is something i never have to deal with after a trip abroad. not that there's a significant time difference between the phils and the few places i go to. not that i travel a lot. in fact, i've only been to one place with that much of a time diff compared to ours. it's just that i've always wondered what it is all about, exactly. i am a bit fascinated with it. okay, not just a bit, a lot. i've been preoccupied with time differences and relativity lately. actually, for a long time already. it's something that takes up half of my consciousness, most - no, all - of the time. if i allow myself to dwell in it, god knows what i'll come up with. and it's not even a creative preoccupation. it's just... well, crazy, sometimes. i get really, really drawn to and into what might be called tiny cracks into the past. my past. distant and recent past alike. i dream about it. i dream myself into it. it makes me dizzy sometimes. and it occurs anywhere and anytime it wants to. i had an episode last tuesday in tacloban. was in bo's coffee club with a friend, we were waiting for my brothers to pick us up, and next thing i knew i was stuck in it, in this little crack, and i couldn't breathe. my friend offered me a cigarette. after a puff, i had to go to the toilet to throw up, and splash water on my face.
but, back to jet lag. i kind of know what the feeling is, actually. it is, i think, similar to the affliction that always paralyzes me after a trip home. happens without fail. i arrive in manila, or wherever, and i am disoriented. i either go on like a manic patient for a whole day without sleep and then promptly pass out without warning, or else i sort of black out the minute i am off the plane, such that everything else i do after deplaning is a blur. one very simple, logical explanation for this is that i am never able to sleep on the night before i leave home. even back in college. even as far back as high school when my sister and i were still active in the dance company, and we would go on these tours and such. sleep was simply impossible, and i have long stopped trying to have some, or even a little of it the night before a scheduled trip. so, i take the trip the next day and after that the hours, days, months, years meld into each other and i just float. on rare occasions, i allow myself to sink.
still another explanation is that i leave a huge part of me at home i every time i leave it. and it takes an equally huge effort to recover.
i sometimes think i have been grieving for a loooong time, even way before the deaths happened.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Sunday, April 08, 2007
i won! i won!
in a race against my other selves.
so, last night's wine and beer with Ch, Ad, J(b), R, J(g), and A was actually a celebration of a feat only i knew about.
saya lang.
***
and god, am i relieved the holy week is over! another feat there.
***
someday, when i grow up, i am going to write about "what i learned" from the workshop. and it will break hearts, mine being the first one.
so, last night's wine and beer with Ch, Ad, J(b), R, J(g), and A was actually a celebration of a feat only i knew about.
saya lang.
***
and god, am i relieved the holy week is over! another feat there.
***
someday, when i grow up, i am going to write about "what i learned" from the workshop. and it will break hearts, mine being the first one.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
checking papers in the wilder east
last night i met a burmese guy in his mid-fifties who looks like noriega, is called noriega (but later revealed that his other name is frank, but that he'll have to kill me now that he told me his name), and who owns a way cool bar called noriega. but the bar is free of the stuff the original noriega is notorious for. it is located near the patpong district, but noriega the man was able to turn noriega the bar into the kind of place where it is perfectly normal and safe for a woman to sit at the bar alone, and enjoy her drink without being picked up or being suspected of wanting to be picked up. but then again, with all the heavenly bodies just within one's reach, who would be interested in normal people? but it's totally cool that there is such a place as noriega's for tourists who just want a quiet drink. i never got to try it though - having a quiet drink alone - because i was with a mixed-race, mixed-gender, mixed-profession, 80's music-loving, chain-smoking bunch of thirty-somethings.
we also went to a place called cheap charlie's, where it was really cheap, but the man tending the bar was not named charlie. bad trip. apart from selling really cheaply-priced drinks, cheap charlie's is also famous for its location: right in the middle of a street, atop a thin curve of uneven concrete. and there is a sign which says: attention, do not step back, keep off the street when a car passes. or something like that. kakatuwa.
i can't wait to be back here with husband weng, and with bayaw friends (kung matutuloy sila) next month.
okay. back to checking.
we also went to a place called cheap charlie's, where it was really cheap, but the man tending the bar was not named charlie. bad trip. apart from selling really cheaply-priced drinks, cheap charlie's is also famous for its location: right in the middle of a street, atop a thin curve of uneven concrete. and there is a sign which says: attention, do not step back, keep off the street when a car passes. or something like that. kakatuwa.
i can't wait to be back here with husband weng, and with bayaw friends (kung matutuloy sila) next month.
okay. back to checking.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Tagged by Joel
1. One book that changed your life. Thornton Wilder's Theophilus North which I read some fifteen years ago, and probably did not fully understand, but which also probably ruined me for life. It's an older, wittier, sadder, funnier, more tense (because older) Catcher in the Rye kind of story. I recently rediscovered the beloved old copy in our Tacloban home when I was there for the holidays. The book is as old I am. This year marks its 30th anniversary. And the character, Theophilus, is 30 years old.
2. One book you have read more than once. All the Nabokovs.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. Any thick paperback I can turn into edible pulp or sanitary wipe.
4. One book that made you laugh. My cousin's.
5. One book that made you cry. Lacan's Ecrits. Too difficult. Heartbreaking.
6. One book you wish had been written. Lacan in poetry.
7. One book you wish had never been written. Can't think of any.
8. One book you are currently reading. Children Playing Before The Statue of Hercules. An anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. Purgatorio.
I am tagging Dyndyn, Jet, Maryanne
2. One book you have read more than once. All the Nabokovs.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. Any thick paperback I can turn into edible pulp or sanitary wipe.
4. One book that made you laugh. My cousin's.
5. One book that made you cry. Lacan's Ecrits. Too difficult. Heartbreaking.
6. One book you wish had been written. Lacan in poetry.
7. One book you wish had never been written. Can't think of any.
8. One book you are currently reading. Children Playing Before The Statue of Hercules. An anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. Purgatorio.
I am tagging Dyndyn, Jet, Maryanne
Monday, March 05, 2007
sometimes it's nice to be away
but it's always good to be back. = )
travel, for me, no matter how near or far, is always a surreal experience. it makes me dizzy thinking about time, and space, and shifts in the universe. and then when the language factor comes in, the experience gets even headier.
makes me sad how we have to speak the white man's language in order to communicate with our own neighbors.
makes me sadder how much of what we know about ourselves and our neighboring countries are based on hollywood images.
oh well.
travel, for me, no matter how near or far, is always a surreal experience. it makes me dizzy thinking about time, and space, and shifts in the universe. and then when the language factor comes in, the experience gets even headier.
makes me sad how we have to speak the white man's language in order to communicate with our own neighbors.
makes me sadder how much of what we know about ourselves and our neighboring countries are based on hollywood images.
oh well.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
there are days that don't count
and there are days that do.
yesterday counts.
of all the days, it had to be yesterday when the taxi we (larry and i) were in had to conk out in the middle of a highway leading to a place totally unfamiliar to both of us. we were strangers in a strange town. but no one panicked. no one hyperventilated.
"ano'ng problema, manong?"
"di ko alam e"
"wala ba'ng gas, manong?"
"meron"
"makina?"
"hindi e"
"baterya?"
"ewan"
"Baka nga gas..."
"siguro"
and then manong got off his seat, walked over to the front, opened the hood, tinkered with the engine a bit, went back to his seat, turned the ignition, and the vehicle sputtered back to life. no explanations.
***
it was a day of wandering very cautiously, like timid out-of-towners, in a mall which could have been any other but the mall we (l and i) were supposed to be in. the concern was valid. between the two of us who forget our bags in places where we drink or smoke, mistaking one mall for another is highly probable.
***
it was a day of drinks, and catching up, reconnecting, relishing funny stories, expressing genuine concern over the not so funny ones, with very good friends (emmily and her husband, dan, and then with allan). lovely people all.
***
it was a day of following beer with more wine and some whiskey at home. and then of unabashed singing of songs we (larry, jet and i) unknowingly or secretly memorized. husband weng secretly laughing at us. we became even more immodest as the day wore on and the alcohol kicked. gospel, standards, cebuano kundiman, streisand broadway tunes, you name it. nothing was spared. even our goodbyes were sung.
****
yesterday was a day that counts.
yesterday counts.
of all the days, it had to be yesterday when the taxi we (larry and i) were in had to conk out in the middle of a highway leading to a place totally unfamiliar to both of us. we were strangers in a strange town. but no one panicked. no one hyperventilated.
"ano'ng problema, manong?"
"di ko alam e"
"wala ba'ng gas, manong?"
"meron"
"makina?"
"hindi e"
"baterya?"
"ewan"
"Baka nga gas..."
"siguro"
and then manong got off his seat, walked over to the front, opened the hood, tinkered with the engine a bit, went back to his seat, turned the ignition, and the vehicle sputtered back to life. no explanations.
***
it was a day of wandering very cautiously, like timid out-of-towners, in a mall which could have been any other but the mall we (l and i) were supposed to be in. the concern was valid. between the two of us who forget our bags in places where we drink or smoke, mistaking one mall for another is highly probable.
***
it was a day of drinks, and catching up, reconnecting, relishing funny stories, expressing genuine concern over the not so funny ones, with very good friends (emmily and her husband, dan, and then with allan). lovely people all.
***
it was a day of following beer with more wine and some whiskey at home. and then of unabashed singing of songs we (larry, jet and i) unknowingly or secretly memorized. husband weng secretly laughing at us. we became even more immodest as the day wore on and the alcohol kicked. gospel, standards, cebuano kundiman, streisand broadway tunes, you name it. nothing was spared. even our goodbyes were sung.
****
yesterday was a day that counts.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
all i know is that
i can't write. not that i really have to. well, maybe i do. and maybe that's why i'm not doing it. if i do ever get to write, i will write about the following:
1. desaparecidos and time machines
2. headless bodies and explosive sex
3. trains and second-hand shops along aurora where country music is the only kind of music that gets played
4. spanish colonial land titles gathering dust in some obscure antique shop in kamuning
5. the history of jose mari chan songs
6. imelda swimming in the huge olympic size swimming pool right behind the sto. nino shrine facing the leyte national high school
7. more stories about floods and drowning and big, empty houses
8. me wringing the neck of the person who told me to write about it so i will feel better
***
i can't stop drinking. this, i really have to do. try to do. but, these days, i'm only happy when i'm drunk. truly. i will try to cut it down to three times a week.
***
i couldn't keep myself from laughing when students in an intensive english language class i'm handling asked me if i was filipino, because i looked either nepalese or mexican. russian, i said. oh, they said. are you serious, i said. yes, i am, one said. very good, i said. lesson in asking yes-no questions over, i added.
***
i can't imagine 2007. it scares me. too many important changes happening. too many important people gone.
***
i can't afford to let another term pass without having finished my thesis. i have been drilling myself too long on what it is i'm writing about. i don't make sense anymore.
1. desaparecidos and time machines
2. headless bodies and explosive sex
3. trains and second-hand shops along aurora where country music is the only kind of music that gets played
4. spanish colonial land titles gathering dust in some obscure antique shop in kamuning
5. the history of jose mari chan songs
6. imelda swimming in the huge olympic size swimming pool right behind the sto. nino shrine facing the leyte national high school
7. more stories about floods and drowning and big, empty houses
8. me wringing the neck of the person who told me to write about it so i will feel better
***
i can't stop drinking. this, i really have to do. try to do. but, these days, i'm only happy when i'm drunk. truly. i will try to cut it down to three times a week.
***
i couldn't keep myself from laughing when students in an intensive english language class i'm handling asked me if i was filipino, because i looked either nepalese or mexican. russian, i said. oh, they said. are you serious, i said. yes, i am, one said. very good, i said. lesson in asking yes-no questions over, i added.
***
i can't imagine 2007. it scares me. too many important changes happening. too many important people gone.
***
i can't afford to let another term pass without having finished my thesis. i have been drilling myself too long on what it is i'm writing about. i don't make sense anymore.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
the other list
of things i need to do to keep me sane, should include this one:
Regulatory Architecture for Microfinance in Asia
and these:
> have wine in the afternooon (also in the evening, and late at night)
> ruminate on laughter and lacan (with larry, hehe... hmmm, too many L's there)
> have longer weekends
> dance
> sing
> hang out at antique collectors' shops
> take long walks along morato on early sunday mornings
> call home
> listen to my one year old nephew try to pronounce my name, mumble it, yell it over and over in different ways and manners as though with that one mispronounced name he is able to tell me his joys and woes at home
> print out my thesis and promptly forget about it
> watch ultra violent, heart-pounding action films with strong narratives and daniel craig in them
Regulatory Architecture for Microfinance in Asia
and these:
> have wine in the afternooon (also in the evening, and late at night)
> ruminate on laughter and lacan (with larry, hehe... hmmm, too many L's there)
> have longer weekends
> dance
> sing
> hang out at antique collectors' shops
> take long walks along morato on early sunday mornings
> call home
> listen to my one year old nephew try to pronounce my name, mumble it, yell it over and over in different ways and manners as though with that one mispronounced name he is able to tell me his joys and woes at home
> print out my thesis and promptly forget about it
> watch ultra violent, heart-pounding action films with strong narratives and daniel craig in them
Thursday, November 30, 2006
The list keeps getting longer.
Apart from looking at Christmas lights and lanterns, hearing Christmas songs, and going to the Sacred Heart Church in Kamuning and the Mount Carmel church in New Manila, et.al., today I just discovered a few more on the virtual/mental list of “things I can no longer do because they terrify me, make my heart race, make me cry; make me feel paralyzed, suck the air out of my lungs”:
> Send packages through, or even set foot on, any LBC branch – because there is no longer any need to send meds by LBC every week, like I used to when she was on a break from radiation and therapy
> Ride the LRT2 alone –because everything about it- the smell of steel and plastic, the look on passengers’ faces – and everything it passes - the decrepit manila streets, misshapen houses, and impassive malls remain unchanged; because I rode it almost everyday for almost a year, and it always took me to the Leveriza station where I would get off and, from there, take a cab to the hosp, and be with her there where she was always mom and I was always child, even if I was mothering her most of the time. So precious and empowering were those moments that I ceased to mind rejoining the world the following day
> Listen to the song “Across the Universe” and most Beatles songs – because when it gets to the “nothing’s gonna change my world part” you know that the speaker is trying very hard to convince himself, but it’s all a dream, and it won’t last
mental note: there has got be a list of things i need to do to keep me sane.
> Send packages through, or even set foot on, any LBC branch – because there is no longer any need to send meds by LBC every week, like I used to when she was on a break from radiation and therapy
> Ride the LRT2 alone –because everything about it- the smell of steel and plastic, the look on passengers’ faces – and everything it passes - the decrepit manila streets, misshapen houses, and impassive malls remain unchanged; because I rode it almost everyday for almost a year, and it always took me to the Leveriza station where I would get off and, from there, take a cab to the hosp, and be with her there where she was always mom and I was always child, even if I was mothering her most of the time. So precious and empowering were those moments that I ceased to mind rejoining the world the following day
> Listen to the song “Across the Universe” and most Beatles songs – because when it gets to the “nothing’s gonna change my world part” you know that the speaker is trying very hard to convince himself, but it’s all a dream, and it won’t last
mental note: there has got be a list of things i need to do to keep me sane.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
thanks to everyone
who condoled with us; visited, lingered, stayed up late; sent flowers, sympathies, prayers; offered masses, food, cash; shared stories, laughter, poetry and songs.
deeply, deeply appreciated.
deeply, deeply appreciated.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
just happy to note that
1. thesis is moving on, i'm finishing three chapters before the month ends (woohoo! sorry na lang sa mga nacriticize. what can i do? i have to sound like a real cl major)
2. classes are going well, i'm putting together midterm grades, recording scores diligently (is the pagpapanggap becoming real? omigadz!)
3. i saw jamie foxx's behind! (in miami vice. galeng! ng movie, i mean)
4. my sister's coming home! and with her baby, too! (and we'll go shopping and drinking and swimming and dancing and talking, talking, talking. i'm also anticipating little fights once in a while. )
5. the whole family will be here again! (i'm moving my desk and a whole shelf of books to our shoes and smoking area, to make way for unfurled sofa beds. not very happy about this bit. pero sige na la...)
6. the whole family will be in tacloban, barugo, and possibly cebu again! ( i can just imagine the chaos)
6. i think i can finish another story next week (pero over na, i won't force it)
7. i think i can actually finish 2 bottle s of 13.5% proof wine and still attend classes the next day (although i don't really have to)
8. there are only 6 weeks to go before vacation!!! husband weng and i are going home to tacloban, and will spend weeks at the beach!!! (i'm planning to read a minimum of ten non-theory books while at it)
9. there are only 6 weeks to go before my big three-oh! (i've always loved this age. been looking forward to it for thirty years)
10. i'm sure there are other happy things to note, i just can't think of anything any more right now. hard enough coming up with a list of ten. =)
2. classes are going well, i'm putting together midterm grades, recording scores diligently (is the pagpapanggap becoming real? omigadz!)
3. i saw jamie foxx's behind! (in miami vice. galeng! ng movie, i mean)
4. my sister's coming home! and with her baby, too! (and we'll go shopping and drinking and swimming and dancing and talking, talking, talking. i'm also anticipating little fights once in a while. )
5. the whole family will be here again! (i'm moving my desk and a whole shelf of books to our shoes and smoking area, to make way for unfurled sofa beds. not very happy about this bit. pero sige na la...)
6. the whole family will be in tacloban, barugo, and possibly cebu again! ( i can just imagine the chaos)
6. i think i can finish another story next week (pero over na, i won't force it)
7. i think i can actually finish 2 bottle s of 13.5% proof wine and still attend classes the next day (although i don't really have to)
8. there are only 6 weeks to go before vacation!!! husband weng and i are going home to tacloban, and will spend weeks at the beach!!! (i'm planning to read a minimum of ten non-theory books while at it)
9. there are only 6 weeks to go before my big three-oh! (i've always loved this age. been looking forward to it for thirty years)
10. i'm sure there are other happy things to note, i just can't think of anything any more right now. hard enough coming up with a list of ten. =)
Monday, July 31, 2006
oops, i did it again!
i woke up early today. reread my CL reading assignment. prepared a sort of lesson plan for the week. came up with a fun, creative seatwork for the students. left the house 2 and a half hours before class time. noticed the unusually light traffic. congratulated myself, felt rewarded for being early to school. whistled an otis redding tune while walking to the dela costa building. said good morning to the guards. and then saw that the department office was locked, that the entire building was empty and rather dark. finally noticed that the whole campus was, in fact, eerily quiet, and bare, somehow. how very, very stupid of me! of course, classes were suspended for the day! i don't remember why though, i just vaguely recall receiving an email from the chair weeks ago. saint someone's day, or something. i should reacquaint myself with the saints one of these days, so i'll know all the holy holidays. haaaay. i can't count any more how many times something like this has happened to me. just weeks ago, during the bagyo, while rushing to make it to class on time, i totally missed, or stupidly dismissed, the big, bold signs saying classes suspended on all levels. and they were positioned right in front of all the three gates i had to pass on my way to the dela costa building. it's not that i love my classes too much to the point that"no classes" signs don't register in my head any more. i love my classes, but not that much, and not all of them. and it's not that i hate surprise class suspensions. i pray for them, fervently, every day before i open my eyes to the world. it is that, every time i make a resolve to change my ways, be more organized, act less on instinct and more on foresight, something like this happens, and the world grants me and my illogic a reason to slide back. excuses, excuses... but it's frustrating, really. i should treat work the way i do drinking, just do it whenever i want and whenever i can. just kidding. i need to be renewed for next sem. can't afford to be on an unpaid leave again.
pero sana no classes again tomorrow.
pero sana no classes again tomorrow.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
a story of mine got published pala
in the free press, two weeks ago. but you wouldn't be able to make sense of it. major misprint in the middle. the editor apologized naman for not being available to supervise the printing as he usually does. still, i feel sad about the whole thing because this is one of my most playful pieces, i was trying to arrive at some meaning there (ahem), and i was very happy it got accepted for publication, until i saw just how confusing and meaningless it was on print. oh well. at least i'll get something for it, enough for a round of drinks i guess.
just some notes on a damp sunday morning
1. was up early today. went down for coffee, and to make muni muni at the back of the house. was cool and foggy outside. very quiet. soft gray. you wouldn't think the house is literally just a stone's throw away from tomas morato. i have forgotten how much i love waking up early on a sunday morning, when the entire household (the entire city!) is still in deep sleep, when even the dogs are quiet, seemingly aware of the sundayness of it all, not demanding feed until at least ten o' clock. i just recently discovered this beauty. used to hate sundays with a passion. would feel my stomach twisting in all the wrong places every time i wake up on sundays. when jet, ruby and i were sharing an apartment in teachers' village, we would try to come up with different remedies for our sunday blues. we would drink on sunday afternoons, or evenings, and feel bad the following day anyway. we would have emma and other friends over for lunch, and also feel bad anyway, when they all start to leave to prepare for their mondays. we even tried attending sunday services at claret! and you can guess how we felt after that, anyway. weng and i used to go to the movies or just go malling on sundays, until it also felt a bit trite, having to line up behind bubbly, overextended families. and then, since the summer, with the whole family in town, with the obligatory lunches with our own extended families, sundays became just so hectic and exhausting, i started waking up before everyone else did to steal some sunday quiet for myself. it's wonderful witnessing the household slowly come to life. by the end of the day, i don't feel that much cheated anymore.
2. last wekend, we all trooped to cebu for a cousin's wedding (it was beautiful, a garden wedding by the sea). and while there, at the beach, work just completely deserted my mind. funny how easily one acclimates. although i had gone back to work as early as first week of june, somehow, i only, really felt the weight of it all this week, after the cebu vacation. a bit abrupt, actually. and now i actually miss the chaos and boisterousness of my own, big extended, very noisy family.
3. but i love this silence, too.
4. it's also nice watching world cup replays very early in the morning. i feel sad for japan, south korea and saudi arabia. feel na feel ko pa naman my asian roots during the world cup. now that they're out, i am nurturing my postcolonial connections with our latin american and african brothers. down with the imperialists!
5. happy ako for australia and italy, actually. even for poland, which left the world cup with some kind of a bang.
6. and now, my personal sunday ends.
2. last wekend, we all trooped to cebu for a cousin's wedding (it was beautiful, a garden wedding by the sea). and while there, at the beach, work just completely deserted my mind. funny how easily one acclimates. although i had gone back to work as early as first week of june, somehow, i only, really felt the weight of it all this week, after the cebu vacation. a bit abrupt, actually. and now i actually miss the chaos and boisterousness of my own, big extended, very noisy family.
3. but i love this silence, too.
4. it's also nice watching world cup replays very early in the morning. i feel sad for japan, south korea and saudi arabia. feel na feel ko pa naman my asian roots during the world cup. now that they're out, i am nurturing my postcolonial connections with our latin american and african brothers. down with the imperialists!
5. happy ako for australia and italy, actually. even for poland, which left the world cup with some kind of a bang.
6. and now, my personal sunday ends.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
is the summer over?
for the first time in many, many nights, we are sleeping with the windows open. there is actually a steady, light, but fresh and cool breeze coming in through the window tonight. it's actually quite pleasant. but for all the whining and complaining i have been doing about the unbearable summer heat, this cool night makes me want to cry. don't worry bayaw, i won't. hehe.
other inveitable summer-end signs?
i have started receiving emails and text messages from people at the department, informing me of my oficial class loads, schedules, etc.. how i'd like to ignore the messages for a longer while. but
i know i have to get out of this funk soon, and start putting together my reading lists for my own good.
i have slowly gone back to joining friends for drinks, to make the most of my last couple of vacation days. this compulsion is a bit strange to me. i have noticed that every day or night off i can get from caregiving (which is what i have been doing on a full time basis, this summer) i feel i have to spend getting drunk, or hoarse from singing and laughing and talking, talking, talking. the days-after are weirder. i regret and feel bad often for the noise i made the night before, and spend the whole day irritated, and frustrated that i cannot escape hearing my own voice. kung puede lang mag shaddup, or mag sign language na lang the whole day...
friends and family who are in the states or in europe are preparing to come home for their summer break.
i am getting more and more attracted to, and have started taking out from storage boxes my old, jackets, suits,wraps, boots.
husband weng is fervently, feverishly trying to finish his xbox games like there's no tomorrow.
and for all this, what i'm most worried about really is that i have nothing to show for my two-month summer "vacation". well, i did finish a short story (and did it in a rush, just so i can say i produced something this summer). but the more important writing i should have been doing, working on the last 25% of my thesis, i have practically abandoned. bad, daryll, bad. no more beer for you.
so sad summer's almost over. good thing there are a couple of things i can look forward to in june: cousins, sister, nieces and friends coming home. teaching fiction and feature writing. being forced to finish my thesis. getting to use the ateneo and UP libraries again. working with bayaw joel at the ateneo and miriam. purple haze opening in our neighborhood. welcoming back mookie girl from her own vacation in ny. receiving monthly salary. "art film" nights (haha!) and margaritas with ruby, jet and emma. ending hospital visits!
yea. ok na rin.
an early goodbye to summer then.
other inveitable summer-end signs?
i have started receiving emails and text messages from people at the department, informing me of my oficial class loads, schedules, etc.. how i'd like to ignore the messages for a longer while. but
i know i have to get out of this funk soon, and start putting together my reading lists for my own good.
i have slowly gone back to joining friends for drinks, to make the most of my last couple of vacation days. this compulsion is a bit strange to me. i have noticed that every day or night off i can get from caregiving (which is what i have been doing on a full time basis, this summer) i feel i have to spend getting drunk, or hoarse from singing and laughing and talking, talking, talking. the days-after are weirder. i regret and feel bad often for the noise i made the night before, and spend the whole day irritated, and frustrated that i cannot escape hearing my own voice. kung puede lang mag shaddup, or mag sign language na lang the whole day...
friends and family who are in the states or in europe are preparing to come home for their summer break.
i am getting more and more attracted to, and have started taking out from storage boxes my old, jackets, suits,wraps, boots.
husband weng is fervently, feverishly trying to finish his xbox games like there's no tomorrow.
and for all this, what i'm most worried about really is that i have nothing to show for my two-month summer "vacation". well, i did finish a short story (and did it in a rush, just so i can say i produced something this summer). but the more important writing i should have been doing, working on the last 25% of my thesis, i have practically abandoned. bad, daryll, bad. no more beer for you.
so sad summer's almost over. good thing there are a couple of things i can look forward to in june: cousins, sister, nieces and friends coming home. teaching fiction and feature writing. being forced to finish my thesis. getting to use the ateneo and UP libraries again. working with bayaw joel at the ateneo and miriam. purple haze opening in our neighborhood. welcoming back mookie girl from her own vacation in ny. receiving monthly salary. "art film" nights (haha!) and margaritas with ruby, jet and emma. ending hospital visits!
yea. ok na rin.
an early goodbye to summer then.
Friday, May 19, 2006
i heart u.p.
was in UP yesterday to return an over-over-overdue book i owed the humanities library. was able to wangle a hundred-days discount (palugit!) quite easily, and so left the libe with more than enough change for a mug of capuccino at the choco kiss, and more than enough time to wander and walk under the canopy of raintree branches around the university oval semi-aimlessly. i keep forgetting how much pleasure i derive out of these little surprises. i even forget how much of these free pleasures i actually deserve. (huhuhu, bring out the violins!)
Sunday, May 14, 2006
dear friends and fellow fans,
check this out and pass it on : http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeslrlq/gamalinda/index.html
Sunday, March 19, 2006
something i've been encountering in my dreams for quite some time now
a character, loosely based on a former househelp. i've been promising myself to write out her story. but i don't want to be all feminist about it. an interesting woman's narrative is all it is.
The name is Marietta. Seamstress. Resides in a shanty, squatters’ area, along the Maqueda Bay.
Hails from southern leyte. Had a husband, a soldier, who went off to war in Cotabato, and who did not communicate with her for four years. During those four years, the family lives in abject poverty, one child dies from a swimming accident, another is buried with their house in a terrible mudslide. She decides to leave. She meets a truck driver who plies the Southern Leyte – Tacloban route. She hitches a ride with him to the city with her children. The man is married, but promises to help her out. He introduces her to relatives living in the squatters’ area. Marietta rents a room with one of his cousins, who makes a living as a seamstress. She helps out in the small business, to earn her keep. Her children start school in Rizal Elementary School.
Eventually she is able to buy her own singer sewing machine, have her own little shanty by the sea. One of her children is finishing high school. This girl is quite pretty, has strong healing hands, known in the community as a good “masahista’. Her mother is afraid for her, that people might take advantage of her. Marietta is trying to take the courage to ask one of her clients to sponsor the girl’s college education, preferrably in Manila.
Marietta has also had two failed relationships since marriage, one of which was inevitably with the truck driver, the other with a quiet Muslim who has since left the city to go back to Cotabato. She still pines for her first husband.
The scene opens with her drinking Tanduay all by herself, contemplating on her life. She just had a fight with her daughter who ran off with a neighbor of theirs. Her other daughter has not come home for two days, lately been hanging out with the bad sorts, along Magsaysay boulevard. She is quite drunk when a client, who needs an emergency repair of a wedding gown, comes knocking on her door, catching her singing an old Visayan love song to herself.
The scene ends with a bloodied wedding gown, and a pair of scissors glinting in the dark.
Mwahahaha.
The name is Marietta. Seamstress. Resides in a shanty, squatters’ area, along the Maqueda Bay.
Hails from southern leyte. Had a husband, a soldier, who went off to war in Cotabato, and who did not communicate with her for four years. During those four years, the family lives in abject poverty, one child dies from a swimming accident, another is buried with their house in a terrible mudslide. She decides to leave. She meets a truck driver who plies the Southern Leyte – Tacloban route. She hitches a ride with him to the city with her children. The man is married, but promises to help her out. He introduces her to relatives living in the squatters’ area. Marietta rents a room with one of his cousins, who makes a living as a seamstress. She helps out in the small business, to earn her keep. Her children start school in Rizal Elementary School.
Eventually she is able to buy her own singer sewing machine, have her own little shanty by the sea. One of her children is finishing high school. This girl is quite pretty, has strong healing hands, known in the community as a good “masahista’. Her mother is afraid for her, that people might take advantage of her. Marietta is trying to take the courage to ask one of her clients to sponsor the girl’s college education, preferrably in Manila.
Marietta has also had two failed relationships since marriage, one of which was inevitably with the truck driver, the other with a quiet Muslim who has since left the city to go back to Cotabato. She still pines for her first husband.
The scene opens with her drinking Tanduay all by herself, contemplating on her life. She just had a fight with her daughter who ran off with a neighbor of theirs. Her other daughter has not come home for two days, lately been hanging out with the bad sorts, along Magsaysay boulevard. She is quite drunk when a client, who needs an emergency repair of a wedding gown, comes knocking on her door, catching her singing an old Visayan love song to herself.
The scene ends with a bloodied wedding gown, and a pair of scissors glinting in the dark.
Mwahahaha.
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