moon river

And done.

2012-02-17T17:32:00.003+09:00

*
I brought a book to the hospital last night but found that as in churches where one decides that the only act he should dare allow himself is prayer, the waiting area of the emergency room appears to hold the same sanctity. One simply waits and to do anything else is impious. And so I waited and realized that it was the first time in my life that I truly waited. It was a wait unlike my impatient expectation of my fetcher or the unfurling of my flowers' petals or so and so for last night I did not know what I was waiting for, and in a strange way it was a wait that was unburdened and I thought it virtuous.

2012-02-16T09:41:00.005+09:00

I find that the best way to get flowers is to get them while they are still unassuming buds because then I will get to watch the petals unfurl unhurriedly and gracefully into familiarity. The process is always elegant, and the wait most beautiful.

Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T21:45:00.003+09:00

there becomes;
a slight stillness, that glides
side to side
but with resolve to
stay put, not anywhere else;
not ever away or beyond
you.

--From Ice :)

Scenes from a loo

2012-02-11T23:05:00.008+09:00

In a restaurant tucked away among the narrow streets of Marikina, the washroom reminded me of a washroom from a movie that I have seen a long time ago and which I presently cannot place. It was strange, having a strong sense of affinity with the loo.

*
I spent all of today making a lady's bridal bouquet. She wanted fabric flowers, and wildly-colored too. Here it is slowly, if a little slovenly, shaping up.

And here are fresh flowers Ice got for my desk. They will bloom tomorrow, the florist said.

*
I still cannot believe my friend is a missus.

Berkeley

2012-02-10T20:32:00.006+09:00

This is US1 Berkeley, my advisory class and first ever, too, and whom I do not love enough. Barely a month is left in the school year and I have yet to love them truly.

One of them, Kiel, the one in the racing outfit, is painfully shy. He rarely speaks up and when he does, he does so softly, but is always with a smile. For almost an entire school year he has been my charge, but for almost an entire school year I have not been able to let him know that even though when I ask him how he is and he tells me he is fine I smile like one who is satisfied, I know what he has been going through at home and at school and at everything else. I did not want to pry. Yesterday I decided that I will talk to them, one by one, and when I asked who would like to go first, he raised his hand. Outside their classroom we sat on the floor and I asked him if he will not mind if I tell him the truth that I know something about him and he nodded and then he talked about everything. As I listened and nodded and hugged him as he talked away in that quiet way he does, I wondered if he had been wanting to talk to me about everything for almost an entire school year now, too.

*
More recent watercolors

Scenes from a classroom

2012-02-09T09:17:00.009+09:00

This is how Alain and Matthew end their debate about the Yankees.

My weekend with Fran

2012-02-05T08:14:00.014+09:00

Back when I was in high school and we shared the television set, I used to watch The Nanny on Sundays with my brother Carlo. It was the perfect cap to my weekends. I recently discovered a complete The Nanny playlist on Youtube and spent yesterday watching seasons 4 and 5. When I finally stopped, I found that my neck and bottom ached from all the sitting. Boy, am I old. It was all very poignant and bittersweet.

*
Today's breakfast: slices of yesterday's baguette, feta cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and mint tea

*
I suppose it's time to take the Christmas decor down.

*
Watercolor Saturday

*
I am terrible at household chores, but wonderful at transforming old wine bottles into drinking water containers.

The weekend

2012-01-29T10:41:00.012+09:00

In between homework and my throes over my pitiful Andy Samberg drought, we managed to sneak in a proper weekend.

Ice amongst comic books, hunting for the new Batman title

His view on the way to the pizza place

Bridesmaid flowers still too pretty to discard

In the beginning, there was tabula rasa. My watercolors await me.

After some three years, reunited with Wharton-- she who will resuscitate me from this odious writer's block

Manila

2012-01-27T22:12:00.001+09:00

An encapsulation of our Intramuros trip last December :)

*
Also, not working with the Raissapot

My fellow

2012-01-26T21:24:00.006+09:00

For the longest time, whenever I went to the Starbucks branch where I am a habitue, the guard always welcomed me with a smile, the kind that you save for one who is familiar. I have always considered him a friend that when, suddenly and without warning, a different guard received me into the coffee shop one day last December, my heart broke for I knew that I have lost a fellow. I wished I caught his name and got him a Christmas present.

Today when I went to the Starbucks branch to linger like I always do on Thursdays and my dear friend the guard welcomed me with the same smile, the kind that you save for friends, it was like he never left. All is well.

Claim to fame

2012-01-26T16:35:00.004+09:00

I have, hands down, the messiest table at work that I often find myself using my lap as desk space. One time, Miss Di came up to me and exclaimed, "Ha! You're writing on your lap! You deserve it!"

I do. I do.

The Iceman

2012-01-23T20:41:00.008+09:00

Easily the best person I know. :)

The long weekend

2012-01-22T22:51:00.005+09:00

This long weekend I read Dorothy Parker and Herge and a little bit of MFK Fisher and fell in love with Woody Allen's Manhattan and Gershwin's music all over again and scared myself silly with Alfred Hitchcock's TV show and stalked Andy Samberg and ate shrimp adobo under the stars with Ice and it was wonderful.

Next weekend when my legs are no longer sore from running I will buy myself a new watercolor pad and paint. Oh how I miss painting!

Andy

2012-01-21T12:37:00.006+09:00

Marry me, Andy Samberg!

As in Manhattan, things do look better in black and white:

My new year's resolution

2011-12-22T11:28:00.005+09:00

When I write things down, I commit them to memory and to heart. I make the words true, for if I do not, I would have lied to myself and to lie is to be unjust. So, here goes.

My new year's resolution is to stop thinking about other people. Selfish people have it so much easier. I do not know why I even bother. From now on, I will think only for myself, for every single time I do otherwise, I only end up hurt. I will not care about other people's feelings for, anyway, most of the time, all they care about are their feelings. Why bother, really. Why bother.

"At the end of the day, shit. With that mighty word, you can console yourself for all human miseries, so I enjoy repeating it: shit, shit."
-- From Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

A short sojourn

2011-11-27T23:37:00.010+09:00

Today we drove to Intramuros for a mini tour and for the most part had a lovely time. The sun wasn't too bright, the cobbled walks were pretty, and the La Pieta replica at the Manila Cathedral was enthralling. Some buildings in Old Manila, however, were terribly restored and still some others merely feigned antiquity. A few blocks from the Cathedral, too, the sidewalks were desecrated with garbage and reeked profusely.

But a walk in Intramuros is a walk of nostalgia. And so, as when we are leafing through the pages of our memory, we trekked only the paths which led to those which were beautiful.

Today was sort of a run-through for a 2-day trip we're planning this Christmas break. We intend to make a documentary film of it.

I'm quite excited. :)

According to Woody

2011-11-24T15:38:00.005+09:00

The things that make his life worth living:

Groucho Marx, to name one thing; and Wilie Mays; and the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony; and Louis Armstrong’s recording of “Potato Head Blues”; Swedish movies, naturally; “A Sentimental Education,” by Flaubert; Marlon Brando; Frank Sinatra; those incredible apples and pears by Cézanne; the crabs at Sam Wo’s; Tracy’s face…

Now, my turn. The things that make my life worth living:

A Moveable Feast; Fitzgerald's short stories; watercolor; Paris; pastel-colored pastries; Woody Allen's movies, of course; classic Hollywood films; notes from my students, Moon River; lavender essential oil; flowers, and tons of them; Ice's curls

My Paris

2011-11-20T10:07:00.000+09:00

Christmas

2011-11-13T11:27:00.004+09:00

This year, I am determined to celebrate Christmas. Consider me in for the long haul: the mass on the 25th, the secret Santas, the Christmas movie marathons, the puto bumbongs and bibingkas, and the walks along Bellarmine field when the trees are brilliant with tiny stars.

In the collage, from left to right:
1. Above our table at Sweet Inspirations: branches adorned with mistletoe, berries, lights, and pretty drops of glass
2. At home, a Christmas corner: branches and berries of silver glitter, porcelain Santas (presents from my good friend Rache and the owner of an antique shop we used to frequent)
3. At home, gold and silver balls hang from the chandelier
4. An early Christmas present from Ice: an antique oak writing desk gives home to a stack of post-its and note pads from a student and Lia, a bear coin bank from Zia, a pot of paintbrushes and charcoal pencils, canisters of watercolor and acrylic paint and other craft materials, a silver coaster in need of polish, and Peter Mayle's French Lessons (the first of his books that I have read)

The auteur

2011-09-26T19:57:00.000+09:00

Just recently, Ice gave me a video recorder. It is compact, the size of the average touch-screen cellphone, and costs around five thousand pesos. Now the minuscule size and cheapness are usually signs of dilettantism, but the gadget, in fact, boasts of high definition pictures. Aptly dubbed The Explorer, it is also shockproof and waterproof. Of course, such features are of no import to a person with a mélange of nature-related phobias like me. Still, I was over the moon.

When I was in college and still engulfed in romanticism, I decided I was going to be a filmmaker, but that delusion is now, very clearly, down the drain. I do not have a good eye for framing, I am certain, nor the patience for writing a two-hour long script. Nonetheless, the prospect of once again trying my amateur hand at the craft delights me endlessly. I already have plans for two shorts lined up: one a la Woody Allen, where neurotic geniuses will talk incredibly fast and dramatically gesticulate like there is no tomorrow, and one a la Jean Pierre Jeunet, which, if done properly, should look like a fairy tale. Yesterday, I shot a couple of scenes with Ice the actor and in one of my innumerable close-up shots, I saw in his eyes that he violently regretted presenting me with the camera—and this from a man who is usually overflowing with equanimity. “If only I knew about the things she’d make me do.”

At Adarna

2011-08-20T18:02:00.017+09:00

Yesterday, Ice and I drove to Adarna Restaurant at Kalayaan Street for lunch. Alas, de Botton speaks the truth: destinations are better in photographs, if only because when I travel, I take myself along with me.

And so, yesterday, confronted with a vintage full-length mirror nestled in a corner of the restaurant, I looked not at the intricate details on the wood but into the glass and at myself where stress had robbed a patch of hair from my forehead. The sight caused me great worry, and I struggled to immerse myself in my surroundings, which I was determined to enjoy. The place, I thought sadly, could be lit more dramatically. The background music, I also observed, did not quite match the ambiance exuded by Adarna's publicity photographs scattered on the web. The food, too, cradled in lovely china and artfully styled, looked better than they tasted-- and perhaps, I considered, this is because I am hardly a connoisseur of our local cuisine. The restaurant, after all, boasts of a topnotch kitchen staff. I, with my emotional baggage and predilections grossly incompatible with the restaurant's chef and interior decorator, had ruined the image of the quaint, cozy, and perfect little restaurant I had in my mind. Nonetheless, as de Botton consoles, my memory selects the finer points of my experiences, and soon I will remember only those which were beautiful.

Perhaps, in time, my remembrance of yesterday will look like this:

I will remember that the place was lit like so and that Ice ate away happily and that the adobo was just right.

This one, though, I know this happened for real.

S'wonderful, s'marvelous Paris

2011-08-19T21:08:00.007+09:00

Alain de Botton, in The Art of Travel, in not so many words proclaims anticipation as the finest aspect of travel. Most of the time, he explains, our actual travel experiences do not live up to the supreme expectations our illimitable imaginations have set for us. Perhaps, this theory could explain why while our entire school is abuzz with the imminent Paris trip (I have, too often, found myself entering a classroom to witness my kids huddled over the foreign trip brochure, and outside, I cannot ignore that the hallways are adorned with an image that is all too familiar and close to my heart-- La Tour Eiffel), I am surprisingly sane.

Too often have I fantasized about this scenario: the headmaster announces a trip to my beloved Paris, and teacher prefects are necessary. I have, for countless times, pictured myself mustering all the audacity in the world and begging him to let me go. It is therefore very extraordinary that a few days ago, while staring at the Paris trip poster outside the principal's office, I found myself feeling absolutely nothing. And so I wondered about the absence of longing I have harbored for so many years, that seemingly irrepressible desire to pack my sketchpad and black turtlenecks in my bag and- even for a few days- live the life of an expatriate in the city of lights.

Perhaps, after more than a decade of being captive to Paris, I am, after all, not quite ready for the city. The Paris that I know is one that is perfect-- the one that is still home to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Sartre, where every dish is consumed with a glass of wine and melts like butter in one's mouth, where all girls dress like the models in Sofia Coppola's Miss Dior Cherie TV ad, where Bridget Bardot is perpetually crooning in the background, and where everyone is either a philosopher or an artist (or, perhaps, both). I want to go there to take long leisurely walks in the streets and to linger in its cafes to read Le Figaro and write my novel. If I go there now and experience a Paris not quite like what I have read and imagined, I will inevitably be shattered. That is the difficulty with life-long dreams, I suppose: they become more fantastical and unreachable everyday.

Perhaps, too, I have merely accepted the impossibility of my being chosen for the trip, and am just consoling myself with the thought that not going is my choice. Perhaps. I honestly, honestly do not know.

Look, Paris. Look at what you are doing to me!

Holiday

2011-08-14T21:10:00.004+09:00

I have two long weekends coming up. What do you know! One will be spent on a leisurely drive to and a gluttonous food trip in Laguna with Ice and his buddies, while the other will be lovingly devoted to one or two of these activities:

1. Scouting for an impossibly cheap bookshelf and then refurbishing it
2. Making a BIG watercolor painting
3. Really writing
4. Plastic-covering my books
5. Finishing Tender is the Night
6. Scouring the bookstores for a lovely non-fiction read
7. Getting a massage

Just recently, a sweet, well-meaning colleague asked me how I intend to spend the coming holiday. When I told her I look forward to lolling in bed with my books, her eyes were inundated with pity. Perhaps it's time I give adventure a try. First, I must unglue my butt off this chair.

Finally.

2011-08-02T10:28:00.001+09:00

The trick is to know what matters, most of all.

Finally, I can get back to building that library. :)

Exterminating ennui

2011-07-27T15:04:00.005+09:00

The trick is to know when to stop and flee before you find yourself hopelessly engulfed and the fire in your soul irrevocably extinguished. The trick is to know in your core that you are not but a coward who withdraws at the slightest sign of a challenge, nor a spoiled brat who demands that life's every minutiae be filled with exuberance.

2011-07-09T23:06:00.000+09:00

Parang nauupos na kandila

Supergeeks

2011-06-18T20:52:00.002+09:00

I love my students! My girls are just adorable and my boys are absolute geeks. Yesterday, several of them wore Green Lantern shirts and one even donned a light-up ring in honor of the movie's premiere. They constantly debate over superheroes and supervillains and abhor the Transformers film franchise. I love them!

***
Watercolor from last weekend:

From the wisdom of Woody and the Greek

2011-05-18T10:08:00.002+09:00

"Of all human weaknesses, obsession is the most dangerous, and the silliest!"
--Mighty Aphrodite, 1995

2011-05-16T20:21:00.000+09:00

From "Human Happiness"

2011-05-06T19:57:00.015+09:00

"When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after- as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day- the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which nothing know of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this time and place allotted to me?"

--Blaise Pascal

*
Watercolors from the summer break:

Somewhere (2010)

2011-04-30T15:20:00.007+09:00

I like it how, in Sofia Coppola's films, time is expansive. She lets the camera linger- the pole dancers spin until the man is lulled to sleep, the girl swims until she absolutely has to stop to catch her breath, leisurely tea parties are had underwater, long drives are long drives, and conversations are not condensed- that the audience cannot help but share in the characters' lethargy and boredom.

If I were to rank her movies:

1. Life Without Zoe
2. Virgin Suicides
3. Somewhere
4. Lost in Translation
5. Lick the Star
6. Marie Antoinette

My summer in books

2011-04-25T11:16:00.007+09:00

After my final examination, to celebrate: Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
Alone in Palawan: Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent: Travels Across Small-Town America
At Work, to kill time: Anton Chekov's Short Stories
During Holy Week: DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (I am realizing only now how terribly inappropriate this is!), James Carse's The Religious Case Against Belief, and Through the Children's Gate continued

*

I have a dear friend who, every time she would feel hopelessly lugubrious or frustrated, would scream into the window of her 11th floor apartment at the top of her lungs. When she joins the rest of the world below afterward, she would be all smiles and sunshine again and no one would suspect a thing. When I first met her, I admired and envied her invincibility; when I found out that it was all but an appearance, I admired her even more. Here is a woman who manages to control her emotions long enough to keep everyone out of her throes.

The mean reds

2011-04-20T00:06:00.004+09:00

Tonight, Ice told me that I'm the saddest person he knows. I indulge in more sadness than I am entitled, and spend more time sulking than people with bigger, actual predicaments. I know I'm hardly the happiest person in the world, but this still took me by surprise. I have always thought- and, yes, with gratitude- that other people have it worse than I do-- how come I am sadder than them?

It is possible, Ice said, that I am clinically depressed. Apparently, I somehow manage to transmogrify even the happiest of situations into an intense discussion about death. While I cannot help but acknowledge this obsession as true, I don't think I'm quite capable of explaining it just yet. All I know is that I feel for Ice. Imagine being with someone who constantly has a dark, ominous cloud over her head. I'm not sure he realizes what he has gotten himself into.

In Coron, Palawan

2011-04-14T21:33:00.010+09:00

In the middle of my Palawan trip with friends, I found myself suddenly alone in a seaside restaurant by the hotel intent on occupying myself with Bill Bryson's rants about small-town America and a disappointing glass of fruit shake. Around me were foreigners who were alone, too, sipping their own fruit shakes, reading their own books and taking in the view of the sea, and I wondered about their reasons for being alone-- reasons which were probably very unlike mine. I struggled to blend in with these people and be unobtrusive and so I buried my nose deeper into my book, but I wondered about them. I thought about those who choose and are comfortable in their solitude, those who are in a strange land because their fear of the unfamiliar is thwarted by their irremediable desire to explore the new, and I realized that I cannot imagine myself in their shoes. Afterward, I went to the hotel's sun deck to lie on the hammock and read my book and it was lovely, but I knew that I cannot, all by myself, brave a new land and culture for the hammock. For now, at least.

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

2011-04-09T19:10:00.009+09:00

Bertolucci is a genius. I wonder how one conjures something so powerful.

Paul: It's me again.
Jeanne: It's over.
Paul: That's right. It's over and then it begins again.
Jeanne: What begins again? I don't understand anything anymore.
Paul: There's nothing to understand. We left the apartment, and now we begin and love all the rest of it.
Jeanne: The rest of it?
Paul: Yeah, listen. I'm 45. I'm a widower. I own a little hotel. It's kind of a dump, but not completely a flop house. Then I used to live on my luck and I got married, and my wife killed herself.

Brothers and sisters

2011-04-07T21:03:00.011+09:00

I rarely have anything good to say about myself but ask me about my siblings and I'm the most immodest person in the world.

Let's see.

My youngest brother Nico is in the top 15 percent of this year's ACET passers and was admitted into the economics honors program. But he never studies! All he ever does is watch re-runs of FRIENDS with me and sleep. When he starts college this coming school year, I doubt he'll change his study habits-- but I can bet you he'll top his every class.

My little sister MM is just brilliant. She's freakishly good in math (ask her classmates!), and writes amazingly well, too. This afternoon, she let me read a short story she recently wrote and I was in utter awe-- such profundity, such insight into the human condition! I remember, when she was just a freshman in high school, she was set apart from the rest of the student body and given the excellence in creative writing award. I remember feeling like the biggest person in the room the day of the awarding. I remember thinking, "My freshman sister writes better than all of you. Yes, you, seniors!" She later went on to snag the excellence in filmmaking award, too. Now that she's in college, taking the same course I did, her professors constantly describe her as brilliant. I completely agree.

My brother Alec, who came after me, breezed through college and got into St. Luke's College of Medicine on scholarship just as easily. I don't think I have ever seen him study or bring a bag to school in his four years in Ateneo. What he did, actually, was party incessantly, and yet he was consistently a dean's lister.

My older brother Alvin is a genius in math. When we were much younger, he used to compute inhumanly large sums in his head for a pastime, and he always, always gets them right. He never studied, and yet he aced all his math exams. He's an excellent artist too, and is the best sketcher I know. The best I know.

My oldest brother Carlo is as passionate about learning as he is smart. He speaks French, Latin, Italian, and Spanish fluently. He was number one in his course when he graduated. He's a walking encyclopedia, you can ask him about any subject. Come on, try.

What's even more amazing about my siblings is that they are as kind as they are talented and smart. They have the biggest hearts I know, you wouldn't believe it. I envy them, yes, and terribly so. Often, I wonder why they are so talented and smart while I am hopelessly normal. Most of the time, though, I am just filled to the brim with pride for them. God could not have chosen a better set of people to shower with brilliance. When you meet them, I'm certain you'll agree.

Woody Allen Movie Checklist

2011-04-06T16:12:00.003+09:00

29 out of 45. Midnight in Paris will make 30. Titles in bold are those I have already seen. TV movies are excluded from the list.:)

2010 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
2009 Whatever Works
2008 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2007 Cassandra's Dream
2006 Scoop
2005 Match Point
2004 Melinda and Melinda
2003 Anything Else
2002 Hollywood Ending
2001 The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
2000 Small Time Crooks
1999 Sweet and Lowdown
1998 Celebrity
1997 Deconstructing Harry
1996 Everyone Says I Love You
1995 Mighty Aphrodite
1994 Bullets Over Broadway
1993 Manhattan Murder Mystery
1992 Husbands and Wives
1991 Shadows and Fog
1990 Alice
1989 Crimes and Misdemeanors
1989 New York Stories (segment "Oedipus Wrecks")
1988 Another Woman
1987 September
1987 Radio Days
1986 Hannah and Her Sisters
1986 Meeting Woody Allen
1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo
1984 Broadway Danny Rose
1983 Zelig
1982 A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
1980 Stardust Memories
1979 Manhattan
1978 Interiors
1977 Annie Hall
1975 Love and Death
1973 Sleeper
1972 Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask
1972 Play It Again, Sam
1971 Bananas
1970 Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You
1969 Don't Drink the Water
1969 Take the Money and Run
1966 What's Up, Tiger Lily?
1965 What's New Pussycat

The Story of Oliver's Discharge

2011-04-04T14:31:00.007+09:00

He liked to lose himself in the labyrinth of shelves where no one could see him, and there he would take his lunch. Yesterday it was a grilled cheese sandwich, which he nibbled slowly and leisurely, while flipping through Camus. He picked the philosophy section yesterday, and it was at precisely twelve o’clock in the afternoon that he took his sandwich from his bag and proceeded to eat.

At one, he glimpsed people pass by his shelf and eye his sandwich. They looked at his hand pointedly, and then at the crumbs circling his mouth. They tried to catch his eye and point to the sign that forbade eating in the library, but he continued to munch his sandwich until it was finished and he continued to flip through Camus until it was finished, and so they decided to leave muttering under their breaths.

At two in the afternoon yesterday, he sat yoga-style on the floor with a thermos of black coffee and flipped through Nietzsche. At three he plucked Sartre off the top shelf and lay down resting his head on a stack of de Beauviors, and at four he strolled back and forth the aisles with Heidegger and a bar of Mars. It was only when it was already five in the afternoon and the library was finally to close and the lady who was behind the desk told him that he absolutely had to go that he realized that he had, once again, forgotten to return to his work.

I said I will write

2011-04-03T19:50:00.006+09:00

I have always found it most difficult to write when I am engulfed with emotions. The trick, I suppose, is to learn how to temper passion so that words may contain it, otherwise, feelings will remain unnameable and inexplicable. The trick is to learn how to temper, and not simply wait, for when I wait until my emotions have faded and fleeted away, I find that I cannot write about them still for I do not know them anymore.

Woohoo!

2011-03-24T21:01:00.006+09:00

Two papers: done and done. Final exam was last Monday, I think I did relatively well. The other paper, I will work on at a leisurely pace, at the pace of a snail if you will, over the summer break, and only when I'm done basking in the Palawan sun.

Ah. Tonight I celebrated.

I cut myself a big piece of focaccia bread, slapped an inordinate amount of cream cheese on top, poured myself a glass of red wine, and sat down with Mr. Gopnik and his New York stories.

C'est la vie. :)

The sloth

2011-03-17T12:28:00.005+09:00

The problem with me is that I like to waste my time. For hours, I obsess over what I call "art," only to tuck it away in a dog-eared brown envelope with pages of other "art" that look exactly like it, never to see daylight again. For hours, too, I agonize over three-sentence paragraphs, which, in the end, do not say anything. For weeks and weeks, I watch television shows over and over again out of sentimentality, because I do not like endings. Books, too, take forever to finish because I pause every paragraph or so to ruminate over every slight sign of profundity. I spend half the day daydreaming, and the other half telling people about it. For all I have I done so far is think, I have, in the end, accomplished nothing.

Snap out of it. Now, most of all!

What I learned #1

2011-03-14T21:17:00.004+09:00

I learned that the beautiful is tedious.

I find that if anything is to be beautiful, it has to be intentional. It is because they are crafted painfully and painstakingly that art and literature possess sublimity. That a poem is not a word more or less, that the letters are positioned so, make a poem a poem. On the canvas every dot is thoughtfully planned-- what color, how big, and why? It is because they are not natural- not mere fruits of the stream of consciousness or the instincts of an effortlessly deft hand- that they are literature and art. For to create a thing of beauty is to go against one's every impulse and to push one's every limit. The artist's concern is to transcend his nature and play god. Art and literature cannot be natural. Beautiful things are beautiful because they are unhuman.

2011-03-08T21:22:00.010+09:00

The trick is to extend yourself without snapping.

Imagine yourself a piece of freshly-made taffy, still warm and malleable. Imagine yourself being pulled at the sides. You find yourself stretched to thrice your size. You are folded in half, and then you are stretched again, and then you are much longer. Before you know it, you are all about the room, infecting everything with your sticky sweetness, leaving not a piece of furniture untouched. It's hard to imagine you started out so small, the size of two hands clasped.

The trick is to extend yourself while you are still warm. When you wait until you are hardened, at the faintest tug, you snap and shatter into smithereens.

2011-03-06T22:13:00.005+09:00

A part of me actually thinks I can do this. :)

Hemingway's Paris

2011-01-28T11:19:00.000+09:00

“How different it was when you were there.”—Ernest Hemingway

How do I even begin to describe A Moveable Feast? Being an incorrigible Francophile, I have sunk my teeth into countless memoirs about Paris, but none has ever come close to Ernest Hemingway’s. In 1956, the management of the Ritz Hotel in Paris communicated with Hemingway, who had long returned to the United States to retire, to claim two trunks that he had stored there since 1928. Inside the trunks were remnants from his expatriate life in Paris—pages and pages of fiction, books, old clothes, and his Paris memoirs. These long-forgotten friends from the past inspired him to work on what he called “The Paris Sketches,” and when the memoir was finally published posthumously in 1964, the world was in awe. No one had written more beautifully and truthfully about the fabled city before. Hemingway had claimed the city as his. From then on, all books about France will be judged- and often rejected- according to Hemingway’s Paris.

Hemingway once spoke of the City of Lights as a moveable feast. If one is fortunate enough, he says, to have lived in Paris when he was young, then its stays with him wherever he may go for the rest of his life. The city, in short, is magical. What his memoir does, I think, is allow Paris to go beyond its already transcendental nature—no longer does the reader need to experience living in Paris to carry it with him for the rest of his life; all he has to do is bury his nose in Hemingway’s stories about the hours he spent sipping coffee and carafes at the famed Closerie de Lilas, Sylvia Beach’s massive collection of books at the cozy Shakespeare and Company at the rue de l’Odeon, his incredibly odd museum tour with F.Scott Fitzgerald and intellectually-stimulating afternoon teas at Gertrude Stein’s, or his quaint little apartment which he and his wife had filled with pictures they loved, and he is there. The reader finds himself suddenly transported to halfway around the world. The reader finds, too, that the experience has irrevocably changed him. He finds that, like Hemingway, he will be, from then on, forever in love with Paris.

I have been thinking about what makes A Moveable Feast so special for quite a while now. The fact that it was written by literary genius and Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is, of course, a very cogent reason. Aside from the literariness of its writing, however, what makes the book unparalleled and timelessly beautiful is that, it is not simply a book about Paris—it is a book about a well-lived life. The reader takes a moonlit walk with Hemingway and his son or goes on a modest but happy picnic with his family and realizes that that is exactly the kind of life that he wants for himself. Of course, there is more to life than what Hemingway portrayed it to be. It is not all about carafes and happiness: Hemingway’s family later fell apart and, to the world’s utter dismay, he did go on to kill himself in 1961. But isn’t that the point of Paris? To be a city where simple pleasures like a walk on the Place St. Michel or a cup of cappuccino and not problems are the things that matter and are remembered? To be a city, which, like a dream, is suspended in time? Hemingway’s Paris is a place where one goes to forget and dream. And, true enough, every time I’m feeling a bit down, I sit in a corner, lay out the scrumptious feast that is Paris in front of me, and indulge. Everything just floats away. I am in Closerie de Lilas, and Hemingway is just a table away, oblivious to the world, scribbling away.

It is the sea pursues a habit of shores

2011-01-22T16:35:00.012+09:00

Our MA class runs like a book club. What happens is, we all six of us sit around a rectangular table, take turns reading passages aloud, and then humbly essay interpretations. Some sessions are more fecund than others. Some nights we simply fill the hours-long silence with the perfunctory oohs and ahhs. Those nights, I feel incredibly unworthy and could not bear to look my professor in the eye. Last night, however, was a good night. Sir Pulan did a reading of Carlos Angeles' "Gabu," a poem about the violent sea. The sea thrashes and batters the shore, rendering it a pitiful shred of wasteland, and leaving an elemental wound, but also, with its every wave, loses something of its self to the shore-- the gift of salt. I have never felt a deeper connection to a poem. I mourned for the sea imprisoned in its eternal pining for the shore, judged for its rage and turbulence. Perhaps its violence is because of its irremediable passion and desperation to be one with the land. It was long before I realized that, as our professor chanted the words about the sea, I was swaying my hands gently, back and forth, like its helpless waves.

Gabu
by Carlos A. Angeles

The battering restlessness of the sea
Insists a tidal fury upon the beach
At Gabu, and its pure consistency
Havocs the wasteland hard within its reach.

Brutal the daylong bashing of its heart
Against the seascape where, for miles around,
Farther than sight itself, the rock-stones part
And drop into the elemental wound.

The waste of centuries is grey and dead
And neutral where the sea has beached its brine,
Where the split salt of its heart lies spread
Among the dark habiliments of Time.

The vital splendor misses. For here, here
At Gabu where the ageless tide recurs
All things forfeited are most loved and dear.

It is the sea pursues a habit of shores.

The Holiday (1938)

2010-12-30T21:02:00.004+09:00

Someday I'll go on a holiday, Johnny Case style. :)

Johnny Case: When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself what would General Motors do? And then I do the opposite!

Linda Seton: You've got no faith in Johnny, have you, Julia? His little dream may fall flat, you think. Well, so it may, what if it should? There'll be another. Oh, I've got all the faith in the world in Johnny. Whatever he does is all right with me. If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh, how I'll believe in those peanuts!

For the Holidays

2010-12-26T15:05:00.011+09:00

Holiday reading list:
1. Edith Wharton's Madame de Treymes, Brunner Sisters, and The Sanctuary
2. Milan Kundera's The Farewell Waltz
And, if there is time,
3. Eliot's Jimmy Stewart biography (Finding a copy of Jimmy's book of poetry yesterday in Booksale rekindled my love for him. He is the most adorable Hollywood actor, in my opinion.)

Holiday movie list:
1. Holiday (Cary Grant, the other love of my life!)
2. You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger (I love Naomi Watts (I wish I were as lovely)! And I worship Woody Allen (I wish I were as crazy)!)

I itch to lengthen the above lists but the ginormous pile of Philippine Literature class readings to my left just about clobbers every chance of that happening. :P

And, lastly:

Clarise's New Year's Resolutions:
1. I will try my best to be selfless. I will go out of myself and think especially of those who are too kind and selfless to think about themselves.
2. I will re-establish my contact with God whom I dearly miss.
3. I will bring an eco-friendly bag everywhere and all the time, especially when shopping.
4. I will make more "art" and explore other media.
5. I will watch every single Orson Welles film available.
6. I will moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!

Habitue

2010-12-01T13:05:00.012+09:00

When I go to the coffee shop where I go to write, the first thing I do is order myself a drink-- always iced and whipped cream-covered, the flavor is of no matter, and tall. The second thing I do is place it at the corner of my table where it stays untouched for the duration of my stay. Consider it a parking ticket, my license to linger. I take a while to write, you see; ideas do not come easily. For the meantime, the plastic cup steadily breaks into a sweat,the ice in my drink slowly melts, diluting the whipped cream into bits of goop which rest on top of, and never blend with, the coffee. And then, as if on cue and in complete harmony, one by one, words appear and sit on the screen in front of me, where they organize themselves into coherence just as slowly and thoroughly.

***
Watercolors from more than a month ago:

***
I wonder if this flu is but psychosomatic.

Stream of consciousness on a Saturday night with Saussure

2010-11-28T19:21:00.011+09:00

It is because I envy that I hate. I could only hope I were as courageous.
I miss painting. And my books. And my movies.
I am buried in readings, and it appears as if I will never catch up.
I wonder if I am learning critical thinking, or if that is even something that can be learned in school.
I have to try not to whine anymore, for what will that do but cause people around me discomfort?
Apparently, I am wrong in thinking that acquiring knowledge is the only worthy pursuit in life. It is something that I love doing and tremendously, but given the finite amount of time I have at my disposal, I am uncertain if it is the proper pursuit for me. Doing nothing all day but read has engulfed me in compunction, for surely that is not the way to live. I lament the deterioration of my relationships, the loss of my art, which, no matter how dilettante, are after all still mine, and my lack of sleep.
Or perhaps I am merely rationalizing my sloth. The lazy finds ways.

Without pity

2010-11-14T20:29:00.005+09:00

"Ecce homo."

Perhaps she is what a woman should be, for, dwarfing you with her appraising stare, she makes you feel that you are not one. Her eyebrows are unplucked, thick and meeting at the middle above the bridge of her aquiline nose. (Perhaps you should have not groomed yours.) Framing her upper lip is a smattering of hair, short and thick. (A sign of strength, always good in a woman.) Her lips are in constant movement. (A skill to be envied.) She is garrulous- she admits so herself- and you cannot help but wonder why. You search for glimmers of depth and meaning in her words. There must be profundity in there somewhere for she speaks with confidence. When she's not talking- something of rarity- she is typing away on her laptop, and the click-clack of her fingers on the keyboard is din. She does not listen- and perhaps she does not know how- for she repeats your words like they are truly hers. Under the table, her legs are crossed, the right swaying so vigorously you could almost hear it chopping through the helpless, defenseless air.

On Contentment

2010-11-01T19:04:00.015+09:00

In an event I attended with some former colleagues about a year ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to a man who worked as a film subtitle writer. His name escapes me now, but I can still vividly remember how the thirty-something fellow, with much aplomb, described his job for our benefit.

The hubbub and crampness of the venue did not hinder him from taking his sweet time, and he demanded our full attention. With much detail he told us about how an entire day's work produces only thirty minutes worth of subtitled film. He paused after saying this, allowing the gravity of the statement to sink in. Thirty glorious minutes. Wow. When we have oohed and ahhed, he continued his story. His every day is spent watching movies and television series, he said, pausing every so often to jot the actors' dialogue down. He described the strenuous task of looking unfamiliar words up on the Internet to make sure everything is correctly spelled. He enumerated a couple of medical terms from television show Grey's Anatomy. He looked around the table. "It is important that you spell them correctly," he said gravely, and 24's Jack Bauer came to my mind. He proceeded to talk about how, because he spends so much time doing what he does, his dreams at night now come with subtitles as well. Such is the price one must pay when one chooses such a career path, he explained.

I remember that while listening to him, I was in utter disbelief at how he delivered that bit of information with much hauteur and ill-concealed arrogance. He was simply sparkling with exuberance. Here's a stenographer to an inanimate entity, a person whose days are just about completely devoid of any form of social contact, and who, at thirty-something years, has seemed to reach an impasse career-wise-- and he regarded his job as a Nobel Prize winner would his life work. Here is a man who is content, I remember thinking. And then, I remember being suddenly inundated with feelings of jealousy.

Contentment is so elusive.

500 Movies for Rache

2010-10-30T19:25:00.002+09:00

The reason I haven't been updating lately:

500 Movies for Rache

500 movies, 6 months, 3 film philes, and 1 cinematically-deficient darling.

Remember, remember.

2010-10-30T00:07:00.007+09:00

So I will be taking my first MA class this coming semester. Finally, finally! Below is the application essay I submitted to the university's admissions office last September. I hope to never forget what I have so confidently and enthusiastically written back when nothing but getting into the graduate program mattered, especially when the coursework is already proving to be a bit too much for me and is slowly driving me to the brink of insanity. I hope to never forget that I love to learn, most of all.

I read a New Yorker essay about a most peculiar man named David Karp. David Karp calls himself “The Fruit Detective” (he has a calling card and all), and traipses about town in a safari costume complete with a pith helmet, in search for weird, flavorful, juicy, fecund fruit. He then shares his discovery with the fruit-loving public through his newspaper column, and acts as a middleman to suppliers and grocers. People who have had the pleasure of meeting him describe his passion for fruit as highly ebullient to the point of mania. Once, he was sighted hopping about in the bushes in sheer ecstasy when he saw a white apricot. When he’s not looking for fruit, he’s writing about fruit, talking to people about fruit, compiling songs about fruit, and, of course, eating fruit.

I have decided to pursue an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies because- this may sound overly ambitious if not downright silly- I want to become a literary expert. I am a teacher, and while it would be easier to just say that I want to pursue graduate studies because I want to become an immensely competent educator and be the best teacher that I can be, fact of the matter is, my reason is quite selfish. I want my MA because I want to be David Karp. I want to spend my whole life with that which I love.

I have long been in love with literature. In fact, all my life, the one adjective that I have always, so lovingly and superciliously used to refer to myself is “well-read,” whether it is undeniably, absurdly unmerited, like when I was young and my claim to fame was that I read all Sweet Valley books and- that which I considered my greatest achievement- all twenty-six volumes of Compton’s Precyclopedia, or- to some extent- deserved, like when I fell in love with Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald and decided to get my hands on and read every available veritable piece of literature about them. I want to get an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies because, like David Karp, I long to scour the world for books, write about books, converse with people about books, compile songs about books, and, of course, devour books. It’s all very self-serving now, you see, but I am certain that everything else- works of charity, a fiery literacy advocacy, etcetera- will just follow. When a person is head over heels passionate about something, it is impossible that she does not attempt to make the whole world fall in love with it. It will touch everything about her, her entire being, and every thing and person she encounters. I know that, like David Karp, I will be spreading the love for books so enthusiastically they will call me the crazy book lady. My primary targets, of course, will be my poor, unsuspecting students.

In the event of my acceptance to the graduate program, I will be a part-time student and full-time teacher—the statement alone evokes pity, I know. As it is, my workload as a teacher is definitely not a stroll in the park, and I am expecting graduate studies courses to be quite arduous. I can now vividly picture papers piling up and waiting to be checked, a humongous stack of books waiting to be read, and weekends spent writing papers and in preparation for presentations. Truth be told, though- and I say this with great conviction- I am not the least daunted. In fact, I cannot be more excited. Every time I study the now dog-eared course catalog, I regard it always with love and utmost affection. The advantage of my situation, I think, is that I have decided to take this path wholeheartedly. I am not pursuing graduate studies because my career compels me to, but because of my own desire to learn. That is most important in pursuing an MA degree and successfully, I think— a genuine, irremediable desire for knowledge, that openness to learning. When you see me going to class ridiculously early on a Saturday, I will be with a smile on my face.

What further intensifies my anticipation to finally start my study of literature is the idea that I will be doing it in Ateneo. I received my undergraduate degree from the university and I have, with great awe, witnessed how the institution has so skillfully molded me, and transformed me into a person I never knew I could become. More than anything, Ateneo has taught me pagpapakatao, something which, since then, has penetrated my every word and action. I have decided to pursue my graduate studies in my alma mater because I know that I will be learning not only about literature, but also about life. I know that with Ateneo, I will come out not only a David Karp- a literary expert through and through- but a literary expert with a heart, someone who will use what she knows for the good.

Long overdue

2010-10-18T19:13:00.005+09:00

Ink
Watercolor

2010-10-12T16:23:00.010+09:00

(1)

She watched as their feet
Plodded on
Briskly
Across the grass
Toward home

Had she not looked up
And seen their faces
She would not have known
Their saunter was
Without joy.

(2)

When the sunlight
Touched his brow
He bristled and
Woke with a
Start

The light streamed
Through his blinds
Stubbornly
Harshly
And cajoled him out
Of a dreamless
Sleep
To a life emptied
Of dreams.

(3)

With a fork
She poked the flesh
And butter
Hot and slick
It spewed like
Molten lava.

Bouts of obsession

2010-09-27T19:41:00.005+09:00

This is what came out when I doodled without thinking, without focus, and with total abandon. For hours I doodled, and when I was finished and truly saw what I have made for the first time, I was nonplussed. It scared me quite a bit, this chaos, this utter lack of organization.

Calligraphy pen on watercolor paper

Something for Ice's cubicle

Watercolor

A character sketch

2010-09-18T17:44:00.005+09:00

He is lacking in savoir faire, and utterly. He feigns a blase disposition but his conversation betrays his unsophistication and eagerness to please. He likes to engage in discourse filled with platitudes and sophistries, a charlatan pretending to be a savant. His political commentaries, which he gives around gratis, are often fatuous and his critiques of literature, expressed in a manner theatrical and with much gesticulation, are almost always lacking in depth. His laughs are intentionally strident, as he finds that that is the only way he could draw attention to himself.

**

On my marshmallows

I emptied a huge pack of fluffy white marshmallows into a jam jar, to be consumed abstemiously. I take two or three at a time, never more, because they are just so pretty in the mason jar with its floral engraving and white and red checkered tin lid and I want to prolong the prettiness as much as I can. Aesthetics win over the urges of the tummy.

On the "odor genie"

The odor genie absorbs the fetid air coming from the dingy dog that set up camp outside our house (poor thing has yet to receive its first bath from its master). Whenever the genie absorbs the squalid smell that intermittently wafts through the window screen and into the room, it effuses a raspberry scent that at first smells sweetly like candy but which the brain soon learns to classify as acrid because of the fetidness we know it heralds as it masks.

Bottle Rocket

2010-09-13T20:03:00.007+09:00

"One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life."-- Bottle Rocket, 1996

Watercolor

Jar

2010-09-06T19:33:00.006+09:00

Watercolor

A girl is a girl is a girl.

2010-09-04T11:25:00.010+09:00

"Elegance is refusal."
--Coco Chanel

Today, I am to face a most daunting challenge, the ultimate test of self-restraint. First, I will watch Coco et Igor and Tom Ford's A Single Man, and then I will go shopping with friends later in the afternoon and not buy a single item of clothing. I promised myself I will scrimp and save for a proper sketch pad and my tuition fee.

Let us see. :)

Speaking of poverty, here are some of the things I would like to buy but can't:
1. A tailored blazer that will make Coco proud
2. A couple of framed New Yorker covers
3. Still Larousse Gastronomique (Just for show, I admit.)
4. A French-looking coffee table (preferably whitewashed)
5. Champagne flutes
6. A framed movie poster of Hors de Prix
7. A set of calligraphy pens (I would like to try drawing with them.)
8. A fancy shelf for Ice's toys

The list could go on and on. And on. And on.

In solitude

2010-09-02T21:13:00.006+09:00

Random musings from this afternoon:

When I muse, I turn my head sideways up, almost always to the left, as if the answers in the world rest there. I purse my lips, lest a thought comes out unpolished and before it is organized into coherence. Sometimes, I take a while, and when I stop, I forget about what I was thinking.
*

Kenny’s/Seattle’s at Katipunan is a place you go to in order to be lost. You go there to be somewhere else. The beauty of the place is its sense of detachment. It does not pretend to be your home; it lets you alone. In its vastness—two spacious floors peppered with around a hundred tables- you find priceless solitude. Order your food, grab a seat, and, in a moment, you are in your very own microcosm. The place becomes oblivious to you, and you to it. The place doesn’t mind that the colorful paintings lining its walls and its floor-to-ceiling sculptures are ignored—it knows its purpose is to be unobtrusive. The waiters leave you alone because they know that you desire to be invisible. A man in the corner nook happily taps away on his laptop, grinning wildly once in a while and laughing to himself like no one is looking. At another table, a group of teenage girls talk loudly of their secrets and of high school gossip; no one hears. You scribble away in your journal vigorously as you did when you were younger and had the bedroom all to yourself. For a while- an hour, perhaps- you feel truly alone, and you bask in this thought. All it takes is a sweeping glance across the vastness of the room and its hustle and bustle, and you are back. The trick is to not look outwards.
*

At the next table, a man with a nice, baritone voice talks about Facebook in the manner of an expert. It takes you a while to know that he isn’t. Nearby, his infant daughter sits proudly on her yaya’s lap and looks on, hanging onto his every fraudulent word. You wonder how long it will take her to find out.

In Booksale

2010-08-28T21:32:00.010+09:00

A man of about fifty rummages through stacks of National Geographic back issues with utmost determination. He is oblivious to other people in the store, not budging an inch when a teenage girl attempts to squeeze in next to him to reach for a copy of Seventeen, and not even when she later exhaled in frustration. He exudes an air of superciliousness, unknowingly perhaps, like he is doing something of extreme importance. He inspects each magazine very carefully, flipping it over, feeling the edges, holding it up to the light, squinting an eye to examine the spine for bruises. He eyes the yellowed, dogeared books like they are diamonds, raw and uncut, and he, a master jeweler. Some magazines date back to the 1950s, and these he lovingly sorts into a neat pile next to him. Perhaps, they are diamonds.

Dancer

2010-08-23T18:45:00.005+09:00

For my father, who forgets that he is loved

Watercolor

Le grande cuisine

2010-08-22T14:37:00.012+09:00

"[Gourmandisme] shows implicit obedience to the commands of the Creator." -- AJ Liebling

I am reading The New Yorker’s Secret Ingredients, and two essays especially piqued my interest.

Some years ago in France, a group of twelve sat down to a 30-course lunch. The feast lasted for about 11 hours, and, when it was finally done, it was already past midnight. The mark of a true gourmand, according to one proud participant, is the ability to eat even when impossibly full. The meal’s cost was equivalent to a brand new Volkswagen. When the abstemious public frowned upon this gluttonous event, the aforementioned participant said something to this effect in their defense, “We had no need for a car so we didn’t buy a car. We were hungry, so we bought lunch.”

In still another essay, a writer illuminates the reader on how to kill a turtle, and properly. Allow me to divulge this much: It involves an extremely sharp hook, the turtle on its back, and green soup. A jolly, innocuous Pong Pagong suddenly crossed my mind, and I couldn’t help but cringe in utter despair. Poor dear.

Here’s my quandary with regard to le grande cuisine: While the succulent pastries and asperges bathed in butter could make me salivate till my mouth runs impossibly dry, the meat courses have this uncanny ability to make me suddenly want to either (1) convert to vegetarianism, or (2) go the extra mile and champion an animal rights group.

Thank you, Farellys!

2010-08-21T16:55:00.012+09:00

There's Something About Mary was on Star Movies today, and I watched it for the first time ever. It was already halfway through when I caught it but I liked it still. It's too cute for words. Ice was right beside me and he could not believe that I haven't seen the movie- which he described as groundbreaking- before. Where have I been hiding? When I got to the scene where Matt Dillon mouth-to-mouth resuscitated and burned Cameron Diaz's dog back to life, I, myself, could not believe that I took so long to watch it. Why, this movie is genius!

Truth be told, There's Something About Mary is just one among a fairly big congeries of 90s movies that I have yet to see. You see- and I say this without a tinge of exaggeration- I did not have a proper adolescence. I did not have my fair share of pop music, teen flicks and TV shows. I did not know Freddie Prinze Jr. and I thought the Hansons were a rap group. I went straight from Home Alone to Lifestyle Network and Audrey Hepburn. When I finally did watch teen flicks, they were from the 80s. Breakfast Club, Sixteen candles, Pretty in Pink, and, my favorite teen flick in all the world, Say Anything ("She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen!"). Usually, I try to defend this cultural penury by stating, a tad too belligerently at times, that my taste is just too cultivated for my generation. However, looking back, I am beginning to think that it's highly possible that this argument is but an obstinate refusal to succumb to self pity. It could be that I was never an adolescent not because of my sophisticated, discriminating taste, but because I was too scared. You see, back then, my brothers always gave me a hard time whenever I tried to fit in with other girls my age. The moment I started doing something remotely "in," they would pick on me relentlessly. The torture, I tell you! It was akin to the Spanish Inquisition. This is not to hold a grudge against my brothers, though. They were, themselves, just being adolescents-- boys who did not know how to deal with girls if their lives depended on it.

My coping mechanism, no matter how seemingly pretentious now, worked well to my defense. I do not remember a time when I regretted not having a normal adolescence. I did not mind being absolutely clueless during reunions with my high school friends and the conversation suddenly turned to Clueless and Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls and the recent American Pie. I liked my 1950s/Martha Stewart/FTV adolescence just fine. After watching There's Something About Mary, though, I could not help but pay heed to this little thought in my head that maybe, just maybe, I missed out on a very important stage in my life. And so, here's what I intend to do: I think I'll have my adolescence now-- film-wise, at least. :)

From a dream

2010-08-19T01:20:00.019+09:00

Watercolor

I painted this house from a dream I had, something which I thought I had long forgotten, and I only recognized it when it was finished and Ice pointed it out to me.

*

Last Saturday, we went to an antique shop somewhere in Quezon City that we have come to love. The shop had a massive collection of odds and ends (they sold everything from old Le Divorce and Cary Grant VHS tapes to floor-to-ceiling glass windows, tiles, and hot tubs), and almost everything was dirt cheap. We went there in search for a nice coffee table that could pass for French, and a purple chandelier for my friend, but to no avail. Instead, we found ourselves carrying a green glass candle holder home. The candle holder was quite romantic, I bought a pale turquoise candle that smelled of white lilies just for it and I thought they looked lovely together. When I started writing this, I was going to describe the candle holder as "crystal," but I suddenly realized that I did not quite know what that word meant. Apparently, this is crystal:

n.

1.
1. A homogenous solid formed by a repeating, three-dimensional pattern of atoms, ions, or molecules and having fixed distances between constituent parts.
2. The unit cell of such a pattern.
2. A mineral, especially a transparent form of quartz, having a crystalline structure, often characterized by external planar faces.
3.
1. A natural or synthetic crystalline material having piezoelectric or semiconducting properties.
2. An electronic device, such as an oscillator or detector, using such a material.
4.
1. A high-quality, clear, colorless glass.
2. An object, especially a vessel or ornament, made of such glass.
3. Such objects considered as a group.
5. A clear glass or plastic protective cover for the face of a watch or clock.
6. Slang. A stimulant drug, usually methamphetamine, in its powdered form.

I'm still not sure if my new candle holder is crystal, but I'm sure that I like it very much because it's green.

Monday and indisposed

2010-08-16T15:39:00.004+09:00

At home getting a hold of myself. I find that a great way to rejuvenate one's self is to read good books and scribble random ideas on paper. :)

Habit #1

2010-08-15T18:34:00.002+09:00

She has the habit of tracing objects with her eyes, feeling their outline delicately with an imaginary finger. She would run the finger over their corners, slowly and gently, memorizing the roundness of their curves, almost with affection. But her eyes, they would be filled with intensity and belligerence. She would, for hours, study these objects not with wonder, not through the eyes of a dilettante, but of an expert. She would stare at them so intently, as if she's wheedling out of them a dangerous secret-- a secret she is certain the objects conceal.

Mr. fancy fish's seaweed friends

2010-08-09T19:39:00.014+09:00

Watercolor

I finally have two New Yorker anthologies-- Secret Ingredients, a collection of fiction and non-fiction works on food and drink, and Wonderful Town, a collection of short stories about New York. Both are so lovely, they're all I can think about all day. For good reason, I am expecting the first book to make an epicure of me. For reasons less cogent, I am hoping that the second will inspire me to try my unsophisticated hand at the short story. :)

In Corregidor

2010-07-31T10:43:00.020+09:00

Ramon was our tour guide. He's seventy-four years old and has been a tour guide all his life, except for when he was a boy. When he was a boy, he was just a boy in the war, and now that is all he can talk about. He is old and he looked it, but he also looked strong. Throughout the trip, he stood erect and flailed his arms about energetically whenever he thought he was sharing something interesting. Other times, he indulged in salacious jokes, the kind that certain old people find awfully funny and which young people find more than a little creepy, and I longed to cover my students' ears. I asked him where he lived and he said in Sucat, Paranaque. He took the bus and ferry early that morning to get to Corregidor to show tourists the sights. In Corregidor, there was nothing much to see except for remnants of buildings with some bullet holes in them. I inspected the buildings and they did not impress me—I did not think they have ever been beautiful. Loss is only tragic when it’s the loss of the beautiful. When these structures were destroyed, all that was lost were the lives of people who probably have been dead by now, too. Loss is only tragic when the thing lost could still be here now but isn’t. Great people, they could have been, but every time has its own great people, anyway. The grief for the island belongs to the people of the past. We will have our own reasons to mourn. I did not know to which time Ramon belonged. I asked him if he does this everyday. He said not anymore, only four to five times a week. He can no longer do it, he said, what with his health. I said I think no one can, and turned my head away.

That night, Ice and I attended a dinner party in Ayala Heights’ Corregidor Street. Ice marveled at the coincidence, and at the irony of it all. We drank wine and nibbled cheese and ate caviar spread on crackers, and they talked and I quietly laughed until almost midnight when I knew I truly had to get some sleep.

Mr. fancy fish

2010-07-28T19:03:00.006+09:00

Watercolor

The week in watercolor

2010-07-19T20:39:00.011+09:00

Flowers and self-portrait

At home

2010-07-17T11:33:00.012+09:00

I love Hemingway's essays about his home. His Paris apartment in the 20s was, to put it bluntly, austere. It did not have a fireplace nor a private toilet, and, for furniture, had only a mattress on the floor. Nonetheless, its walls were adorned with pictures he and his wife Hadley liked, and so they loved it immensely.

It reminded me of my own current home, bare and in desperate need of some furniture, but home nonetheless. Here are some snapshots:

The chandelier I told you about

The bird cage we found at an antique shop

Fitzgerald books waiting to be devoured-- a surprise from Ice

Some of my classic Hollywood books

The false spring

2010-07-10T15:59:00.006+09:00

Watercolor

We will always have Paris.

2010-07-04T09:59:00.019+09:00

Eloise's Paris Apartment (Watercolor and ink)

I always keep a stack of books on the floor by my bed: a thesaurus, a dictionary, and two or three books I alternate depending on my current predilection. On weekends, even before I rise to wash my face and brush my teeth, and even before I wipe the sleep off my eyes, I would reach for one of them and read. I would read around twenty pages, or more if they're really good, which they usually are. Yesterday it was Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. This morning, it's Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast. Lately, I have been having dreams so terrible they leave day-long impressions on me. I have recently taken up watercolor again in an attempt to sublimate this dark and heavy weight in my heart into something productive, but now I find that nothing cheers me up better than a good account of Paris. And, you know, it is true what they say that no one writes about Paris better than Hemingway. I think I truly understand Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca now-- in the most dire of circumstances, we can always look back at- or in my case, look forward to- sweet, sweet Paris.

Flowers 1

2010-07-03T15:06:00.004+09:00

Watercolor

Without Why

2010-06-26T16:20:00.015+09:00

Acrylic on photopaper

"The rose is without why, it blooms because it blooms,
It pays no attention to itself, asks not whether it is seen."
-- "Without Why," Angelus Silesius

2010-06-14T20:30:00.011+09:00

Sunlight dappled the tree, making the dew on its delicate, almost wraith, leaves glisten. The green shined like a cluster of freshly-polished emeralds snuggled against the pale blue silk of the sky. With the soporific rhythm of the wind, the bejeweled tree danced languidly; its brown neck is poised proudly, slender and graceful like a swan's, aware of its striking beauty. Below, the lake mirrored this grandeur, its sparkles like pixie dust on the picture.

The Poet

2010-06-13T18:47:00.006+09:00

Ice writes the most beautiful poems. He whips them up in a minute or two; I do not know how he does it. I know his poems are breathtaking in their beauty, but really, I do not understand them. I do not understand them, but really, I know that they are beautiful. I tell him that they are lovely like music, that I love them for their haunting melody. Still, I wonder how he feels, being with someone who does not understand. That must wrench his heart.

I wonder what it must be like to understand his poems. I wonder about the phantasmic truths his words hold.

What's for Dinner?

2010-05-30T12:44:00.012+09:00

When I was still living in my parents' house, I dreaded dinnertime. We abhorred rice,my siblings and I, and dinnertime invariably meant rice. And so, dinners at our home became not really about the breaking of bread, but an endless tirade on (what we believed as) the poor quality food we were served. Oh, how we wallowed in self-pity. We have suffered for too long, after all.

Every single night, over yet another unpalatable meal, we would complain, endlessly, about the sheer incompetence of the (poor, unsuspecting) cook, and fantasize about pasta, and mashed potatoes, and burgers, and buttered vegetables-- anything, really, so long as it is not rice. Once in a while, one of us would snap out of his sluggishness and make our fantasy a reality. Often, this person would be my brother's girlfriend, who is actually quite the cook. We would then feast on the non-rice meal hungrily, like a pack of vultures. Those nights were the best.

Now that I am living independently from my family and can eat absolutely anything my heart desires, I have realized that my problem with dinner is, really, not so much rice, but the idea of having to sit down to meal at a specific hour every single night regardless of whether my tummy is already grumbling, or still full. My dinners in the past five months were rarely constituted of rice, and yet I still dreaded it with my whole being, much like how a hyperactive toddler dreaded bedtime. What I hated, I now realize, was the very concept of dinner. I apparently despise this routine. The toddler refuses to be tucked into bed at seven. He wants to sleep only when he is sleepy! Clarise refuses to be tucked into a dining chair at seven. She wants to eat only when she is hungry! Well, you know what? I think Clarise will do just that.

Declaration of Independence Item 1: Clarise shall eat only what she wants, only when she wants.:)

Ms. Cranky

2010-05-24T20:59:00.005+09:00

When I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I relinquish a significant amount of control to the universe, and my day becomes all about this hopeless power struggle. I wish to claim autonomy over my life, and the universe wishes to push me around and poke fun at me. As the day progresses, I become increasingly cranky, disgruntled, and, most of all, stupid. I mean really, which person in her right mind dares take part in a tug-o-war with the cosmos?

Exactly.

Gelassenheit.

We call it odious

2010-05-22T14:53:00.016+09:00

Blame it on my shelteredness and innocence (and therefore on my stupidity) but I choose to be adamant in my belief that, more often than not, what we suspect as unctuousness and forced familiarity could very well be just friendliness- sincere, well-meant, and wholehearted friendliness- pure and simple. I wonder about this intense aversion to congenial behavior. I wonder about this inclination to think the worst in people. A smile too many or too eager, or a story a tad too revealing for our comfort, and a person is suddenly a social pariah. This is exasperating! Not everyone is out to get us; some people are actually quite decent. Some people actually mean well. Why, then, do we put up a defense so impenetrable, so unforgiving, so fatal? Why do we refuse to let anybody in without a fight?

Why does mankind choose to persecute itself?

On My Final Weekend of Lethargy

2010-04-17T15:42:00.013+09:00

"Don't let the victor belong to the spoils."
--Anthony Patch, The Beautiful and Damned

I am down to my last two days of summer vacation, and I can't say I can complain. Three whole weeks of glorious inactivity are already too generous a gift, I'm sure you would agree. I think it's high time I am unfrozen from my stupor.

To make the most of my remaining days as a free woman, I am basking in F. Scott Fitzgerald's genius. The Beautiful and Damned is just exquisite! My favorite writer (This Side of Paradise has elevated him to the ranks of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton) is simply incapable of disappointing the reader, I must say. Literary experts invariably consider his The Great Gatsby as the perfect novel; in my opinion, his other works are definitely not far behind.

I'm about two-thirds through the novel, and I'm getting quite impatient. You see, what I really want to do is to devour it. I want to read it with abandon. I do not want to pause to catch my breath or to intensively digest a phrase. What I really want to do is to read the book as I would read Sweet Valley Twins when I was a child. I want to lose myself in its pages.

While getting engrossed in a novel as lovely as The Beautiful and Damned might seem most natural, I find that, sadly, I am now incapable of experiencing that. You see, for some years now, I have been slave to this rather annoying compulsion to consult the thesaurus for every single unfamiliar word I encounter in texts. I seem to have lost faith in context clues. This endless shift between the novel and the thesaurus keeps me from succumbing to the book's hypnotic powers.

This compulsion is a most arduous and time-consuming task, and, I have to say, Fitzgerald's eloquence isn't helping at all. He says garrulous and loquacious when he means talkative, and writes stentorian when he could easily say loud. My unsophisticated vocabulary is obviously not prepared for great books. It is highly possible that I am actually spending more time with my thesaurus than the novel.

Oh Fitzgerald, if your stories weren't so compelling (and you, so cute).

Anthony Patch

2010-03-25T17:28:00.003+09:00

"So to Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was as a concession to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the habit of reading in bed-- it soothed him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned

I deserve plastic flowers

2010-03-25T10:52:00.011+09:00

Our lovely flower garden is now just pots of potpourri. God bless their souls. I guess there's no denying it now-- I am a black thumb! They spoke the truth, after all.

For my cinematography class back in third year college, I shot a commercial for a make-believe cooking show. I was channeling Nigella Lawson's fabulous show then, so I paid extra attention to my set. I bought dinnerware from Gourdo's, had my model wear a flowing white dress (I wanted her to look really romantic a la the domestic goddess), took out all the nice china, and kidnapped about seven of my grandmother's beloved plants.

I can still vividly remember Mama's protests as I hauled the pots off her garden to the car, leaving a trail of soil on the road. Even as I assured her that I'll be borrowing them for just a couple of hours, she was hesitant. She looked like she didn't trust me one bit. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she was unable to hold my gaze. I remember feeling offended then, but in hindsight, I think she was just being intuitive. She was absolutely right to mistrust me. You see, thirty minutes later, her plants died-- all because they were in my custody.

I have always dreamed about having a flower garden, but that incident kept holding me back. About a month ago, I finally mustered enough courage to let go of the past and pay the gardening store a visit. Oh how pretty my plants looked! Their flowers were varying shades of pink, just adorable. I pictured myself drinking tea from my floral teacup, surrounded by them. For the first time, the dirty kitchen I so abhorred looked wonderful. Oh, I can still remember.

Now they're dead, and so soon! The once pretty flowers hang from their dehydrated stems, all withered. They look like potpourri. Despite the fertilizer and their daily showers, they look like potpourri. Maybe I should just make them potpourri.

Goodbye, Heidegger! Goodbye, Nietzsche! Goodbye, Kant! Goodbye, Plato!

Forgetting is long

2010-03-24T21:28:00.005+09:00

"...[L]ights were glimmering in faint perhapses."
-- Sylvia Plath

I find that I cannot trick my mind into forgetting things, because later, when I sleep, I will dream. Hope- stubborn and resilient hope- has become my fiend.

Aporia

2010-02-06T21:15:00.002+09:00

I'm afraid I no longer know where to find God. I am overwhelmed with sadness by the reality that I no longer know how I may love and serve Him because I know that He exists. He exists, deserving of my love, and yet I lie here, immobile. Woe is me.

Understanding Sylvia

2010-01-10T10:28:00.006+09:00

Death is all over Sylvia Plath's journals. I can relate to her lamentations, to her many grievances and desires, and because of this I am frightened. I am frightened because I know what ultimately became of the great poet. You're not alone in your loneliness, Sylvia. Not at all.

The Chandelier

2010-01-09T22:37:00.008+09:00

The chandelier had been waiting for us for a week now. When we finally dropped by the antique shop this afternoon, its sockets have been altered to accommodate energy-saving light bulbs, and its crystal drops have been stripped of several layers of dust. It glistened in the daylight. My heart surged with excitement; I could already picture it hanging from our ceiling, luminous, sparkling.

A bigger antique shop recommended by Ice's colleague was just a few blocks away. On our way home, we decided to take a look. We looked at chandeliers. We asked how much the nicer ones cost, and then, whenever a saleslady replied, we would furtively throw each other smiles of victory-- our chandelier's a steal. "I could give you a discount," they would hastily say as we started to walk away. "Thank you very much, but no. We're just looking."

I have to say, I never enjoyed window-shopping more.

:)

2010-01-05T16:14:00.004+09:00

I see failure in the horizon. :'(

Audrey, Edie, and Orson

2010-01-03T18:43:00.024+09:00

Promotional still for Sabrina

1. Audrey Hepburn was an artist-- and I'm not talking about her movies. The lady painted really well. Her watercolors from when she was little are just amazing. You must see them. Also, before she became an actress, she was an accomplished ballerina. She was too tall to become a prima ballerina, though. But you probably know that story already. What I am certain you do not know is someone who is more beautiful and talented than our fair lady.

Vogue, 1965

2. Edie Sedgwick was also a ballerina. Back when Sedgwick was just on the verge of becoming America's it girl, Diana Vreeland and her infallible eye for the beautiful and trendy-to-be featured her in Vogue. The article had photos of her wearing those famous black tights, and being flexible, and looking fabulous. She was also quite the sculptor, you know. She once made a life-sized sculpture of a horse (she was also an equestrienne). She took an insanely long time to finish it (or did she even finish it?), because she was never quite satisfied with her handicraft. Psychologists say her obsession with the horse may be attributed to some very intense father issues.

Promotional still for Citizen Kane

3. Orson Welles, the lead actor, writer, producer, and director of the greatest Hollywood film of all time, read a book a day throughout his life. No wonder he was such a genius. When screen goddess Rita Hayworth finally divorced him after five years of marriage, her reason was, "I could not take his genius anymore." Wells also once said that he never prayed. He did not want to bore God.

Van Gogh is Bipolar

2009-12-27T16:07:00.035+09:00

It was a long drive to dinner. We were having difficulty looking for Van Gogh is Bipolar, and our meryenda-deprived stomachs were starting to grumble. With the help of a friendly soul, we found the elusive restaurant serenely tucked away in an obscure compound in UP's Maginhawa St. The only telltale sign that one-half of the stark white duplex is a restaurant is the small group of 40-somethings seated around a couple of garden tables, quietly talking over cocktails and tea. The Christmas lights were of no use. This time of year, the streets are filled with houses more extravagantly garbed in tinsel and lights. Nevertheless, we stepped out of the car. The sign at the door said that no shoes were allowed inside. The inside, I soon found out, was enchanting.

As with most quaint restaurants, the owner of the place occasionally slipped out of the kitchen and table-hopped. He did not inquire after our needs-- he was not a waiter. What he did was talk. First, he informed us that as a rule, diners were to make reservations beforehand in order to be accommodated. We were embarrassed, all apologies. I feared that he would send us away, but then he began talking about the place, his way of saying welcome. I have always loved this bit of the dining experience.

"This," he said, his eyes sweeping across the room, "is actually my house. I open it to diners at night." True enough, no restaurant could be more homey. Everywhere we looked, we saw a piece of personal memorabilia. Framed photographs of his family were all over the place. I tried my best not to stare at them; I felt like an intruder. The furniture were all antique-- heirlooms, perhaps. The wooden table by the kitchen window had etchings all over it. The owner later told us that those were the writings of previous visitors. I stared at the table more closely-- it appeared that everyone was eager to leave a mark.

Everything in the place, it seemed to me, had a story to tell. I was eager to find out. I wanted to ask him about the chairs; no two chairs in the place are similar. I longed to know how they came to his possession. Which were gifts and who gave them? Which ones were thrifted and for how much? Which ones were made especially for him (perhaps by a friend or a lover)?

Our own chairs were mismatched Louis XIVs. Lovely, lovely. We were seated at the center of the room, at a small white round table canopied by sheer white curtains that rustled gently with the wind. Tea-light candles cast a romantic glow across the table, making our bottle of water sparkle. Every now and then, the restaurant's resident black cat sashayed to our table, checking if we had a treat to spare. Our little spot was just perfect.

The other guests looked just as comfortable. Behind us, two girls were lazily propped on cozy multicolored floor pillows, eating from an exquisite white-washed coffee table. Behind them was a window with sheer white curtains, and beneath the curtains was a strand of tiny blue Christmas lights, framing the window like a stream breaking into two waterfalls. The scene charmed me; it looked like it belonged to a romantic movie. I longed to take a picture.

College friends were catching up on each other's lives at the table next to ours, if a little too loudly. There were about six of them, and they occupied the biggest table in the place. It was an old rectangular table, dark wood; the kind that belongs in my grandmother's house. Above was a chandelier, with shiny colorful Christmas balls dangling from its tiny loops along with the original crystals.

Paintings and sketches adorned the walls of the tiny space, hanging from thin, almost invisible, nylon strings. They were studies of people, mostly. I asked the owner if he made them, and he told me that they were given by friends. He takes photographs though, he said, gesturing to the wall behind me. They were black and white photos of a nude woman. Somewhere in the middle was a photo of a penis. Ice and I wondered if it belonged to the owner.

Van Gogh is Bipolar had a self-service policy. This made ordering food quite an experience, an adventure. Here is an account of our adventure:

***

The 24th

2009-12-24T18:50:00.010+09:00

Happy birthday, my dear Jesus. I wish I knew how to celebrate Your day. I am certain it's not about the lights and the tinsel and the food and the gifts. To be sure, Christmas is not about these worldly things. The first Christmas, after all, was most simple. Your birth was a story of perfect humility; nothing at all like the obscenely ostentatious, over-the-top holiday we have somehow managed to create around it. Christmas isn't supposed to be like this. To be sure.

I wonder how You are feeling right now, seeing the world celebrate Your day the way it does.

Christmas Break To Do List

2009-12-21T18:44:00.003+09:00

1. Finish reading The Portable Edith Wharton
2. Watch Coco Avant Chanel, Goodbye, Mr. Chips!, The Swan, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
3. Watercolor some more

Ah, what bliss! :)

Clarise Learns to Watercolor: Episode 2

2009-12-16T10:15:00.004+09:00

So I inked my previous watercolor project. This is how it turned out. :)

Clarise Learns to Watercolor: Episode 1

2009-12-14T12:29:00.012+09:00

Learning to watercolor is a lot harder than I expected! I spent all of last night looking through online tutorials, and yet this is what I came up with. I think I need better brushes, among other things.

Notes to self: Softer edges, flawless blending. How exactly does one achieve those? Oh my.

Do not give up, Clarise! :)

Forlorness

2009-12-11T23:19:00.023+09:00

"Why am I here? Why was I not consulted?"
--Dostoevsky

I am homeless.

Truth is, I don't have a home, which is just so sad because, well, everyone should have a home.

I am a Scrooge.

So I'm skipping Christmas. No offense, Jesus, but I refuse to let a holiday rub the pitiful state of my existence in my face. I know that already. It's all I can think about, really.

Christmas puts too much pressure on people to be happy. It's only for the loved and successful; to the unloved and poor, it is brutal. What about those of us who do not have a beloved or a family? What of us who do not have money? Do we not deserve Christmas?

Everything- the carols, the decor, the people in the festive mood- reminds us of how unfit we are for the Season of Joy. Christmas is all over the place-- it will not let us forget that we do not belong. For a holiday that aims to commemorate the birth of the Savior of the world, Christmas is quite the snob.

Well, my pathetic life will not be discriminated against! Not again!

I would like to pull a Heidegger.

What I would really like to do is put myself on exile. I would like to live in a forest, all by myself. I am starting to really hate the world.

I am dense and stupid.

I don't see how people can not care about other people. Excuse me, they are people, just like you. Do you not understand the gravity of that statement? I mean seriously.

I am determined.

I have but one new year's resolution: stop being nice. I think I'll start today.

Snippets

2009-12-10T09:10:00.009+09:00

Teacher Clarise comes to school one day wearing a tube dress.
Cute little girl: "Teacher, why are you so pa-sexy?!"
Teacher suddenly feels obscene.

Cute little boy abruptly stops in the middle of a session and whispers to me his evil plan.
Cute little boy: "I have a secret."
Teacher Clarise: "Oh, can you tell Teacher Clarise?"
I rub my hands in anticipation.
Cute little boy: "I want to leave my mom and dad behind and go on a vacation all by myself because they annoy me."
Teacher Clarise: "Really? Where would you like to go?"
Cute little boy: "Bulacan!"
Teacher Clarise: "Are you going to take your little sister with you?"
Cute little boy looks at the 2-year-old girl and considers. He shrugs.
Cute little boy: "Okay."
Teacher Clarise: "Wow! But how will you get to Bulacan? You'll drive?"
Cute little boy: "Of course not, silly! I don't know how to drive. I will bring Julio."
But, of course.

Teacher Clarise admires cute little boy 2's drawing.
Teacher Clarise: "Wow, that is so cool! Is that a helicopter?"
Cute little boy 2 sighs. I could almost see a thought bubble over his head: Why is teacher so stupid?
Cute little boy 2: "No! It's a Mitsubishi logo!"

Teacher Clarise introduces the letter 'F' to cute little boy 3.
Teacher Clarise: "This is the letter F! Can you repeat after me? F!"
Cute little boy 3: "Eppp..f!"
Teacher Clarise: "The sound of letter F is fff-fff-fff. Can you say it?"
Cute little boy 3: "Pp-pp-pp!"
Teacher Clarise: "Now these are objects that begin with the letter F. Feather! Can you say it for teacher? Feather!"
Cute little boy 3: "Peather!"

Like lightning

2009-12-08T22:48:00.024+09:00

It happened this afternoon. I was preparing my students' worksheets and art projects for the day when it suddenly dawned on me. For the first time since I dared embark upon this strange new career, I felt like a teacher.

Wow, I am a teacher. Who would have thought? I actually have little kids calling me Teacher Clarise. And parents and yayas too. I teach kids how to read jam, sam, dam, and ram. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Last week, we made paper snowmen.

Woohoo! :)

***

I was reading Blaise Pascal's pensees to my younger brother this evening. Nico, who is naturally extremely inquisitive, got very curious about the renowned philosopher/mathematician. I soon found him in front of the computer, doing research. His eyebrows were knitted. He looked very serious.

Here is what we found out: Apparently, Mr. Pascal's computing machine was not a commercial success-- only 50 units of it were sold, and most were used not for arithmetic but as conversation pieces for the living room. I imagine they looked very complicated (and, well, therefore esoteric), kind of like our era's "modern art installations." :)