

Yesterday, my parents and I attended an anticipated mass at 6 pm. Now more familiar with Metro Manila masses for the past three years, it was such a sweet experience to once again share a placid mass with the town's folks. It was also a joy on my part to see how our parish church greatly developed. As we entered the parking area of the church, which reminds me of the cobbled streets of Vigan, I saw a huge tarpaulin of the planned facade of the old church showing off itself in full pomp and glory(we have two churches in one big compound; the church that we are now using for masses is the new one). Upon seeing that, I learned that the church officials are planning to construct a columbarium too.

Unlike in the metropolis, masses in the province are more serene and seemingly, sincerer. There is just a little amount of noise, mostly coming from impatient babies or kids wanting their own cotton candies or wads of gum, distracting the mass. In yesterday's mass, everyone seemed drowned in the priest's sermon, that I myself have not turned bored--a thing that I usually end up being during homilies in Manila.

Of course, I was also delighted by the chance of seeing former friends or classmates in the same mass. During the communion rites yesterday, I was discreetly, albeit excitedly, searching for familiar faces on or after the line. Despite being on my knees and saying my fervent wishes and thank yous to God, I was still craning my neck and hoping to spot a friend or an acquaintance in the crowd. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see one.

This afternoon, after I went to the supermarket and did the grocery, I cooked pasta in creamy white sauce, as requested by my mother. At home, I carefully prepared the ingredients and confidently whipped the recipe like a pro.

It is only in the province that I find that pleasurable time to do these things. The slow but sure way of mincing garlic and onion, the traditional and delicate opening of those tuna and mushroom cans using a sharp knife, the aroma of liquefied margarine enveloping the whole kitchen, the muffled sound of boiling water, the thickness of cream and the fluidity of milk mixing in the kaserola, and the starchiness of boiled pasta wafting about the air.

Who would fail to appreciate these unexpected pleasures? Who could not treasure the astounding silence of these small wonders?

Seemingly, the province has this power to make the preoccupied one be at peace with himself even for a while. I am easily appeased by the goodness and comfort of the province. In the rurality of Isabela, I completely feel that unpretentious exuberance. Being in the province of my childhood, a lot of nostalgia and memory certainly streams in.

As I am typing this entry using my high school-old desktop computer, I look outside my window and wonder at the passiveness of Santiago City. Darkness has kissed Santiago City now, and as the dark goes deeper, silence also settles in. The only thing that I am hearing now, apart from the whirring of my electric-fan, is the babel of sounds produced by tricycles and buses passing by our house. Later, I will surely once again hear the cacophonous voices of drunkards belting their favorite hits--like Frank Sinatra's My Way and Nonoy Zuñiga's Doon Lang--at the videoke nearby our house.

At around 8 pm, Mama will knock on my door and call me for dinner. What dishes will I expect from our cook, Manang Aida? Oh, the classics of course! Pinakbet, igado, dinuguan, afritada, kaldereta, sinigang, adobo, sinabawang isda, among others. Surely, over our perennial favorite meals and perhaps two ice-cold liters of Coke, I will be looking forward to a hearty conversation with my parents and my grandparents.

And now at this point, I am turning expectant.

Tomorrow, I will be finally doing my real purpose here. However, it feels like there is still a lot of things to do and a bunch of people to talk to. It seems that my three-day stay is not enough. I still want the sun sheathing my room in the morning, the heat baking me at noon, the clean wind sedating me in the afternoon, and the quietness ushering me to sleep at night.

But not touching with reality is a great disservice to the self also. For tomorrow night, I once again need to leave the comfortable zones of the province. Albeit with a heavy heart, I will once again be packing my stuff (the clothes, the books, the laptop, the assorted pabaon by my mother), riding the bus, and bidding my farewell to Isabela and its people.

I will be out of the province again, yes; but I promise that I will always be coming back home. For if there is one thing that going back always reminds me, it is the act of remembering. And it is in this remembering that I am kept grounded with the past and in touched with my present.

This province may not have what professor Issy Reyes calls "the neon lights outside my sliding door," in her poetry book Stories from the City. But the sweetness of provincial life will always mean a lot to me: the decrepitude of our ancestral house, our seemingly moribund--but still trying to survive--business, the friendly neighborhood, my fomer school, the familiar landscape, the sprouting commercial buildings, the blessings of home and friends.

And yes--these things are reasons enough for me to pack my Metro stuff, board a 12 midnight Victory Liner bus, and travel an eight-hour journey back to the cherished promises of Isabela, over and over again.

When the Kasambahay Rages...

2008-08-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

I feel bad because I have hurt our kasambahay's feelings. I have shouted at her a while ago because of what I call a shot "of lack of commonsense" on her part. Strangely, she served me (hopefully unconsciously) a viand coming straight from the refrigerator, with the coagulated oil and fat and the starchy texture of potato clinging on to my favorite chicken adobo. Being the disappointed and hungry boy who was enervated by the strong rains outside and the dizzying traffic jam along the length of Quezon Avenue, of course I was taken aback as I tasted the viand, thus loosing my temper in a split of a second.

"Ano ba naman 'to? Bakit ang lamig-lamig?" I shouted out, with the emotions of irritation and stress capturing the tone of my voice. "Saan ba kasi 'to galing?"

"Ah, sorry naman." Mae, our house-helper, said in a low but defensive lilt. "Akala ko ok pa 'yan, kalalagay ko lang kasi sa refrigerator kanina"

I took the bowl of chicken adobo off the table and scampered towards the kitchen, where I asked her to reheat the said viand.

"Wala ka bang commonsense at ipapakain mo sa akin ang ulam na hindi pa napapainitan?" I heavily handed her the bowl, sinisterly looked her straight in the eye, and went back to the dining table as if nothing happened.

As I turned my back against her, she surprisingly bellowed, "Grabe ka naman magsalita. Kung mayroong kang gustong iutos, sabihin mo ng maayos. Hindi yung pasigaw lahat."

After those words was a painful litany of shouts. During that time, she already burst into tears and was courageously voicing out her grievances against me and, shockingly, against the entire household. I was really startled with the way she expressed her emotions. The gaiety that she normally holds turned into disdain, the joy changing into pain. But despite that, she still reheated my food and even placed it on the table after doing so.

As she went on with her cleaning upstairs, my brother and I started quarreling over the heated argument that I had with the kasambahay. He was insisting that I should not have done the shouting, and instead should have talked to her like an educated man. Being the more humane and mature, my brother pointed out that it is difficult to find for another maid, if ever she leaves the household. In short, he was slapping me the obvious--but usually forgotten--things that one should do in terms of treating their house-helpers.

Between silence and guilt, the unthinkable sank in me. I finished my meal right away and followed the crying maid. With a lot of macho-shit playing inside my head, I was first enraptured by shyness, still weighing the pros and cons of saying sorry.To my proud self, it was really her fault, not mine; and that she should realize her mistake.

But with my fear of really causing too much insult and pain on her, I neared her and sincerely said sorry. Panting with hurt, she was quite hesitant to talk at first. When I tried calming her down through patting my palm on the arch of her back, she shooed away my consolation. It occurred to me that what she clearly wanted was an open conversation about our own feelings and grudges toward each other. Inevitably, I yielded to the moment.

What has been an attempt to know more about her thoughts turned into a way of learning more of her character as a person as well as her dispositions in life. Everything started with a simple I am sorry; then a curious inquiry of How do you feel?; and a concluding question of What do you want me to do? After those questions, I hugged her. Given the dampened emotions, of course she did not hug me in return. But as I gave her my own jovial nudge of "Sige na, bati na tayo. Please?" she smiled back. And this, for me, was a good assurance that when the hurt dies down, everything will be okay between the two of us.

At this point, I still honestly do not know what to feel, apart from the sadness that pulls me down. I even do not know how to face her later at dinnertime. Despite the assurance that everything will be fine, the consciousness of behaving will always be there. Surely, ours is now a tainted relationship (I would like to think that yes, it is). The wariness will linger around; the litany of shouts will echo; the gap will distance us.

Sadly, these kinds of misunderstanding due to miscommunication often happens between me and someone else. Now that I am thinking about it, the fault is largely on my part, really. Most of the time I forget about good communication skills. I often tend to be tacky and careless with words. Oftentimes, I miss the proper timing of uttering statements; sometimes, it is the mere articulation of them that does the miss. In essence, words have no capability of spoiling feelings; it is the way they are uttered that can rip, slash, break emotions.

Like any other epiphanies that occur every after falling out and letdown, I realize how careful one should be with his thoughts and words. Also, my brother is right when he talked about insensitivity during our argument a while ago. It is through insensitivity, indifference towards other people that pain begins, that a shallow chasm deepens and fails to heal.

Later, I will go downstairs and face Mae again. Shyness will surely seep in me. But I hope I can face her with an assurance of a good understanding. I wish everything could just flit out of the window, so that things will once again work out between the two of us--free of guilt, free of hurt, free of grudges.

Am I Living a Boring Life?

2008-08-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

There goes the question about living a life. However existential the question is, it is still, admittedly, a difficult question to answer. It is funny how people just laugh at the essence of living. Or perhaps it shouldn't be taken too seriously to begin with. But then, it really is stressful for the self to veer away from such questioning; it is a matter of security, I guess.

I was lurking in a friend's blog site a while ago, when the idea of boredom struck me. Strangely, as I was clicking on one picture to the next, I was also simultaneously questioning my own definitions of a sweet life. Right then and there, I was dumbfounded by the possibility that I have turned into a boring person already without my knowing. Then there was the question of whether I deserve the life that I have right now, or if, on the contrary, I could make something better out of it.

Now that I am thinking about these thoughts, I find it weird that this is the type of life I am choosing. A life magnanimously defined by school, by books, by the television, by the Internet, by home-based activities like cooking and sleeping. It is both ironic and amusing how a social-wanderer like me back in high school has evolved or devolved (whichever perspective you are at) into that domestic citizen that I surely am now. Probably the primary reasons why this is so are: first, the lack of rest due to a busy and taxing academic life, and second, the dearth of financial resources, since the amount of money that my parents send me weekly is unequally proportional to my daily expenditures care of my UP professors and myself.

I am very aware--and perhaps guilty--of the grudges that my high school friends have for me after ignoring/rejecting their innumerable invitations to watch a movie, go out for a group date, or hang-out and enjoy a night at a friend's place, over a bucketful of beer along with a plateful of sisig, etc. In exchange of these things, I often would rather opt to snugly stay at home, bury myself in the comforts of my bed, and pore over a book or two while waiting for the clips on Youtube to completely download.

There are times however, when I am still saddened by the fact that there are bunches of compiled photos without my face in it, scheduled outdoor trips that I have backed out because of a petty excuse or two, unprecedented strolls at the mall that I did not take into consideration, and social gatherings wherein I was absent.

But then, despite that pang of guilt crawling on me because of those missed opportunities with friends, I usually end up with the conclusion of not regretting anything. Oftentimes schedules just don't fit, and if they do, I am too tired and drained to face the world for a smile or two. I just really have my own reasons, period.

Last week, I was talking to a friend about the status of our own respective lives. While she was, and still is, enjoying her own share of significance from another person, I was, on the other hand, the poor, pudgy guy who still hopefully dreams, up to this day, for that right time when both the self and the other meet up in sweet harmony. I remember how she doubted the exuberance of my life without having a partner around, nudging me to get one soon, as if a relationship is just a give-away token from a gaming arcade.

Maybe it is my preoccupation with a lot of things that hinders me to pursue whatever emotion that there is. Yes, I tried yielding to those "attempts" in the past and gave them a discouraging try.But, with the feelings from the pursuer (which is I) coming out too forced, too immature to be taken seriously by the pursued, every effort just ended up bitterly unsuccessful.

It is just funny how I deal with these questions now. Had I been five years younger, I may be facing these things differently. I don't know if it is the amount of fiction that I have read that makes me more resilient with these encounters, but to be honest, these realities come to me swiftly, with my own personal interpretation and understanding about things and life racing to the fore for the rescue.

I notice that through time I have been less-overt with my problems. I really don't know why, but the self, I believe, has its own way of healing. However weird that may sound it still is...

Having said these things, it still does not mean that I do not miss my friends--because I truly do, really. I miss the laughter. I miss the reminiscent stories. I miss the hugs and beso-besos. I just simply miss the experiences and memories shared and cherished. It is just that, at this point in my life, I need my own tranquil corner to ruminate about the goings-on in my life, of where have I been and where am I going.

To tell you honestly, loosening up with one's self is not easy. It takes a lot of preparedness and stillness to do so. Perhaps it is one reason why people have this notion that solitude equates to boredom. But a boring life may be a sweet life, too. It is in the way how a person handles it, I believe.

For me, it is through this temporal detachment of the self from the other(s) that I discover more about the world, about people, about myself. It is through the silence of the self that the world seems so big for me, where the self reaches a wider horizon of dreams. It is in that solitude wherein I have those sweeter smiles, those deeper thoughts, those smoother reflections, those more concrete goals. Yes, they may be fleeting moments, but surely they are the ones that mark on me.

Call it boring, call it sad. But it is the kind of life that I choose to savor at present.

Teachers and Grudges

2008-08-09T00:26:00.001-07:00

I have written about my everlasting wantings about weekends before. It is during weekends that my aching self has its own decadent time to relax and splurge on the luxuries of food, TV, and the Internet. I find it perfect when weekends are sunny and laid-back--indeed, very province-like. Weekends, for me, are usually days for white, loose shirts, long time in front of the dining table, delectable meals of sinangag, tocino, longganisa, or of the more Western-like cereals and fresh milk, which are heavenly settled in a deep, china bowl.

But, on the contrary, the past weekends have been very busy and filled with confounded thoughts and convoluted responsibilities. It is now the middle of the semester, and as expected, teachers are being sterner and ruder with their requirements, bombarding their students with a plethora of reports, research works, term papers, and group activities. It goes without saying that most students don't like these forms of pressure. But, lamentably, realistically, do we have a choice?

So there: It's Saturday, and here I am at a decrepit corner of the UP Main Library, still trying to convince myself to finally work on my report for a Filipino subject. A stack of dusty and yellowing books is by my side, and pieces of paper with random information scrawled over them are scattered on the table; but then, the lure of the Internet is too enticing. There are really times when one turns into a self-imposed academic-snob; and I must say, it totally feels good, even just for today.

I really hate it when professors extend school hours until the weekends. I hate it even more when professors give reporting jobs that require students to haul themselves to school or elsewhere during Saturdays or, worse, Sundays. I know that the final choice still zeroes in on the student, but then again, with someone like me who tries to maintain a good academic record, one couldn't help but be compliant with the requirements. Again, do we have a choice?

There are teachers who just really have this tendency of slacking off in class, giving their students the lame assertion of, "UP students naman kayo, eh." This is more of an excuse than reason, really. Eh ano naman ngayon kung UP students kami? UP teacher ka din naman, at kailangan mo ring pagbutihin ang pagtuturo mo, 'no? What we need is a good synthesizer, a competent and insightful teacher, someone who can give us a different view of the core ideas of the subject by relating them to a wider scope of perspectives, without rambling about and churning out too much nonsensicality.

Pardon me with this unbearable ranting. I know that, at this point, I am sounding like a rich, brat student from a university downtown the green streets of Taft Avenue--but I just can't contain myself. This type of teachers is existent, my friends. Believe me! There really are teachers who tend to complain about their students' laxness and negligence, but have they ever attempted to give an honest assessment of themselves?

They give you humongous workload; they give you paperworks to fulfill on or before the punishable deadline; they give you unending assignments that require extensive research; they send you to places that are unfathomably unreachable by the financially-sucked up; they say "do this" and "do that" as if they own your own time and self. And at the end of the semester, when everything's done and over with, the only things that one gets in return are first, a clueless question of "What have I learned from that subject?", and second, a painful and ungrateful grade of "INC."

Then one starts to question the veracity of his grade, the depth and breadth of his learning. But there's no easy way out, one is asked to comply with the 'missed' requirements. And there's no chance of complaining because the teacher, as they commonly say, is just the "computer of your grades."

What else could one do? Cry? Wallow? Sulk? Re-take? LOA?

My friends, there goes the end of the game.

Rants, Digressions, and Other Ways of Slanting the Idea

2008-08-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

This blog has been vacant, in my estimation, for over a month. I've been itching to write something for the past couple of weeks though . With the rate of how my personal life and this country's state is going, there are a lot of things that the struggling writer in me could put on page; the only problem, however, is this temporal incapacity to perfectly string words to form a decent material.

There were attempts, mostly during sleepless nights, to write something about the mundane goings-on in my life, or even about the president's recent hullabaloos and abominations, like her State of the Nation Address, for instance. It has been, strangely, a pattern in the way I write my essays that the first paragraphs of the pieces will come out smoothly, but then, as I approach the middle, it is as if an incommunicable slanting of ideas is happening, as if words just hover over the page and even have the tendency of turning to pure digressions and rants. Before reaching my third or fourth paragraph, I usually find myself deleting the entire piece, scratching my head, with my two thick brows furrowed above my eye sockets, and just end up shutting down the computer.

When instances like this happen, I cringe with disappointment, since I am really, really passionate about my writing, however difficult the task of honing one's style is. They say that if one wants to be a good writer, he or she must do two primary things--to continuously write and endlessly read. But there are times, really, when the amount of books that one has read is indirectly proportional to the materials that one has written. Sometimes, to my other prolific writer-friends, it is the contrary. And surely, I would rather want to be more known as a writer than a reader. Haha!

Probably it is a matter of focus, or perhaps what other people call the "driving force" to write. Columnists, for instance, successfully churn out commentaries almost everyday because a certain responsibility--that they should beat the deadline--is pressed on their shoulders. Or perhaps some other people are just naturally more observant of their surroundings and that they could easily compose anything in just a snap of a finger. Maybe, there are also just some writers who are more exposed or experienced than me: people who watch movies on a regular basis, go to malls almost every week, or who just have the budget to burn their asses in a warm couch inside a posh cafe, enjoying their free wifi access over a grand cup of brewing coffee.

But, now that I think of it, my arguments are weak. I may be just simply, uhm, unproductive? Or bottlenecked, perhaps?

Or I may be just thinking too seriously about what I should be writing? What perhaps Sir Vlad called, in one of his lectures for UP UGAT, "serious literature?" Wasn't I limited by--who else?--myself? Wasn't I the one who bordered myself to what I should be supposedly writing and not writing? Was I just taking the art too critically (though my writings focus too much on the self) to the point of laboriousness and perhaps, dullness in terms of range and style and substance?

At this point, I really can't tell. I might be in a cul-de-sac, after all.

All I know is that I need an upgrade--soon!

And now I am having that unexplainable chill! Freaky!