if you were free of all medical constraints and could opt for any kind of birth you wanted, which would you choose? a cesarean section delivery or a normal vaginal birth delivery? most women will opt for the latter but there are women who will opt for the former in spite of its being a major surgery with longer healing time.
perhaps i am not asking the right question here. after all, i am not trying to introduce some kind of debate on the pro's and con's of one type of delivery over the other; i think it is pretty much obvious that if no complications ever existed in the world, no one would think of a cesarean section anyway. but i discount here the kind of woman who does not wish to experience the excruciating vaginal tearing brought on by the relentless pushing of the child down the birth canal, or an episiotomy, and think that the smiley cut on the lower part of the abdomen is the "less evil cut", as it were.
perhaps what i want to ask is, after you have experienced both kinds of deliveries, what can possibly go through your mind and heart following such experiences?
so i zone in on my own personal experiences once again and have realised that in the 5 days of my confinement at the hospital on the hill (whih is barely a 10 minute walk away from our apartment), not only can thoughts flood my mind on the differences of the two methods of delivery, but a swell of emotions as well. i can honestly say that having experienced both kinds of pain associated with each type of delivery, there is a particular pain associated with each, i daresay, and that in the balance, i would still opt for a particular kind of delivery, because of the pain that it can bring. [ano daw? shet, ang labo non a]
i have never wanted to have my abdomen cut. i always had this feeling deep in my gut that my first doctor, the one who had delivered mikka by emergency CS, had not tried out all possible options to bring mikka into the world normally. this intuition was borne out, at last, when i delivered mikka's baby brother, our christmas gift, kimi jesu, at 12:05 pm (just 5 minutes past midday!) last december 25th. you could say that he had arrived on the dot, on schedule, just as projected. just like the christ child whose coming was heralded by angel song and wondrous starlight. it was the same experience of contractions, of waiting out the slow hours for my cervix to dilate, with kimi that i had undergone with mikka. the one big difference was that with kimi, i was wide awake, with only my abdominal area numbed by the pain of the successive contractions by the greatest technological advance in child delivery, the epidural. i will swear by the wonders of this local anaesthesia until the day i die, and if given the chance to promote its use, will do so over and over again. thus, being wide awake, i was aware of everything happening, even feeling when kimi was ready to come, every contraction that told me when to push, and all the attendant tearing that came from pushing out a 3 kilo and 590 gram (nearly 8 lbs) 40-week old baby boy.
there was a rush of blood and something warm when i finally pushed the head out, my knees spread out at 180°, my entire body open to the world. then there he was, blood matted in his hair, slight down on his shoulders, his face pink, his arms and legs wrinkled like an old man's, breathing atop my belly. my first words? "you are the biggest thing i have ever shitted out..." there was a slight pause and expressions of bewilderment on the faces of S, the doctor, and midwife before they all burst into laughter. now why the hell i said that eludes me, really, for i am not a logical person. i remember an ex asking me to close my eyes while he slipped what seemed to be a wedding band on my finger, inscribed with the words, "always remember" on the eve of his departure for new york for university, and my first words of surprise being, "a wedding ring? what for? it's so loose!" if magic was meant to define that moment, then we know why he and i never worked things out, i just didn't have the proper cue words for the angels to tip over their buckets of stardust on that moment of love and commitment.
so back to my kimi... when all the shock and trauma and fatigue of waiting and pushing had passed, all that remained was a sense of wonder and awe. always and forever with me, i believe. thank you, i whispered tremulously to my God, for letting this happen. i knew i could do it the normal way, a tiny voice kept singing over and over in my heart. there kimi lay, breathing on my belly while S prepared to cut his umbilical cord with the help of the midwife (who was wearing this nose stud, and dem, was she pretty). nature is amazing, S smiled at me. my uterus started descending, and when kimi first suckled at my breast, it started to contract. 4 days after delivery, my roommate janet, this sweet woman from england who had given birth to a beautiful blonde baby girl, matilda, told me, "you look very slim already! your belly has gotten very small so quickly." perhaps i had taken this phenomenon for granted, because i had breastfed mikka, too, and his constant suckling made my uterus contract in a week's time. by the time i was released from the hospital yesterday, kimi had taken in all the colostrum meant for him and was already controlling the ducts of my breasts with his hunger cycle. it hurts, that initial suckle from a hungry newborn, but something i will never exchange for anything in the world.
if anything, breast milk is my one great gift to mikka and kimi, to have given them something that will be with them for the rest of their lives. with my milk, i hope to free them from the usual illnesses of infancy that formula milk cannot shield them from, i hope to help them in developing their digestive and respiratory systems so that their toilet training goes smoothly and they need not suffer from primary complexes or baby asthma... also, the bond between myself and my sons is irreplaceable. even if i were the stinkiest mama this part of the universe, there is at least one person (now two in my case) who will know my odour instinctively, who can find me on the darkest night by smell alone, and be reassured by the presence of that smell, be it stink or offal. hehehe i couldn't help it...
i see that little face pressed against my breast at least 8 times a day, and am able to monitor the small changes that creep across that precious countenance with the passing days.
i am rambling... i've been given another chance to be a mother in this lifetime and each experience, with mikka and kimi, has been truly life-affirming.
thank you, mikka and kimi, for blessing my life and S's, for being our precious children, for forming our little family of four. i love you both, your father above all. :)
31.12.05
16.12.05
panganay moments
1. He's counting. i mean, he finally has mastered the concept that there is a one-to-one correspondence between a number and its object, so that when he counts his fingers, he can show me 6 fingers when asked for 6 fingers. he can count his clementine pieces without recounting the same pieces again and assigning it more than one number. he mastered this a month ago, but i can't help it, i'm still tickled pink by his breakthrough.
2. He knows his oppositions in terms of space. Above vs below. Right vs left. Inside vs outside. Black vs white. To be honest, he started mastering this at age 2, so when we had a parent-teacher conference two months ago, I couldn’t help but feel damn proud when his teacher told us that mikka is advanced for his age in terms of his counting skills, identication of letters, numbers, and colours. He knows animals his father taught him, he watches national geographic channel, bbc, and cnn and can identify the channel logos. Not only that, he can also identify the logos of Thalys, ICE, and local Belgian IC trains. He knows if we’re doing our groceries at Delhaize, Carrefour, or GB by simply looking at the signages of the stores. He’s fooled quite a few of his uncles at our Saturday gatherings, making them believe he can actually read. Two weeks ago, he was reading the digital display on the VCR and he identified the date, saying, “it’s 2006!” and it was. I glowed. Just that morning, mikka and I had a lesson in identifying numbers, from 10s to 100s to 1000s, and he was already applying it that evening. As for telling time, I can only teach him how to identify the hour on the hour time, simply saying, “every time the minute hand (he does know the differences among the hour, minute, and second hands on our wall clock) is on 12, it’s always an ‘o’clock’.” At this point, I can’t expect him to transform the numbers 1-12 on the clock into the minute equivalents yet. As far as he knows, those are only numbers 1-12, and not 60 minutes. That will come, but not yet.
3. He’s improving with his colouring and writing skills. I can’t get over it. To distract him from the Season 3 DVDs of ‘Alias’ S and I are avidly watching before our Sunday deadline (time is so short and it’s a great and suspenseful season! Sydney vs Lauren, talk about hot spy chicks!), I sat him down to a colouring practice session which evolved into a writing session as well. after months of seeing him bring home school work with haphazard colouring, mikka has gotten quite the hang of colouring within boundaries, so that his pictures now look neater and more… identifiable. Then out of the blue, he says, “mama, I want to write the letters I-C-E. (he’s an avid fan of the German ICE trains which we have ridden twice, the first when we went to hanau last year, and the second when we visited cologne last September). So I made him write with a blue marker on one of the pages. Grasping the marker awkwardly, I could see that he had an idea of how the C should curve, and the need to attach three horizontal parallel lines to complete his letter E. the letter I must be the easiest thing to draw so there was no difficulty for him there. Then using some of the techniques of “positive praise” that super nanny jo keeps impressing in her tutorials, I saw mikka glow bloom and thrive every time I exclaimed “excellent! You’re a great colouring boy! Woohoo!” in the beginning it was mostly theatre on my part but when I saw him struggling to write his letters on his own initiative, and his colouring showing more control, I couldn’t help but let my excitement get the better of me. The first time he showed me his coloured cow, I fervently wrote the date on the bottom of the page and ran to S with the obra maestra, gushing like crazy. At the end of our colouring and writing session, mikka was strutting around the apartment, chest puffed out, stride filled with so much confidence, while S and I laughed at his newfound sense of new learning. To the point na nga that he wants to draw and draw more, kahit pagod na ako!
Nothing really puffs up a mother’s heart more than seeing her own child blossom beneath her gaze… now if I can only think of ways to help him develop better motor skills with the scissors, because that’s what his teacher told me I could help him with at home… and in this department, I really am at a loss because I don’t know how to impart such skills to him! And by the way, I was a poor student of art in my student days. Partly due to my lack of self confidence and the trauma of having an ex-boyfriend’s mom as my art teacher, who I one day discovered had told my close friends, “lara sucks in art, I don’t know why I even bother to encourage her!” and I was part of the yearbook staff that did the layouting, and she was the moderator of that “division”. I don’t think I will ever recover from that stigma; the recollection of her plastic smile as she encouraged me with what I thought were super creative ideas while deep inside she was recoiling in horror at my work.
Which is why it takes a lot of effort on my part to really buckle down and do art work with mikka. In the beginning, S told me, after I told him exasperatedly that I couldn’t draw the planes and trains mikka demanded of me, “it doesn’t matter if you can draw it or not, dear, what matters to mikka is that you’re working with him. So even if you create these funny looking objects, just do the best you can and you’ll see, it makes mikka happy because you’re with him.” Of course I have seen the wisdom of his advice, but recently, it’s gotten a little comic when mikka tells me, “mama, that doesn’t look right, the train should be bigger.” Reminds me of the time I tried to draw the setting of a short story I was taking up with my freshman literature class years back… my students, after several minutes of trying to decipher my misshapen cows and horses, chorused, “ma’am, here’s aaron, he can really draw, maybe he can draw instead…” and since that day, I have always asked my classes, “who can draw and give me a hand?” I do so chuckle at the memory. I have crazy students --- and son!
2. He knows his oppositions in terms of space. Above vs below. Right vs left. Inside vs outside. Black vs white. To be honest, he started mastering this at age 2, so when we had a parent-teacher conference two months ago, I couldn’t help but feel damn proud when his teacher told us that mikka is advanced for his age in terms of his counting skills, identication of letters, numbers, and colours. He knows animals his father taught him, he watches national geographic channel, bbc, and cnn and can identify the channel logos. Not only that, he can also identify the logos of Thalys, ICE, and local Belgian IC trains. He knows if we’re doing our groceries at Delhaize, Carrefour, or GB by simply looking at the signages of the stores. He’s fooled quite a few of his uncles at our Saturday gatherings, making them believe he can actually read. Two weeks ago, he was reading the digital display on the VCR and he identified the date, saying, “it’s 2006!” and it was. I glowed. Just that morning, mikka and I had a lesson in identifying numbers, from 10s to 100s to 1000s, and he was already applying it that evening. As for telling time, I can only teach him how to identify the hour on the hour time, simply saying, “every time the minute hand (he does know the differences among the hour, minute, and second hands on our wall clock) is on 12, it’s always an ‘o’clock’.” At this point, I can’t expect him to transform the numbers 1-12 on the clock into the minute equivalents yet. As far as he knows, those are only numbers 1-12, and not 60 minutes. That will come, but not yet.
3. He’s improving with his colouring and writing skills. I can’t get over it. To distract him from the Season 3 DVDs of ‘Alias’ S and I are avidly watching before our Sunday deadline (time is so short and it’s a great and suspenseful season! Sydney vs Lauren, talk about hot spy chicks!), I sat him down to a colouring practice session which evolved into a writing session as well. after months of seeing him bring home school work with haphazard colouring, mikka has gotten quite the hang of colouring within boundaries, so that his pictures now look neater and more… identifiable. Then out of the blue, he says, “mama, I want to write the letters I-C-E. (he’s an avid fan of the German ICE trains which we have ridden twice, the first when we went to hanau last year, and the second when we visited cologne last September). So I made him write with a blue marker on one of the pages. Grasping the marker awkwardly, I could see that he had an idea of how the C should curve, and the need to attach three horizontal parallel lines to complete his letter E. the letter I must be the easiest thing to draw so there was no difficulty for him there. Then using some of the techniques of “positive praise” that super nanny jo keeps impressing in her tutorials, I saw mikka glow bloom and thrive every time I exclaimed “excellent! You’re a great colouring boy! Woohoo!” in the beginning it was mostly theatre on my part but when I saw him struggling to write his letters on his own initiative, and his colouring showing more control, I couldn’t help but let my excitement get the better of me. The first time he showed me his coloured cow, I fervently wrote the date on the bottom of the page and ran to S with the obra maestra, gushing like crazy. At the end of our colouring and writing session, mikka was strutting around the apartment, chest puffed out, stride filled with so much confidence, while S and I laughed at his newfound sense of new learning. To the point na nga that he wants to draw and draw more, kahit pagod na ako!
Nothing really puffs up a mother’s heart more than seeing her own child blossom beneath her gaze… now if I can only think of ways to help him develop better motor skills with the scissors, because that’s what his teacher told me I could help him with at home… and in this department, I really am at a loss because I don’t know how to impart such skills to him! And by the way, I was a poor student of art in my student days. Partly due to my lack of self confidence and the trauma of having an ex-boyfriend’s mom as my art teacher, who I one day discovered had told my close friends, “lara sucks in art, I don’t know why I even bother to encourage her!” and I was part of the yearbook staff that did the layouting, and she was the moderator of that “division”. I don’t think I will ever recover from that stigma; the recollection of her plastic smile as she encouraged me with what I thought were super creative ideas while deep inside she was recoiling in horror at my work.
Which is why it takes a lot of effort on my part to really buckle down and do art work with mikka. In the beginning, S told me, after I told him exasperatedly that I couldn’t draw the planes and trains mikka demanded of me, “it doesn’t matter if you can draw it or not, dear, what matters to mikka is that you’re working with him. So even if you create these funny looking objects, just do the best you can and you’ll see, it makes mikka happy because you’re with him.” Of course I have seen the wisdom of his advice, but recently, it’s gotten a little comic when mikka tells me, “mama, that doesn’t look right, the train should be bigger.” Reminds me of the time I tried to draw the setting of a short story I was taking up with my freshman literature class years back… my students, after several minutes of trying to decipher my misshapen cows and horses, chorused, “ma’am, here’s aaron, he can really draw, maybe he can draw instead…” and since that day, I have always asked my classes, “who can draw and give me a hand?” I do so chuckle at the memory. I have crazy students --- and son!
9.12.05
another astrud moment
there is this one song of astrud i simply love with these lyrics:
who can i turn to when nobody needs me?
my heart wants to know
and so i must go where destiny leads me
with no star to guide me
and no one beside me
i'll go on my own and after the day
the darkness will hide me
and maybe tomorrow
i'll find what i'm after
i'll throw off my sorrow
beg, steal and borrow
my share of laughter
with you i could learn to begin on a new day
but who can i turn to if you turn away?
i used to sing this when i was single and S had not yet come into my life and transformed it into this colourful and meaningful tapestry of what true joy is. in so many ways, S has stilled my heart from so many traumas of the past but some things never go away, either.
here's one for the books: who can you turn to when your own flesh and blood spurn you? perhaps it is folly on my part to believe that i can let my hair loose in the presence of people i grew up with, with whom my DNA pattern is practically similar, hoping that since we're all past the age of 30, some unpredictable factors can come into play and hopefully, be forgiven?
in the tv series LOST, locke has resigned himself to a life on the island, isolated, apart from the life he knew, while other people like michael want nothing more than to get back the life they used to have so that they can forge a new tomorrow, their hearts always filled with hope.
in many ways, i am trapped between the wishes of michael and locke, and after a very revealing exchange with people i love over cyberspace, i realised that maybe, just maybe, the time has come for me to cross over to locke's philosophy and forget that i did have a past, that i did have a dream of some day belonging, of some day no longer having to be KSP with my own family, of some day no longer having to bear yet another moment the debilitating stereotypes of my childhood.
it is one thing to idealise relationships, and another to come face to face with certain truths, such as: no matter how much you change, no matter how far you've come, no matter how much you have gained in years and wisdom, the very people you love and wish to share all your life's discoveries, your own family, can be the ones who will not see your gains, who will choose to see only what they want to see, and forever box you into their impressions and opinions of you from time long gone.
if there is one thing my being in belgium has taught me, it is this: that family is important, even if it hurts to reach out to people who will not reach back to you across the miles, not even the cyber miles. i refuse to believe that this is payback time for sins of the past because if there's one thing i want to break in my family history, it's all the shit of previous generations being handed down to us, draped over us like a default hole-ridden ozone layer about which we can do nothing. right now i'm licking my wounds from the rejection dealt me by my own brothers and sister, but i know that this, too, will pass.
i'm in an island, cast out at sea, true, but i'm not Lost, not like locke and the other passengers on that ill-fated oceanic flight from sydney to los angeles. i know from where i have come, i know where i am right now, and i do NOT know where i will eventually end up, but i am not afraid of the journey before me.
there is a weight in my chest right now, because i would like to share my pain with others, and my first choice is to share it with my siblings, but if they will not be there for me, then as the cliché goes, if a door closes somewhere, god opens a window elsewhere. and in just a matter of hours, little peepholes have opened not just a crack but wide open, casting warm sunlight on my wet cheeks and teasing me with a view of beautiful blue skies.
the path before me lies half in mist, half in sunshine. each unturned stone shivers with promise and the chill snaking its way beneath my scarf promises pockets of joy yet to discover, even if it means being on my own. sometimes, all you need is the rest of the world to realise that family can be just a construct we can tie around an oak tree for posterity.
so who can i turn to if you turn away? the answer is not clear-cut but i can see it basking in the soft winter glow: there is someone out there who loves you, and that's all that matters. i can feel his hand massaging my heart gently and already my life is settling nicely into a new groove. for yet another adventure.
who can i turn to when nobody needs me?
my heart wants to know
and so i must go where destiny leads me
with no star to guide me
and no one beside me
i'll go on my own and after the day
the darkness will hide me
and maybe tomorrow
i'll find what i'm after
i'll throw off my sorrow
beg, steal and borrow
my share of laughter
with you i could learn to begin on a new day
but who can i turn to if you turn away?
i used to sing this when i was single and S had not yet come into my life and transformed it into this colourful and meaningful tapestry of what true joy is. in so many ways, S has stilled my heart from so many traumas of the past but some things never go away, either.
here's one for the books: who can you turn to when your own flesh and blood spurn you? perhaps it is folly on my part to believe that i can let my hair loose in the presence of people i grew up with, with whom my DNA pattern is practically similar, hoping that since we're all past the age of 30, some unpredictable factors can come into play and hopefully, be forgiven?
in the tv series LOST, locke has resigned himself to a life on the island, isolated, apart from the life he knew, while other people like michael want nothing more than to get back the life they used to have so that they can forge a new tomorrow, their hearts always filled with hope.
in many ways, i am trapped between the wishes of michael and locke, and after a very revealing exchange with people i love over cyberspace, i realised that maybe, just maybe, the time has come for me to cross over to locke's philosophy and forget that i did have a past, that i did have a dream of some day belonging, of some day no longer having to be KSP with my own family, of some day no longer having to bear yet another moment the debilitating stereotypes of my childhood.
it is one thing to idealise relationships, and another to come face to face with certain truths, such as: no matter how much you change, no matter how far you've come, no matter how much you have gained in years and wisdom, the very people you love and wish to share all your life's discoveries, your own family, can be the ones who will not see your gains, who will choose to see only what they want to see, and forever box you into their impressions and opinions of you from time long gone.
if there is one thing my being in belgium has taught me, it is this: that family is important, even if it hurts to reach out to people who will not reach back to you across the miles, not even the cyber miles. i refuse to believe that this is payback time for sins of the past because if there's one thing i want to break in my family history, it's all the shit of previous generations being handed down to us, draped over us like a default hole-ridden ozone layer about which we can do nothing. right now i'm licking my wounds from the rejection dealt me by my own brothers and sister, but i know that this, too, will pass.
i'm in an island, cast out at sea, true, but i'm not Lost, not like locke and the other passengers on that ill-fated oceanic flight from sydney to los angeles. i know from where i have come, i know where i am right now, and i do NOT know where i will eventually end up, but i am not afraid of the journey before me.
there is a weight in my chest right now, because i would like to share my pain with others, and my first choice is to share it with my siblings, but if they will not be there for me, then as the cliché goes, if a door closes somewhere, god opens a window elsewhere. and in just a matter of hours, little peepholes have opened not just a crack but wide open, casting warm sunlight on my wet cheeks and teasing me with a view of beautiful blue skies.
the path before me lies half in mist, half in sunshine. each unturned stone shivers with promise and the chill snaking its way beneath my scarf promises pockets of joy yet to discover, even if it means being on my own. sometimes, all you need is the rest of the world to realise that family can be just a construct we can tie around an oak tree for posterity.
so who can i turn to if you turn away? the answer is not clear-cut but i can see it basking in the soft winter glow: there is someone out there who loves you, and that's all that matters. i can feel his hand massaging my heart gently and already my life is settling nicely into a new groove. for yet another adventure.
26.11.05
advent begins
tomorrow the church officially begins the 3-week liturgical period of advent, the time of waiting for christ's coming.
in two days, baby center will tell me i'm 36 weeks along. kimi jesu will be full term by then, and we --- S, mikka, and myself --- have a 4-week, plus or minus, advent for the newest member of our family.
thank god he'll be born in europe, where people will not wonder too much why he has a "girly" name. i'm hoping that there will be more who will recognise that his and his older brother's names derive from formula one finnish race car drivers, mika hakkinen and kimi raikkonen. if i have yet another child... let's say, a girl... maybe i'll take the name of that american babe making waves in race car driving, danica patrick. (thanks, jing, for the update! as of dec 9 2005)
this is the greatest gift of all. kimi, we're waiting.
in two days, baby center will tell me i'm 36 weeks along. kimi jesu will be full term by then, and we --- S, mikka, and myself --- have a 4-week, plus or minus, advent for the newest member of our family.
thank god he'll be born in europe, where people will not wonder too much why he has a "girly" name. i'm hoping that there will be more who will recognise that his and his older brother's names derive from formula one finnish race car drivers, mika hakkinen and kimi raikkonen. if i have yet another child... let's say, a girl... maybe i'll take the name of that american babe making waves in race car driving, danica patrick. (thanks, jing, for the update! as of dec 9 2005)
this is the greatest gift of all. kimi, we're waiting.
2.11.05
a night with chito tagle
down-to-earth. charming. warm. intelligent. sensible. perceptive.
being with bishop chito tagle of imus, cavite, last night at a gathering of pinoy students and their friends was a very pleasant experience for me.
plus it reminds me that there really ARE cool priests.
i really like him. ever since he officiated a mass for us at our JVP 10-year reunion 4 years ago, i have been hooked. what a great man!
blessing, indeed.
being with bishop chito tagle of imus, cavite, last night at a gathering of pinoy students and their friends was a very pleasant experience for me.
plus it reminds me that there really ARE cool priests.
i really like him. ever since he officiated a mass for us at our JVP 10-year reunion 4 years ago, i have been hooked. what a great man!
blessing, indeed.
27.10.05
happy happy thoughts
happy happy happy happy thoughts... talk about things you like to do... you got to have a dream, or you won't have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true? --- from south pacific
yesterday morning i was walking home after bringing mikka to school. when we leave for school, the streets are still in semi-darkness, the moon sharing the sky with the coming sun (sounds like a fusion of miss saigon and beatles). on my way back, the sky has lightened to a pale blue and barring those ubiquitous clouds, sunlight touches little leuven with soft glowy hues.
autumn is here, despite the unusually high temperatures of the last two weeks. perhaps my pregnancy helps keep my body warmer than the usual, but i am content to just pull on a cotton shirt and a fleece pullover with my mom's delish cargo pants while walking through the chill early morning rush. the leaves strewn all over the path form a soft, chaotic cushion beneath my feet. reminds me of a poem i have drawn into the folds of memory by ezra pound, a poem i write in the middle of the board when i begin the module on 'imagism', a brief but favorite period of 20th century poetry:
the images of these faces in a crowd:
petals on a wet, black bough.
i usually meet parents from neighbouring apartments walking their children to school, and yesterday this thought gave me a luscious thrill: "it must still be early because i've already brought my kid to school and they're just about to bring theirs." i walked into our apartment with a silly grin plastered on my face. i had to shake myself to unwind my arms from around my body. S looked at me quizzically.
i will never get over the thrill of being a mom. of actually being one. my friends back home don't know me as a mom, only as this carefree single with wild thoughts and ways.
i stare at mikka every night while he sleeps and shower his soft, round face with kisses. he Knows he is my angel; there will come a day when he Will say, i know, "ma, ok, ok, i've heard you! talk to the haaannnddddd..." when i whisper our special night prayer in his ears, his body becomes pliant in my arms and he lays his head on my round belly, embracing his little brother.
this morning i kept jabbing my tummy with my pointer while asking mikka, "who else does mama love aside from mikka and papa?" i wanted to hear him say his brother's name. instead he remonstrated me with, "mama, don't hurt kimi!" oopsy, ok, son, sorrreeee.
keep that sun streaming through my windows, please. it makes for happier moments. the grass below our balcony is covered in a blanket of yellow. makes me want to throw myself smack center and roll around until i'm a jaundiced mummy. the thick green trees that greeted me upon my arrival a month ago are a bit skinnier now, and not so green anymore. it's sunshiney colours on every leaf tip. the street cleaners are clogged with the merry dropping of leaves cavorting in the air before they take their soggy places on the curb.
yesterday morning i was walking home after bringing mikka to school. when we leave for school, the streets are still in semi-darkness, the moon sharing the sky with the coming sun (sounds like a fusion of miss saigon and beatles). on my way back, the sky has lightened to a pale blue and barring those ubiquitous clouds, sunlight touches little leuven with soft glowy hues.
autumn is here, despite the unusually high temperatures of the last two weeks. perhaps my pregnancy helps keep my body warmer than the usual, but i am content to just pull on a cotton shirt and a fleece pullover with my mom's delish cargo pants while walking through the chill early morning rush. the leaves strewn all over the path form a soft, chaotic cushion beneath my feet. reminds me of a poem i have drawn into the folds of memory by ezra pound, a poem i write in the middle of the board when i begin the module on 'imagism', a brief but favorite period of 20th century poetry:
petals on a wet, black bough.
i usually meet parents from neighbouring apartments walking their children to school, and yesterday this thought gave me a luscious thrill: "it must still be early because i've already brought my kid to school and they're just about to bring theirs." i walked into our apartment with a silly grin plastered on my face. i had to shake myself to unwind my arms from around my body. S looked at me quizzically.
i will never get over the thrill of being a mom. of actually being one. my friends back home don't know me as a mom, only as this carefree single with wild thoughts and ways.
i stare at mikka every night while he sleeps and shower his soft, round face with kisses. he Knows he is my angel; there will come a day when he Will say, i know, "ma, ok, ok, i've heard you! talk to the haaannnddddd..." when i whisper our special night prayer in his ears, his body becomes pliant in my arms and he lays his head on my round belly, embracing his little brother.
this morning i kept jabbing my tummy with my pointer while asking mikka, "who else does mama love aside from mikka and papa?" i wanted to hear him say his brother's name. instead he remonstrated me with, "mama, don't hurt kimi!" oopsy, ok, son, sorrreeee.
keep that sun streaming through my windows, please. it makes for happier moments. the grass below our balcony is covered in a blanket of yellow. makes me want to throw myself smack center and roll around until i'm a jaundiced mummy. the thick green trees that greeted me upon my arrival a month ago are a bit skinnier now, and not so green anymore. it's sunshiney colours on every leaf tip. the street cleaners are clogged with the merry dropping of leaves cavorting in the air before they take their soggy places on the curb.
17.10.05
tidbits
they say big things come in little packages. and so they do.
S and i stumbled on this quaint secondhand shop for baby clothes and stuff yesterday. i've been here for nearly two years and i never noticed it! it just wasn't my kind of thing then, i suppose. funny what need does to you.
so anyhow, the stuff in there were pretty cool quality, not like the stuff i remember seeing at SPIT or OXFAM, where you could still smell the body odour on the clothes. sure, i got one cool adidas sports jacket for only £1 back in '97 but i had to launder it to rid myself of the fear of inheriting any anghit or what-have-you. and the prices. sooo reasonable it made me want to snap things up.
S did allow me to snap up a MAYA SLING WRAP, the kind i have been dying to get from my relatives. the bonus thing was that it was brand new, and sold at secondhand price!!! if you check out this link, the fabric i got mine in was # 39, a deep rich burgundy with multi-coloured stripes. we got it at a relatively good price, considering that with shipping and VAT, that wrap would have come up to be around 60€, while we got it for only 29€. i'm just happy i have the sling; i even practised wearing it, in spite of the big belly. i have gained around 7 kilograms since my pregnancy, approximately 15 pounds.
then today, three sweet girls gifted me with stuff for kimi: you already know about what V lent me (crib, baby carrier, steriliser); there was a bag of some clothes, socks, and toys from M1, then 2 bigger bags of clothes and beddings from M2... i was thinking, life is great. thank you, lord!!!
then i got to talk to my mom via skype, and am in constant communication with my preggy older sister, all about baby related stuff... and things are just swell.
never mind that someone i knew from the philippines knifed me in the back over music-related matters, or that el shaddai, the choir i teach in brussels (come to think of it, not even a recognised chapter of el shaddai, ha!), have been doing some dirty politicking with me and my husband. i did cry for a while but chatting with my best friend and another good friend from brussels who dropped by unexpectedly has lifted my spirits. considerably so!!!
the little things count. they really do.
S and i stumbled on this quaint secondhand shop for baby clothes and stuff yesterday. i've been here for nearly two years and i never noticed it! it just wasn't my kind of thing then, i suppose. funny what need does to you.
so anyhow, the stuff in there were pretty cool quality, not like the stuff i remember seeing at SPIT or OXFAM, where you could still smell the body odour on the clothes. sure, i got one cool adidas sports jacket for only £1 back in '97 but i had to launder it to rid myself of the fear of inheriting any anghit or what-have-you. and the prices. sooo reasonable it made me want to snap things up.
S did allow me to snap up a MAYA SLING WRAP, the kind i have been dying to get from my relatives. the bonus thing was that it was brand new, and sold at secondhand price!!! if you check out this link, the fabric i got mine in was # 39, a deep rich burgundy with multi-coloured stripes. we got it at a relatively good price, considering that with shipping and VAT, that wrap would have come up to be around 60€, while we got it for only 29€. i'm just happy i have the sling; i even practised wearing it, in spite of the big belly. i have gained around 7 kilograms since my pregnancy, approximately 15 pounds.
then today, three sweet girls gifted me with stuff for kimi: you already know about what V lent me (crib, baby carrier, steriliser); there was a bag of some clothes, socks, and toys from M1, then 2 bigger bags of clothes and beddings from M2... i was thinking, life is great. thank you, lord!!!
then i got to talk to my mom via skype, and am in constant communication with my preggy older sister, all about baby related stuff... and things are just swell.
never mind that someone i knew from the philippines knifed me in the back over music-related matters, or that el shaddai, the choir i teach in brussels (come to think of it, not even a recognised chapter of el shaddai, ha!), have been doing some dirty politicking with me and my husband. i did cry for a while but chatting with my best friend and another good friend from brussels who dropped by unexpectedly has lifted my spirits. considerably so!!!
the little things count. they really do.
13.10.05
feels unique, only it isn't
wherever i look or turn, i see hordes of people with super duper close family ties.
i have never related to such closeness. the only close family i have is my younger brother. and his wife, who is like a really cool younger sister. my first cousin used to be my best friend but we drifted apart after high school, more her choice than mine. can't blame her, though. she was surrounded by people who kept comparing the two of us. little does she know that my mom, older sister and older brother treat her much better than they do me, so it's par for the course.
it eats me up when these tiny voices of expectation whisper in my ear sweet tempting promises of support. "wouldn't it be nice if..." "what if, for one eensy day, they would show they cared..."
there was mass this evening at the holy spirit chapel. there was a woman there who reminds me of my mom, simply because she keeps me at a distance, the only married student and mother there, while the whole flock of singles are her adopted children. makes me want to cry out, "being married and a mother does not exempt me from needing a mother, dammmmitttt".
then this beautiful offertory song took hold of me with these lyrics, "panginoon, turuan mo akong maging bukas palad... turuan mo akong maglingkod sa iyo... na magbigay ng ayon sa nararapat... na walang hinihintay mula sa 'yo..." [translation: lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as i should, to give and not to count the cost, to labor and ask not for reward...]
i stared at my palms lying on my lap, just beneath the swollen abdomen cradling kimi within. i so look for them, i thought, i yearn for their love and their support yet it eludes me. so be it. there are other windows through which light and love enter.
during the sign of peace, i wandered among fellow students, kissing and embracing them. my former philosophy teacher, the one who had sent me a sweet mother's day card months before, laid her hand gently on my belly and whispered, "peace to the little one, too." i nearly let a tear slip past. someone had remembered my little kimi. just one, but it meant the world to me.
after mass, i shot my husband a plaintive look to stay just a while longer. i told him, "i want to taste the food they prepared for us..." he didn't look pleased and kept telling me to go home on my own. then mikka, amidst protests from his dad and the other grown ups, took a container of nuts and offered them to me, saying, "let mama eat." my baby, my angel. another tear threatened.
earlier today, V from brussels, a girl with no papers, rang me and comforted me, telling me that she would gift me with some baby stuff for kimi. she is already providing me with a crib, a baby carrier, and a bottle steriliser. i told her, "i'm speechless. these are truly blessings..." and she teased me with, "blessings come to nice people. like you." i chuckled at her sweetness. can it be true? another woman, also without papers, will drop off baby clothes for winter at V's house for pick-up this saturday. so many blessings. so much that it enabled me to share the same things with my pregnant older sister back in the philippines. i told my sister, "i know how it is to be a 'new' mother (this is her 4th pregnancy, but this comes nearly 10 years after the previous one so she feels like a first-time mom again) and to have these things offered is truly grace." if i have to share the bounty in my life, i would like to share it with people i love and who are of my blood.
but that's just me, i guess. the tears have run their course again and the heart is in a strangely calm place. as it always is after a storm.
isn't it strange to feel utterly invisible, especially when you know you've swallowed a bowling ball and no one even acknowledges the many changes taking place in your life? if i stop looking for them, i will see the blessings god plants in the beautiful garden of life, feel the raindrops of love he showers on me each day, bringing life from places i never imagined existed. always teaching me to See, teaching me where to Look and become truly Joyful.
i have never related to such closeness. the only close family i have is my younger brother. and his wife, who is like a really cool younger sister. my first cousin used to be my best friend but we drifted apart after high school, more her choice than mine. can't blame her, though. she was surrounded by people who kept comparing the two of us. little does she know that my mom, older sister and older brother treat her much better than they do me, so it's par for the course.
it eats me up when these tiny voices of expectation whisper in my ear sweet tempting promises of support. "wouldn't it be nice if..." "what if, for one eensy day, they would show they cared..."
there was mass this evening at the holy spirit chapel. there was a woman there who reminds me of my mom, simply because she keeps me at a distance, the only married student and mother there, while the whole flock of singles are her adopted children. makes me want to cry out, "being married and a mother does not exempt me from needing a mother, dammmmitttt".
then this beautiful offertory song took hold of me with these lyrics, "panginoon, turuan mo akong maging bukas palad... turuan mo akong maglingkod sa iyo... na magbigay ng ayon sa nararapat... na walang hinihintay mula sa 'yo..." [translation: lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as i should, to give and not to count the cost, to labor and ask not for reward...]
i stared at my palms lying on my lap, just beneath the swollen abdomen cradling kimi within. i so look for them, i thought, i yearn for their love and their support yet it eludes me. so be it. there are other windows through which light and love enter.
during the sign of peace, i wandered among fellow students, kissing and embracing them. my former philosophy teacher, the one who had sent me a sweet mother's day card months before, laid her hand gently on my belly and whispered, "peace to the little one, too." i nearly let a tear slip past. someone had remembered my little kimi. just one, but it meant the world to me.
after mass, i shot my husband a plaintive look to stay just a while longer. i told him, "i want to taste the food they prepared for us..." he didn't look pleased and kept telling me to go home on my own. then mikka, amidst protests from his dad and the other grown ups, took a container of nuts and offered them to me, saying, "let mama eat." my baby, my angel. another tear threatened.
earlier today, V from brussels, a girl with no papers, rang me and comforted me, telling me that she would gift me with some baby stuff for kimi. she is already providing me with a crib, a baby carrier, and a bottle steriliser. i told her, "i'm speechless. these are truly blessings..." and she teased me with, "blessings come to nice people. like you." i chuckled at her sweetness. can it be true? another woman, also without papers, will drop off baby clothes for winter at V's house for pick-up this saturday. so many blessings. so much that it enabled me to share the same things with my pregnant older sister back in the philippines. i told my sister, "i know how it is to be a 'new' mother (this is her 4th pregnancy, but this comes nearly 10 years after the previous one so she feels like a first-time mom again) and to have these things offered is truly grace." if i have to share the bounty in my life, i would like to share it with people i love and who are of my blood.
but that's just me, i guess. the tears have run their course again and the heart is in a strangely calm place. as it always is after a storm.
isn't it strange to feel utterly invisible, especially when you know you've swallowed a bowling ball and no one even acknowledges the many changes taking place in your life? if i stop looking for them, i will see the blessings god plants in the beautiful garden of life, feel the raindrops of love he showers on me each day, bringing life from places i never imagined existed. always teaching me to See, teaching me where to Look and become truly Joyful.
9.10.05
one of those days
it's a typically cloudy today, the kind belgium is (in)famous for.
it's the time of day that is also most peaceful. husband and son are taking a nap and it's quiet in the apartment.
you can hear yourself think and sometimes you wish you couldn't.
baby kimi gets ever bigger and more malikot in my tummy. it takes me 5 minutes to find a comfortable position on the couch and i spend all night on my left side. if i'm unlucky, my left hip will be a little sore the next day.
out there in the world are a host of female friends and relatives i desperately seek but don't know how to reach. just because. just one person, even gay, to whom i can cling for a moment and let out my fears and frustrations about the coming caesarean section i am bound to have, the helpless post-partum days of healing, and praying that i, we, will be able to provide for baby kimi in the winter months.
thank god for little blessings. when i look out my bedroom window, i see trees in the distance, and the tops are now changing colour. i see remnants of the summer budding in some yellow blossoms, then the more autumnal presence of the light orange and brittle yellow of leaves on the fringe, ready to fall with the slightest wind, and on one tree alone, dark red leaves weighing down the pine-like branches.
i wish i could banish my fears and trepidations. i can recall that the only way i could mask my fear in the past was by talking to someone about it. i did throw my thoughts on the table today, after lunch, and got sticky warm hugs from my eldest son (forever angel) and husband. thank god for the little serendipitous things.
now it's time to put on blinders and not look elsewhere for relief and comfort. it drives my spirit down when i think that way but i can't help it sometimes. i remember the post-partum depression i underwent with my firstborn and i know that this really happens. and i was in social philippines that time. my cousin visited me in the first week, as did my aunt, and some co-teachers from ateneo. then silence for weeks on end while the CS gash in my abdomen healed ever so slowly. i hobbled around for days, wondering if my guts would spill out.
there's a brown bird struggling among the yellow and green leaves of the tallest tree in the distance. two black birds streak across the pale sky above him, oblivious to his plight.
it's the time of day that is also most peaceful. husband and son are taking a nap and it's quiet in the apartment.
you can hear yourself think and sometimes you wish you couldn't.
baby kimi gets ever bigger and more malikot in my tummy. it takes me 5 minutes to find a comfortable position on the couch and i spend all night on my left side. if i'm unlucky, my left hip will be a little sore the next day.
out there in the world are a host of female friends and relatives i desperately seek but don't know how to reach. just because. just one person, even gay, to whom i can cling for a moment and let out my fears and frustrations about the coming caesarean section i am bound to have, the helpless post-partum days of healing, and praying that i, we, will be able to provide for baby kimi in the winter months.
thank god for little blessings. when i look out my bedroom window, i see trees in the distance, and the tops are now changing colour. i see remnants of the summer budding in some yellow blossoms, then the more autumnal presence of the light orange and brittle yellow of leaves on the fringe, ready to fall with the slightest wind, and on one tree alone, dark red leaves weighing down the pine-like branches.
i wish i could banish my fears and trepidations. i can recall that the only way i could mask my fear in the past was by talking to someone about it. i did throw my thoughts on the table today, after lunch, and got sticky warm hugs from my eldest son (forever angel) and husband. thank god for the little serendipitous things.
now it's time to put on blinders and not look elsewhere for relief and comfort. it drives my spirit down when i think that way but i can't help it sometimes. i remember the post-partum depression i underwent with my firstborn and i know that this really happens. and i was in social philippines that time. my cousin visited me in the first week, as did my aunt, and some co-teachers from ateneo. then silence for weeks on end while the CS gash in my abdomen healed ever so slowly. i hobbled around for days, wondering if my guts would spill out.
there's a brown bird struggling among the yellow and green leaves of the tallest tree in the distance. two black birds streak across the pale sky above him, oblivious to his plight.
8.10.05
father who?
i've been watching presumably older episodes of "the practice" and the last two i saw showed eugene lashing at the catholic church.
some days ago, my family and i were enjoying late afternoon tea in the studio flat of a friend who lives in the building block just across from ours. we were joined by another friend who lived a few doors down from the studio. both of them are priests.
as a catholic, i admitted to them that such shows where there is catholic-church bashing leaves me sad and yet resigned. i personally know many great catholics, whether religious or lay, and to see the church maligned 'across the board', as it were, hurts me. after all, i AM a catholic, and although i can see that there are really some jerky catholics, i can say the same for other people of other religions.
and it dawned on me, like a sunrise, or a creeping shadow as dusk falls softly around me, unnoticed but inescapably present. the stupid mistakes you commit, the silly things you do, will inevitably be tied to your affiliations, the most glaring of which is the religious one.
so when i do something "un-christian", i am bearing negative witness to my faith. makes sense. after all, religions claim a particular brand of lifestyle and lifestyle can only be concretely manifested through acts. this sounds like i'm stating the obvious but can i overdo such a proclamation? it seems that even the most learned among us neglect this deceptively simple truth, for truth it is, and fact, and hard bite of reality.
it is worse for priests. they stand above all other catholics, as beacons and supposedly good representatives of the faith. these figures, much hated in the west but still loved and adored in developing countries, are the principal figures of catholicism. for the lascivious acts of horny, depraved, or perverted men in frock, the entire vocation of the presbyterate is under fire. especially since the most celebrated and public cases come from libel-hungry, media-exaggerating US of A. where else, right?
let's take some pinoy priests i happen to know, and with whom i have had contact that went beyond the "bless me, father, for i have sinned" or "father, hello, need your blessing!" niceties. in the past year, more especially when my pregnancy started kicking in, baby kimi helped me to overcome (initially overlook) the excesses and little irritating acts of what seemed like an elitist group of priests who were looking out only for their own interests. freed from their pastoral duties here in europe, they flit from one filipino community to another, welcomed with much warmth and alacrity by people who hardly have contact with priests in their abroad existence, and eagerly seek the personal and unique touch of a pinoy priest. this goes all very well for everyone involved except that there are some instances of really spoiled behaviour from some of them, who Expect their needs to be served. although their numbers are few, their actions stand out glaringly on people like me, and grate completely on the nerves. (if you want specific examples, email me and i will gladly enumerate, but for this blog, it will obscure my pièce de resistance, hence, the glossing over)
last night, i watched in horrified fascination as this particular priest manifested the worst kinds of behaviour that i would like to coin in the following ways: Sucking Up, Speaking Over Others, and Bullshitting Tactics.
grabe, pari ka man din. at ganyan kang umasta. people like me don't blindly accept the words of priests, especially when they're not saying mass --- and even if they are --- as gospel truth. i don't know what it is in my background that enables me to see them as ordinary human beings who have to slug it out in intellectual and emotional circles like the rest of us ordinary folk in the world, butthat's how i am. i was educated in a jesuit university and was lucky enough to have steered clear of those priests who had their fan club following of enamoured students and campus ministers, and got to know cool priests who didn't throw their weight around as though they had the right to do so.
this priest, a phd student, prides himself in his sharp mental capacities and articulate use of english. i've read some of his work and listened to him give homilies, both in tagalog and english, and have found him to be rather flowery and excessive in his use of either language. but i don't take that against him. people are entitled to their Romantic tendencies of embellishments and curlicues. i have sat with this priest and told him some of my hurts, confiding in him as a friend, and have seen how he mocked that moment of vulnerability and spread nasty jokes to another priest about that supposedly private session. i have seen through him and i can tell you, dear reader, that with a priest like him, i am privately glad that there is so much animosity in the west against his kind, and understand why the sutana he so proudly donned on his ordination day is sullied by liberal thought.
he is one of many i have personally encountered, but i have singled him out in this entry for the plain reason that he eagerly embraced all the negative attributes of any human being and manifested them in a short period of time. can't apologise for my thoughts and feelings, fr. ______.
father who?
some days ago, my family and i were enjoying late afternoon tea in the studio flat of a friend who lives in the building block just across from ours. we were joined by another friend who lived a few doors down from the studio. both of them are priests.
as a catholic, i admitted to them that such shows where there is catholic-church bashing leaves me sad and yet resigned. i personally know many great catholics, whether religious or lay, and to see the church maligned 'across the board', as it were, hurts me. after all, i AM a catholic, and although i can see that there are really some jerky catholics, i can say the same for other people of other religions.
and it dawned on me, like a sunrise, or a creeping shadow as dusk falls softly around me, unnoticed but inescapably present. the stupid mistakes you commit, the silly things you do, will inevitably be tied to your affiliations, the most glaring of which is the religious one.
so when i do something "un-christian", i am bearing negative witness to my faith. makes sense. after all, religions claim a particular brand of lifestyle and lifestyle can only be concretely manifested through acts. this sounds like i'm stating the obvious but can i overdo such a proclamation? it seems that even the most learned among us neglect this deceptively simple truth, for truth it is, and fact, and hard bite of reality.
it is worse for priests. they stand above all other catholics, as beacons and supposedly good representatives of the faith. these figures, much hated in the west but still loved and adored in developing countries, are the principal figures of catholicism. for the lascivious acts of horny, depraved, or perverted men in frock, the entire vocation of the presbyterate is under fire. especially since the most celebrated and public cases come from libel-hungry, media-exaggerating US of A. where else, right?
let's take some pinoy priests i happen to know, and with whom i have had contact that went beyond the "bless me, father, for i have sinned" or "father, hello, need your blessing!" niceties. in the past year, more especially when my pregnancy started kicking in, baby kimi helped me to overcome (initially overlook) the excesses and little irritating acts of what seemed like an elitist group of priests who were looking out only for their own interests. freed from their pastoral duties here in europe, they flit from one filipino community to another, welcomed with much warmth and alacrity by people who hardly have contact with priests in their abroad existence, and eagerly seek the personal and unique touch of a pinoy priest. this goes all very well for everyone involved except that there are some instances of really spoiled behaviour from some of them, who Expect their needs to be served. although their numbers are few, their actions stand out glaringly on people like me, and grate completely on the nerves. (if you want specific examples, email me and i will gladly enumerate, but for this blog, it will obscure my pièce de resistance, hence, the glossing over)
last night, i watched in horrified fascination as this particular priest manifested the worst kinds of behaviour that i would like to coin in the following ways: Sucking Up, Speaking Over Others, and Bullshitting Tactics.
- Sucking Up: as points were presented to the body of students (it was a gathering of students, which he is, like me and the rest assembled there), he would make loud and corny jokes about each point. when one former student voiced her opinion about a particular matter, he immediately --- in a loudly exaggerated voice and theatrical movements --- championed her cause. never mind that it was a point that ran perfectly counter to his previous statements. i stared at him in disbelief. what a sucker! in the back of my mind, i could hear the song, "how much is that puppy in the window, ruff ruff!!!" playing over and over again.
- Speaking Over Others: there was a suggestion for a particular activity, and the exchanges were getting intense. one lay student (not a priest or seminarian) raised a point, the other student priests jumped on it in dissension, and banding together with their loud voices, seemed to forget the point raised initially. another lay student raised his hand to reinforce the first point given, and this particular priest Cut Him Short, perhaps after only the third word uttered. i shot that priest a chilling look and said softly, "let him finish". but since my voice was Soft, i was ignored, naturally. the second lay student renewed his efforts to speak and did so, in a much louder voice than that priest, and pointed out that in fact, the point of the other lay student had not been acknowledged by the body and that this priest had misunderstood the point and was misrepresenting it to the rest of the group. to me, one thing was strikingly clear. this priest was Not Listening to what others had to say. it stood out in my consciousness simply because he had on a cloak of smug superiority that elicited from me the expectation, "for someone who's supposed to be smart, you ought to know how to listen to points. your listening skills suck!" so now he Doubly Sucked.
- Bullshitting Tactics: by virtue of his cutie boy looks. sounds bitter? perhaps. but he knows he's cute. he knows he's charming. so in pinoy parlance, bolero siya. he utters sweet nothings, especially to the lay women students, and bullies fellow students with his charm, which reeks with falseness and hollowness. (again, if you need specific examples, i can provide these by email. i can still remember the BS he gave me when i was new. now he keeps me an arm's length away because he probably knows i have his number and will not hesitate to show him up at the slightest chance. ahahaha) what boosts my case at this point is that several Male students have told me that they, too, have noticed how glib and bolero this priest is, thus reinforcing my initial observations. in my single days, boleros topped my list of Yucky traits in men. this guy has loads and loads of BS in his system. if he had been a lay person, he would have gotten his share of putdowns from more beautiful women than a priest is normally surrounded with, and i hope you know what i mean. but that, they say, is another story..
grabe, pari ka man din. at ganyan kang umasta. people like me don't blindly accept the words of priests, especially when they're not saying mass --- and even if they are --- as gospel truth. i don't know what it is in my background that enables me to see them as ordinary human beings who have to slug it out in intellectual and emotional circles like the rest of us ordinary folk in the world, butthat's how i am. i was educated in a jesuit university and was lucky enough to have steered clear of those priests who had their fan club following of enamoured students and campus ministers, and got to know cool priests who didn't throw their weight around as though they had the right to do so.
this priest, a phd student, prides himself in his sharp mental capacities and articulate use of english. i've read some of his work and listened to him give homilies, both in tagalog and english, and have found him to be rather flowery and excessive in his use of either language. but i don't take that against him. people are entitled to their Romantic tendencies of embellishments and curlicues. i have sat with this priest and told him some of my hurts, confiding in him as a friend, and have seen how he mocked that moment of vulnerability and spread nasty jokes to another priest about that supposedly private session. i have seen through him and i can tell you, dear reader, that with a priest like him, i am privately glad that there is so much animosity in the west against his kind, and understand why the sutana he so proudly donned on his ordination day is sullied by liberal thought.
he is one of many i have personally encountered, but i have singled him out in this entry for the plain reason that he eagerly embraced all the negative attributes of any human being and manifested them in a short period of time. can't apologise for my thoughts and feelings, fr. ______.
father who?
6.10.05
dem accent
one of the things that gets my hide is when i hear people with british and american accents pronouncing other-than-of-anglican-origin words without any effort to pronounce it properly, properly here meaning "the way the locals do it".
i have a belgian classmate with a smacking english accent who enjoys anglisising everything, even when i explicitly tell him how to pronounce particular words. he insists that his pronunciation is correct, even when it grates on the ears. he will stand by his way of saying things, oblivious to the fact that he sounds not only offensive, but ignorant as well, especially in the light of exposure to the proper way of pronouncing certain words.
i have heard too often how the ubiquitous american accent can bastardise the sound of certain words, not just filipino words (i once came across a site where filipino was spelled as 'philippino' but i digress, this isn't anything to do with sound, i know) or names, but proper names of countries and other people. classic examples? check out "los angeles", where the "g" has taken on the hard "j" sound, which goes against the logic of hispanic words (which los angeles obviously are, meaning 'the angels'), and therefore must be pronounced as 'los ang-heh-les'. in the tv series "the agency" and "without a trace", actors posing as CIA and FBI agents insist on pronouncing iraq as "ay-rack", prolonging the initial vowel sound, creating a trochee instead of the iambic cadence of putting the stress on the second syllable and using the short "i" sound. of course the same goes for iran, making it sound like a simple sentence, "i ran".
for pinoy readers, i have heard this chinese basher of our beloved balut pronounce the word as ba-lute, injecting an y-grec sound to the "u" that doesn't exist in normal pronunciation.
why does it always turn out that everyone else but the brits and americans know how to pronounce words properly? being a native speaker of english does not automatically mean that you are a competent and even proficient user of it. not at all, i'm afraid. (verrry afraid)
bottom line? it would work for the better good if people exerted effort to be more conscious of how things are pronounced Properly in different parts of the world. it works towards better global harmony and communications and eradicates the pervasive feeling that people of the first world are self-absorbed and, dare i say it, grossly ignorant of the LARGER world that does exist beyond their borders.
i have a belgian classmate with a smacking english accent who enjoys anglisising everything, even when i explicitly tell him how to pronounce particular words. he insists that his pronunciation is correct, even when it grates on the ears. he will stand by his way of saying things, oblivious to the fact that he sounds not only offensive, but ignorant as well, especially in the light of exposure to the proper way of pronouncing certain words.
i have heard too often how the ubiquitous american accent can bastardise the sound of certain words, not just filipino words (i once came across a site where filipino was spelled as 'philippino' but i digress, this isn't anything to do with sound, i know) or names, but proper names of countries and other people. classic examples? check out "los angeles", where the "g" has taken on the hard "j" sound, which goes against the logic of hispanic words (which los angeles obviously are, meaning 'the angels'), and therefore must be pronounced as 'los ang-heh-les'. in the tv series "the agency" and "without a trace", actors posing as CIA and FBI agents insist on pronouncing iraq as "ay-rack", prolonging the initial vowel sound, creating a trochee instead of the iambic cadence of putting the stress on the second syllable and using the short "i" sound. of course the same goes for iran, making it sound like a simple sentence, "i ran".
for pinoy readers, i have heard this chinese basher of our beloved balut pronounce the word as ba-lute, injecting an y-grec sound to the "u" that doesn't exist in normal pronunciation.
why does it always turn out that everyone else but the brits and americans know how to pronounce words properly? being a native speaker of english does not automatically mean that you are a competent and even proficient user of it. not at all, i'm afraid. (verrry afraid)
bottom line? it would work for the better good if people exerted effort to be more conscious of how things are pronounced Properly in different parts of the world. it works towards better global harmony and communications and eradicates the pervasive feeling that people of the first world are self-absorbed and, dare i say it, grossly ignorant of the LARGER world that does exist beyond their borders.
27.9.05
single yet not alone
i discovered early this month that the real heroes of my world are single mothers. they have to juggle the pieces of their lives and still present a "whole" person to the world. their world revolves around their children, they have their own lives to think about... and frankly, how they are able to put all these into one day is an astounding feat.
i have had to be a single mother for only 18 days this month (i cheated on 2 when i begged my husband to come back from paris following a series of nasty bullying incidents to our son in school and in el shaddai) and although i have had to be so for a little more than 2 weeks, i can say that the experience has stretched me in a way that not even my JVP year did not, when i was single and with my partner from zamboanga.
suddenly i am no longer afraid to stay in belgium until 2008. i have proven to myself, to my husband, and to my son (who needs no proof of my mommy-ness) that i can take care of a household, of another life that depends solely on me, and still manage to get myself out into the world for brief snatches of time. so what if i cannot find the time to read as i would like (i am only a bit more than halfway through tolstoy's chatty anna karenina), or check out the books i need to complete my thesis before january (my promoter will be asking me to go to ghent next week to meet with her and i have read nil on my topic!), or even do a little exercise by way of walking or swimming perhaps (more far-fetched now that we have moved to our new apartment which is farther away from the sports centre than our previous apartment)! there is a full-filling sensation at the end of each bone-tiring day that you have been able to cook, clean up, get the kid his requisite care and tucked in bed with hugs and kisses... i tell you, irreplaceable. completely so.
i would now never exchange such a harrowing month of being a single mom for anything in the world. really. i feel the spoiled pampered lara fading more and more into the corners of the past. for me, this is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life so far, and these are life lessons i never learned from my family, one of the most spoiled entities in the world. now i can tell my kuya (who has had to survive on his own, and in a foreign country, since he was 20), who has been telling me all these years that i lead a spoiled and pampered life, "kuya, i know now what you meant! and i have survived, and will survive more in the days and years to come!"
what more can i say... only this: although single mothers are the unsung heroes in my book, i still do not consider myself among the ranks of those single moms who have actual careers to juggle with their home responsibilities. right now, i am only just beginning to enjoy and learn the ropes of being a housewife, or more aptly, housemom. :)
and here's a little tickler to end my post. mikka has been sick for more than a week with a viral infection that metamorphosed into something bacterial. since S went away to rome last saturday to deliver yet another paper at a nostra aetate conference, i have been cowardly enough to keep mikka next to me at night (even when he insists on lying on his own bed at night), begging him to keep me company owing to my fear of ghosts in our new apartment (i can swear that someone pinched my toes our third night here, and promptly asked a friend priest to bless the house the very next day). i have also used the pretext of being his nurse, administering his needed antibiotics until thursday, to keep him home from school, too. for some reason, i am more needy of his presence than he is of mine. i need my son! i just want him nearby while i am spouse-less this week... and frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn if it makes me look like a pathetic mommy clinging to her eldest child. hehehe basta mahal na mahal ko yang anak ko at ayaw kong mag isa dito sa bahay! pag ok na kami ng resident mumu namin, siguro kakayanin ko nang mag-isa. :)
i have had to be a single mother for only 18 days this month (i cheated on 2 when i begged my husband to come back from paris following a series of nasty bullying incidents to our son in school and in el shaddai) and although i have had to be so for a little more than 2 weeks, i can say that the experience has stretched me in a way that not even my JVP year did not, when i was single and with my partner from zamboanga.
suddenly i am no longer afraid to stay in belgium until 2008. i have proven to myself, to my husband, and to my son (who needs no proof of my mommy-ness) that i can take care of a household, of another life that depends solely on me, and still manage to get myself out into the world for brief snatches of time. so what if i cannot find the time to read as i would like (i am only a bit more than halfway through tolstoy's chatty anna karenina), or check out the books i need to complete my thesis before january (my promoter will be asking me to go to ghent next week to meet with her and i have read nil on my topic!), or even do a little exercise by way of walking or swimming perhaps (more far-fetched now that we have moved to our new apartment which is farther away from the sports centre than our previous apartment)! there is a full-filling sensation at the end of each bone-tiring day that you have been able to cook, clean up, get the kid his requisite care and tucked in bed with hugs and kisses... i tell you, irreplaceable. completely so.
i would now never exchange such a harrowing month of being a single mom for anything in the world. really. i feel the spoiled pampered lara fading more and more into the corners of the past. for me, this is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life so far, and these are life lessons i never learned from my family, one of the most spoiled entities in the world. now i can tell my kuya (who has had to survive on his own, and in a foreign country, since he was 20), who has been telling me all these years that i lead a spoiled and pampered life, "kuya, i know now what you meant! and i have survived, and will survive more in the days and years to come!"
what more can i say... only this: although single mothers are the unsung heroes in my book, i still do not consider myself among the ranks of those single moms who have actual careers to juggle with their home responsibilities. right now, i am only just beginning to enjoy and learn the ropes of being a housewife, or more aptly, housemom. :)
and here's a little tickler to end my post. mikka has been sick for more than a week with a viral infection that metamorphosed into something bacterial. since S went away to rome last saturday to deliver yet another paper at a nostra aetate conference, i have been cowardly enough to keep mikka next to me at night (even when he insists on lying on his own bed at night), begging him to keep me company owing to my fear of ghosts in our new apartment (i can swear that someone pinched my toes our third night here, and promptly asked a friend priest to bless the house the very next day). i have also used the pretext of being his nurse, administering his needed antibiotics until thursday, to keep him home from school, too. for some reason, i am more needy of his presence than he is of mine. i need my son! i just want him nearby while i am spouse-less this week... and frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn if it makes me look like a pathetic mommy clinging to her eldest child. hehehe basta mahal na mahal ko yang anak ko at ayaw kong mag isa dito sa bahay! pag ok na kami ng resident mumu namin, siguro kakayanin ko nang mag-isa. :)
4.9.05
jing's tag
What are the things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play?
What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level?
Seven things that scare you:
Seven things you like the most:
Seven important things in your bedroom:
Seven random facts about you:
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
Seven things you can do:
Seven things you can't do:
Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:
Seven things you say the most:
Seven celeb crushes (whether local or foreign):
rafa!
- reading a book, watching a movie, sitting at a cafe
What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level?
- sports, sex (yes jing, me too)
Seven things that scare you:
- being separated from my son and husband
- not being able to defend my son should the need arise
- freak accidents to my son
- racism
- if roaches took over the world, especially if i were to see them flying *eeewww!!!*
- fearless rats staring me in the eye
- not being able to go home ever to the philippines
Seven things you like the most:
- spending time with my husband and son
- doing sports, especially badminton, aikido, swimming
- same-time orgasm
- a warm hug from someone you trust
- getting letters in the post
- when people ask you how you are
- hanging out with people whose company you enjoy
Seven important things in your bedroom:
- a time device of sorts
- a good bedside book nearby
- my husband beside me(thing ba siya? ahihihi)
- nice clean sheets
- study desk (?)
- sound system
- mobile phone
Seven random facts about you:
- used to think i was lesbian
- am drawn to calm, quiet, strong, self-assured people, whether in personal life or in sports (or in politics, as it were)
- want up to 4 kids if possible
- have square jaws that reminded my late paternal grandmother of jacqueline bisset and jackie onassis (the former whom i saw on tv at the venice fim festival a few days ago --- and man, i look nothing like her!)
- dance is my first love, not singing
- play the piano better than i sing
- used to imagine people walking naked
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
- visit indochina
- do a big humanitarian effort
- get a phd in music
- send my kids abroad for their vacation or whatever experiences (i can't monopolise all the fun in the world)
- send people i care about deeply to school, people like rosali
- change careers
- publish a book
Seven things you can do:
- swim 40 laps at 32 weeks of pregnancy
- fart unashamedly in the presence of close and not-so-close friends (it's my relief and their shame)
- drive like a maniac --- easily!
- deliver excellently --- you name it *nax*
- speak openly about almost anything under the sun without batting an eyelash
- call a spade a spade when no one else can or will
- say sorry immediately when i realise i am in the wrong
Seven things you can't do:
- raise my eyebrows in taray fashion (hence, people think i am not mataray)
- roll my tongue
- flick my fingers (in tagalog, pumitik)
- cry at will
- tell a lie comfortably
- sex without love
- be hypocritical even if the situation calls for it
Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:
- broad shoulders
- piercing gaze
- self confidence
- natural kindness to others, not just to me
- nice round butt
- great appetite (if he can eat with gusto, then he'll eat me the same way ahihihi)
- ability to laugh at himself
Seven things you say the most:
- what the f**k???
- there you go
- oh my god
- puñeta!
- never... rarely
- always
- cool
Seven celeb crushes (whether local or foreign):
rafa!
2.9.05
DUH!!!
my 2nd name is katrina, which makes my name pretty famous these days, especially to americans, and most especially to those affected directly by the category 5 hurricane that has dubya declaring the last 5 days as one of the worst national disasters. infamy is truly part and parcel of my life, even in something as mundane as a name. [trivia: another hurricane is developing over the atlantic, lee, which is the same name as my brother naman. 'la lang, napaisip lang ako]
these have been my thoughts the past week while following the coverage of bbc, euronews, and cnn on hurricane katrina.
i have lived in the first world for two years and i have seen the gaping disparity in the quality of life of people here and those in my own third world country. i have been blessed to live a sheltered middle fucking class life in the philippines but i have not been detached from the extreme poverty and hopelessness of the people there. in simple matters like water consumption, food choices, or leisure activities, there is truly a great divide between citizens of nations such as the united states and the european union and citizens of southeast asia and africa. the simple fact is: people in the first world have, while people in africa and southeast asia have not.
take this, you arrogant cnn reporter: venezuelan president chavez, that same man your wacko pat robertson ordered "to be taken out because the US has the capacity to do thus" has offered humanitarian aid to be sent to the states, this in spite of his being a staunch critic of bush. chirac, another leader who is often at loggerheads with the policies of the american government, has expressed his sympathy for the american people. if you would only have eyes to see and ears to hear, there do exist pockets of decency, if you would only have the grace to accept such "offers" and not look for money from others where there is none.
so my bottom line is: how can you expect there to be instant aid in $$ terms when most of the $$ in the world are already in the united states??? one big fucking DUH!!!
shit.
post script: to people who cannot understand my point above due to my expletives, get this one thing clear --- i am not writing this against the plight of people who have suffered due to hurricane katrina.
these have been my thoughts the past week while following the coverage of bbc, euronews, and cnn on hurricane katrina.
- now that the states has been exposed to a natural disaster of this magnitude, i can't help but think that with all the foreknowledge that a huge disaster is coming, the response of people to prevention has been very slow. in light of all the satellite feeds (something that the tsunami victims did not have, take note), the exhortations from highly placed officials for people to do what they can a week in advance, still, still, hundreds of thousands of people were caught flat-footed by the hurricane, and i mean not only the victims in the affected areas, but by the federal authorities themselves. the response has been horrifically slow, and i say this as a third world citizen, who is used to seeing hundreds of my countrymen suffer yearly from at least 10 typhoons that will visit our shores.
- i thought dubya looked too smug during his consolation speech. first, his vacation was cut short when katrina struck. he knew a week before katrina arrived that this would happen, and yet he went onwards with his vacation. the chief executive of the nation is expected to be empathetic to his countrymen, something that seemed sorely lacking in his response to sheehan, a grief-stricken mother to a marine who died in iraq, who camped outside his vast ranch in texas. then there he was, in his armani suit, surrounded by his equally well-dressed cabinet members with unsmiling faces, speaking in a cocky tone, "i am confident that we will triumph and america will be stronger after this." what of the now, you imbecilic president? what are you doing to address the needs of your people who need you to be visible to them now??? where are you when they need to see you, touch you, hear you? i told my husband, to gma's credit, no matter how much i dislike her, she shows more empathy towards our people when tragedy strikes. after 9/11, bush's image was splattered all over the media in his suckseer coat, communicating the message, "i'm ready to buckle down and work with you." too bad then new york mayor guillani [sorry for the typo, if ever] beat him to the draw and was very visible to the public as a hands on chief who cared for his people. i find that the same illness amongst politicians is staring us in the face: the rich and pampered elite officials are pulled out of their expensive vacations while thousands of their poor countrymen suffer without food and water, among lawlessness and lack of order.
- fuck cnn. this eastern european anchor based in the states was accusing a UN official of the slow response of the international community to this american tragedy, while the US of A is always expected to be at the forefront of international aid when some ailing nation is affected by some disaster. what the fucking fuck??? i want to thumb my nose at these idiotic anchors and do the monkey dance. duh!!! critical thought is certainly not ingrained in this cnn anchor!!! (bring in veronica pedrosa please) the united states is the wealthiest nation in the world, it is the most powerful nation in the world, it can do pretty much what if fucking pleases when it fucking chooses. if that texan president had so willed it, he could have dispatched thousands of troops and resources to the affected areas within a DAY of the hurricane's landing. he can have congress pass $10.5 billion in emergency aid for the simple fucking reason that the united states HAS the funds at its immediate disposal, unlike impoverished 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th world nations like sri lanka, indonesia, india, and what have you out there. how can anyone draw this comparison???
i have lived in the first world for two years and i have seen the gaping disparity in the quality of life of people here and those in my own third world country. i have been blessed to live a sheltered middle fucking class life in the philippines but i have not been detached from the extreme poverty and hopelessness of the people there. in simple matters like water consumption, food choices, or leisure activities, there is truly a great divide between citizens of nations such as the united states and the european union and citizens of southeast asia and africa. the simple fact is: people in the first world have, while people in africa and southeast asia have not.
take this, you arrogant cnn reporter: venezuelan president chavez, that same man your wacko pat robertson ordered "to be taken out because the US has the capacity to do thus" has offered humanitarian aid to be sent to the states, this in spite of his being a staunch critic of bush. chirac, another leader who is often at loggerheads with the policies of the american government, has expressed his sympathy for the american people. if you would only have eyes to see and ears to hear, there do exist pockets of decency, if you would only have the grace to accept such "offers" and not look for money from others where there is none.
so my bottom line is: how can you expect there to be instant aid in $$ terms when most of the $$ in the world are already in the united states??? one big fucking DUH!!!
shit.
post script: to people who cannot understand my point above due to my expletives, get this one thing clear --- i am not writing this against the plight of people who have suffered due to hurricane katrina.
18.8.05
EDSA soirée
this is my first entry for the first round of LASANG PINOY. the first month launch centers around ninoy's death anniversary, august 21, which makes it but fitting to launch this monthly project on sunday, the 21st of august.
that day in 1983 changed the life of our nation 22 years ago. the sequence of the inevitable that culminated in the events of the first people power of february 1986, the first the world had ever seen of a revolution by the people won by prayer and peaceful demonstrations, would give filipinos something to be truly proud of after decades of humiliating decline on the world stage. for some strange reason, i will always look back at that time as one helluva street party catered by street vendors and ingenius entrepreneurs. it was probably one of the best parties i had ever attended in my whole life. 'til now. even after being part of edsa dos, which wasn't much of a party for me, as i never relished the thought of some midget fence-sitter aceding to power on the toil of a few good men and women.
it was 1986 and classes had been called off. my english teacher at the time had appeared on tv somewhere, kneeling in front of a tank, a rosary clasped in her tense hands, her face a mask of desperation and agony. and no wonder. she was only a few feet away from the first wave of tanks that marcos had ordered to disperse the huge crowd that had gathered at the edsa-ortigas intersection (grabe, wala pang flyover don, not to mention that weird looking golden statue of mama mary being pooped on by birds). she would later recount hearing the engines of the tanks coming closer until that excruciating moment when the engine died and she could see clearly the faces of the young soldiers who emerged from the tank's bowels. her face would become one of the most famous images of the revolution of the middle class against marcos, immortalised in the international news magazines at the time and the coffee table books that sprung up after marcos' ignominious exit to hawaii. it was a turning point, in a strange way, of the way i viewed her, too. that day her face was flashed all over the anti-marcos papers (it could have been malaya; inquirer was just like a tabloid at the time) i saw not just my 9th grade mrs badoy, but the fearless pura badoy, willing to face down tanks and use her booming voice --- not just in the classroom to discipline us high school brats --- but to compel hundreds of other frightened activists to get on their knees and pray the rosary with her.
in 1985 my dad was part of the CAPM, or the cory aquino for president movement that collected over a million signatures to convince cory to run for president. (in fact, he is immortalised in a coffee table book, too, as he recounted his role in the CAPM and the turmoil of those times).
before that, around 2 years before the signature campaign, my dad came home with 3 yellow shirts with the face of a smiling man in glasses emblazoned across the front of it. on the back were the words: "the filipino is worth dying for." (years later, my dad, disgusted with the turn of events in the country that would lead to erap's presidency and then edsa dos, would empathically say, "ninoy was wrong. the filipino is NOT worth dying for!" he left for the united states 4 years ago and has not returned since to the philippines) i was only 12 at the time so i lost the battle to get one of those shirts. my mom got one by default and of course my older sister, being the eldest in the family. my dad told us shirt-less siblings, "when you understand what he died for, then i'll get you your own shirts."
but it wasn't until i was 14 did things begin to make sense. by then, the shirts were no longer being manufactured so i contented myself with stealing my mom's or sister's shirt and wearing it to school --- just to be cool, because at the time, i was in a school filled with the children of diplomats whom i knew would never have a shirt just like mine. there was something about ninoy aquino that was 'cool' to me at the time: he was articulate, his daughter had been my classmate briefly in 7th grade, and now, my signature was part of a million that would push cory to run as the widow president. those were exciting days, right before the events at edsa. i remember boycotting san miguel beer around christmas time --- yes, i was already drinking beer at the time. i remember watching people flock to the polling booths on that long ago morning of feb 7, 1986 at the public school a stone's throw away from our house and wishing fervently i could vote. i even remember sitting beside the namfrel poll watchers as they tallied the votes. in all our precincts, cory won by a huge margin. but the televised comelec results would reveal a different story.
on the 2nd night of the vigil at edsa, my kuya and his girlfriend announced that they were going to edsa and stop any more tanks that marcos and ver would send. my kuya's girl turned to me and asked if i wanted to come along. i looked at my parents quickly. my dad, without any hesitation, said, "of course you should go. this is history in the making!!!" the thought that crossed my mind was, "cooooool. camp crame is THE place to be!" i got my sister's ninoy shirt and tucked it into my walking shorts. high waist pa ako non. (hanggang ngayon pa naman but that, as they say, is another story) i remember the grown ups --- or rather, the older-ups --- packing tons of food in the trunk of the car. it didn't cross my mind that i could get hungry in the next 24 hours we would be 'hanging out' at edsa.
we parked near the cubao flyover because the 'relevant' stretch of edsa was virtually unpassable. there was a festive mood in the air as we made our way down edsa towards crame. barkadas of teens were chanting as they passed by, in kapit-bisig fashion, yelling, "asan na mga tangke??? lusubin nila tayo kung kaya nila!!!" this followed by boisterous shouts and peals of laughter. i couldn't help but laugh along.
there were vendors everywhere selling everything and anything. from flashlights to more ninoy shirts to little filipino flags on barbecue sticks. by the time we got to crame i had seen car after car parked facing the wall, the boot open, filled with crates of food and tetrapacks, some for sale. "matinik", i remember thinking. i had stepped on so many squished plastic bags and straws filled with remnants of what had been mirinda pepsi or coke. barbecue sticks littered the way. there were karitons filled with balut and boiled peanuts. as night descended upon the throngs, the kariton-drivers lit greasy kerosene lamps and these flickered uneasily along that stretch of highway that looked more like a park scene rather than a battlefield of the forces of right and wrong. or the forces of a sundered friendship between ramos/enrile and macoy. flattened cartons and banigs were now lining the road. we really were going to meet those tanks in our probinsya mode beddings.
all night long i munched on the egg and pimiento sandwiches that my kuya's girlfriend had packed in the trunk of the car. i sipped from zesto tri-a-packs (di ko masabing tetra pack yon kasi mukang triangle e) and from time to time, bought mirinda from the passing vendors. my kuya cracked some balut eggs at around 4 am and had me drink the soup. at that time i didn't know how to eat a balut standing up. there were no plates to be had so my ka-artehan in balut eating were sidelined for the time being.
there were many false alerts throughout that long night. mostly it was the vendors who would run past, shouting, "parating na sila, mga dalawang tangke din yon!!!" we would get to our feet and cluster uncertainly near the island, knowing only that if tanks really did roll towards us, we would all scream in unison and pray that god be on our side. we must have burst into song so many times that night, the words "ibon mang may layang lumipad..." fluttering in our breasts and flying towards the stars every time someone told us that the tanks were not coming, not yet, not yet, but do not waver for we know not the time when they will be upon us.
the tanks did not come. not that night. we would hear over radio veritas that there was a tank or two in the succeeding days, but our day was not the "chosen one". when i remember our disappointment at having avoided a confrontation, i shake my head bemusedly but at the time, it was like a big party at the fort and we young ones were just too eager to embrace danger. we were, after all, at that point in our lives when we sought excitement and adventure --- and this kind, we were sure, would make us heroes not only to our friends but to an entire nation. if anything, those frenzied 5 days of edsa defined my teen life as the time i crossed over from being a party-hungry girl to someone who had purpose not only in my life but for the life of my nation.
after edsa, it was only a matter of time before i was signing up for volunteer service to one of the poorest provinces of the country at the time. it meant nothing to me at the time to get a high paying job when so many in the country were living in poverty. i knew i always had my comfortable middle class life to return to after a year of service but this was the promise of my youth, my mid-teenaged years when i was part of the crowds who cheered and yes, wept, when the dictator and his crazy wife fled the country. i was one of those who could never be comfortable touring malacanang palace or the malacanang of the north in laoag, who nearly threw up when i saw macoy's preserved body in a glass coffin, lit up by a solitary spotlight while triumphal classical music played from hidden speakers. to this day, the sight of imelda marcos makes my blood boil. i want to put my fingers in her thickly coiffed hair and pull every strand apart, just before she steps into her limousine.
it was during that soirée, while i munched on my favorite cheese pimiento sandwich, sipping from my brother's balut and zesto drink, that something hardened within me, turning me off forever to a life in pursuit of caprice and comfort. as long as people suffer, i vowed in between bites, i cannot relax. ever. what that man said years ago will make sense in my lifetime, that we, pinoys, are indeed worth dying for. i dedicate my life to the realisation of this truth. i will prove my dad wrong and perhaps call him home in the process of doing so.
today, 2 years away from my beloved homeland, i miss the taste of balut most of all. here in belgium, it costs a terrifying 1.50 euros. that's 100 pesos for one little egg!!! next year, i will be able to buy my 9 peso-balut again from that vendor just outside the heart center, maybe after aikido practice. or so i hope.
that day in 1983 changed the life of our nation 22 years ago. the sequence of the inevitable that culminated in the events of the first people power of february 1986, the first the world had ever seen of a revolution by the people won by prayer and peaceful demonstrations, would give filipinos something to be truly proud of after decades of humiliating decline on the world stage. for some strange reason, i will always look back at that time as one helluva street party catered by street vendors and ingenius entrepreneurs. it was probably one of the best parties i had ever attended in my whole life. 'til now. even after being part of edsa dos, which wasn't much of a party for me, as i never relished the thought of some midget fence-sitter aceding to power on the toil of a few good men and women.
it was 1986 and classes had been called off. my english teacher at the time had appeared on tv somewhere, kneeling in front of a tank, a rosary clasped in her tense hands, her face a mask of desperation and agony. and no wonder. she was only a few feet away from the first wave of tanks that marcos had ordered to disperse the huge crowd that had gathered at the edsa-ortigas intersection (grabe, wala pang flyover don, not to mention that weird looking golden statue of mama mary being pooped on by birds). she would later recount hearing the engines of the tanks coming closer until that excruciating moment when the engine died and she could see clearly the faces of the young soldiers who emerged from the tank's bowels. her face would become one of the most famous images of the revolution of the middle class against marcos, immortalised in the international news magazines at the time and the coffee table books that sprung up after marcos' ignominious exit to hawaii. it was a turning point, in a strange way, of the way i viewed her, too. that day her face was flashed all over the anti-marcos papers (it could have been malaya; inquirer was just like a tabloid at the time) i saw not just my 9th grade mrs badoy, but the fearless pura badoy, willing to face down tanks and use her booming voice --- not just in the classroom to discipline us high school brats --- but to compel hundreds of other frightened activists to get on their knees and pray the rosary with her.
in 1985 my dad was part of the CAPM, or the cory aquino for president movement that collected over a million signatures to convince cory to run for president. (in fact, he is immortalised in a coffee table book, too, as he recounted his role in the CAPM and the turmoil of those times).
before that, around 2 years before the signature campaign, my dad came home with 3 yellow shirts with the face of a smiling man in glasses emblazoned across the front of it. on the back were the words: "the filipino is worth dying for." (years later, my dad, disgusted with the turn of events in the country that would lead to erap's presidency and then edsa dos, would empathically say, "ninoy was wrong. the filipino is NOT worth dying for!" he left for the united states 4 years ago and has not returned since to the philippines) i was only 12 at the time so i lost the battle to get one of those shirts. my mom got one by default and of course my older sister, being the eldest in the family. my dad told us shirt-less siblings, "when you understand what he died for, then i'll get you your own shirts."
but it wasn't until i was 14 did things begin to make sense. by then, the shirts were no longer being manufactured so i contented myself with stealing my mom's or sister's shirt and wearing it to school --- just to be cool, because at the time, i was in a school filled with the children of diplomats whom i knew would never have a shirt just like mine. there was something about ninoy aquino that was 'cool' to me at the time: he was articulate, his daughter had been my classmate briefly in 7th grade, and now, my signature was part of a million that would push cory to run as the widow president. those were exciting days, right before the events at edsa. i remember boycotting san miguel beer around christmas time --- yes, i was already drinking beer at the time. i remember watching people flock to the polling booths on that long ago morning of feb 7, 1986 at the public school a stone's throw away from our house and wishing fervently i could vote. i even remember sitting beside the namfrel poll watchers as they tallied the votes. in all our precincts, cory won by a huge margin. but the televised comelec results would reveal a different story.
on the 2nd night of the vigil at edsa, my kuya and his girlfriend announced that they were going to edsa and stop any more tanks that marcos and ver would send. my kuya's girl turned to me and asked if i wanted to come along. i looked at my parents quickly. my dad, without any hesitation, said, "of course you should go. this is history in the making!!!" the thought that crossed my mind was, "cooooool. camp crame is THE place to be!" i got my sister's ninoy shirt and tucked it into my walking shorts. high waist pa ako non. (hanggang ngayon pa naman but that, as they say, is another story) i remember the grown ups --- or rather, the older-ups --- packing tons of food in the trunk of the car. it didn't cross my mind that i could get hungry in the next 24 hours we would be 'hanging out' at edsa.
we parked near the cubao flyover because the 'relevant' stretch of edsa was virtually unpassable. there was a festive mood in the air as we made our way down edsa towards crame. barkadas of teens were chanting as they passed by, in kapit-bisig fashion, yelling, "asan na mga tangke??? lusubin nila tayo kung kaya nila!!!" this followed by boisterous shouts and peals of laughter. i couldn't help but laugh along.
there were vendors everywhere selling everything and anything. from flashlights to more ninoy shirts to little filipino flags on barbecue sticks. by the time we got to crame i had seen car after car parked facing the wall, the boot open, filled with crates of food and tetrapacks, some for sale. "matinik", i remember thinking. i had stepped on so many squished plastic bags and straws filled with remnants of what had been mirinda pepsi or coke. barbecue sticks littered the way. there were karitons filled with balut and boiled peanuts. as night descended upon the throngs, the kariton-drivers lit greasy kerosene lamps and these flickered uneasily along that stretch of highway that looked more like a park scene rather than a battlefield of the forces of right and wrong. or the forces of a sundered friendship between ramos/enrile and macoy. flattened cartons and banigs were now lining the road. we really were going to meet those tanks in our probinsya mode beddings.
all night long i munched on the egg and pimiento sandwiches that my kuya's girlfriend had packed in the trunk of the car. i sipped from zesto tri-a-packs (di ko masabing tetra pack yon kasi mukang triangle e) and from time to time, bought mirinda from the passing vendors. my kuya cracked some balut eggs at around 4 am and had me drink the soup. at that time i didn't know how to eat a balut standing up. there were no plates to be had so my ka-artehan in balut eating were sidelined for the time being.
there were many false alerts throughout that long night. mostly it was the vendors who would run past, shouting, "parating na sila, mga dalawang tangke din yon!!!" we would get to our feet and cluster uncertainly near the island, knowing only that if tanks really did roll towards us, we would all scream in unison and pray that god be on our side. we must have burst into song so many times that night, the words "ibon mang may layang lumipad..." fluttering in our breasts and flying towards the stars every time someone told us that the tanks were not coming, not yet, not yet, but do not waver for we know not the time when they will be upon us.
the tanks did not come. not that night. we would hear over radio veritas that there was a tank or two in the succeeding days, but our day was not the "chosen one". when i remember our disappointment at having avoided a confrontation, i shake my head bemusedly but at the time, it was like a big party at the fort and we young ones were just too eager to embrace danger. we were, after all, at that point in our lives when we sought excitement and adventure --- and this kind, we were sure, would make us heroes not only to our friends but to an entire nation. if anything, those frenzied 5 days of edsa defined my teen life as the time i crossed over from being a party-hungry girl to someone who had purpose not only in my life but for the life of my nation.
after edsa, it was only a matter of time before i was signing up for volunteer service to one of the poorest provinces of the country at the time. it meant nothing to me at the time to get a high paying job when so many in the country were living in poverty. i knew i always had my comfortable middle class life to return to after a year of service but this was the promise of my youth, my mid-teenaged years when i was part of the crowds who cheered and yes, wept, when the dictator and his crazy wife fled the country. i was one of those who could never be comfortable touring malacanang palace or the malacanang of the north in laoag, who nearly threw up when i saw macoy's preserved body in a glass coffin, lit up by a solitary spotlight while triumphal classical music played from hidden speakers. to this day, the sight of imelda marcos makes my blood boil. i want to put my fingers in her thickly coiffed hair and pull every strand apart, just before she steps into her limousine.
it was during that soirée, while i munched on my favorite cheese pimiento sandwich, sipping from my brother's balut and zesto drink, that something hardened within me, turning me off forever to a life in pursuit of caprice and comfort. as long as people suffer, i vowed in between bites, i cannot relax. ever. what that man said years ago will make sense in my lifetime, that we, pinoys, are indeed worth dying for. i dedicate my life to the realisation of this truth. i will prove my dad wrong and perhaps call him home in the process of doing so.
today, 2 years away from my beloved homeland, i miss the taste of balut most of all. here in belgium, it costs a terrifying 1.50 euros. that's 100 pesos for one little egg!!! next year, i will be able to buy my 9 peso-balut again from that vendor just outside the heart center, maybe after aikido practice. or so i hope.
27.7.05
some places do not exist
until this morning, hospitals ranked first on my list as one of the worst places in the world to be. everywhere around you are people who are either: ill enough to warrant institutional care, related to someone very ill that their faces are pale and strained, there to service those who are ill. i just see it as a place where no one wants to be at all, no matter from what perspective, but have to be there anyway, whether out of need or economics.
there is another place that stands like an open door on the eve of a solstice, ushering in unwanted spirits from other worlds. sometimes i wonder how such places really can exist and yet not exist, too, if only in its physical structure. but once you're done with your business at such a place, it ceases to exist, and those who work in those places know only too well the expressions of people who walk in and out of their doors and look through them as though they were not there. people who work at such places exist only for the immediate needs of the people who are there.
when a 3 year old who is just learning how to read his letters and perfecting his grammar in dutch, english, and tagalog, can go to such a place and then look balefully at his parents with red eyes hurting from holding back tears, you wonder how such a place can call forth such emotions from a young soul. i have come to view the rows and rows of efficiently places counters and conveyor belts with some kind of detachment, eyes lidded, ready to blink out the image once my papers have been scrutinised and my boarding pass has been handed to me, informing me of my immediate exit from such a twilight zone.
airports are among the ugliest places in the world to be. it ushers in people you've been wanting to see for months and years, yet it will be through the same doorway by which your beloveds will depart, taking your heart with them.
when dodo left me for the last time in 2000, i remember him crouching over his suitcase, his eyes beseeching me, "make your choice, make it me, i'll wait for you." that was the last time i ever saw him. the last words i ever saw him mouth at me through the rush of people walking into NAIA were, "i love you." when my best friend, jon, ritchie, and nan who formed the last 4 of the vox pacis choir in europe left last year, it was at the very same spot that my parents had taken their leave days earlier, and through which they would depart barely a year later, just some hours ago as the clock struck 6 in the morning. because of the series of brussels airport departures i have witnessed, i have unconsciously learned to keep my face blank and feel nothing at the moment of last goodbyes and embraces. with my best friend and jon, i couldn't help the few teardrops that squeezed themselves out from between my lashes. with mommy and chuchi earlier, i was like a shell embracing my dad lightly and kissing my mom's cheek. my eyes were on mikka, whose brow was furrowed in a very un-3-year old like manner, eyes swollen while staring at his lolo and lola. he clung tightly to S's leg, his mouth working but unable to utter any words.
if one were made to choose between the lesser of two evils, one would, i believe, rather be the one leaving than the one left behind.
now the coming fall and winter before me looms, while my tummy grows with the precious life within. my baby is due on the 25th of december, the gloomiest and dullest day in leuven. all shops are shut, the streets are empty (ghost town, pare!), and anyone worth knowing has chosen to be somewhere else, all the wiser to avoid the most soulless place on earth.
i don't know when my son, husband, and i will see lola and lolo again, or anyone related to us by affinity or blood. please let it be sooner than we expect, dear lord. may Your time for us be sooner than my worst fears.
and damn them airports. these should only be built for arrivals. i'm getting too old for departures and leave-taking. this old heart can't take any more stretching. too much na. tama na diba.
there is another place that stands like an open door on the eve of a solstice, ushering in unwanted spirits from other worlds. sometimes i wonder how such places really can exist and yet not exist, too, if only in its physical structure. but once you're done with your business at such a place, it ceases to exist, and those who work in those places know only too well the expressions of people who walk in and out of their doors and look through them as though they were not there. people who work at such places exist only for the immediate needs of the people who are there.
when a 3 year old who is just learning how to read his letters and perfecting his grammar in dutch, english, and tagalog, can go to such a place and then look balefully at his parents with red eyes hurting from holding back tears, you wonder how such a place can call forth such emotions from a young soul. i have come to view the rows and rows of efficiently places counters and conveyor belts with some kind of detachment, eyes lidded, ready to blink out the image once my papers have been scrutinised and my boarding pass has been handed to me, informing me of my immediate exit from such a twilight zone.
airports are among the ugliest places in the world to be. it ushers in people you've been wanting to see for months and years, yet it will be through the same doorway by which your beloveds will depart, taking your heart with them.
when dodo left me for the last time in 2000, i remember him crouching over his suitcase, his eyes beseeching me, "make your choice, make it me, i'll wait for you." that was the last time i ever saw him. the last words i ever saw him mouth at me through the rush of people walking into NAIA were, "i love you." when my best friend, jon, ritchie, and nan who formed the last 4 of the vox pacis choir in europe left last year, it was at the very same spot that my parents had taken their leave days earlier, and through which they would depart barely a year later, just some hours ago as the clock struck 6 in the morning. because of the series of brussels airport departures i have witnessed, i have unconsciously learned to keep my face blank and feel nothing at the moment of last goodbyes and embraces. with my best friend and jon, i couldn't help the few teardrops that squeezed themselves out from between my lashes. with mommy and chuchi earlier, i was like a shell embracing my dad lightly and kissing my mom's cheek. my eyes were on mikka, whose brow was furrowed in a very un-3-year old like manner, eyes swollen while staring at his lolo and lola. he clung tightly to S's leg, his mouth working but unable to utter any words.
if one were made to choose between the lesser of two evils, one would, i believe, rather be the one leaving than the one left behind.
now the coming fall and winter before me looms, while my tummy grows with the precious life within. my baby is due on the 25th of december, the gloomiest and dullest day in leuven. all shops are shut, the streets are empty (ghost town, pare!), and anyone worth knowing has chosen to be somewhere else, all the wiser to avoid the most soulless place on earth.
i don't know when my son, husband, and i will see lola and lolo again, or anyone related to us by affinity or blood. please let it be sooner than we expect, dear lord. may Your time for us be sooner than my worst fears.
and damn them airports. these should only be built for arrivals. i'm getting too old for departures and leave-taking. this old heart can't take any more stretching. too much na. tama na diba.
21.6.05
why they shine
i'm giddy. one of the perks that makes me enjoy my european adventure is that i'm in the right time zone to catch most of the coolest summer sporting events of the first world! when the US open comes, i'll just be a mere 6 hours puyat, unlike 12-15 hours if i had been in the philippines. but then i haven't been this hooked into sports since i was a little girl. there's nothing like idleness/boredom/slothfulness/pregnancy blues to use as an excuse for my sudden voracious appetite for any kind of news: you name it, current events in the middle east? the recent EU row? the bolton nomination? rice in egypt? cruise getting squirted? my beloved batman at the top of box office lists in north america? a kiwi winning his first US open in his mid 30s? michelin getting the most heat for their chicane inane request? sharapova's cashier pinging like crazy from all the million dollar endorsements (duncan will never know what this means)? the amazing horry in game 5?
oh i love it. i've been reading more, watching news more, watching films more. in between my hormone hell (i cannot find the perfect food for my picky palate and i'm supposed to be entering my second trimester) moments, there are these worthwhile pursuits that beat blogging any day. oops, foot in mouth? what the hey, it's true!
i've watched red carpet stuff with scary joan rivers many times, scoured archives of this and that awards night from the philippines to LA, and i can tell you, when it comes to ogling superstars, nothing beats sports stars. any day.
let me count the reasons.
i see how my list above resonates within my own person. cathy would flunk me in her make-up 101 course and how to dress fashionably even with muta in your eye. my favorite clothes are nike trousers and cross trainers, sports bras and tanggas, and my beloved speedo swimsuit, goggles, and swim cap. badminton rackets and an entire canister of feather shuttle cocks are still waiting to be worn out. i even brought my bokken all the way from the philippines, made of lightweight japanese white oak that eases training strokes by a mile. my gis are all with me and the hakama is gathering moss in my closet. i've forgotten how to fold one!!! grabe, back to zero ako nito sa aikido. so goes my dream to train this year... my being pregnant says that i should avoid high contact sports for the time being. so it's just biking and swimming for me now. i hope my brother bought that gap sports bikini he told me about the other day. it would make my burgeoning belly look way too cool. ha so i'm vain. :)
nba series will be decided this week in san antonio. if the fantastic warm weather persists, my nadal stands a better chance of making it into the 2nd week of the all england club. there's so much to look forward to this summer. thank god for little pockets of joy!
oh i love it. i've been reading more, watching news more, watching films more. in between my hormone hell (i cannot find the perfect food for my picky palate and i'm supposed to be entering my second trimester) moments, there are these worthwhile pursuits that beat blogging any day. oops, foot in mouth? what the hey, it's true!
i've watched red carpet stuff with scary joan rivers many times, scoured archives of this and that awards night from the philippines to LA, and i can tell you, when it comes to ogling superstars, nothing beats sports stars. any day.
let me count the reasons.
- absolutely no make-up. i love it when people are interviewed au naturel. maybe not right after they've won (esp basketball and football victors), with all the sweat glistening on their bodies (i just remembered brendan fraser's spoof of a dodo basketball player being interviewed right after a game he's won as the team's hotshot center). i like them after they've showered, the way the wimbledon round one winners looked for their press cons with cnn and bbc. nice!
- sporting the coolest sportswear. beauties like myskina and sharapova throw in eye candy with psychedelic colour coordinated pieces and not just your typical functional sportswear but awesome halter designs. i particularly liked myskina's number today when she salvaged her game to advance to the 2nd round. i think federer looks great in his nike's (but he looks better in the fitted red number he had at roland garros; this loose white ensemble makes him look pale) as does hewitt and... i can't wait, my dream boyfriend, rafa nadal. grabe, i dreamed of him a week after the french open and he was my lover in there!!! talk about latent desires.
- when they're conceited, it's a celebration of true talent anyway. when federer or davenport analyse the things they did right, it can rankle those who are secretly wishing their number one ranking slips (like i do with federer, but only because i like nadal but objectively speaking, he is one fine player who is a joy to watch). they look happy as they describe the forehand winners they sent down the line, the serve and volleys they wish they could do more in future games... watching tony parker, tim duncan, and even rival pistons coach larry brown analyse the frighteningly predictable game-end heroics of the great robert horry was fun, never mind that basketball players usually have a very limited range of vocabulary to express superlatives. they may not be the most articulate people on earth but they sure are among the highest paid.
- when they make a comeback, it's a celebration of the human spirit's triumphs. down from injuries that can practically ruin a person whose bread and butter it is to use the body, players like clijsters, henin-hardenne, and hewitt come scraping back into the spotlight of the major events by sheer will and focus. it's the kind of determination i cannot see in the sorry pool of young showbiz talents in beloved philippines, where the tagline really is "beauty is skin deep". call me biased but i love art in motion as seen by rippling muscles in well toned bodies displaying the best of the sport.
- when everybody who's somebody is aiming for the top, you get top level play from everyone!!! the recent f1 fiasco in indianapolis is testimony to the opposite. you had the bronze medallist ascending the podium for the first time in his racing career because 14 of the cars pulled out of the race! it is pure joy to see the level of play increasing as the game progresses. i love it when i see players with the intent of not letting the other player win easily. nothing beats hustle and passion on any playing field in any sport! awesome.
i see how my list above resonates within my own person. cathy would flunk me in her make-up 101 course and how to dress fashionably even with muta in your eye. my favorite clothes are nike trousers and cross trainers, sports bras and tanggas, and my beloved speedo swimsuit, goggles, and swim cap. badminton rackets and an entire canister of feather shuttle cocks are still waiting to be worn out. i even brought my bokken all the way from the philippines, made of lightweight japanese white oak that eases training strokes by a mile. my gis are all with me and the hakama is gathering moss in my closet. i've forgotten how to fold one!!! grabe, back to zero ako nito sa aikido. so goes my dream to train this year... my being pregnant says that i should avoid high contact sports for the time being. so it's just biking and swimming for me now. i hope my brother bought that gap sports bikini he told me about the other day. it would make my burgeoning belly look way too cool. ha so i'm vain. :)
nba series will be decided this week in san antonio. if the fantastic warm weather persists, my nadal stands a better chance of making it into the 2nd week of the all england club. there's so much to look forward to this summer. thank god for little pockets of joy!
17.6.05
falling into place
finally, i've seen all 6 episodes of the star wars saga, all on the big screen. walang mintis!
i was 6 when i watched star wars. at the time, it wasn't called episode 4 or the new hope yet. i must have watched this film more than thrice in my lifetime. i was 9 when i saw episode 5, the empire strikes back. subsequent viewings revealed dynamic scenes, something that would be reprised in episode 6, which i watched still another 3 years later, when i was 12. when the prequels started coming out in the 90s, i realised why episodes 5 and 6 remain the best of all the 6 episodes. george lucas had not directed those films. no wonder.
i don't remember when i watched the phantom menace but it was in one of the high tech makati theaters. same with the clone wars. both left me cold and bored. liam neeson was a drag (good thing darth maul got rid of him in a hurry, sorry qui gon) and it was hard for me to picture any chemistry happening between the kiddie-anakin and queen amidala (who, strangely, looked demoted in rank by the time this film got rolling). it was pretty much the same in episode 3, the revenge of the sith. the love between padme and anakin left me cold. i can't imagine how they even got themselves pregnant. there was more heat between portman and owen in 'closer'. that's one of the things i didn't like about episode 3. the love angle. completely sappy and corny. walang libog. the kisses were perfunctory. the second thing i didn't like about episode 3 was anakin himself. hayden was lacking in intensity all throughout the film. his costumed counterpart in the classic trilogy (eps. 4, 5, and 6) did a much better job! the supposed conversion scene --- the decisive turning from light to dark, from good to evil --- was over in a flash of an instant that had me and my moviemates wondering, "ha? yon na yonnnnn? ambilis!" my best friend and i thought that he had been dark from the start; the inner battle was not played out well in his character. perhaps lucas didn't even notice. i might have told hayden, had i been there, "take your time, dear, these things are life-changing moments!" but the scenes were only to happy to shift to another with the baduyic wiper effects reminiscent of the classic trilogy.
i couldn't hate the stilted dialogue. that is part and parcel of all star wars films. you don't enter the theater expecting pulitzer prize exchanges or woody allen wit. but i did expect more characterisation from anakin. after all, he IS the heart of the prequels! and he IS redeemed in episode 6 --- i had to see the battle raging in his heart as the force tore him apart. but i didn't.
there was more to love about this film. the avid star wars fan in me felt utterly geeky, making connections to all my unanswered questions from the previous episodes, more like the last 3, which i had seen more than 20 years ago. (well, a little lie there. i had seen the digitised versions in the last few years, also on the big screen hehehe) S lost the battle to shut my mouth from all my explosive, "aaaah, so that's how his lungs gave out on him..." or "aaahhh so that's why obi wan came back to life in star wars..." or "so that's why leia is a princess and luke is some impoverished dude" or "aaaaah so that's how leia got her mickey mouse hair" and this and that.
i enjoyed the CGI characters, definitely more than the humanoid jar jar binks or chewbacca! when they featured chewie in episode 3, i was snickering like a schoolgirl does over some pathetic loser. i can still remember han solo delivering his wry lines and chewie going, "arrrggghhhh" mundanely. mwahahahaha it makes me chuckle just to think about it. i still enjoyed watching yoda jump all over the place and royally kick ass with his light saber, even if sidious outdid him in the senate showdown. i thought mace windu (samuel jackson) looked terribly out of place in his jedi costume and flying through the air after a bolt of force lightning; i guess i just can't shake the image of him stealing a stradivarius violin in another film i love, "the red violin". and well, he was the voice of frozone in "the incredibles", so this should have hooved closer to his mace windu prowess in the movie. but it didn't quite cut it for me. i thought ewan mcgregor had more pizazz acting against a blue screen than hayden --- and this will prompt my best friend to say, "naman. ikumpara pa ba si ewan kay hayden???" hey, let me, even if it's totally non sequitur. after all, hayden got top billing for this film. heck, in the count dooku scene, christopher lee's 5 minute-moment on screen eclipsed hayden's prequel exposure! you could see so much more happening in lee's eyes when palpatine ordered anakin to kill him than you could see in hayden's eyes just before he decapacitated the unfortunate sithy lord.
and my last word goes to ian mcdarmid. he was fantastically evil as the ultimate sith lord. his face contortions, his malefic laugh, hooowow, he would give ian mckellen's magneto and christopher lee's (yes, the overturned apprentice in this film) saruman quite the comparison... well, no, of course magneto and saruman were the more compelling villains, but in a film as two-dimensional (my euphemism for 'flat') as this one, the archetypal approach to the cackling evil man outshone anakin's flatline presence. (grabe, even the young padawans in the jedi temple had more intensity!) still, i'm glad he played the role of sidious aka palpatine. it helped to give the film the feeling of evil and darkness it needed to lay down the final bricks for episode 4. when i saw the bare skeleton of the death star in the starry universey sky, i swear, my cheesy heart quickened its pace. i could actually see harrison ford doing hyperspace with his millenium falcon in the succeeding episodes!
enough of lucas ltd! i wanted to write about another film that had me crying with joy last night, except that this decidedly more sentimental one beat out the other one. but i will most definitely think longer and harder about johnny depp in "finding neverland". if anything, johnny depp is one of the actors i truly appreciate and lust over --- yes, even from his eddie snipping hands days.
my tummy's rolling gases around --- again --- and i must try to get some earlier shut-eye. i am going to attempt to rehearse on a real piano tomorrow morning. if i wake up early enough and if i can fish out my bach books. and that czech guy with the weird melodies. believe it or not, i'm off to catch the sexy christian bale and tom cruise's latest floozy in "batman begins" by the afternoon. this has got to be one of the craziest movie weeks i've had in a long time! nighty.
i was 6 when i watched star wars. at the time, it wasn't called episode 4 or the new hope yet. i must have watched this film more than thrice in my lifetime. i was 9 when i saw episode 5, the empire strikes back. subsequent viewings revealed dynamic scenes, something that would be reprised in episode 6, which i watched still another 3 years later, when i was 12. when the prequels started coming out in the 90s, i realised why episodes 5 and 6 remain the best of all the 6 episodes. george lucas had not directed those films. no wonder.
i don't remember when i watched the phantom menace but it was in one of the high tech makati theaters. same with the clone wars. both left me cold and bored. liam neeson was a drag (good thing darth maul got rid of him in a hurry, sorry qui gon) and it was hard for me to picture any chemistry happening between the kiddie-anakin and queen amidala (who, strangely, looked demoted in rank by the time this film got rolling). it was pretty much the same in episode 3, the revenge of the sith. the love between padme and anakin left me cold. i can't imagine how they even got themselves pregnant. there was more heat between portman and owen in 'closer'. that's one of the things i didn't like about episode 3. the love angle. completely sappy and corny. walang libog. the kisses were perfunctory. the second thing i didn't like about episode 3 was anakin himself. hayden was lacking in intensity all throughout the film. his costumed counterpart in the classic trilogy (eps. 4, 5, and 6) did a much better job! the supposed conversion scene --- the decisive turning from light to dark, from good to evil --- was over in a flash of an instant that had me and my moviemates wondering, "ha? yon na yonnnnn? ambilis!" my best friend and i thought that he had been dark from the start; the inner battle was not played out well in his character. perhaps lucas didn't even notice. i might have told hayden, had i been there, "take your time, dear, these things are life-changing moments!" but the scenes were only to happy to shift to another with the baduyic wiper effects reminiscent of the classic trilogy.
i couldn't hate the stilted dialogue. that is part and parcel of all star wars films. you don't enter the theater expecting pulitzer prize exchanges or woody allen wit. but i did expect more characterisation from anakin. after all, he IS the heart of the prequels! and he IS redeemed in episode 6 --- i had to see the battle raging in his heart as the force tore him apart. but i didn't.
there was more to love about this film. the avid star wars fan in me felt utterly geeky, making connections to all my unanswered questions from the previous episodes, more like the last 3, which i had seen more than 20 years ago. (well, a little lie there. i had seen the digitised versions in the last few years, also on the big screen hehehe) S lost the battle to shut my mouth from all my explosive, "aaaah, so that's how his lungs gave out on him..." or "aaahhh so that's why obi wan came back to life in star wars..." or "so that's why leia is a princess and luke is some impoverished dude" or "aaaaah so that's how leia got her mickey mouse hair" and this and that.
i enjoyed the CGI characters, definitely more than the humanoid jar jar binks or chewbacca! when they featured chewie in episode 3, i was snickering like a schoolgirl does over some pathetic loser. i can still remember han solo delivering his wry lines and chewie going, "arrrggghhhh" mundanely. mwahahahaha it makes me chuckle just to think about it. i still enjoyed watching yoda jump all over the place and royally kick ass with his light saber, even if sidious outdid him in the senate showdown. i thought mace windu (samuel jackson) looked terribly out of place in his jedi costume and flying through the air after a bolt of force lightning; i guess i just can't shake the image of him stealing a stradivarius violin in another film i love, "the red violin". and well, he was the voice of frozone in "the incredibles", so this should have hooved closer to his mace windu prowess in the movie. but it didn't quite cut it for me. i thought ewan mcgregor had more pizazz acting against a blue screen than hayden --- and this will prompt my best friend to say, "naman. ikumpara pa ba si ewan kay hayden???" hey, let me, even if it's totally non sequitur. after all, hayden got top billing for this film. heck, in the count dooku scene, christopher lee's 5 minute-moment on screen eclipsed hayden's prequel exposure! you could see so much more happening in lee's eyes when palpatine ordered anakin to kill him than you could see in hayden's eyes just before he decapacitated the unfortunate sithy lord.
and my last word goes to ian mcdarmid. he was fantastically evil as the ultimate sith lord. his face contortions, his malefic laugh, hooowow, he would give ian mckellen's magneto and christopher lee's (yes, the overturned apprentice in this film) saruman quite the comparison... well, no, of course magneto and saruman were the more compelling villains, but in a film as two-dimensional (my euphemism for 'flat') as this one, the archetypal approach to the cackling evil man outshone anakin's flatline presence. (grabe, even the young padawans in the jedi temple had more intensity!) still, i'm glad he played the role of sidious aka palpatine. it helped to give the film the feeling of evil and darkness it needed to lay down the final bricks for episode 4. when i saw the bare skeleton of the death star in the starry universey sky, i swear, my cheesy heart quickened its pace. i could actually see harrison ford doing hyperspace with his millenium falcon in the succeeding episodes!
enough of lucas ltd! i wanted to write about another film that had me crying with joy last night, except that this decidedly more sentimental one beat out the other one. but i will most definitely think longer and harder about johnny depp in "finding neverland". if anything, johnny depp is one of the actors i truly appreciate and lust over --- yes, even from his eddie snipping hands days.
my tummy's rolling gases around --- again --- and i must try to get some earlier shut-eye. i am going to attempt to rehearse on a real piano tomorrow morning. if i wake up early enough and if i can fish out my bach books. and that czech guy with the weird melodies. believe it or not, i'm off to catch the sexy christian bale and tom cruise's latest floozy in "batman begins" by the afternoon. this has got to be one of the craziest movie weeks i've had in a long time! nighty.
13.6.05
what she wrote
within the white pages of a well-loved notebook she had chronicled their love story. as a preface to her One True Love she had penned, "read this story to me... and i'll always come back." in her twilight years, living in a stately plantation home for the aged while fighting dementia, her sweetheart, best friend, husband, and lover stayed by her side, reading the story to her every day, patiently willing her to remember, even if just for 5 minutes, who she was, who she had loved, from where she had come. he had left the home he had built for the two of them to cater to her needs and devoted the rest of his life to be by her side. when his children begged him to "come home, we miss you", he said, "my home is where your mother is."
at the end of the movie, hands grasped tightly, neither S or i could breathe from the emotions swelling through our eyes. i told him that the love of noah for allie reminded me of his mommy's love for daddy. both had passed away within a year of each other. daddy went away in june, mommy the following may. S couldn't speak.
it's a love story only nicholas sparks can spin. it's the kind of crap young people sigh over then try to emulate and the kind of bullshit that someone like me hates to love. allie's predicament reminds me of my own predicament before i got married, and exactly how torn i was during the moment of truth: who do i choose? she was not choosing between someone she loved and someone she didn't love. noah put it succinctly: imagine your life 30 years down the road. who do you see? if it's me, then stay. if not, then go. the other man, lon, had something of his own to say: i want you to want to be with me. you have to want to be with me. i can't share you with anyone else. allie chose the man she wanted to be with and that made all the loving difference in her life.
i'd like to think that i chose the man i wanted to be with, who excited me, who made me want to always be a better me. this is the man i cannot bear to live without, whose presence (and consequently, absence) spells the difference between life and death. all i had to do in the crucial month i made my choice (6 months before i got married) was to close my eyes and contemplate what life would be like without S and such a fear gripped me that my reverie was broken. to this day, the sound of his key turning in the lock as he comes home has me happily anticipating the sight of his round face coming through the door while this inexplicable feeling of peace and security descends over myself and mikka.
it was father's day yesterday. on the eve i held mikka's warm body close to mine, singing, "beautiful, beautiful, papa is beautiful and papa makes beautiful things of my life... carefully, touching me, causing my eyes to see... and papa makes beautiful things of my life." mikka was pliant in my arms, letting my soft voice caress the side of his head crowned with his fine black hair. then i told him how papa is the most beautiful man in the world for both of us and that he and i are the happy, secure people we are because of papa's love. then mikka planted his hands on my chest, scrutinising my face. "mama, papa went to get food for us, right?" somehow, in his little baby heart, he knew that papa was out doing something 'beautiful' for us because just before i sang to him, i was telling mikka how hungry i was and that papa was coming home with food. and somehow, he connected that act with the song i had just sung to him.
i've run out of words.
at the end of the movie, hands grasped tightly, neither S or i could breathe from the emotions swelling through our eyes. i told him that the love of noah for allie reminded me of his mommy's love for daddy. both had passed away within a year of each other. daddy went away in june, mommy the following may. S couldn't speak.
it's a love story only nicholas sparks can spin. it's the kind of crap young people sigh over then try to emulate and the kind of bullshit that someone like me hates to love. allie's predicament reminds me of my own predicament before i got married, and exactly how torn i was during the moment of truth: who do i choose? she was not choosing between someone she loved and someone she didn't love. noah put it succinctly: imagine your life 30 years down the road. who do you see? if it's me, then stay. if not, then go. the other man, lon, had something of his own to say: i want you to want to be with me. you have to want to be with me. i can't share you with anyone else. allie chose the man she wanted to be with and that made all the loving difference in her life.
i'd like to think that i chose the man i wanted to be with, who excited me, who made me want to always be a better me. this is the man i cannot bear to live without, whose presence (and consequently, absence) spells the difference between life and death. all i had to do in the crucial month i made my choice (6 months before i got married) was to close my eyes and contemplate what life would be like without S and such a fear gripped me that my reverie was broken. to this day, the sound of his key turning in the lock as he comes home has me happily anticipating the sight of his round face coming through the door while this inexplicable feeling of peace and security descends over myself and mikka.
it was father's day yesterday. on the eve i held mikka's warm body close to mine, singing, "beautiful, beautiful, papa is beautiful and papa makes beautiful things of my life... carefully, touching me, causing my eyes to see... and papa makes beautiful things of my life." mikka was pliant in my arms, letting my soft voice caress the side of his head crowned with his fine black hair. then i told him how papa is the most beautiful man in the world for both of us and that he and i are the happy, secure people we are because of papa's love. then mikka planted his hands on my chest, scrutinising my face. "mama, papa went to get food for us, right?" somehow, in his little baby heart, he knew that papa was out doing something 'beautiful' for us because just before i sang to him, i was telling mikka how hungry i was and that papa was coming home with food. and somehow, he connected that act with the song i had just sung to him.
i've run out of words.
9.6.05
eternally spotless
someone dear once told me that what makes life worth living are the highs and lows, the valleys and the peaks. it's a classic viewpoint: to appreciate light, you must embrace shadow. to savour the victory, you must relish loss. i vaguely recall seeing something similar in literary theory, something to do with oppositions: light versus dark, good versus evil, male versus female. then the classic oriental resolution of yin and yang in an organic harmony that does away with the tension of forces straining in opposite directions to achieve balance. sometimes, the concept of submission, as in aikido and judo, punctures a hole in the classic dialectics of western thought.
in a world of niches (and nietzsche, as it turns out), or compartmentalisation, comes a story written by charlie kaufman, he of "being john malkovich" fame. what if, he contends, we can take away our pain, that memory which causes unhappiness and angst? then we can start over, move on, live happy lives. what is beyond our control, however, is how things come full circle. even as we attempt to erase the memory of a beloved from our lives, kaufman contends that no matter how you try to escape destiny, you are inevitably drawn to the person you are striving to forget.
what attracted me to the movie "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", aside from its starring kate winslet, an actress i truly respect and jim carrey, a comedian i admire for the breadth of his talent, was the script itself. the writer was able to capture the pathos of a heart that has known what it is like to love and lose. to experience the dizzying highs of love's first kiss and the crushing despair of love's demise.
"why did you go?" she asked him wistfully.
"because you said 'so go!' with such disdain," he whispered brokenly.
"oh... i'm so... sorry." she was crestfallen.
the silence between them yawned. the evening sky swallowed a star.
"won't you stay this time? to say goodbye at least?" she asked softly.
he hesitated on the footbridge, looking at the distant bonfire where his friends had set up camp along the shoreline. he turned slowly towards her beseeching face, peeping from the stairway. then he walked back towards the house.
she ran out to meet him, her voice tinkling like chimes. "goodbye, joel."
the sea breeze dropped, creating a space for him to speak.
"i love you..."
and as the movie fades into the credits, we see clementine and joel running happily through a beach covered with powdery snow, their heavily-coated figures receding into the distance.
in a world of niches (and nietzsche, as it turns out), or compartmentalisation, comes a story written by charlie kaufman, he of "being john malkovich" fame. what if, he contends, we can take away our pain, that memory which causes unhappiness and angst? then we can start over, move on, live happy lives. what is beyond our control, however, is how things come full circle. even as we attempt to erase the memory of a beloved from our lives, kaufman contends that no matter how you try to escape destiny, you are inevitably drawn to the person you are striving to forget.
what attracted me to the movie "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", aside from its starring kate winslet, an actress i truly respect and jim carrey, a comedian i admire for the breadth of his talent, was the script itself. the writer was able to capture the pathos of a heart that has known what it is like to love and lose. to experience the dizzying highs of love's first kiss and the crushing despair of love's demise.
"why did you go?" she asked him wistfully.
"because you said 'so go!' with such disdain," he whispered brokenly.
"oh... i'm so... sorry." she was crestfallen.
the silence between them yawned. the evening sky swallowed a star.
"won't you stay this time? to say goodbye at least?" she asked softly.
he hesitated on the footbridge, looking at the distant bonfire where his friends had set up camp along the shoreline. he turned slowly towards her beseeching face, peeping from the stairway. then he walked back towards the house.
she ran out to meet him, her voice tinkling like chimes. "goodbye, joel."
the sea breeze dropped, creating a space for him to speak.
"i love you..."
and as the movie fades into the credits, we see clementine and joel running happily through a beach covered with powdery snow, their heavily-coated figures receding into the distance.
6.6.05
from clay to grass
my favorite grand slam is over. next year, the french open begins on a sunday to boost television audiences. it doesn't matter to me; of the 14 days in the previous grand slam tournament, i was tuned in to 10. i started watching in round 3. i was let down some, like by gauston gaudio (last year's champion) and to a much lesser degree, by the 12th seed russian who lost to puerta in the semi-finals. i had hoped that pierce would be eliminated by either schnyder (seeded 10th) or the last russian girl in the final 4, who was seeded 19th. but she was at the top of her game and marched through her matches. she deserved to win up to the semi-finals.
but faced with the determined and talented wallonian justine henin-hardenne, i knew she would not hold ground. and she didn't. lopsided final that was over in little over an hour. ho-hum.
but the men's final... oh that was fantastic!!! i was rooting for the 19-year old teen sensation from mallorca but the unseeded argentinian played some fine tennis last sunday. by the 4th set, i felt myself wavering in my support for nadal and found myself applauding more appreciatively after each puerta point. but nadal has this going for him: a never-say-die attitude. even with the momentum swinging against him, he lunged after every impossible corner shot, ran down smashes, chased after drop shots... turning the game around when he was down 5-4 in the 4th set.
i've been enjoying the last 2 days browsing rafa's web site, reading articles written about his rising star and his chances in the next few years. i know he won't win the wimbledon just yet but i'm hoping that he will someday. i haven't felt this way towards a tennis player since steffi graf, and she's been retired since 2001 (i think). so i've been out of the circuit for a while (ha, i laugh at myself, i sound as if i'm part of the atp tour!) but rafa's worth getting back into the game for... and there's the beautiful 18-year old sharapova to pump up the cause for women's tennis. at least she wins grand slams, unlike the vain kournikova who endorses omega watches. what the---??? hehehe
if you wish to share in my glee, you can click here to go to rafa's web page. now i just have to think of ways i love being pinoy. lapit na toka ko sa blogkada. see you there in a few days' time.
but faced with the determined and talented wallonian justine henin-hardenne, i knew she would not hold ground. and she didn't. lopsided final that was over in little over an hour. ho-hum.
but the men's final... oh that was fantastic!!! i was rooting for the 19-year old teen sensation from mallorca but the unseeded argentinian played some fine tennis last sunday. by the 4th set, i felt myself wavering in my support for nadal and found myself applauding more appreciatively after each puerta point. but nadal has this going for him: a never-say-die attitude. even with the momentum swinging against him, he lunged after every impossible corner shot, ran down smashes, chased after drop shots... turning the game around when he was down 5-4 in the 4th set.
i've been enjoying the last 2 days browsing rafa's web site, reading articles written about his rising star and his chances in the next few years. i know he won't win the wimbledon just yet but i'm hoping that he will someday. i haven't felt this way towards a tennis player since steffi graf, and she's been retired since 2001 (i think). so i've been out of the circuit for a while (ha, i laugh at myself, i sound as if i'm part of the atp tour!) but rafa's worth getting back into the game for... and there's the beautiful 18-year old sharapova to pump up the cause for women's tennis. at least she wins grand slams, unlike the vain kournikova who endorses omega watches. what the---??? hehehe
if you wish to share in my glee, you can click here to go to rafa's web page. now i just have to think of ways i love being pinoy. lapit na toka ko sa blogkada. see you there in a few days' time.
5.6.05
tumpak!
one of my favorite columnists is at it again. he talks about the "work of learning" and i find that this article can apply to arenas outside of the academe. you see samples of critical thought --- or lack thereof, as is often the case --- in television talk shows, in radio shows, in blogs, in chat sessions, in drinking sessions. just about everywhere. the thing is, chat and drinking sessions are loose communication exchanges; no one expects you to come up with a washington post or new york times editorial every minute. you're having fun and if you launch into mind-wracking discussions, these are usually aided by alcohol and lots and lots of mirth.
tv/radio shows and blogs are different, though. people present opinions appealing to credibility --- theirs --- in their most persuasive fashion. between packaging (wooing) and actual content (critical thought), there is a great divide. listen to korina sanchez on her morning radio show and how she lambasts anyone she dislikes. how does she formulate her arguments? only she knows because a lambasting session is not a credible way to build and argument. sensationalism, i say. by simpy using the strength of her name, she is able to sway opinion, which is usually comprised of people who idolise personalities and not convictions. there are bloggers who present themselves as credible analysts by citing their credentials left and right, but a close examination of the issues they examine and the ideas they criticise are often a reflection of their own bull-headed biases. they employ all the tricks they picked up at university (and usually it's poor UP diliman that has all these hacks claiming their greatness because of it) and expectedly, their throng of unquestioning "friends" applaud their efforts and slather on the sticky praise.
it takes a lot of character to sift through the pervasive and intrusive opinions of "friends" and tell them, "you're not getting it quite right." i've had the pleasure of doing this to a strong-headed blogger and found my comments moderated (read: never posted). i did say "in the interest of precision and correctness, of which we are in pursuit..." and well, *benign chuckle* the comment never saw the light of day. i couldn't let this angry ex-legend-in-her-own mind issue blanket statements about catholic universities (especially MINE) when it was plainly clear that she simply did not have all the facts at hand and was relying on hodge-podge advertising techniques to make the claim "ALL universities must be thus."
enjoy this randy david classic by clicking here. in all probability, the people who should take this article's central thesis to heart will be the ones who will miss it (not because the language register is esoteric but because the subtle thought processes involved require sublime engagement --- and this, i doubt, these people can handle). if there's one thing my catholic university professors taught me, it was to separate the crap from the gold. and my dad, truest blue of the blues, told me to do it, well, ruthlessly. i only do that when the utter idiocy of matters is too overwhelming. then, as confucius said, "fuck it." yes, jesuits and their brainwashed lackeys do get the important things right.
the sheer irony of it all. *wink*
tv/radio shows and blogs are different, though. people present opinions appealing to credibility --- theirs --- in their most persuasive fashion. between packaging (wooing) and actual content (critical thought), there is a great divide. listen to korina sanchez on her morning radio show and how she lambasts anyone she dislikes. how does she formulate her arguments? only she knows because a lambasting session is not a credible way to build and argument. sensationalism, i say. by simpy using the strength of her name, she is able to sway opinion, which is usually comprised of people who idolise personalities and not convictions. there are bloggers who present themselves as credible analysts by citing their credentials left and right, but a close examination of the issues they examine and the ideas they criticise are often a reflection of their own bull-headed biases. they employ all the tricks they picked up at university (and usually it's poor UP diliman that has all these hacks claiming their greatness because of it) and expectedly, their throng of unquestioning "friends" applaud their efforts and slather on the sticky praise.
it takes a lot of character to sift through the pervasive and intrusive opinions of "friends" and tell them, "you're not getting it quite right." i've had the pleasure of doing this to a strong-headed blogger and found my comments moderated (read: never posted). i did say "in the interest of precision and correctness, of which we are in pursuit..." and well, *benign chuckle* the comment never saw the light of day. i couldn't let this angry ex-legend-in-her-own mind issue blanket statements about catholic universities (especially MINE) when it was plainly clear that she simply did not have all the facts at hand and was relying on hodge-podge advertising techniques to make the claim "ALL universities must be thus."
enjoy this randy david classic by clicking here. in all probability, the people who should take this article's central thesis to heart will be the ones who will miss it (not because the language register is esoteric but because the subtle thought processes involved require sublime engagement --- and this, i doubt, these people can handle). if there's one thing my catholic university professors taught me, it was to separate the crap from the gold. and my dad, truest blue of the blues, told me to do it, well, ruthlessly. i only do that when the utter idiocy of matters is too overwhelming. then, as confucius said, "fuck it." yes, jesuits and their brainwashed lackeys do get the important things right.
the sheer irony of it all. *wink*
where angels fear to tread
several times during the harrowing events of the past week, my son has seen me distraught. one time, my body was heaving with sobs i tried hard to conceal from him. he put his tiny hand over mine and said, "mama, it's ok. everything's ok, mama." then he put his arms around me and commanded me, "embrace!" it's embarrassing to look back, but it felt surreal to be surrendering my pain to my 3-year old son but he was so strong and radiant at that moment... and so serene.
another time i was lying on my side in bed, unable to sleep. my breath was coming in ragged installments but i was not aware of it until mikka rolled towards me and planted a kiss on my cheek. then S said, "tingnan mo, mama, alam ni mikka na kelangan mo niyan." the wetness on my face was strangely reassuring, like an indelible mark of love and support. something i have not gotten from areas i had thought were non-negotiable and a "sure thing".
every time things have gotten me down, i have tended to withdraw into my shell, sacrificing the attention i normally give my husband and son while licking my wounds. but moments of grace, of unconditional giving and beauty, have a way of puncturing the debilitating cloud of doubt and sadness that shrouds the inner sanctuary. mikka has always been my angel. that has been clear since i carried him in my belly for 38 weeks, affirming my second lease in life by making me his mother. we always pray 'angel of god' together before he sleeps... rather, when i remember to pray with him, meaning... when i'm not absorbed in my petty troubles.
it was a welcome break tonight when S went drinking in town with his fellow student buddies and i asked mikka at 930 if he wanted to go home. after asking me at least 20 times where his papa, tito A, and tito M were, i was able to get him in his jammies, brush his teeth, and to weewee in the toilet. he still has a bit of the nasty cough plaguing him all week. while i read him a story about pocahontas he looked at me in wonder, unaccustomed to see mama doing papa's normal routine. he fell asleep clutching my hand tightly --- or maybe it was the other way around --- breathing deeply and peacefully.
before he slipped into the warm comfort of slumber we prayed angel of god together. i usually trace the sign of the cross lightly on his forehead. tonight he did his own sign of the cross then said softly...
"mama, my angel is gone."
i groped for words. "oh mikka, your angel is always with you."
"where?"
"you can't see her, but she's always hugging you. she loves you very much."
"my angel?"
"yes, sweetheart. she never leaves you."
he lay thoughtfully in the gathering dusk. i could see the dark orbs of his eyes combing the shadow of my face. i felt a loud pounding in my ears and willed for it to stop. it seemed an eternity before i realised it was my heart. then he squeezed my hand before his first soft snore filled the room. for the first time in what has felt like forever, something crept quietly into my limbs --- like a sob that never reached expression, losing all impetus for doing so. clinging to the small hand, i fell into a restful sleep, the first i've had in ages.
another time i was lying on my side in bed, unable to sleep. my breath was coming in ragged installments but i was not aware of it until mikka rolled towards me and planted a kiss on my cheek. then S said, "tingnan mo, mama, alam ni mikka na kelangan mo niyan." the wetness on my face was strangely reassuring, like an indelible mark of love and support. something i have not gotten from areas i had thought were non-negotiable and a "sure thing".
every time things have gotten me down, i have tended to withdraw into my shell, sacrificing the attention i normally give my husband and son while licking my wounds. but moments of grace, of unconditional giving and beauty, have a way of puncturing the debilitating cloud of doubt and sadness that shrouds the inner sanctuary. mikka has always been my angel. that has been clear since i carried him in my belly for 38 weeks, affirming my second lease in life by making me his mother. we always pray 'angel of god' together before he sleeps... rather, when i remember to pray with him, meaning... when i'm not absorbed in my petty troubles.
it was a welcome break tonight when S went drinking in town with his fellow student buddies and i asked mikka at 930 if he wanted to go home. after asking me at least 20 times where his papa, tito A, and tito M were, i was able to get him in his jammies, brush his teeth, and to weewee in the toilet. he still has a bit of the nasty cough plaguing him all week. while i read him a story about pocahontas he looked at me in wonder, unaccustomed to see mama doing papa's normal routine. he fell asleep clutching my hand tightly --- or maybe it was the other way around --- breathing deeply and peacefully.
before he slipped into the warm comfort of slumber we prayed angel of god together. i usually trace the sign of the cross lightly on his forehead. tonight he did his own sign of the cross then said softly...
"mama, my angel is gone."
i groped for words. "oh mikka, your angel is always with you."
"where?"
"you can't see her, but she's always hugging you. she loves you very much."
"my angel?"
"yes, sweetheart. she never leaves you."
he lay thoughtfully in the gathering dusk. i could see the dark orbs of his eyes combing the shadow of my face. i felt a loud pounding in my ears and willed for it to stop. it seemed an eternity before i realised it was my heart. then he squeezed my hand before his first soft snore filled the room. for the first time in what has felt like forever, something crept quietly into my limbs --- like a sob that never reached expression, losing all impetus for doing so. clinging to the small hand, i fell into a restful sleep, the first i've had in ages.
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