Armed With Idealism

Housekeeping

2012-01-20T17:10:00.001+08:00

How does one deal with the suicide of a loved one and other forms of sadness? Do you simply begin to unravel, until you are no longer normal? Or do you cling to normalcy, content to skate on a thin veneer of ice without looking beneath its depths?

These are some of the central questions to Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, which deals with the appearance of a mentally unstable aunt into the lives of two sisters.

Robinson's prose is like the lake at the edge of the town of Fingerbone, eternally changeable. Sometimes it is luminous, at other times it is so full of gravity that you can feel yourself sink into the depths of murky, fetid water.

"...sometimes I think sorrow is a predatory thing because birds scream at dawn with a marvelous terror, and ther is, as I have said before, a deathly bitterness in the smell of ponds and ditches."

How I did with My 2011 Resolutions

2012-01-01T23:04:00.000+08:00

How did I do for 2011?

This blog was revived partly to keep track of my goal to read one book a month. I'm proud to say that I did way more than that. Here's what I was able to achieve for 2011:

Continue taking a regular yoga class
Finish The Largest Pearl and write two other short stories for my portfolio
Write regularly
Join the Palanca Awards
Read at least one book a month
Travel to somewhere I've never been
Get the best scores possible in both the TOEFL and GRE
Apply for an MFA in Creative Writing

What I haven't done will have to remain a secret, but I'm happy with what I've achieved. Now onto 2012!

Three Times

2011-10-22T23:46:00.000+08:00

So part of my New Year's resolutions was to watch two movies a month. Well good luck with that. When it gets down to the wire, and it's a choice between writing, reading, or catching a movie, writing wins hands down. Reading is a close second. And movies? Well let's just say that I haven't seen a lot of movies this year.

But it's good to watch one once in a while, if only to give your brain a couple of hours to stop whirring and just zone off.

Notable movies that I've watched this year include:

Babae sa Septic Tank
Zombadings
Buenas Noches, España
Paprika

And now, Three Times, by acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. To be honest, I never understood why there was such a fuss about him. I watched Flight of the Red Balloon in college and found it boring. But Three Times is an interesting triptych.

Three Times tells the story of two lovers in three eras: 1911, 1966, and 2005. The lovers, which are different characters in each era, are played by the ravishing Shu Qi* (loved her in So Close) and Chan Cheng (best known to Westerners as Zhang Zhiyi's lover in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but also to Wong Kar Wai fans for his roles in Happy Together and 2046). It is also an incisive mirror into each era: the couple in 1911 is (spoiler) an intrepid journalist and a courtesan. In 1966, they are a pool hall girl and a soldier. In 2005, they are disaffected youth.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien's genius is that he is able to slow you down to his time. Viewers used to fast paced action movies and things happening may initially find the pace of Three Times to be extremely slow, but stick with it and it will reward you. At times, he is a little heavy-handed, like the ending line in the second narrative, A Time for Freedom. But the sweetness of the first story, A Time for Love, draws the viewer in like a frothy appetizer. At 36, Shu Qi is still believable as a young girl.

For viewers who don't mind slow films, Three Times is a good movie to watch.

*I just found out that her film career started in Hong Kong's softcore porn industry. I don't care. I still love her.

A Lover's Discourse

2011-10-16T18:02:00.000+08:00

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a powerful book.

Of all the philosophical graffiti written on the backs of bathroom doors when I was in college, my favorite was a simple survey: Are you in love or in love with the idea of love? Most people chose the latter.

Barthes tackles the depth and breadth of the idea of love, in all its agony and ecstasy. There are meditations on waiting, on jealousy, on how love at first sight is like rape. Barthes tackles the ideas of Werther, Nietzsche, Freud, and sprinkles the etymology of various Greek, French and Italian words for good measure.

Just read this:

This is how it happens sometimes, misery or joy engulfs me, without any particular tumult ensuing: nor any pathos: I am dissolved, not dismembered, I fall, I flow, I melt. Such thoughts grazed, touched, tested (the way you test the water with your foot) can recur.
Nothing solemn about them.
This is exactly what gentleness is.

I was bowled over by this book. It is something to read again and again, and to ponder.

View all my reviews

Selected Poems

2011-09-24T15:49:00.000+08:00

Selected Poems by Merlie M. Alunan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I first encountered Merlie Alunan's work in college. Her poem, Bringing the Dolls, was simple enough for college students to analyze, yet something about it struck me.

Selected Poems combines materials from two of Alunan's previously published collections, Hearthstone, Sacred Tree and Dream Cycles.

For me, the standouts in this collection are Emy and For Edith: Hearthstone, sacred tree from Poems from Green Valley, Nati-san, Hunger, and Addressing the Muse. There's also an interesting Filipino translation of Mandirigmang bundok ng Santa Catalina... by Bien Lumbera.

Alunan is at her best when writing about people, and how they interact with the unlikely, say a massive rock kept in the middle of one's kitchen. I wasn't drawn to most of the material that comprised Selected Poems, but the poems I've mentioned are definitely worth a glance.

Narito ang Masa

2011-08-22T18:47:00.000+08:00

Narito ang masa.
Ang mga taong nakapila,
Pinagpapawisan.
Ang aleng Muslim na nagpapaypay
Hanggang may umabot na maaliwalas
Na hangin sa aking likod.

Narito ang masa.
Ang mga taong nagtatanong, ang mga
taong nawawala.
Ang lalaking bumili ng Skyflakes
Pantawid gutom at nakaluhod
Ngayon sa daan habang ngumangasab.

Narito ang masa,
Sabay-sabay na naghihintay.

Books In Brief

2011-08-22T18:45:00.002+08:00

I've been reading too many books to bother writing about them, so briefly, here's a summary of what I've been reading:

The Pen / O.Henry Prize Stories 2010

Another Strand find. I've been reading more short stories while trying to write my own, so this was a good book for me to read. My favorites in this collection were Ted Sanders's Obit and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's The Headstrong Historian. But I probably learned the most from Preeta Samarasan's Birch Memorial.

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

I bought this book because it appeared on the list of books that Zadie Smith once assigned to her class. It started off slow, but it got good towards the middle. I whiled away an afternoon in a barangay captain's house in Masbate finishing this book. And yes, I lost track of my surroundings. It was that good.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I wouldn't have tried to re-read this book if I hadn't seen the compelling trailer for the first episode of the TV series. I'm glad that I did. My sister was trying to get me to read this a long time ago. I flipped to a random page and found it boring. What was I thinking? Game of Thrones is a fantasy novel that pays attention to the nuances -- the contrast in the attire of a lord and his men, the humor in a dwarf almost being spurred into a battle charge but deciding against it. Its vision of Westeros is grim, gritty and utterly real. I'm going to keep on reading the series, although I'm in a bit of book fatigue three-fourths through the second book in the series, A Clash of Kings. Sometimes it gets annoying how Martin keeps on shifting POVs. I skimmed all five books just to find out what happened to Arya.

The Middleman and Other Stories

2011-08-02T21:09:00.001+08:00

After being profoundly affected by Bharati Mukherjee's short story 'The Management of Grief', I didn't hesitate to snap up this book when I saw it at The Strand for 49 cents.

I shouldn't have bothered. The Management of Grief, which comes at the very end, was the only story that I truly liked. The rest of the book was filled with stories about crass characters, which I guess is a success of sorts as Mukherjee deliberately set out to portray her characters in an unflattering light. But reading about a dissolute Vietnam vet, a user-friendly Filipina, and an exploited Trinidadian, among others, didn't satisfy me.

1602

2011-07-27T16:37:00.001+08:00

Neil Gaiman's particular specialty is putting a new twist onto familiar characters. In the case of 1602, the Marvel canon of characters is transported into Elizabethan England.

It was a fast read and it was a good read. I've loved Neverwhere, and liked American Gods and a couple of his short stories (namely A Study in Emerald and The Truth is a Cave in the Mountains). I also once stood for hours in line to hear him read. I didn't quite make it to having my book signed. Oh, and I constantly check his blog.

Rose Daughter

2011-07-17T18:20:00.001+08:00

Rose Daughter is an entirely different book from Beauty. It's a testament to Robin McKinley's range that she could write two vastly different books based on the same tale.

In the Woods

2011-07-17T18:14:00.001+08:00

I liked Faithful Place better, but that's just me. In the Woods is more grim, but the whodunit is also harder to solve.

Sisterhood Everlasting

2011-07-17T18:10:00.001+08:00

I admit it: I read this book for one reason - to find out what happened to Lena and Kostos. Sisterhood Everlasting doesn't disappoint, but it didn't fulfill all of my expectations either. If you've read the four previous books, you'll have a good time going back to the world of the Septembers. If you haven't, you might want to give this one a pass.

Faithful Place

2011-06-12T21:29:00.001+08:00

I got to read this book because of a book swap. Hurrah for discovering new authors! I'm always intrigued by women who write in a genre dominated by men, like Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Tana French does not disappoint, She successfully captures the voice and point of view of hard-boiled Undercover detective Frank Mackey and shows us gritty (fictional) Faithful Place in all its glory.

As it was a mystery, I managed to keep myself from reading the ending immediately -- and I'm glad that I did.

I am definitely going to track down her other books and read them.

Fire and Hemlock

2011-06-12T21:21:00.001+08:00

I found this book one night and couldn't go to sleep until I had finished it. Diana Wynne Jones takes the story of Tam Lin, adds another folktale (the story of Thomas the Rhymer, or so I'm told), and makes it her own.

The writing is assured and the pace is fast. Things get a bit muddled towards the end, but I would still recommend reading this book.

Gilead

2011-06-12T21:15:00.001+08:00

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,--

-Hamlet

Gilead is one of the most spiritual books I've read in a long time. It's filled with the musings of Congregationalist minister John Ames, who is near the end of his life. There is not a lot of dialogue. There is a lot of musing, on the personal, the philosophical, and of course, the spiritual.

Robinson writes lovely descriptive scenes. Her simple style makes for an engaging read as Ames ponders the redemption of his friend's wayward son.

Kalahati at Umpisa

2011-06-01T18:09:00.002+08:00

Masasabing maestra si Anoñuevo sa paglalaro ng salita. Sakop ng kanyang mga tula ang samu'tsaring emosyon - kaligayahan, kalungkutan, nostalgia, at higit sa lahat, pag-ibig.

Nahahati ang Kalahati at Umpisa sa dalawang bahagi -- ang una, tungkol sa mga karaniwang bagay, pagbabalik tanaw sa nakaraan, at mga obserbasyon sa kanyang buhay,

Sa pangalawang bahagi, umiibig na si Anoñuevo. Kaya naman punung-puno ang bahagi ito ng mga tula tungkol sa paghanga at sa muling pagtagpo ng pag-ibig sa gitna ng middle age.

Anupaman ang paksa ng kanyang isinusulat, naipapakita ni Anoñuevo ang kanyang husay at galing sa lenggwahe sa bawat tula.

Cathedral

2011-06-01T18:02:00.003+08:00

Carver's prose is simple, but his stories are anything but. Some plumb the depths of cynicism while others explore the possibility of hope. He is a master at meshing the two themes together.

Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions

2011-05-01T18:40:00.002+08:00

What Miclat is writing about is more interesting than how he writes it. Miclat offers an in-depth look at the life of a Communist cadre in China during Martial Law.

The Age of Wonder

2011-05-01T18:30:00.003+08:00

Holmes highlights the intersections of science and art during the eighteenth century and imparts to his reader the sense of wonder with which he wrote the book.

For me, this quote sums it up:

"Science, like poetry, was not merely 'progressive'. It directed a particular kind of moral energy and imaginative longing into the future. It enshrined the implicit belief that mankind could achieve a better, happier, world. This is what Davy believed too, and 'Hope' became one of his watchwords."

Pegasus & Chalice

2011-03-13T18:47:00.001+08:00

Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword is my all-time favorite book. It's got everything -- fantasy, a strong heroine, romance, and even a wry diplomacy.

I haven't been able to read her entire book list, but I was able to read her recent books Pegasus and Chalice. Reading them is like catching up with old friends.

I found Pegasus to be utterly absorbing - so much that I simply couldn't put it down until I had finished it. Pegasus is a story of humans and pegasi who coexist yet cannot communicate directly with each other. The bonding of twelve-year-old Princess Sylviianel and the fourteen-year-old pegasus Ebon changes all this. Aside from The Blue Sword, Pegasus is the McKinley book that I've found the most compelling since The Hero and The Crown and Deerskin.

Chalice is a shorter and to my mind, less interesting read. It's still worth reading however, to see how Chalice, the new Master and the Grand Seneschal hold Willowlands together.

Pegasus II comes out in 2012. I can hardly wait to read it.

No Longer an Anachronism

2011-03-13T18:33:00.000+08:00

Back in highschool, I wrote off Nick Joaquin as an anachronism -- someone whose stores belonged to another place and time. I read him because I had to, because he was part of my highschool reading list. But I didn't like him.

I first started to re-appraise Nick Joaquin in college, when some his reportage was handed out during a literary journalism class. Joaquin had a way of writing that made the characters come alive, that made you care what happened to them. Although his journalism articles have been scored for inaccuracies, his style of writing remains fluid and compelling.

The short stories in Nick Joaquin's prose and poems were a revelation. Here was someone who came of age during a great World War, someone who could write as feelingly about the genteel glitter of the past as he could about the ruptures and uncertainties of the present.

The author's note at the back of the book says that Joaquin started out as a poet but shifted to fiction after the war. I think that the change was for the better. His poetry is often weighed down by classic (read Greek and Roman) tones and styles, but his fiction flies free.

Baltasar and Blimunda

2011-02-20T18:36:00.001+08:00

I'm noticing a common theme here. I can only say in my defense that I'm still reading literature as opposed to trashy romance novels.

Baltasar and Blimunda tells the story of two lovers in 18th century Portugal, when the auto-da-fe was held every year and the people were were still subjects of a king.

For all its commentary on power and religion, Baltasar and Blimunda lacks the devastation of Blindness. There were times when I was horrified by that book, but I still had to go on reading it.

Baltasar and Blimunda is a gentler tale, where the travails of the title characters are set against a painstakingly-researched background. There is a stronger element of magical realism here, and Saramago often inserts self-conscious commentary that the thoughts that his peasant characters are thinking were simply conjured up by an educated narrator.

All Summer in a Day

2011-01-26T14:40:00.003+08:00

This isn't one of the books that I've read but I was thinking about Ray Bradbury's short story when I read his interview in the Paris Review.

In my mind the time frame was magnified to fifty years. I reread part of the story again and found that it was only seven. But still, poor child.

This is what Bradbury says about writing:

"Style is truth. Once you nail down what you want to say about yourself and your fears and your life, then that becomes your style and you go to those writers who can teach you how to use words to fit your truth."

He didn't go to college, but instead, went to the library, where he graduated after ten years of three-night-a-week visits.

What I read almost makes me rethink about getting an MFA, but then I remind myself that Ray Bradbury had a wonderful wife who supported him while he stayed at home and wrote stories. He went to New York and shopped what would become his first book around because his first child was about to be born.

I still feel like I need a space of time where I can immerse myself completely in reading and writing. So for now, I'm still going for that MFA.

Gut Symmetries

2011-01-25T22:02:00.003+08:00

What can I say about Jeanette Winterson? That reading her is like watching a stone fall in a calm, clear pool. You can stay for hours just watching the resulting ripples.

The piece of Jeanette Winterson writing that I love the most is her short story The 24-Hour Dog. I read it while I was still in college and I've never forgotten it. I photocopy my photocopy and pass it on to friends.

Who wouldn't fall in love with writing like this?

If time is a river, we shall all meet death by water.

&

And after symmetries of autumn, symmetries of austerity. Bare winter's thin beauty, rib and spine. The back of him sharp-boned, my hands leaf-broad covering him, patterning us. Us making love on the leaf-shed in the cold of the year.

&

We think of ourselves as linear but it is the spin of the earth that allows us to observe time.

& finally:

Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough.

Her writing speaks for itself.

Showbiz Lengua

2011-01-25T21:45:00.005+08:00

Alam nyo ba kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng IRAN? Ikaw Rin ang Nawalan.

Isa pa: PARANAQUE: Please Always Remain Adorable, Nice, And Quiet...Under Ectasy.

Ilan lang yan sa mga napulot kong acronym mula sa Showbiz Lengua, ang kalipulan ng mga kolum ni Sir Pete Lacaba tungkol sa lengguwahe para sa Yes! Magazine.

(imahe mula sa blog ni Sir Pete)

Minsan, nakaupo ako sa harap sa LitJourn seminar class niya at kumakain ako ng puttanesca. Sabi niya, "Alam mo ba ang puttanesca pagkain ng mga puta sa Italy? Kaya siya tinawag na puttanesca."

Mula nang nagsulat si Nick Joaquin bilang Quijano de Manila, kakaunti pa lang ang nagtangkang magsulat ng literary journalism sa Pilipinas. Isa na rito (na tinitingala ko) ay si Sir Pete.

Ang ilang sa mga natutunan ko sa klase niya: kailangan kapag nagsusulat ng literary journalism, ilublob mo ang iyong sarili sa paggawa ng kwento. Tanungin mo yung kausap mo kung anong iniisip niya. Tumambay ka kasama niya at makipaghuntahan ka. Pansinin mo ang lahat -- ang kanyang suot, ang lapis na umiikot-ikot sa pagitan ng kanyang mga daliri, ang stasyon ng radyo na pinakikinggan niya, pati ang mga taong dumadaan.

Dapat din, paghusayan mo ang iyong pagsusulat para kapag may sinulat kang magandang pangungusap, hindi ito magmumukhang out of place sa sinusulat mong reportage.

Kaya naman mahirap talaga magsulat ng literary journalism. At dahil kakarampot ang kita ng mga mamahayag at manunulat, kailangan nilang rumaket.

Sinabi sa amin minsan ni Sir Pete na akala niya part-time lang ang posisyon sa Yes! Magazine noong tinanggap niya ito. Pero mabuti na rin na nandoon siya dahil sa dulo ng mga glossy photos at writeups tungkol sa mga artista, may natatanging El Lenguador na naglalaro ng lengguwahe.

Pilgrims

2011-01-12T21:55:00.000+08:00

I've loved Elizabeth Gilbert ever since I read her article Coyote Ugly in GQ. A wide-eyed Gilbert went to the interview in a cardigan and was told that she was wearing too many clothes. She eventually learned how to outdrink her regulars (keep a mug of Coke handy, whenever you take a swig, spit it out into the mug).

But I couldn't read Eat, Pray, Love. I couldn't even finish the first first page.

I fared better with Gilbert's first novel, Stern Men. But what I really wanted to read was her first collection of stories, Pilgrims. So as soon as I saw a copy, I bought it. Nevermind that I'm trying to save money. I can control my cravings for clothes and food. But I admit it, I'm addicted to books.

From Pilgrims, I learned that sunflowers always face east in the morning and west at dusk. Gilberts said in an interview that instead of getting an MFA, she crisscrossed the country and wrote.

What I plan to do is get and MFA and then wander.

"Like Eat, Pray, Love," my sister said. No, I'm not running away from a devastating divorce. But I am looking for something.

Mesa Para sa Isa

2011-01-12T21:43:00.001+08:00

Naalala ko si Caloy nang binasa ko ang tulang Dalitpuri ni Elynia Mabanglo. Nariyan ang paglalaro sa salita:

tayo na kung gayon
at pabinyagan sa dilim ang kamatayang
bumabaha sa ating silid
may panahon para sa mga dugong
dumadaloy sa lansangan
may panahon para sa kamay na umiilag
sa pagtatakipsilim ng mga bituin
may panahon para masambot
ang tula ng mga tala

Bago mag-ed exam noon, humiram si Caloy ng kalipulan ng mga tula ni Mabanglo para raw makatulong sa paggawa niya ng katsibong.

Kasama sa New Year's resolutions ko ngayong taon na muling magsulat sa Filipino. Muli akong nagsisimula sa payak na paraan. Nagsusulat ako kung paano ako magsalita.

Sinabi ni Elynia Mabanglo sa paunang salita na dumalang na ang pagsulat niya ng tula mula nang tumira siya sa Hawaii. Wala na raw kasi siyang kahuntahan tungkol sa panitikan kaya mas mahirap magsulat.

Samantalang ako, nasa Pilipinas pero nahihirapan ring magsulat sa Filipino. Kaya naman kailangan ko pang magbasa nang magbasa hanggang magsimula akong kumatha.

One book a month

2011-01-07T01:52:00.006+08:00

Is one of my New Year's Resolutions. I was appalled by how much crap (read: romance novels) I read last year so I've resolved to do better this year.

And I've actually finished reading a book!

I picked it up because it was a New York Times notable book for 2010, and also because it was a romance. So there.

I happily read one chapter a night until the last few chapters grabbed me by the throat. I couldn't go to sleep until I had finished it.

So far, so good.

The Shakespeare Reading Challenge

2011-01-06T12:50:00.008+08:00

After one friend's successful undertaking to read one book a month last year, I was inspired to do the same.

To add another twist, I decided to take up the Shakespeare Reading Challenge -- the easiest level, Puck, is to read four plays this year. Something that I can very easily do. I've always wanted to read Shakespeare's plays, but I never got to take a Shakespeare survey course in college.

Here's Puck. He's ugly, as befits a trickster. But I'm sure that he can change his form at will.

So I got a list of Shakespeare plays to read from an online penpal, who's teaching Shakespeare to Korean students.

I hereby commit to reading the following plays, in no particular order:

1. Twelfth Night
2. King Lear
3. The Tempest
4. Measure for Measure

My online pal advises watching each play before I read it, which I think is a good idea. As he points out, plays are meant to be watched, not read. He also recommends buying good annotated versions of each play so that I can actually understand what they're talking about.

Any recommendations?

On another note, I didn't update this blog at all last year but I did manage to make some headway on a novel before ultimately deciding to abandon it. I also finished a short story a couple of days ago.

I realized that I write better offline, so I probably won't be updating this blog as much except to keep track of how I'm doing with the Shakespeare Reading challenge and other various New Year's resolutions.

Here we go!

Hello NaNo!

2009-10-31T19:56:00.004+08:00

On the eve of national writing month. Let's see if I have what it takes to write a 50,000-word novel. It should be interesting, considering that I haven't finished a short story since college. Ha. Here we go!

I'm back

2009-08-31T22:27:00.001+08:00

Again. It's getting tiring, this disappearing and returning, this constant renewal of pledges and promises, only to be broken at the first sign of weakness.

But for today, I have eschewed Escape. And I am thinking and writing again. And that is enough.

She's the ornament of her sex.

2009-05-29T19:00:00.002+08:00

says DickensURL.com.

How fitting.

An antidote to sadness (or remembering vj in a stream of consciousness ala kenneth)

2009-04-14T22:49:00.004+08:00

Hindi ako makapagsulat. Saan ako magsisimula? Paano ko sasabihin na si vj ang unang kaibigan ko sa kule? Minsan hindi natuloy ang genmit kasi konti lang ang dumating. Umupo siya sa tabi ko, at nagsimulang magkwento. At hindi na kami tumigil sa kwentuhan, ako, ang baguhan na walang alam, siya, na mahusay editor at makatang magsulat

Inamin siya sa kin minsan na kaya lang daw nila ako tinaggap kasi may potential ako magsulat. ganyan si vj, nakikita niya ang potential sa bawat tao. Kaibigan niya ang lahat, at pakiramdam namin, close kaming lahat sa kanya kasi wala siyang tinatago. Hindi siya namumuna. Sa mata niya, kahit na oily ang mukha mo at punung-puno ng pimples, lagi kang maganda.

Siya ang una kong nakwentuhan tugkol sa crush ko. Bawat lingo, may bago siyang sasabihin sa akin tungkol kay M. Pagkalipas ng ilang taon, ibang M naman ang pinagusapan namin, ang taong nagudyok sa kanyang humugot ng tala at gamitin itong pangkiskis sa kanyang puso.

Si vj na grand mameshka ng kultura, na sumasamba sa altar ng kulturang popular, na nagcacarstuffing kay Vanessa kahit na hindi pa siya marunong magdrive. Na kasama naming sumayaw sa saliw ng light my fire pagkatapos lumaklak ng alak, Na itinuring kong kuya, na laging hinahawakan ang aking siko tuwing tumatawid kami.

Kung may five stages sa grief cycle nasa pagitan na ako ng anger at sadness. Sabi ng kapatid ko, hindi ka ba nagbargain? Hindi, dahil kahit ano ang ipangako ko, hindi na siya babalik.

Wala nang kumakalong sa aking siko tuwing tumatawid ako.

Sa papgpatay kay Rebelyn

2009-03-07T10:09:00.003+08:00

Naalala ko ang minsan sinabi ng isang heneral sa akin, habang kumakain
Everyone has a a weakness. Kailangan lang itong hanapin.

May isang kalaban daw silaang hindi matugis
Wala siyang asawa o iba pang pamilya

Hangga't may nakaalala
Na mahal na mahal ng rebelde ang kanyang ama
Na tatlong taon na ring nasa ilalim ng lupa

Pumunta ang mga sundalo sa sementeryo.
Winasak nila ang nitso
At nagtago sila sa paligid
Pagkaraan ng ilang araw

Dumating ang rebelde.

Ngumiti ang heneral pagkatapos niya magsalita
Pinilit kong maging bato ang aking mukha

Ngunit kung kutsilyo lang ang hawak ko
at hindi tinidor
Hindi ko alam kung mapipigil
ko pa ang aking sarili

Mula sa pagsaksak nito sa kanyang puso.

Hindi ba't labas sa paglaban ang mga sibilyan?
Pero mga pasista, mga mamatay-tao -
Hindi niyo ito nirerespeto.

May araw din kayo.
Sa oras ng tagumpay, dadanak ang dugo.

Totoo

2009-01-01T11:40:00.000+08:00

Type - A nga ako. Sabi ni Ate, hindi ba lahat ng Lorenzo? Parang oo, pati mga pinsan ko. Ano kayang meron sa dugo namin?

You Are Hyper and Spirited

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.
You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.
You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.
You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.
You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.
You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.
You have the classic "Type A" personality.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

For a chance of winning a new moleskine notebook

2008-11-20T15:42:00.005+08:00

In which to write and keep track of these goals and aspirations for the next 12 months:

1. write a novel
2. travel to somewhere I've never been
3. figure out what Master's degree I can't live without and start applying to schools
4. fall in love :D
5. learn basic html for blogging, and photo and video editing
6. shoot more photos and video
7. save up for and undergo laser eye surgery
8. take a regular yoga class
9. go diving at least three times a year
10. get a job that will be flexible yet allow me to travel
11. exercise at least three tines a week

Margaret Atwood writes that to name is to invoke. Hope that these invocations are fulfilled.

The Moleskine Notebook is courtesy of Avalon.PH
http://www.viloria.com/go/go.php/avalonph

For the Viloria.net contest rules, please see
Viloria.net

Stuck in Stasis

2008-11-16T01:20:00.005+08:00

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better now
You're stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along the stony pass
It's just a moment
This time will pass

I've been stuck in stasis for quite some time now, but it's time to get out and face the world again.

Leaping off the edge

2008-07-01T02:22:00.003+08:00

Sinabi nyo sa akin dati, wala kong problema sa lenguwahe, pero takot akong tumayo sa bingit.

SInabi naman ng prop ko sa creative writng, natural daw ako magsulat sa Ingles, na ganito raw talaga ako mag-isip. Pero ang kwento ng burgis na namulat sa gitna ng isang hacienda? She's heard it so many times before.

Nabasa ko ang sinulat ni Piya tungkol sa sinulat ni Milan Kundera, na kaya tayo natatakot kapag umakyat tayo sa mataas na lugar ay di dahil takot tayong mahulog, kundi takot tayo sa nais nating tumalon.

Ganito ako. Hayskul pa lang, mahilig na kong umupo sa taas ng mga ledge sa second floor at tumingin pababa. Hanggang sa rooftop ng Vinzons, iniisip ko pa rin ung anong pakiramdam kung tumalon ako.

Wala na kong trabaho, pero sa wakas, maisusulat ko na ang gusto kong isulat.

Handa na kong tumalon.

Why it's not always good for birds of together to flock the feather

2008-04-29T13:48:00.004+08:00

Naalala ko ang sinabi ni Eleyn minsan na mas mahirap ilaban ang gender sensitivity kapag nasa labas na ng Kule, kung saan pare-pareho naman kami mag-isip.

Eto, galing sa blog ni Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder ng Global Voices:

At mula sa Wahington Post, Why Everyone You Know Thinks the Same as You

Ano tingin niyo?

(side note: sa wakas, naka-update din ng blog. :D)

She is EVIL

2008-02-22T13:49:00.003+08:00

Raise your hand if you agree.

Comic Strip by Concerned Artists of the Philippines from Arkibong Bayan

Agh

2008-02-17T23:21:00.002+08:00

kelan ba ko makakapost ng matinong update?

They say there's time enough for everything, but if there is, I haven't been able to figure out how to fit everything into the seconds that just seem to slip away.

Meanwhile, another chummy quiz (from Kat's multiply).

Parang hindi ako ah (except for the contemplative cat part. baka yun, pwede pa).

For lack of time

2008-01-23T17:50:00.000+08:00

but from a pressing need to update this blog, here's a couple of quizzes i answered while pretending to be working.

My Lakbayan grade is C+!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

"The lesson today is how to die..."

Which Strange Little Girl would you be?

i need to do something about the layout and start transferring some of my scribblings. soon, i promise.

With a heavy heart

2007-07-01T23:12:00.000+08:00

It's hard for me to write about human rights.

Maybe it's because I've seen dead people - just shot 20 minutes ago, blood pooling beneath the body like paint, no smell; just drowned, foaming at the nostrils, father performing a futile attempt at mouth to mouth resuscitation; found after an undetermined period of time, rolled in a carpet, body like an empty corn husk, nothing left but hair, teeth and bones; murdered family, following a trail of bloodstains that ends with their cold bodies dumped unceremoniously into stainless-steel tubs in a morgue.

It's hard for me, because while the current number of victims stands above 800, each tally is a name, a person, someone who lived and laughed and loved and died when they shouldn't have.

Kenneth quotes John Berger on his blog: "Truly we writers are the secretaries of death."

Death, death, death.

But I am still alive, and the work must continue.

Ian, Papa and I

2007-04-22T18:27:00.000+08:00

Ian is the car that I use most of the time, that I am supposed to fill up with P1,000 worth of gas every month.

This morning, Mama noticed that Ian's right rear tire was extremely flat. (I think I may have bumped in and out of a few holes on the way home from St. Paul's yesterday, but I didn't tell them that.)

I know how how to weave in and out of traffic, avoid obnoxious jeepneys, and attempt to parallel park. But I had never changed a flat tire.

The first time I ever had a flat tire, I was on my way to a date. The man driving a white van in the lane next to mine pointed to my right front tire. As I felt the tire flatten and begin to skid, a gas station materialized. I drove into it, smiled sweetly at an attendant, and gave him P20 for changing my tire.

Now it was time to do it on my own.

"Can you really do it?" Papa asked.

Mama said that the lug nuts were really hard to loosen. They were. I could only manage a few twists with the wrench, before Papa had to take over. He also helped me unscrew the spare tire from the truck, and put the jack in place under a fin, near the wheel.

But I did everything else. I lugged the spare tire from the trunk and turned the jack clockwise to lift the car.

It took a lot of turns. There I was, sitting on my butt on a wet patch of slime in the driveway, turning the jack. In between my outstretched legs, an ant slowly scurried on the cracked concrete, next to a wilted golden leaf.

(Is this why some guys love to work on cars? Because the rest of the world falls away as they fiddle under the hood?)

After the car was lifted a few inches off the ground, I took off the flat tire and heaved a new one into its place. Then I screwed on the lug nuts and tightened them as best as I could. Papa only had to grunt a few times as he gave them a final twist.

My butt was wet, my hands were greasy, and I had grime up to my elbow. I felt good.

There are times when we don't get along too well, Papa and I. We are too much alike -- impatient, quick-tempered, volatile. We have a tendency to to dictate, and to speak authoritatively even when we don't know much about a subject. And we always have to have the last say in an argument.

Yet in between the tense moments, the strained silences, the harsh exchanges of words, there are also afternoons like this.

Just me, Papa and Ian.

Education is a right, not a privilege

2007-03-22T12:20:00.000+08:00

Just a quick post before I get to work: I was incensed by this article in Malaya (and headlined by most of the other dailies) saying that 2 out of 3 highschool grads aren't ready for college.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the NCAE results showed that the government is on the right track in pursuing technical-vocational program as one of the solutions to the growing mismatch between the skills of graduates and the needs of the job market.

Amazing that the government still manages to trumpet its supposed success whuile blithely ignoring the fact that the education system in the country has long been deteriorating.

I've been schooled by state-run institutions my whole life. During highschool none of the bathrooms had running water. The floor of classroom for honor science students sloped downward, which skewed the results of our physics experiments. The classroom was declared unsafe a few years later. Even then, we were under constant threat of being closed down due to a lack of state subsidy.

But we had it good, compared to others.

To get to school, PUP students have to cross a railroad.

My aunt is a teacher at a large public elementary in school in Manila, where classes are held in two sessions - from 6-12 and 1-7, because there are too many students and no enough schools.

Sections run from A to J, according to aptitude. She says they've pretty much given up on the ones below B. One mother even told her, "My son just isn't smart, like me."

My mom is also teacher, one of those who used to close down fly-by-night nursing schools because their proprietors charged staggering sums in return for a substandard education that wouldn't enable its graduates to pass the nursing exams. As a result, she's made a lot of enemies, and has a pending libel case.

Education was a hot topic when I was still a staffer at the Collegian. Every year, the news staffers would track the decreasing budget given to UP, break it down, and call for an increase in state subsidy.

UP increased its tuition fee by 300% last year. Intial analyses say that it is the lower middle class who will be most affected by this.

Not to simplify the issue - there are a lot of other factors why hs students aren't ready for college. But one of the main reasons is the continued lack of state subsidy.

Again and again, the old rallying cry holds true. Education is a right, not a privilege.

On Late-Night TV

2007-02-08T23:44:00.000+08:00

Or to be exact, the Late Show with David Letterman. i told myself i wouldn't watch such trash, but i did. From start to finish. Strange how the things you know are bad for you can be so addicting.

i feel sorry for Lisa Marie Novak, the butt of tonight's jokes. The woman now labeled as the crazy astronaut, who drove 900 miles wearing adult diapers to threaten her rival in a love triangle. This is how it is every night. Whatever seems new, bizarre, out of the ordinary, made into a spectacle.

Some might say, this is comedy. I remember reading an article about Borat, how many (Kazakhs, frat boys, basically anyone featured in the film) found it offensive. Others found it funny -- even radically so, because in an era where so many are concerned with being politically correct, no one else would dare tell a black man that he had a chocolate face.

But then again, there's that scene in Borat where he asks young black men how to say "how do you do?" and they say "what's up, vanilla face?" which he repeats to a surprised hotel clerk.

If comedy is a way of breaking taboo, then so be it. but i maintain that there's still a difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them.

Blogging while working

2007-02-08T18:27:00.000+08:00

Well, i actually do blog for a living.

But working on a personal blog during office hours seems deliciously subversive. It's the first time i've done it.

To be fair to me, I've practically spent the whole day slogging through COA reports. Thus, i am able to rationalize that i deserve this secret, stolen moment of blogging before i get back to slogging.

i haven't been fulfilling my promise to update this once a week -- i will try to be a better blogger, promise. i'm also thinking of doing a redesign when i move to the new blogger (i'm probabaly the only one who hasn't yet) now that i have a rudimentary grasp of html. If not, there's always Kate. :D

On my ever-pressing problem of security issues, i was shocked to discover that when i google my name + blog this blog appears on the top 5. i'll have to do something about this.

Maybe this weekend, when I will actually manage to do something besides sleep.

So this is Christmas

2006-12-16T12:39:00.000+08:00

Congratulation! Ma'm/Sir Ur #.had Won 3Million psos Frm. GMA CHARITY FOUNDATION OFF.During X-MAS RAFFLE DRAW CLAIM UR PRIZE ATTY. BOB M. Lopez #09202780627!

***
message reprinted as sent to my phone earlier this morning.

have some decency.

Tempting fate

2006-12-11T22:03:00.000+08:00

Strictly speaking, i'm not supposed to be engaging in tarot. i swore off it after someone offered to read my palm a few years ago...and said that i would become promiscuous. :(

Not to mention that it's against my belief system.

But what the hey. Just for kicks. And what do you know, this time the card(s)may just be right.

Like Madeleine L'engle wrote, life is like a sonnet. you're given a very strict form, but how your poem reads is entirely up to you.

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

The irony of it all

2006-12-10T23:13:00.000+08:00

A so-called multimedia journalist who doesn't update her blog. But when i've been staring at a computer day in day out, trawling for news, trying to make sense of it, trying to come up with some form of analysis, or something new to add to the growing discourse, there really isn't much writing left for this blog.

plus, i have security issues. obviously, i can't talk about what i'm working on, but i'm having a hard time drawing the line, because work is also personal (says a friend who claims to be married to hers) and i believe that the personal is political.

so there you have it. a consciously edited attempt at a stream of consciousness.

i'll try, i repeat, try to update this once a week, but um, no photos for now.

as i write this, it's raining slightly and it's cold -- finally, a proper December chill.

there's something about the rain that always makes me feel like writing.

i wish it would snow.

Talked to Tanya

2006-10-20T00:14:00.000+08:00

right after i watched her undergraduate thesis on Shorts. i'm bursting with pride.

A few years ago, when we were still sometimes mistaken for SM salesladies because of our uniforms, we sat on top of granite tables during lazy afternoons, gazed into the distance, and dreamed.

She's living hers.

Am i living mine?

Not exactly. But i'm working towards it.

and i'm happy where i am now.

On Sleepless Nights

2006-10-01T22:00:00.000+08:00

waiting for day to break so i can stagger through it, i think of this poem.

Mga Pangkaraniwang Lungkot
ni dark-vader

Marahil ito na ang aking huling liham.
Pagkatapos mo itong mabasa,
mangyari lamang na ito’y lamukusi’t bilutin
at saka ilublob sa lalim ng ilog
nang ito’y matunaw, magsatubig at umagos.

Bukod sa pangalan, lagda at lunan,
kalakip ng sulat na ito ang lahat ng aking mga pangkaraniwang lungkot:
lukot-lukot na ulap, isang itim na balahibo ng uwak,
isang pinggang may pingas sa labi, larawan ng matandang simbahan,
tatlong tinuping bulaklak, at isang pares ng natuyong pakpak ng paru-paro.
Ito na lamang ang naiwan,
at ang lahat ng ito’y ipinauubaya ko na sa iyo.

Ganito marahil isinulat ng mga pantas ang kasaysayan.
Nagsisimula muna sa mahal kong patlang, bubuntong-hininga,
at susundan ng maligayang pagbati, pangungumusta
at pag-uusisa sa kasalukuyang kalagayan,
bago maghalungkat ng nawaglit na kasulatang nadaganan
sa ilalim ng punda ng kama, o di kaya’y tantiyahin
sa panginurin ang mga posibilidad ng mga nagbabagang balita.

At kahit hindi hinihingi ng mambabasa, babalik silang lahat sa kanilang silid
upang magsulat, sa kani-kanilang sarili bilang sentro
de grabedad ng lahat, katulad na lamang nito: Ako?
Maayos naman ako. Kahit na sa kalaliman ng gabi, gabi-
gabi, ay dinadalaw ako ng matinding sikat ng liwanag at isang mabangis
na anghel sa tatlong pangalan: Labis-Labis na Alindog, Labis-Labis na Pusok,
Labis-Labis na Libog.

Nililimas niya ang lahat ng kanyang mahawakan, mula sa aking antok,
pawis, panis na laway, tsinelas at saplot, maging ang aking alaala
at bungang-tulog ay sapilitan niyang kinukumpiska’t isinasalin sa wikang
tanging mga kuliglig lamang at gagamba ang nakapapangusap.

Hindi lamang iyon. Humihingi ako sa iyo ng paumanhin, konting panahon
at pasensiya. Ipagdamot mo ang ilan ko pang balita.
Nais kong banggitin na ang aking mga kasama’y naglaho nang lahat,
nilamon ng hamog at usok. Na binubura ng takot, gutom at tutok ng baril
ang buong lungsod. Na naulol ang historyador sa pagbibilang ng mga lumulutang
na katawan. Na nagnanaknak na langib ang siyudad sa katanghaliang-tapat.
Na umaalingasaw ang lamang-loob ng sementeryo kapag bilog ang buwan.
Na kailangan kong maligo bago matulog upang maalis ang libag, langis
at lumot ng maghapo’t magdamag sa aking balat.

Higit sa lahat, nais kong sabihin na ako’y hindi makatulog sa labis na pag-aalala.
Ngunit hindi ko matandaan ang sanhi ng aking mga pagkabalisa.
Kaya naiiwan akong mulagat at nilalagnat sa madaling-araw
hawak-hawak itong sulat at ang hungkag kong pagkapuyat.

Iyon laman naman at nawa’y nasa mabuti kang kalagayan.
Nawa’y naramdaman mo ang nakapapasong halik
na nagtikom sa sobreng ito, bago mamaalam,

Bago ang nagmamahal o lubos na gumagalang,

Bago matapos ang lahat sa iisang pangalan.

My new job

2006-09-08T17:33:00.000+08:00

Imagine. I get paid to blog. Who would have though that there was a job like this? :) My official job description is multimedia journalist. O diba, ang taray!

Now I have an excuse not to update this blog, as I'm now blogging practically everyday at the pcij institutional blog.

It also means, as a friend pointed out, that I'm going to have to be much more careful about what I write here, where anyone could read it (this is, after all, a public blog).

However sad it may seem that many of my thoughts will now be relegated solely to the realm of late-night scribblings and conversations, still, after GMA, my new job is a cause for celebration.

I repeat,

2006-09-08T16:43:00.000+08:00

I do not like being tagged. but when it's done by a friend, (in this case, kat) i'll make an exception. (although this time, i won't pass it along, hehe. or i may...)

se7en (or self-indulgence)

Seven things I want to do before I die:
1. Cover a war in a foreign country (or anything in a foreign country for that matter)
2. write a literary journalism novel, among many other novels
3. find someone who's willing to get married, have kids with me, and take care of them while i'm covering wars in foreign countries ;p
4. finish a dual degree masters abroad
5. learn to write, shoot and edit a documentary (shempre dapat agit itrez).
6. travel until i'm sick of it.
7. change the world, hehehe. or at least, make a dent towards changing the prevailing system

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Draw.
2. commit to a guy I like who likes me back (but i'm working on it :))
3. play the guitar. (hanggang intro chords lang ng it might be you na tinuro pa sa akin nung highschool)
4. play basketball
5. drive after 11 pm (curfews suck!)
6. magsuot ng pukengkeng skirt, bare-legged
7. change the world

Seven things that attract me to both a boy and a girl:
1. beautiful eyes
2. an offbeat sense of humor
3. katulad ni kat, kailangan may cultural capital. at mahilig makipagdebate tungkol sa kung anu-ano
4. at gender sensitive.
5. may natatanging talento sa pagguhit o pagtugtog, preferably both. ;)
6. my usual mantra: silence. stillness. sometimes.
7. may paninidigan. at handa ito ipaglaban.

Seven things that I say most often:
1. chenes
2. chorva
3. haggard!
4. whatever
5. guess what?
6. haaaay.
7. hapi!

Seven books I love to read:
(authors na lang, puwede?--ako rin! kat, marami tayong parehong paborito, hehehe)
1. Atwood
2. Vonnegut
3. Salinger
4. Plath
5. Voight
6. Austen
7. L'Engle

Seven movies I could watch over and over again:
1. Memento
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. The Three Musketeers (twelve times and counting)
4. Chungking Express
5. Sleepers
6. Amelie
7. Ghost in the Shell

Seven people I'm tagging to do this survey:
dahil tinag na ni kat ang mga taga-kule, the usual suspects:
1. kate
2. jaycee
3. cy
4. almi
5. aloi
6. hannah
7. mhel

hehehe. so the game continues...

Requiem: Muling Pagsuka

2006-08-05T17:12:00.000+08:00

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul - Socrates

When i can't find words to express what i feel, or rather, when others' are more beautiful, more meaningful, than anything i could come up with, i resort to quotations, pastiche.

My apologies (and utmost thanks) to these women (and men!) for expressing their thoughts with exquisite clarity.

What follow is a year (approximately) in quotes:

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation

-Plath

Virgin ka pa ba? –Kuya x, a cameraman

…the clouds were billowing, as if flexing for a muscular storm –Harrington

She caught his eye first by the stillness of her waiting…he didn’t know if she was beautiful. He only knew that her beauty hit him like an explosion. -Voight

Must you seize my world by storm? –Alexander

Tolstoy: Happy marriages are all the same, but unhappy ones are each different.
Jeff: Maybe that’s why being unhappy is more interesting.
-Voight

Our fragmented soundbite media tears us away from the creative attention we need to focus on ourselves and on the world –Winterson

..when people flatter you constantly, it is tempting to think you deserve it. – Reichl

He’s a dinosaur. – my sister, on Gallo

You can tell dinosaur bones from rocks by licking them. –Newsweek

Power revels in first making itself manifest –Soyinka

It is the invisible that sustains the visible – de Quiros

Spirituality is not piety but rather, what gives you life and meaning to your life. –Alejo (I never thought I’d be quoting a catholic priest!)

Rizal’s dilemma consisted of the painful but necessary task of having to choose between violent commitment to the Revolution and the slow road to agitation for reforms within the social order. It is necessarily the dilemma of a liberal… - Teodoro

life as reflected in works of art and literature and art ought to be on a higher plane, more intense, more concentrated, more typical, nearer the ideal, and therefore more universal than actual everyday life - Mao Tse Tung

Hindi ba pinapatay yung mga nasa PCIJ? -Papa

No matter how advanced technology becomes, there will always be a need for human intervention –Versola (paraphrased from memory)

Nakita kita tumanda sa Kule at masaya ako sa narating mo.
Mahirap talaga malagas ang balat na kinalakihan natin. (Maniwala ka, pinanggalingan ko yan. :)) Alam mo na ngayon ang dapat gawin, hanapin na lang ang paraan para mailabas ito.

-a friend, written on the very last page of my copy of the Kule folio

and on the front page (from yet another friend)

Sabi ni leonard cohen, "puking clears the soul." and ours is a world ng walang-hanggang pagsusuka. :) tuloy (squared) ha?

She lifted her shoulders and squared them, to take up again the burden of...life.
-Voight

-end-

Reading List or Lost in Translation*

2006-08-03T18:02:00.000+08:00

It bothers me, that I'm not reading enough Filipino authors, not enough in Filipino, about Filipinos. In the past few weeks, only Bulosan's America is in the Heart, assorted blogs, articles in this year's Kule.

Somehow, other newspapers don't count.

Waiting in my bookshelf is a cheap copy of PSR, and a canon of the best Philippine short stories in English.

I tried to read Umbrella Country, but I couldn't stomach it. The country Realuyo describes exists only in his memories, while characters like Boy Spit come to life only as an awkward translation.

Huntington writes that after former colonies gained their independence, elites prized fluency in English, French or another Western language in order to distinguish them from the common people of their society.

"As a result, elites of non-Western societies are often better able to communicate with Westerners and with each other that with people of their own society (a situation like that in the West in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when aristocrats form different countries could easily communicate in French with each other but could not speak the vernacular of their own country)."

Reminds me of a lot of people. Far too may, in fact.

Ten years after we came back form the States, I still think, dream and write. In English.

I love the language, love the words, phrases and sentences that flow from my fingertips. I love it -- even as I revile what continues to set me apart.

*with apologies to Sofia Coppola

Tachycardia

2006-06-16T15:11:00.000+08:00

is what doctors call it when the heart beats too fast. In my case, 100 or more beats per minute.

I learned this while flat on my back on a hospital bed, during the long Independence Day weekend that we were supposed to spend in Tagaytay.

Another puzzling symptom, two days after rashes covered me head to toe.

Soon the rashes agreed to concentrate on my joints, three days after a hacking cough appeared.

Four days after the thermometer registered 40 degrees celsius when it was stuck inside my mouth.

One week later, they still don't know what's wrong with me.

The tests show that my level of infection is still twice as high as normal; meaning somewhere inside my body, a virus, or bacteria, or some virulent disease is still running wild.

Because of this, I was confined to the house as soon as I got out of the hospital.

Mama's become paranoid about my health, hence the following stern directives:

Avoid crowded places. No late nights out. No strenuous activities. No work until July.

Ironic that I got sick just when I stopped working. When I finally had the opportunity to relax, my body decided to crash.

My sister, fresh from the first year of her PhD course in Maryland, suspects that I might have an auto immune disease because of my symptoms .

It's scary to think that my own body has turned against me.

I read somewhere that shingles, a debilitating auto-immune disease, can only be acquired by someone who had chickenpox as a child.

It seems that whenever we get sick, our immune system stores a bit of the disease in order to protect the body from future attacks.

Only sometimes, it breaks down. And then all hell breaks loose.

After the Clearing

2006-05-16T13:16:00.000+08:00

“Ang ganda pala ng Manila,” sabi ni Kuya.

Where there had been a tenement of shanties stretching as far as the railroad tracks, there was only a wasteland of rubble; remnants of demolished houses, an occasional bright patch of paint along a wall.

Months ago, hundreds of families living here were sent packing to make way for Vice President (and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council Chairman) Noli de Castro’s ambitious multimillion peso railway rehabilitation.

The annals of the city’s history are filled with chapters like this: the struggle between the right to food, decent work, and shelter and urban planning, growth and development.

Migration continues, from the province, to the cities, to outside the country, because people dream of a better life and more opportunities

What a shock it must be for them, arriving in Manila with a few pesos in their pockets, staring in dismay because the dismal grey city before them is not the golden land of opportunity they though it was.

There are men who climb to the tops of bridges because the MMDA confiscated their only means of livelihood for the fourth time.

Others gamble, steal, murder, or sell others to make money.

Kuya, who’s covered dozens of demolitions, wonders why the police cart out big screen TV’s, DVD players, videoke machines from inside squatter shanties when he can’t afford to buy any of these appliances because of his measly salary.

Coming home from a tinapay festival in Batangas, we were laden with bread. Each time we stopped, he would roll down the window, beckon a grimy child, and hand a piece of bread to him.

“Doesn’t it make you feel good?” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “But how will we feed them tomorrow? Or the day after that?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“At least we did something. I have my own problems.”

What I have learned, after months of talking to killers, rapists and holduppers, is that many of our problems are inextricably linked.

Deeper social problems often underlie existential dilemmas.

It would be interesting, one year after the E-VAT was implemented, to see if the crime rate had risen because more people had fallen below the poverty threshold.

There are no easy solutions.

Grr.

2006-04-30T22:38:00.000+08:00

i've gotten tagged.

wla namang nasty chain letter consequence pero alang-alang sau iris, here goes:

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. pinchitter reporter
2. and
3. nothing
4. else

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Amelie
2. Memento
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4.Ghost in the Shell

Four places you have lived in:
1. Cambridge, Massachussets
2. Diliman
3. Albany, California
4. Santa Mesa Heights

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Mars
2. Laguna Beach (my extremely guilty pleasure)
3. GMA, National Geographic and Discovery documentaries
4. Stand up comedians on comedy central presents

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Palawan
2. Dumaguete
3. Bohol
4. Ilocos Norte

Four websites I visit daily:er, nothing daily but in most frequent order:
1. www.pcij.org
2. www.villagevoice.com
3. this one
4. en.wikipedia.org

Four of my favorite foods:
1. salmon
2. strawberries
3. scallops
4. dark chocolate (ran out of s foods, hehe)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. at the beach
2. europe
3. new york
4. in a rally

Seven friends who I have tagged that I think will respond
1. kate
2. almi
3. jaycee
4. cy
5. aloy
6. hannah
7. melodie

Chronicles of Death Foretold*

2006-04-30T21:51:00.000+08:00

I've seen dead people.

Blood congeals beneath them, slowly spreading, as if someone had merely spilled a can of red paint beneath a facedown body.

It takes a few hours before the smell begins to emanate; the stink seeps into every last pore, as if to announce, ladies and gentlemen, this body now has no core.

Day by day, the death pictures pile up.

The latest that I have seen -- the siblings gunned down in Mindoro Oriental.

They found her still tied to a post, head bowed in agony, the front of her white t-shirt red with blood. Him, only a few meters away, facedown on a bamboo floor amidst the disarray of strewn clothes, toppled cans, a ransacked house.

"The most effective way to wage war is to kidnap the relatives of your enemies," said a general to me today after lunch.

Everyone has a weakness. Single people have mothers, boyfriends, significant others. No one is invulnerable.

I remember, we spent three hours in an opinion class arguing about the ethics of showing grisly pictures. Soon, my professor said, the public would be so accustomed to them that they would become inured to the depravity, the indignity, the wrongness of a violent death.

Why is it that I still cringe at 8' o clock am sunday morning, when a man's voice cheerily announces over the radio that a newborn baby's head was severed severed! by an inept physician as s/he came out of his/her mother's womb?

No gender, name, age, life.

Just a severed head.

*with apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

My Generation

2006-04-06T23:30:00.000+08:00

Every time I meet old friends (and yes, there now exists such a category), I am reminded of how far I have come -- or regressed; it depends from which point of view you look at it.

One year after I graduated,

Kate, Cy and Julie are at the Inquirer

Almi's in Malacañang

Lmae's set to enter Ateneo in May

Caloy's due to graduate and due to submit a series of poems

Kat will become the new Assoc Ed

Yani cannot be reached.

A year after graduation and we have scattered like seed. A few more years and we'll be separated by countries, continents, maybe even planets.

and God forbid, death.

Death seems very close these days, what with the news of Erika, struck down in Bicol.

I remember her in highschool, a chubby brown-haired girl striding down the corridor.

The day Vencer stood on a white monobloc chair and beat the air with his fist, surrounded by a gaggle of eager, upturned faces; her brother arrived with a friend to help highschool students flee the confines of a repressive school to attend a rally.

That year, I wrote that activism meant each of us doing what s/he could. (I meant it in the most pluralist sense possible). Something that I'm now heartily ashamed of.

Jose "Jam" Tatco, the SK Federation NCR president, still thinks this way.

I could barely control my revulsion as I interviewed him, stomach straining his blue Lacoste shirt, his head sinking straight into his collar, seemingly without the aid of a neck.

He had the temerity to tell me that each Filipino should just do what he could, instead of protesting all the time.

I wanted to stick my mike down his throat. Except that he'd probably eat it.

"So young and so corrupt." said Arsenio Lacson of Ernesto Maceda, more than forty years ago.

Now they say that most people above the age of 15 are corrupt, and the only way to cleanse the system is to hope that the next generation has more sense.

Before I interviewed Jam, I was sent to a waiting shed next to Quezon City Hall to cover a signature campaign.

There I met Carl of KMP, as usual.

We see each other at least twice a month, during rallies, signature campaigns, press conferences, and parangals. As media, and interviewee.

They estimate that the youth (those below 35) make up about 65 percent of registered voters.

We are in the thick of things; in the city, in the countryside. On both sides. Against each other.

For better or worse, the fate of the country lies in our hands.

Valentine's Day 2005

2006-02-15T19:01:00.000+08:00

from Strophe by H.D.

...I love you would have no application for the moment. I love

you waits with cold wings furled, stands a cold angel shut up like

cherry-buds; cherry buds not yet half in blossom. The cold rain and

the mist and the scent of wet grass is in the unpronounceable words,

I love you.

Unofficially

2006-02-02T19:52:00.000+08:00

The heart has its reasons whereof reason knows nothing - Pascal

The official report is this: they captured him driving inside a red Toyota along MacArthur Highway.

In reality - he was with his lover, whom neighbors describe as small, sweet and muscled.

Limbs entwined, sheets entangled.

They must have been surprised when soldiers burst through the door that night.

No wonder he surrendered 'without a fight'.

***

Nothing wrong, he was annulled, she was single.

Only this: inside the courtroom, they were on opposite sides.

If you had known that one look across a crowded courtroom would seal your fate, would you still have helped him escape?

Harbored him, defying the law, your supervisors, the code you had sowrn by?

Conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentle(wo)man. Conspiracy. Death by firing squad.

A litany of words drowned beneath the beating of your heart.

On the Occasion of the NU 107 Rock Awards

2005-12-07T21:20:00.000+08:00

It ended on a sour note, a night that feted the country's rock stars. The people have spoken, and the band that won the night's most prestigious award has become famous for playing a song that has been used not only as the theme song of a show that panders to our voyeuristic tendencies, but as a government's rousing call to unity for an imperiled people.

There is nothing wrong with proclaiming our shared nationality, but all too often, this declaration has become an excuse to drown collective dissent in the name of national unity.

Whenever the Pinoy Big Brother theme song is played, I see Bayani Fernando with sll his MMDA emplyees dancing in front of an extremely amused Beijing mayor, the PSG cleaning up the barbed wire that used to swathe Malacanang in order to turn it into Christmas trees, and a band that rose to fame emulating the music and accent of an imperialist country, and that didn't care enough about its music (or maybe, wanted fame and needed the money) to allow it to be used as an ideological state apparatus.

Thrice

2005-11-01T21:06:00.000+08:00

I have slept through the sunrise.

I dreamed that we were roving through the streets of Manila, following the vehicles of other networks. Somehow, we lost them, and ended up on North Road, which was lined with smokestacks belching five-alarm bursts of smoke.

The smoke clings to your body, like the smell of too many bodies crowded into a single jail cell.

I woke up curled in the front passenger seat of the crewcab, in front of the press office of the Western Police District.

For three straight nights, I have roamed the streets from 12 midnight to 8 in the morning.

It's called the graveyard shift because it's an unholy hour; when everyone is asleep, save for the cops, the criminals, the arsonists, and those like me, who must stay awake to watch the city that never sleeps.

I met the graveyard shift media at the Central Police district, all of them hefty men in their mid-twenties who smoked constantly. When one car leaves, all the rest follow suit, tearing through the streets in order to catch a murder, fire, or car crash.

There are fewer crimes committed when it rains -- especially if it rains hard. Even criminals must have their breaks.

Thank God that even they are bound by the weather.

The next night, it only drizzled. I dashed from Ortigas-to-Caloocan-to-Quezon City-to-Manila. A man was electrocuted. A warehouse burned down. Four men were picked up for robbery. (They in turn, were robbed by the police.) World Psoriasis day. My day ended with a handshake with a man whose hands were scarred, pitted and gouged from a lifelong disease that cannot be cured.

They are treated like lepers, even though the rashes come out as a result of a genetic predisposition and psoriasis patients aren't contagious.

Many of them have been refused jobs, and shunned by their own families, once the rashes start to appear.

Another man, whom I talked to, a former electrical engineer, said that his psoriasis had only appeared when he started working. He left his high-paying job and became a filmmaker. Now he directs information campaigns about psoriasis.

He, and many others like him, are finding ways to fight the stigma, to lead normal lives as much as possible.

How much stock we set by the way a person looks! I have seen men treated like kings because they were dressed in business suits, and others treated like the dirt that clung to their clothes.

If I could only have a camera eternally fixed to my iris...to show others what I see, and not the sanitized one minute report I was commissioned to write, that never even made it on the air.

This is the first time that I have felt that words were inadequate to convey my sentiments.

Something to Blog About

2005-11-01T20:49:00.000+08:00

Sabi nga ng the Wuds, isa sa mga paboritong banda ni Lisa (makikihiram din ako ng lyrics, pasintabi) , inosente lang ang nagtataka. Sa panahon ngayon, wala nang espasyo para sa mga nagtatanga-tanga.

repost from the young radicals blog:

Together, we can turn Arroyo's website into the "pekeng pangulo" homepage.

We are calling on all bloggers and web administrators to post a link with the keywords: "pekeng pangulo" to Arroyo's website at http://www.kgma.org/ .

This will influence the search engine results to put GMA's website as top result when one searches the keywords: pekeng pangulo.

This has been done by anti-Bush activists during the peak of the anti-Iraq war protests in 2001. When you search Google with the key words: " miserable failure", then click on "Im Feeling Lucky", it will bring you striaght to the biography page of US President George W. Bush.

Other keywords you can link: sira ulo (http://www.doj.gov.ph/), gobyernong bulok (http://www.gov.ph/), bugaw (http://www.i-site.ph/Databases/Executive/Cabinet/2004-2010/personal/gonzales-personal.html), sinungaling (http://www.op.gov.ph/profiles_bunye.asp), etc.

You can read the article on this project here.

Everyone is encouraged to repost this entry on their weblog/website.

Ramblings

2005-10-29T18:41:00.000+08:00

One of my favorite authors has been turned into a juicebox. It looks like his heirs have taken advantage of his death by licensing his works to one of the crassest possible things. He would shudder in his grave, seeing this.

Is there anything left in this world that isn't for sale?

It's a rhetorical question, but universal truths such as faith, hope and love have long been commercialized. And now, even the idea of rallies in the mockery of a youth rally that Penshoppe held last October 14 in order to promote its clothes.

At a time when the youth and other dissidents are being hosed down at the foot of Mendiola, at a time when mass leaders are being killed right and left, I can think of no greater sacrilege.

I've just finished leafing trough the British edition of Vogue, the inch-think Bible of the so-called modern woman. And frankly, it disgusts me.

Everything is branded -- we are taught to dress, accessorize and primp according to a single "fashionable" standard.

All the articles, including one on luxury bathrooms, are utterly banal.

All save for one -- an article on the photographer Diane Arbus, who loved to capture freaks on camera.

She killed herself in 1972, leaving behind uncanny photographs of those whom society considered to be deviant.

This is what she wrote in 1959: "What's left after what one isn't is taken away is what one is."

I have pledged to stick to this job for at least a year, in order to prove myself, explore the possibilities for subversion within mainstream media, and for other reasons that remain unknown even to myself.

But I can't help wondering; in a year, what is going to be left of me?

Once More

2005-10-05T17:21:00.000+08:00

with. feeling. armed and idealism is up and running.