Self Studies: Education and others.

Education.

I’ve always wanted to have a job that nobody else has. I wanted to be a painter because nobody in my hometown does that. Then I wanted to be a writer because it seems like a non-job kind of job and again, because I know no writer coming from my hometown. I can’t, however recall when and how I started wishing to work for national geographic. I can only recall that, after having my heart broken by the fact that I can never be a university-educated visual artist nor a writer, I announced to my elder sister that I wanted that kind of work. That I do not want to become a medical doctor after I finish my pre-med degree. "When I am done with biology", I told her “I want to go around the places taking pictures of plants and animals and writing a book about them.”

I wanted a more glamorous job than just being a medical doctor. Only MDs are dying to attach glamour to their otherwise non-glamorous job.

So I procrastinated. Second year into my pre-med I read literary books. I worked on my fanzine. I did everything to stop thinking about the day that I would have to tell my father I wanted out. I spent more time with Dostoevsky more than I would with Leithold. i procrastinated some more and refused to acknowledge my math problems. I am terribly afraid of needles and body piercing but for each math course I flunked I allowed my left earlobe to be pierced. I flunked math 17. The year after that I flunked calculus. I couldn't take some more piercing because if I flunked one more, the piercing would have to go through my ear cartilage and that was just too impossibly scary to bear.

It was time to tell my father.

I have had the script for months. I wrote, rehearsed, edited, added drama here and there, researched for facts, inserted a statistics table here and there, in my head while rushing to and from my apartment and the university. More than anything else, I was terribly afraid my father would refuse to send me to another university after this one. I thought of killing myself. But pesticides were too bitter, and again, I am afraid of sharp things.

As the day of reckoning got closer a scene repeatedly played in my head, even haunting me in my sleep. It was about one of the few times my mother and father came to the city to visit me. We were at my aunt’s house because it was where they could sleep for free.

He was talking to my aunt’s husband about kids and school, work, jobs. Expectedly they came upon the topic on me.

“I didn’t know pre-med could be this expensive,” my father declared haughtily, the corner of his left lip curling in mock smile, shaking his head to add to the drama.

Because he didn’t know better, he had reasons to be haughty. My degree and my campus was, after all, both first of the 2 choices I indicated in my application.

“First choice of campus, first choice of program,” I would sometimes say to people, ego tripping.

The campus was one of the higher ups in the university system. Passing both the quota for the program and the campus meant, if at all, that I am less stupid that what my high school grades actually said about me. 

“Oh, what more can I say? Her university says it all.”
“You know,” my father began, “I took the responsibility of seeing her through her pre-med. I give all my monthly earnings to her. I barely keep some for myself.”
“Well, a future medical doctor is not a bad investment.”
“Exactly. At least we won’t have to worry about health things when we get old. And I would have somebody to look after and monitor my gall stones.”


Breaks my heart all the time, especially when I think of all those 3 years I deprived my sisters of better things because my father decided to spend everything on me.

It would be years before I would recover. In between those years of nursing my guilt, I worked hard to prove to everyone that I made a better choice.


Unemployment and Zoloft.

But life has a way of teaching one things that s/he could never learn in school. I would again confront my worst post-university fear for all time—being broke and being unemployed. I cycled through it for several years, wallowed in self-pity. I fed my depression with Zoloft and felt a lot worse. I made my psychiatrist Php500 richer every 2 weeks. The medical treatment for clinical depression, my psychiatrist said, has to be administered for at LEAST nine months.

Broke and jobless at 24, I branded myself a black sheep, a family failure. My elder sister, she knew much better. She didn’t get to the best high school and yet, there she is, rock and rolling in the city where I failed. Like most of my friends fresh graduate friends eager to be in glitzy cities, my sister was thriving in places where I felt most alienated. i am a failure. i thought of killing myself when I turn 27.

But dude, who the hell waits 3 more agonizing years to commit suicide?

Right. Only somebody not really committed to doing it. Had Royal Tenenbaums already been produced by then I would have abided by the Richie T monologue:

“I will kill myself tomorrow.” Then cut myself right then and there, in front of the medicine cabinet.

Then again, I’m already 31 and still afraid of sharp things.

I shook myself to the reality of economics and quit taking my Php98.00-per-tablet-2x-a-day-half-a-tablet-Zoloft-plus-Epival-every-day-one-after-breakfast-another-before-going-to-bed and my every-second-week-of-the-month-sessions with my psychiatrist knowing that I am too poor for this kind of disease. I was not depressed anymore, after 4 long months.

(to be continued.)

The case of the confused louvers.

"That louver seems to be suffering from some sort of an identity crisis," Keith muttered under his breath. We just came from walking under the afternoon sun. 

I snapped a picture of the louver. and the building where it's attached to. and including the highway across it. plus some jalousies of the roadside Chinese restaurant where we sat to cool down.


Two weekends ago, Keith and I went to visit his associate's (it is not as glamorous as it sounds) (will be referred here as KA) project in the city suburbs.


Keith, as part of my lifetime apprenticeship, has recently turned me into his weekend assistant. I glorified my errand jobs; he still does not know such contract existed between us. While in transit from his out of town project to the city, he asked me to bring his dry seal along for us to bring to the site. The dry seal is made of solid metal thing, then lead and some more other things that make it heavier than it actually looks.


Although not quite a massive development, the new suburban mayhem is set to be one of the middle-high end developments in the city (Insert: This is the future site of Mcmansions). KA's client is one of the first owners to build the house in the area. KA's site turned out to be at the very end of the subdivision lot and we had to walk the 300 meters of the treeless, concrete avenue to get to the project area. It also turned out to be very near the body of water, almost surrounded by papyrus and woody mangrove species. At least they made the air cooler.


Keith and KA made sure that their design for this suburban residence is devoid of confused adornments. This, after all, may become the predictor of their as future designers of modern (for real!) houses.


The louver at the commercial building across the chinese restaurant is painted with red lead.


"'Should i shield this unit from the sun? Maybe only a little? Just a little bit? maybe shield just the side of the window here? and of the door there?' Christ, i hate these fake louvers."
Honestly, i didn't even know they were supposed to be louvers. I thought they were just railings to prevent people from falling over.


Confused railings, i should call them then? 

Don't be fooled by the jeepney sign. This is not in Jaro.

Design Competitions, anyone?

There is a time in the life of an designer where he'd be tempted to participate in the chaos of a design competition. I know. Some designers would say it is a complete waste of time because no small time designer/architect win in design competitions, anyway. And design competitions don't pay the bills because they are non-billable works. and while waiting for the results, you might as well recite the Novena, or else where will you get the money to pay for your fees and your staff's salary from doing something that does not convert to actual cash?

In November 2010 Keith tried his luck at an open design competition. He worked (and still does) alone, he worked (and still does the same) at home.He learned about the open design housing competition in the middle of the year. He only had few months to conceptualize, work on his design, do his models, render and squeeze in income-earning works in between. Despite these nuances, he said he enjoyed working on his competition entry because he didn't have difficult clients (who refuse to pay the equivalent of his expertise) to deal with.

His concept was loosely based on Aravena's housing projects with Elemental, particularly those built in Monterrey, Mexico . He has been fascinated with the concept of slums renovation and with providing quality socialized housing for the urban poor. He has seen the Aravena housing projects years before and was greatly impressed. Of course, there is the issue of sustainability, project life span vis a vis its cost, access to and possibility of having urban gardens, pedestrian and PWD considerations--those things combined resulted to this:

First board. 

Then the "He" became a "We" because, in the middle of all the chaos, i decided to step up and volunteered to do the legwork. Legwork is not at all classy, given my level of expertise. But since I am the one who have worked in an actual office and have dealt with impossible bosses, Keith surmised that i am the expert to handle the job. My first assignment was to look for a good material to use as boards. That was easy because i have artists friends and they use boards for their exhibits, too. Foam board was the answer. First time we went to the supply store, the boards were out of stock. Second time, it was still out of stock. We look for them at other stores but most sold only oversized A3 foam boards. Back to the original store. We were lucky the third time.

My second job was to look for a good material to print the outputs on. That was also easy. But no--turns out that my material of choice was way to expensive and we were already few hundreds over the budget. We expect more unnecessary spendings as the deadline gets closer so I had to look for cheaper alternatives. It didn't turn out to be an easy job as our little small town City lacked facilities that print A1 boards in singular copies. And no, tarpaulin is not even in the shortlist. It's tacky.

It didn't help that during that time, at the peak of all the renderings and the modellings, our city decided to ration its power supply. We get black outs that last for 8 hours a day. Keith had to revise his sleeping schedule--work at night and sleep during the day, because it is during the day when we get blackouts. He did this for two months.

And there's an Alfredogs band tour in Cebu a week before the deadline that we have to prepare for.

(OH! Alfredo! He directed the zarzuela and they had posters to promote it.)

We finally found it, MEJ, owned by Alfredo's friends, but not after getting lost and having to walk back 500 meters under the noon sun, because Alfredo was bad at giving directions. Lucky word that helped us find our way back to the print shop was "kaplog", which i didn't understand, and to which Keith replied, "Sandpipers."

Before MEJ, we scoured the malls, the print shops that were not in the malls, and computer/internet shops that have printing services. We even tried the tarpaulin printing shops but none of them print boards in A1. Even MEJ didn't have it, but oversized A3 at (VERY CHEAP!!!) PHP80.00 per page. The very helpful owner suggested we split the A1 layout to 4 sheets and just align them together in the board to form the whole A1 picture. Smart, if the printing is good--which really is; was even beyond my expectation. The "splitted" picture looked better than what we expected. Of course, it would have been best to have it in seamless A1.

This was the concept. The perspective was the second try and up to this day, i admit i still prefer the first render.
But i am a luddite when it comes to what a good perspective is so it doesn't matter.

Third job is to look for cheapest courier that can deliver the boards to the exhibit area in one piece. This one is really very easy, although the first courier we asked quoted a heart-attack-inducing PHP2,500 (i think) for 3 very light A1 foam boards to ship to Metro Manila. They barely weigh a kilo and we had to pay PHP2,500. LBC charged us about PHP450.00 (i think) for the whole thing. The 2,500 lady price-quoter was a real dud.

In between the looking for a shop to have it printed and packing it for actual shipping, there's the manual lay-outing.

The adhesive on the boards will not be enough to hold the four pieces of separate sheets altogether, seamlessly. Keith and I were imaging that in the middle of the judging, a sheet would fall off, its corners would curl or fold or just refuse to stick to the foam board. The boards would look awful and no great MEJ printing quality would be enough to redeem the bad impression.

Saran wrap. Yes, the answer might lie in the clingy, thin plastic wrap that is popular by the brand name Saran. So while awkwardly assembling the whole thing on our 1.2 square meters plastic dining table, i sent Keith to the nearest grocey store to get some cling wrap. He came home disappointed as the only available dimensions of the plastic wrap is again, way way way small to cover the whole A1 board in one seamless piece, similar to a vaccuum-wrapped food.

"It does not matter. It's a cling wrap, it will cling and when it does, the whole thing will look like they're wrap in one piece of plastic," I assured him.

But NO--plastic wrap does not cling to paper; it only clings to its fellow plastic and when it does, it loves to make those little crumpled plastic look that is terribly untidy looking and unprofessional. By all means, my idea of plastic wrap assembly must be abandoned. IMMEDIATELY.

Keith was already profusely sweating from the humidity in the house and from our 4 year-old who also wanted to participate in our mega-board-wrapping-project. We're not halfway done yet.

Then he stopped going around the table and the boards. Paused. Stared. The whole place was a mess.

"We send it without the plastic."
"What?"
"We send it without the plastic wrap."
"Why? What if it falls off during the exhibition?"
"It will not fall off. I will reinforce it with clear glue. We use the plastic wrap for protection during shipment."

I believe Keith knows his materials better than I so I did as told. And because that plastic wrap assembly was frankly the last of bulb-lighting ideas i had for the day.

I have 30 minutes to finish the written statement for the entry before we mail the boards. It was one of those things i regret because had i been quick to assume my role in the competition, Keith and I could have had more in-depth discussions about the project, i could have participated in the conceptualization and the brain-storming. I could have researched more and produced a better statement for the project. The only thing i did before this whole printing-packing thing was comment on his renderings. and suggest what better vine to use for insulation.

Keith asked me again if i want my name on the entry form. I thought the entry form looked lonely with just his name on it. So i said Yes, and asked him to put "Research Assistant" on the description.

The Elements.

We all learn from our mistakes the next thing we did after we submitted the boards was send out kid to my parents, prepare for Cebu, enjoyed Cebu with friends, went home happy, and looked for the next possible competition to join once again.

At least we now know where MEJ is.

summer and jobs and friends.

I'm a development worker and my husband is an architect. We have been trying to get a house but both of us have "weird" jobs, we can't get a loan. We can't because we do not have any housing financing membership, because, again, our nature of employment is, well, different. I do not work for a firm or a corporation. I carry my own name and people just call me if they need my services. It's the same thing with my husband. People call him if they want things built and when it's time to build what he's designed, a news blackout usually occur. Then he'd learn a civil engineer was commissioned to see the design built, in husband's absence. And before husband could even finish counting 1 to 10, the owners would come to him complaining of poor execution. Of course, what output do you expect from engineers who steal other people's expertise?

Majority of the people i met post university have very interesting jobs. Not to be taken out of context, but the last stories i'd want to hear are those concerning sales and general office spats. Most of my high school friends went to that direction, selling things and services in behalf of the capitalists. Thank God none in my high school group went to sell kidney medications. When our little high school group get together, i barely could relate. But i am not closing any doors because there are times that sales talk do get interesting. Since i failed the simulation interview applying as a sales agent in a call center, painful as it may seem, i knew i didn't have any talent for sales. That i could never be a highly paid call center agent. I can't even sell myself; i had to get my first boyfriend drunk so i could get to first base with him. 

One of those post-university friends is a resident historian in the City Museum. RH was a history major who turned planner. Because of him, I get all-time free passes to the museum. I go there for a lot of things. I go there to talk. I go there to study. I go there to see people i like to talk with.  Most of the time RH would talk history to me, show me rare turn-of-the-century pictures of Iloilo City. RH introduced me to lot more friends like Zaffy and Liby.

Zaffy died about 2 years ago from heart attack. Liby, meanwhile, is an artist who wants to devote his craft exploring the Panayanon culture. Several of his exhibits is all about that subject. He has just returned to Iloilo having been gone for a couple of years to pursue his MFA in UPenn as a Ford scholar. Both of us shared similar fascination with this indigenous group, being an RA myself in a Panayanon research years before. Our little Musuem clique, RH included, share similar dreams for a livable Iloilo City and Liby has given me countless of ideas on how to better communicate our opinion to people in the City. I am hoping to one day collaborate with him on a project--we actually could, if only i was not too preoccupied with my day job, the one that (as said in the past posts) actually pays the bills.

In one hot August 2010 weekend, ABD popped up in my facebook chat window inviting me and Keith to Cebu. The date of the visit is in the 2nd week of November but August was a good time to get the tickets because they are on sale.

"Would you like to go to Cebu in November?" I asked Keith. Keith handles the household finances so he decides on the priorities. He's better at it--handling finances.
"What for? and how long?"
"Tour. 3 days. With ABD."
"Just the three of us?"
"And maybe some of his friends."
"Okay."
And that's it. The activity was approved, along with the proposed budget and by November, Keith and I were introduced to two new members of the touring band which would go by the name Alfredogs.


ABD went to Cebu to to present a paper in ICOVAC about the Zarzuela. The rest of the "we" were mere junkets but we paid with our personal money. On the first day of the tour, the yellow day, Maritess* (not her real name. Her real nickname starts with a "P" but she once lived in the city where the City Mayor is named Maritess), wore a Nat Geo shirt and a Fedora hat (was it???). She didn't bring her camera along and it would be the day after that I'd know she could make me beautiful in her pictures. And CBD, too. and ABD. even Keith. and who could forget Giop, who seemed to have mastered the correct pose angles for the camera. All of us looked beautiful in Nikon.

ABD, you would have already known. He writes papers and he directs zarzuelas. He's been to two separate courses of german language and he prefers teaching high school students to college because, "College students are such terrible disappointment." Keith and I were one of his first high school students.

Maritess, I recently discovered, waited in a German restaurant years before. See? the world really conspired and brought us together in that fateful week of November. I happen to be an avid viewer of Deutsche Welle TV, Euromaxx, specifically--but just the ones in English. I discovered Jurgen Mayer through Euromaxx. 


On the second day of the tour, the black and white day, Maritess brought her big camera bag along. And we went to UP Cebu, felt sorry for UP Cebu, felt even sorrier for UP Visayas, and played the game of Alphabet conversations under the big Acacia tree while Maritess accompanied Giop out of the campus, at the jeepney stop near the waiting sheds, to smoke. She took more pictures of us. Weeks following that, back in Iloilo, we recalled the Cebu tour on and on again in between bottles of beer at Frozen Mug. She left for Sendai two days after. 

CBD is a different breed. She's an accountant and a grammarian. She loves to count the number of tiles on the floor, and the number of rivets in a span of the Infante Flyover. She's addicted to travelling. She's a talker and she would talk even if nobody is listening. Most of the time i listen because apparently, i can never beat her in the talking portion. She's highly dependent on Iterax and her lungs experience freedom for only 2 months in the total of 12 per year. Freedom comes only in February up to March. That is, according to her relaying her doctor's explanation, the time when the pollens are not in their disco mode. 


Giop is ABD's friend and zarzuela actor who works in a call center. he has a lot of money but is, i was told, frugal. He repeatedly bargained with a Kukuk's waitress over the 15 peso per piece price of a Dole banana. During the time we were in Cebu he was always away, either teleconferencing or losing his way trying to find, well, his way.

Have i mentioned Keith? He is an architect and he likes Glenn Murcutt and Peter Zumthor. He hopes to one day design something truly Filipino. He's currently busy building Muscovado Processing Plant for a Farmers cooperative. ABD likes him better than me because Keith seldom talks. And because he can sing ang play guitar, skills that Maritess and I clearly lack.

It's summer in the Philippines and Liby is back from Manila. The Museo Kids will be spending times together again. In 2nd week of April, Maritess will come home from the devastated Japan. We will also spending lots of time again.

This summer, I will get the chance to really know how fascinating my friends are. I will.

-------

**Maritess, okay lang nga ikaw si maritess? 

there you go again, deaths.

i almost died from heart attack today. somebody/thing just lost 10 million because of my complacency. 

but i didn't. although the 2-hour deliberation felt like a death sentence and despite the bosses coming to my defense, i can't help feel inadequate.
(husband then sends a message telling me to stop beating myself.)
wow. 10 million. it could feed a lot of poor people (except the maid i recently fired. i'm evil. i'm cruel. i'm wishing she'd go really dirt poor for lying and stealing my kid's tuition money).

Terror Professor died this week. I first heard of him at age 13. he was feared by many of my house mates who were just beginning their long and painful college life. half of those house mates did not survive life in my university. I regret not having experienced terror prof. I came to the campus too late--he already retired. but during the drinking days in the university, one of my close friends would tell of this recurring memory about how terror prof burned his hair in class.

Terror Prof was a chain smoker and he loved to smoke in his class, i was told. One time, in his class he came with a lit cigarette, sat on the table and began discussing (in monologue, i do not know). In the middle of everything, he rested his chin on his hand--probably one of his mannerisms and became too absorbed in the discussion that he didn't notice he's burned part of his hair. When somebody in the class had actually gathered enough guts to interrupt him and tell him about his burning hair, he did not even flip. he just brushed the ashes of the burned hair and cigarette off his shoulders and went on with his discussion.

of all the people i know, i think ABD has the best last memory: inside the cinematheque, sitting beside terror prof watching a classic film. i could almost picture them inside the cinematheque with smiles on their faces and as the lights from the large screen fade, terror prof;s white hair turned black and blacker until most of him faded in the dark. Then the theater lights flooded the whole room. it was time to go.


i like going to wakes than going to weddings because i feel that there is a lot more honesty in the wakes. despite being highly theatrical with all the guest receiving, the re-telling of how death came, of the last memories, and finally, the going over to the coffin, the attempt to not cry and finally the crying, wakes never pretend. In weddings it is expected that every one should ham it up but every one is also expected to pretend there's no hamming it up. But never in wakes.  And unlike my wedding, i rather have elaborate wake plans in mind, where none of those who do not want to participate will be forced to do so, and where ABD will supervise/oversee all the committees. Maybe Maritess will take the pictures. after all it was only in her pictures that i was beautiful. PF will be allowed to feel sad, if he wishes to. JV will sing and CBD will entertain the guests. Alfredogs will shine.


Having survived the near-death-5-hours-10-million-heart-attack-experience, i wished for a drink. Just before chris and i left the island, i sent messages to possible drinking buddies but murphy enforced its law today and everyone is busy when i am not. not only were they busy, but most of them were busy with wakes. my high school friend's aunt whom i;ve known since i was 13 died yesterday. Liby is also attending a wake of a relative's friend and i cannot, in all of my attempts, tempt him to leave the wake for a cup of coffee in Jaro Plaza.


I went home thinking of going to the coffeeshop alone so i can wallow in my 10-million worth of misery and allow shots from 1997 to play over and over again, in my head. hoped to finally write them down with a 30-something perspective.

"in malate, very late at night. alone. buying coffee and cigarettes at a 24-hour mom and pop (yes, the store's name) store. I have a math exam the next day that I'm sure to fail despite having studied it for one straight week. so i drown myself in cheap coffee and misery."


and that is how i slowly died in malate. but that is another story.