i've noticed
Posted at 10:34 AM

my posts here are quite short. not much by the way of narratives

could that mean that i'm
losing
my
fa
cu
l
ty
with
words?

classmates
Posted at 08:35 AM

i got to enlist for my subjects yesterday... woohoo!

i also got to see who my classmates would be. in the fiction class i saw isabelita reyes and i know migs villanueva will be there too. for the non-fic class there was mabi david, janet villa and jina andaya.

the thought did occur to me that i might be a bit out of my league here. but then hey. i'm taking the classes to become a better writer, right? and with classmates of such caliber, i'm sure they can help me with my work. i'm just a bit, well, intimidated. hehe. for a first-timer in any writing/workshop class, this is a formidable crowd (not to mention formidable teachers).

but. yeah. bring it on! whatever other feelings there might be are outweighed by excitement

signs of maturity
Posted at 07:51 PM

i don't lose my temper as often or as bad as i used to. my outbursts run for about 5 minutes then they're over. well... most of the time

i lose my composure less. i figure many crappy things that happen will pass soon enough and i'm learning better to just ride the tide.

i worry less. i have stronger faith that things will work out.

i keep my sanity a bit more. what used to rack my wits for days on end only bothers me for a night. as one gets older, it becomes easier to work out of it.

but today, the biggest sign of maturity i got was i had 2 scoops of frozen yoghurt in a cone and didn't get one single drop on my shirt

because of that display at the shang
Posted at 08:08 PM

the lobby of the shang the other day was transformed into hogwarts and other portions of Potter-land. i actually didn't get it at first and wondered why there was a halloween set-up this early in the year. then i found out that the movie opened that day.

wow.

i don't care.

i don't have any intention of catching it on the big screen. i can wait til greenhills gets a dvd copy.

there must have been a time when i would've cared. but that was about oh, 2 bad harry potter movies ago. sure, sure the 3rd book is probably the best in the series and they finally got a new director... but it's too late for me, because now i've discovered philip pullman and his 'dark materials' series composed of 'the golden compass,' 'the subtle knife,' and 'the amber spyglass.' excellent fantasy writing. like the pages of the harry potter books can be used to wrap the pullman books to keep them from getting dirty.

friendship
Posted at 11:03 AM

i've been thinking of posting something like this for quite some time now.

in recent months, i've grown to appreciate my friends a lot more. through a copule of tough times, i've really felt the support of people close to me. there aren't many, but the ones that are there, i do believe, are really special people.

do my friends know how much i do care? i don't know. i don't think i tell them that often have i ever told a friend that i loved them? wow. i can't remember but i do... very much. to the few of you...

you who showed me the sunsets again, who always listens even if it's a dump call in the middle of you having a good time. we've traveled so much together, literally and metaphorically.

you who told me about click moments - who always seems like your ready to kick the ass of whoever is giving me a hard time and deeply rejoices and sympathizes with me through so many rises and falls now.

you who always sees the good side of things, who's always willing to give others that chance. who always sees even my defeats as glasses half full.

you who can always make me laugh even at the saddest, angriest, or most despairing moments. who pulls out a musketeers bar when i feel the whole world is out to get me.

you who trusts me with the deeper decisions in your life even if we don't see each other much. who finds even my dumber moments cool.

i am beginning to realize how important it is to have friends who are not there because of work or school or whatever, but just because you're friends. that no matter what happens with the rest of my life, these are friends whom i move together with. these are friends whom i really feel look out for me - even when they don't make a big show of it.

i wish i could give to you as much as you've given me. thanks

family
Posted at 05:05 PM

and what about my family?

my family is like the air i breathe. it's the stable ground i count on day to day.

everybody from my lone surviving grandparent to my parents, my sibs, the 4 kids, cousins and their kids, and my immediate aunts and uncles. it's a tight pack, this clan - and losing somebody in it always feels like violent claws shredding through fabric.

hm. this is not going to plan....
Posted at 05:21 PM

it's the first day of class today. did i go? nope... hehe. just found out today what my final teaching load will be. i will show up on thursday with, at the rate things are going, no syllabus. it wasn't supposed to be this way. i was going to come back as super teacher, all prepared, ready to set the room on fire.

i've got my deadline for shell today. am i done? nope... got about 5 pages to go for the first draft then about two more look-overs to get things right enough to give to the editor.

and my heart is heavy. a loss in my beloved family is imminent and the tears are clogging whatever is left of my thought passages. have to slog through.

i have reached the stage where i'm so overwhelmed with what has to be done i'm not rattled (look, i'm even blogging ). it's just that right now i can only view life an hour at a time - if i take any wider a view i might throw up. and if i throw up it will be most likely on piglet and his warranty is expired so i sure don't want that to happen

so this is what it feels like to be in the eye of the storm...

apesicle
Posted at 08:57 AM

the light control room at the ccp is cold. trust me, that statement covers a range of experience. then again, it might be more accurate to say 'the light control room at the ccp is very cold.' or 'the light control room at the ccp is way freaking cold!'

you get the picture

thanks to the kindness of fellow philmugger, lights designer katsch catoy, i got to watch a show from the lights booth. yes, he did warn me it would be cold - 18 degrees cold - so i brought a sweater that didn't do much good. but cold be hanged. it was fun being there, seeing what goes on in a lights booth and wishing like anything i had the resources to mount a show on that scale. someday, maybe, why not

so at the end of a veeerrrrryyyy long show, i froze into an apesicle joanna, who was with me, was applauding a number and saying, "look, i can't feel my hands!"

next time i'll bring mittens and earmuffs

wanted: better circumstances
Posted at 07:45 AM

my favorite cousin, nina, is on her way home from canada. it's so rare that she's here, i was so looking forward to seeing her again.

for the first time in a long long time i'm spending the weekend in my home town of angeles, pampanga. i'll be spending my time with my cousins just like when we were kids.

by the weekend the entire clan will be there. a reunion of sorts.

i just wish all of this was happening under better circumstances.

that does it
Posted at 09:28 AM

i want an ipod. now i really do.

arrrrggghhhh! technlust is hitting far too soon.

see i realized that i am on the road more often than i thought. little things come up - like sad trips to pampanga - that require solitary music. this is two occasions in the last month that i would've been made happy by the presence of an ipod. everytime i think: well, this doesn't happen often, i'll just get an ipod with the next big racket... everytime i think that, that's it, an occasion for solitary music comes up.

oh man.

well, because of this i am seriously looking into the option of importing ipods wholesale and maybe selling some na rin to, well, offset the cost of mine ahehehe.

but i think i want the mini. in silver or blue. if anybody wants to beging the 'get the apester an ipod fund', please feel free to do so

back to school
Posted at 02:01 PM

met all four classes that i'm teaching...

it is great to be back in the classroom, but i've noticed i'm rusty. of course with everything else that's been happening, i've also been incredibly preoccupied. but by the time i got to my cw 10 (writing for beginners) class earlier, i felt like i was finding my stride

there is a clear difference in demographics between those that take english 1 and those that take cw 10. it was something i expected, but was dismayed by nontheless. and since i was so tired - after sleepless nights with the shell mss, class from 7-10 then again from 1-4, that by 5pm when i caught joanna in ortigas i told her i was so demoralized. (i did see a school paper with an amusing grammatical error, and that eased the pain... nobody's grammar, not even mine - especially not mine - is perfect )

well, the shell mss is done (and i hope butch won't butcher it) and i got a decent night's sleep - so this morning 'demoralized' became 'challenged' and my lit and society and writing classes seem to be a good change of pace

the really happy bit was when i attended fiction class under jing hidalgo. she gave out readings and i was going over them with glee: 'location, location - depicting character through place'; 'a container of multitudes, or, when the i isn't me - the art of first person'; incremental perturbation - how to know whether you've got a plot or not'... those are just some of the titles and i can't wait to get reading! i can't wait for my first workshop.

man, i'm going to learn how to write!

2 more
Posted at 07:09 AM

last night i thought of 2 more reasons why i love my mac...

i've had piglet for about a year now. one year of constant - as in constant - use. last night i noticed that the battery is just about the same as it was a year ago. i still can get over 3 hours off a single charge. and this is even without following proper calibrating procedures...

last night piglet had a couple of slow-down glitches. when i checked my activity monitor, i saw that i had him up for 10 days and more without rest... no wonder. then i thought - well, that's what it takes to make piglet sputter, and a tiny sputter at that. not bad... not bad at all

system overload
Posted at 10:05 PM

the last month has been a test of human endurance for me. how much can i take physically, emotionally, mentally before completely crashing?

a lot it seems, thank God.

someday soon... and i hope that be very very soon... i can just have the time to recover from everything.

but i think this past weekend was a good step in that direction - although i did just have one hour's sleep on a funeral chapel pew.

a song
Posted at 09:06 AM

i was at a funeral last sunday.
i will be making a short avp in honor of the beautiful lady who passed away
this is the song i will be using.

By Your Side (from the musical Godspell)

Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold
And needs warmth
Where are you going?
Far beyond where the horizon lies

Where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh please, take me with you
Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk (watch me walk)
I can walk

I can walk!

I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will walk, we will talk together
We will talk
About walking Dare shall be carried

And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing

"Meet your new road!"

Then I'll take your hand
Finally glad
Finally glad

That I am here
By your side (By my side)

the workaholic has met her match
Posted at 02:56 PM

yes, i am overworked. if things had gone to plan, i wouldn't have been. but, well, how often do things go according to plan anyway?

today was one of those days that from the moment i woke up until now i'm slogging away at the books and on the mac, building reading lists, sending out syllabi... then when this is all done i have to read for my own classes that i'm enrolled in. i've got about 7 articles for the next 2 days.

i'm still catching my breath - but maybe one more good solid day of work like this and i'll be back on track. not less busy, but at least with some sort of routine. class, checking papers, making lesson plans - and somewhere in between produce 90 pages of revised creative work.

oh, and those two books that have to come out - the comics anthology and the supernatural collection.
oh, and that show in september which still needs sponsors.
oh, and my own book, 'stressed in the city.'

oh. my.

i'm a rotten student
Posted at 04:18 PM

in fiction class today my teacher asked: "so what are the two types of first person point of view?" then called on me! heck, i didn't know. so i just sat there gaping.

"ok, she's stunned," my teacher said and proceeded to explain.

sigh.

huwat?!
Posted at 04:34 PM

this is according to a quiz i got from ida's blog...

i wonder if anybody would agree

What Name Should You Have? by Lauren

saturday picnic
Posted at 07:42 AM

we arrived around 7 in the morning and they had already fired up the grill and started on the porkchops for lunch. the men who were in charge of the grill were already fairly sloshed having consumed half a bottle of brandy and about half a case of beer by that time. by lunch they were completely sloshed and were murdering us via videoke. now i know how murders happen in karaoke joints.

there were two small pools and in no time the non-sloshed crowd was in shorts and t-shirts (count on the regular pinoy to not wear a swimsuit) merrily splashing about.

i helped out a bit in the kitchen, slicing veggies, taking in the smell of inihaw and reveling in the music. there was 70s disco - donna summers, irene cara; 60s folk music like simon and garfunkel; and that kind of rock music that you can imagine swaying to blindly any which way. "any second now," i told the person cutting vegetables with me, "they're going to play john denver."

the opposite of enticing
Posted at 01:52 PM

was awake at 5:45 this morning to get my blood circulating for a 7am class.

it was pouring outside. and dark.

i had to haul myself out of bed in the sleepy cold to get ready to teach dangling modifiers and pronoun referents.

whoopee.

youch!
Posted at 07:26 PM

my elbow has been bugging me the past few days now. i don't want to take pain killers for fear that i might rely on them too much. so i resort to more traditional relief measures like liniment.

my mom suggested i try this patch which is like super salonpas. it's called vorwerk porous cansicum plaster. it is dubbed the 'chilli brand.' my mom warned me that it would cause a 'slight burning sensation' when i put it on. now i know my mother doth have a sense of irony.

to say that vorwerk porous cansicum plaster causes a slight burning sensation is like saying brad pitt is kinda good-looking. but it is very effective in stopping pain. that's because it fries your nerves crisp.

hehe. check out the quizzes!
Posted at 02:55 PM

this from moks's blog. well, i'll be

How to make a apester

Ingredients: 1 part anger 3 parts courage 3 parts joy

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of lovability

this post is brought to you by...
Posted at 02:11 PM

got a clan reunion on sunday. got a new outfit

i'd like to thank The Store With No Name located on the 3rd level, Robinson's Galleria expansion.

it's a great shop - you can buy anything off the rack - from shirts to skirts to pants to jackets - and choose to have the fashion staff on hand add a few touches that are uniquely yours.

well, knowing me i wouldn't really take advantage of that feature - and i just settled for a couple of solid colored tank tops - but i think the option is really cool

and here's hoping that we can get them to sponsor the upcoming december show which is still, well, unnamed

Posted at 08:26 PM

i've got this open in one window. another window is open to the mac users group site - checking out iTrip reviews... which are actually completely irrelevant to an ipod-less me. which brings me to the other window open to ebay where i'm trying to see if anybody will be fool enough to sell an ipod for $100.

then i've got another app running where i'm reading a text file. it's the story of migs villanueva which she submitted to fiction class. and i'm reading and shaking my head. this woman has talent. boy, has she got it. she makes fiction look easy. deserves every single award she won, hands down.

this is one book you all should be looking out for. the collection of short stories by socorro villanueva (or migs, depending on what she chooses to put on the cover). yeah, this woman can write.

the saga of the ipod continues (and ends)
Posted at 07:38 AM

my longings have subsided. thinking last night of all the other projects that need to get off the ground, i realized i need all the cash i can save. and so, with not much regret, i give up the search for the ipod.

of course my need for mobile music hasn't quite disappeared, but for that i'll go with plan B - a 256 mb SD card for my palm which, after all, can play mp3s (slaps forehead. yun naman pala eh!) so the hunt has been transformed

aaannnnnnnd they're off!

that should learn ya
Posted at 06:13 PM

i'm first in line for the fiction workshop july 8. that means i have to submit my story july 1.

i thought i had it in the bag. there was that story i finished in baguio last april. long enough. so i smugly agreed to go with the first batch knowing i had something ready.

i read it again tonight. ugh. man it stinks. ack. wretch. hack. cough. blech.

and what all that adds up to is that i have to come up with another story in one week.

as the workshop question goes, how plausible is this?

actually i'm posting this not so much for anything but just to get some words going and hopefully some sort of momentum will build and i can get working on fixing up some pre-existing story to make it vaguely presentable for a workshop.

hey, that was a whole paragraph! ahhh.

one thing that really helps i guess is a great keyboard with a nice spring and click to it ok, now i'm rambling - good

that explains it
Posted at 08:04 AM

if ever your thought processes feel a little muddled. i found the explanation. ahehehe

"It was a couple of days before Kate Shechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.

She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabinet trunks were full of vivd and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her. Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized thast she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that numans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very cleaer what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins."

- from The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

my impossible
Posted at 01:30 PM

butch dalisay once wrote that a writer must have this writer she wants to emulate. somebody you're trying to write up to but know you'll never reach. when i read the novel 'Bel Canto' i knew i had found mine in Ann Patchett.

here's the opening paragraph of another novel of hers called 'Taft' which i so luckily found in Aeon Books (Katipunan, QC near KFC) for only P200!

"A girl walked into the bar. i was hunched over, trying to open a box of Dewar's without my knife. I'd bent the blade the day before prying loose an old metal ice cube tray that had frozen solid to the side of the freezer. The box was sealed up tight with strapping tape. She waited there quietly, not asking for anything, not leaning on the bar. She held her purse with two hands and stood still. I could see her sort of upside down from where I was. She was on the small side, pale and average-looking, with a big puffy winter jacket on over her dress. I watched her look around at the stuff up on the walls, black-and-white pictures of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf in cracked frames, a knocked-of street sign from Elvis Presely Boulevard, the mounted head of a skinny deer. She pretended to be interested in things so she didn't have to look at anbyody. Not that there was much of anybody to look at. It was February, Wednesday, four in the afternoon. The dead time of the deadest season, which is why I wasn't in any rush. The tape was making me crazy."

when i can write a sentence remotely like this. a paragraph that bears some sort of trace of this kind of language. then maybe, just maybe, i could think to myself "yeah, i'm a writer."

this family can(t) sing
Posted at 08:54 AM

had a clan reunion yesterday. we're trying to make it a point to hold one every year on the sunday after my grandmother's birthday.

my grandmother turned 99 last week. she's bedridden now. attached to a machine. the most possible cause of death for her would be a brownout. but she's still got life in her eyes and we all know she would've loved yesterdays' gathering.

almost all the cousins who were in the country got together with spouses and kids. of the 27 cousins, 15 were around plus about 19 from the next generation. we had a short program and a few games set and it was great to see the next generation of cousins hang and have fun. kudos to bianx for that human bingo game

the food was great and plentiful as should be expected from any self-respecting capampangan gathering.

the huge surprise though was the magic mic and how my normally non-singing clan took to it. there was even a contest per family (we lost). my dad serenaded my mom with some love song - i forget which, i was too shellshocked. then somebody played edelweiss and towards the end of the song everybody was singing the chorus.

all i can say about that is - had the von trapp family sounded anything like us, the nazis would have been the ones to flee austria.

and speaking of music...
Posted at 12:41 PM

was intrigued by ida's post about her life's soundtrack. i thought of doing something like that but found i couldn't muster enough energy for it but one song did keep coming back to me. and it's this one. 'both sides now' by joni mitchell. i knew this song since i was a little girl. not having seen the movie yet, i was mildly surprised to see this song make the soundtrack of 'love actually.' artists like mitchell i think had a profound on influence on some of my favorites today like cynthia alexander. so i feel reliving joni mitchell is a return to roots somehow.

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons ev’rywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on ev’ryone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all

Moons and junes and ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev’ry fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way

But now it’s just another show
You leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living ev’ry day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all

voyeur
Posted at 05:21 PM

last night was wandering aimlessly and found myself in a world not my own.

in this world there are people i know - have never met in person though - and i know they know me. if i were to walk up to them and introduce myself i think i'd get a friendly "oh so that's you!" (or maybe a narrow suspicious "oh so that's you." but hopefully not)

for the first time in a long time i felt this desire to be a part of that world. i can only remember two other instances when i felt this way. the last was around 10 years ago. the emotion bothered me rather severely - i couldn't get any sleep last night.

i did feel more at ease in the morning and by the afternoon was right in the swing of things again. but this is a world that i do still think about intersecting with my own - if only tangentially.

maybe one day i will walk up and introduce myself.

the rolling stone gathers no moss but gets bumps on the way
Posted at 07:45 PM

i can't breathe again. dang, when did this creep up? a workload so overwhelming i have to tiptoe - and sometimes hop - to see over it.

my day started great despite the sleeplessness of the night before. caught the first screening of spider-man 2. got a free purple pen to check papers with and a spanking new eraser to clean piglet (thanks again dude!) got a minette walters book (writes fabulous modern whodunits, generally not that easy to find). had loads of laughter in the process of everything

well, i'm clinging to the memory of this morning because my evening up to now has been one long panic attack. it was triggered, i think, by the formal quotations for the comic book anthology. a lot of re-strategizing has to be done. more people to see, numbers to push. then this pretty much just cascaded down into everything else.

i was telling my sister that i'm hoping really hard that when i wake up tomorrow, everything would have solved itself. sponsors magically appearing to take care of the shows and the book; my first book nicely printed out; my students suddenly with good grammar; my doctoral diploma hanging on the wall...

but then the whole process builds character - as calvin's dad would say. which makes me wonder if i do lack in character so that i have to undergo all this building. sigh. the answer to that is yes i guess not really lacking in character, but God's got something up His sleeve...

oh well. if i won't wake up with everything magically solved, could i at least wake up to the news that classes are suspended?