Moth ni Gogol: A lesson on death boxes.

Actually it's close to impossible to make a decent a taxidermy of a moth sans the chemicals. A week after its death, the moth starts to disintegrate if not properly treated/preserved. I won't go into the details of that as i am not a taxidermy expert...

But this is how this all happened...

In late October i brought Gogol to the cemetery to familiarize himself with the Pista Minatay tradition. I also wanted him to experience how it's like cleaning tombs as we were there to clean my grandmother's tomb in preparation for the November 1 All Saint's Day. The All Soul's Day is officially set on November 2 but it has been a tradition in our town to collectively visit the cemetery on the first of November.

To prepare his curious brain for the impending information overload (and of course to save myself from having to answer too many questions), on our way to the cemetery, i told him the story of death and of dead people being laid to rest in boxes. Expectedly, my story raised more questions than i could possibly answer so to prevent further confusion (and more tall tales from me), I resorted to this: Dead people died because they drank dirty water and had diarrhea and now they have to sleep in boxes in the cemetery. forever. end. of. story.

Meanwhile the kid got the horror of his life imagining that if he ate with dirty hands or drank dirty water he'd die from diarrhea and had to sleep in one of those boxes. forever. So somehow that cemetery trip did something good to us--he developed the habit of hand washing and drinking only from his own glass.

One morning after that short vacation cum cemetery visit, and some days after we're back to the City, i found an injured moth in our room. I did try to keep it inside the house and away from gogol (because last i heard, he unintentionally mashed a spider and wailed realizing he killed it), hoping it will recuperate on its own (because i didn't know how to provide care for an injured moth, sorry mothy). and it died.

and i found the chance to tell gogol more about death and dying and laying things to rest.

and was confronted by the question: "If i die, i will not fit in that box, nanay." He looked really worried. I can't remember how i survived that moment. maybe i told him, "We'll get you a bigger box."

With the small black box that used to contain japanese pastries, gogol and i carefully laid a piece of tissue for the moth to lay on. He held in his open palms 2 yellow push pins (which i realized were too big to use on the moth) as i carefully spread its wings. carefully, very carefully i fixed the delicate wings on the piece of cork glued to the box (covered by teh tissue) using the two push pins. A pen-type correction fluid was used to label the box while a blue pen with colored metallic ink was used in the label inside the box. 

Gogol bragged it for couple of days to people in the house. "Look at my moth! It's dead."

and then he forgets.

Good for him. 

PF Writing. Me writing on his writing.

PF is talking me into writing about the radio station that became so popular when we were still in high school. So good that it became our favorite. And everyone else’s, too. Much of our reunion conversations would have a piece on that, and the dj’s; some of them we actually interviewed for our fanzine. The local one closed in 1999. I have left Iloilo already and when I went back I was very surprised to hear my schoolmates, who never had any rock and roll nerve, gushing about the whole NU 107.9 Iloilo's last day event. I heard they even lit candles. Cheese overload.

Not a week ago PF actually mentioned writing about the station. It was when he was eye-ball deep with commitments (okay, I’m just exaggerating—make that armpit-deep) and I never took him seriously on that. I knew he’d never have the time for it. He’s even way behind schedule for his DAtE works. And since NU Main station reprogramming is also not so hot topic for me, I had little to no drive to feel nostalgic about it. 

I don’t listen to them anymore.

While Halloween vacationing at my parent’s place we sat with our backs to each other, absorbed by our own little world in cyberspace. I'd glanced and his his eyes are fixed on Form (uninteresting, he said), or an E-book (no El Croquis this time, I think). Or at pirate bay downloading porn for all I know. But this is how I came to know he was actually researching on his write up apart from ogling on architecture books and magazines--their total subscription cost more than our monthly rent.

PF: are you familiar with the band Anathema?

Me: No. what are they?

PF: and the Belly album in 1993.

Me: what? What the hell are you reading there?

(I thought he was asking me about a belly album in 1993 called anathema but before I could google it he said--)

PF: I’m making a list of albums released in 1993.

Me: Wow. You’ve really gone that far now. I’m still stuck to “Why Architects Drink” and you’re way beyond there, you’ve gone to music.

PF: and shakira already had an album released in 1993.

Me: meaning, she’s already old?

PF: because I thought we were of the same age

(who knows she was already bankable at 13?)

Me: is that for the NU thing?

PF: yeah. Why?

Me: wow extensive research you got there.

PF: well, you should write something, too. Then we post them together.

Me: Christ, is that serious?

PF: and you can tell BCG to do the same and we post together.

Me: How do you think we’re gonna proceed with that? We’re going home tomorrow.

(Back to our no-internet-therefore-no-wi-fi home, in these days of google-replacing-the-libraries)

PF: NU is changing programming on the 8^th, we still got about a week.

(No comment. Then I opened MS word and started typing, after sending BCG a message. PF turned to me to say something but he instead exclaimed --)

PF: what?! You’re already writing?

Me: well, of course. It’s not like it’s a term paper. And I’m just drafting. Unlike you I don’t abide by the FLW motto.

PF: (Laughs. Snickers. Chuckles. Or something like that.)

(amazed that I remembered that FLW comment. And he’s silent for a while then--)

PF: Help me remember Buffalo Tom.

Me: Summer. Taillights Fade. (as i tapped on my keyboards for youtube search)

PF: Nothing.

Me: Oh, Red Letter Day. That was popular.

PF: God. Still nothing.

(then silence. The dog outside howled. The baby in the room 2 meters away is sleeping like a log, I bet snoring. Then he asked me if I have--)

PF: Violent Femmes.

Me: what about?

PF: do you have violent femmes?

(because I almost played the buffalo tom only to find out that the mp3 is in our OTHER computer, which we left at home)

Me: no. except on mixed tape

(meaning cassette tapes. Where you use a cassette player to listen to it.)

(30 minutes after he asked me to call it a night. i played Buffalo Tom's i'm allowed for him to see, said he remembers now. Sad song, i say to him. Yea, that sounds really like something they'd play in NU in those days. Yea, i said. 

and gave my shoulder an assuring squeezed then off he went to sleep.)

More of it laterzzzz. God knows what he’s going to ask me tomorrow.

Mobile Reading

I don’t have a kindle. I haven’t seen a kindle and I can't see myself having a kindle in the near future. For some like me who can’t even afford a decent pair of running shoes, mobile books like kindle is the last thing in my mind.

But in the last 3 years of constant public transport commuting (read: jeepney/PUJs) from Jaro to Iloilo City downtown has proved stressful because, of the worsening traffic congested. It used to be a lot easier when the flyovers were non-existent and when LTFRB did not “sell” jeepney franchises like hot pandesal. (Those who say otherwise, raise your hand!)

I've recently knew that traffic congestion is one of the many stressors to a city resident, leading eventually to heart diseases and, well yes, premature death due to road rages.


My solution: read.

Read a book.

I have recently rekindled (no pun intended) my love for writing and reading, and I've amassed quite a number of books in the past few months. Most of them I bought because I wanted to write better.

My love for mobile reading, I discovered while reading J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar. Mine is a hardbound copy with about 370 pages and I finished reading it in about a month, I guess.

It’s slow read, when you come to think of it, but I did it during my 20-minute jeepney rides from Jaro to my office in downtown Iloilo City. I realized that if I kept myself busy with the book I would not take notice of the clumsiness and the road butchery of the public transport drivers. And yes it helped, most of the time.

Prior to Moehringer’s, I’ve already started trying, first with Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House. 

Keith bought it about 8 years ago, along with Albert Camus’ The Stranger, which, thanks to the termites, has been wiped out from my collection. Bauhaus to our House was a difficult read for me because I was practically unfamiliar with the names of all modern architecture gods mentioned in the book. I also didn't understand Wolfe’s point—did he actually like the transformation to modernism of his beloved America or did he hate it? Sarcastic? Funny? So I had to read it again. And again—the third time I started highlighting the architects' names and the name of the buildings mentioned. Incidentally, I’ve started my love affair with pushpullbar and some other architecture readings so Wolfe’s became easier to understand. I got his point. Or so I think.

With Booksale conveniently located at the mall across where I work, I was practically hooked. Next I bought was Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam, written by James Sullivan. 

I was never a fan of love stories. In fact, the last love story book I recall reading was that of Sweet dreams, back in my elementary days. It was also because my father banned these kinds of books at home. I bought James Sullivan's book because at that time, I did't have a husband-writing-about-his-wife book and because it’s about Vietnam. My roster also lacked a memoir about Asia. I have nothing on travelling, more so about travelling in Asia. I thought finding this book was timely. I finished the book in 3 weeks. Again, slow read because I was still adjusting to the art of reading inside a full-packed, overspeeding jeepney.

Then there came Candyfreak which I totally enjoyed. It was written by Steve Almond, a candy-loving Jew, and proud to be one. I think I bought it together with that Sullivan book. Because it was so funny and because I enjoyed every page of it, plus the fact that I have virtually mastered the reading the seemingly rollercoaster-ride that is the jeepney, I was able to finished it in a much shorter time. And also because, it was an easy read. Tender Bar was also beautiful, but it required a more detailed reading. When I was almost done with the book, I found my 3 year-old son one night, running his beloved scissor on its cover, so silent, like a ninja. Three slits. The next day, I brought it with me, unrepaired—three slits on the cover and all. I’ve almost forgotten how weird the book looked until I saw a handful of people staring at the book I was reading. 

Two of the most emotional books I read on the jeepney were Change me into Zeus Daughter by Barbara Robinette Moss, and Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore. I bought Moss’ book because it's a memoir about a family. 

Plus, it was written by a woman. I still didn’t have that kind of book in my collection. Gilmore’s, I bought because it was a memoir written by a brother about an older brother in death row. Again, I still didn’t have that kind of book with me. Of all the books I read, these two were perhaps the most engaging because even when I was home, I read them before going to sleep and right after I wake up. It came to a point where I asked my kid to sleep on his own minus our reading of baby books routine because I couldn't wait to read my own books.
These two are hardbound, wider than the average size of the books and therefore, heavier. The stories were as heavy as the books.

These days, my jeepney companion is Daniel Treiber’s Frank Lloyd Wright. Again, it’s a difficult read because as much as i hated to admit it, I’m pretty low on the visual and spatial intelligence. 

Descriptions about the roof, the house lay-out, the panelings and glazings and all that stuff are hard for me to imagine. I would spend more time staring at the pictures of the houses than their descriptions. But even if that is so, there's no denying that this books has clearly showed how advanced FLW is for his time. Frankly, even if i'm a fan of modern architecture, Taliesin (East) remains to be a dream house. So there, that’s Wright education for me, courtesy of Keith.

The National Geographic Magazine is also a constant companion and every time a subscription arrives, I leave my book behind and bring this along. It takes me about a week to finish a magazine. By the time I’m done, the cover is wrinkled in faded from wrestling with all the knick knacks in my bag.


Reading is really fun. Cliché as it may, it’s my number 1 stress reliever. And maybe you should try it too. Especially when you’re in the middle of a terrible traffic congestion. But of course, not when you are the one driving.

Fin.

ED.u.Cate.

A teacher friend, ABD, just sent his whole class outside. I thought it must be the 2-hour brown-outs. I was wrong; said it’s not PECO-related but brain-da related.

It’s is just not the only but one of the many whines I would often her from my teacher friends: students just getting dumber and dumber.

(News is…there’s a budget cut for the state universities. I wonder where that will lead us.) 

I wish to present a listing of valuable statistics on the decline of Philippine education but I still don’t have them.

One of my bosses, a former university professor, says the same. Teaching post-bacc is getting to be more and more frustrating because each year, students, she said, seem to be getting dumber and dumber.


What about us? In what spectrum of dumbness do we belong?

Then again…perhaps it’s where we are really heading? (If you googled for “Philippine education+students getting dumber” you’d get links to articles not only talking about Philippines dumbness.) Who knows what the teachers complained about me, or my batch perhaps? – students getting lazier to edit because of MS Word spellcheck and grammar auto detect? And how about the students, decades before? And the ones before? I’m wondering what the Egyptians or the Incans would complain when they see us now. Maybe laugh at our buildings and the atrocious planning? I’ll give them the liberty because after all, the Burj Dubai is really nothing compared to Machu Picchu.

Sending students out do not help, ABD knows that but sometimes it’s really too much. Either that or a heart attack. I will choose sending them out. Better to preserve ABD than a class of 30 morons. 

On to another friend. He helps students make their papers readable. He’s rather amazing, this friend of mine, because he’d actually allow himself to be subjected to such torture. He does it for a pay of course, and frankly, the pay is chicken feed compared to what these dumb students are subjecting him to. On some occasions where, I’d help revise a chapter or two, sometimes he’d beg me to help him. revising requires a lot of mental preparation. To prepare, I’d scan the first page, pencil in hand, to see the extent of work I’d have to do. Seldom would I encounter a paragraph, more so a sentence, that does not need any form of revision. And patience is a virtue that I always try to keep but standards is something else and before I lose them both, I’d resort to revising the whole first page. It doesn’t end there. Eventually, the decision would be to revise the whole chapter. It's no use revising a chapter what can be more clearly explained in 2 paragraphs (because the remaining 80% of the chapter is pure trash--apparently there's too much copying and pasting that happened).

This kind of black market “employment” is not commendable in the university where ABD, paper-revising friend (PRF)and I come from. I personally keep mum about it because it embarrasses me. I do not want to be called a thesis reviser, nor the local version of Recto. But I understand how it works with PRF—he has actually had a handful of “best in thesis” (both masters and undergrad) in his portfolio and numerous network established because of it. He should be proud of this achievement, and of the fact that in all of those things he’s done, he’s virtually made himself a dengue expert, a peace and order expert, a computer science expert, a childcare expert, to name a few. He learns a lot from them, I wonder if the experience is the same to the other party.

Of course, PRF learns from them because that how he’s reared by our university, the way ABD and myself were reared also. We know learning does not end after university education (and motherhood—thou shouldn't be your children’s slaves).

So how do we really make these dumbasses want to love school? How do we make them ask intelligent questions? How do we make them learn to problematize (beyond the “how’s” in getting the latest model iphone or ipod, or the latest in facebook), feed their curiosity, make them go to the library, make them read book other than their text books, make them work on their paper—not by copying and pasting, but, this time, by using their head, when we've practically done everything possible?

Dumbasses and morons, stand up. It’s time you defended yourselves.

dialect tics

This weekend, while discussing our recent personal projects, among others, i happened to mention the "workshop-workshop " that I've participated in these past few months. Liby (he doesn't have a site i could link his name to but i think  THIS will do) grinned. And mentioned something about people repeating words. I was confused there a bit (in short, nag-mango ng 5 seconds) until he mentioned "theater-theater" and the thing i just uttered: "workshop-workshop". Apparently, he found this practice rather weird and i was compelled to explain, despite my obvious lack of expertise in linguistics.

It's not only Liby who's pointed this out to me-- the tendency of Filipinos, if not just Ilonggos, to repeat words( and even names – my nickname is Bimbim, my brother, Dindin). I've been asked by my Japanese boss about this before. Take (ang) saya saya (tagalog phrase meaning "very happy/utmost happiness"), for example. Doubling saya here does not entirely change the meaning of the word--the context maybe? -- and saya can certainly stand on its own. On the other hand paro-paro which, if devoid of its other half would mean nothing (maybe like the funny word: irregardless). The Japanese language, however (as per story of my boss) has a different story to tell. One example is this: Japanese language technically assigned cho-cho as the equivalent of butterfly but one can just use cho and it would still mean the same: butterfly. Tagalogs do not and will not call the butterfly by its half-a-name, paro. We kiniray-a and hiligaynon speakers don't cut the name short to alibang either. Alibangbang. it's always alibangbang. (Boss mentioned other japanese words but of course i cannot recall any of them anymore.)

"Maybe it's a form of humility," I say, referring to "workshop-workshop" and "theater-theater". I'm not trying to say that by using the "workshop-workshop" the writing workshops I've been involved in are lesser in value than those considered by the literature majors the "ultimates". ABD is a wonderful mentor. He's inspired me in many ways than i could possibly think of, and i am completely satisfied by what i'm getting from all of these WS's. I meant to say “workshop-workshop” because I am not gaining any additional scholastic degree from it, nor will I be given additional academic credits. But no, it is not something that I do not take seriously.

And comes the remembering: when we say dugay-dugay (short pronunciation, not the /doooogay-doooogay/, which has a different meaning), we mean "sooner" than soon. Medyo-medyo = lesser version of medyo. I'm not sure about sala-sala, though. But it seems to me that this becomes some form of a mockery to the doer.

Ms. Raj's speech, in my opinion, is a direct result of this language quirkiness of ours. "Major-major" to signify a lesser form of the "major" -- or maybe she meant the opposite?

Gamay-gamay, dako-dako, hinay-hinay, todo-todo, laba-laba, lip-ot - lip-ot – doubling them rather exponentially changes the meaning of the "singles" (imagine: gamay squared), unlike the medyo-medyo.


Hmm…that is really something I should read about.

But then, the listener seemed satisfied by my short, amateurish explanation, and i don't think i'd like to expound further. He got up and went to look for the missing head of his wayang golek.


Fin.