These difficult times

Sometimes, it’s too hard to decide. Should I let this go? Gain it back in another way, another form?

It’s difficult. Back of my mind, I tell myself: I can have it back. Soon. All I need is peace of mind at the moment and to settle things without any guilty feeling. Letting go and letting things pass by are precursors of the next move: moving on.

~ ~ ~

The thought that we are luckier at the sight of people greatly affected by the recent national tragedy (read: storm Ondoy’s fury) is real and an occasion for sincere gratitude.

How can we help? Reaching out comes in a variety of ways. Prayer sounds mushy but could be of great help. We look closely at our own vicinity. People around consciously ask for help. The small things and amount we have can help a lot like spare food and meager cash. We’ve done helping to those closest to us like our lowly house helpers and neighbors.

Beyond that I don’t know how to help more. I get goose bumps whenever I see the storm’s aftermath evident in the dirty streets and congested evacuation areas. I feel guilty thinking of good things to buy or eat when majority are reeling off from pain and lost. When will we ever go back to normal? Maybe before Christmas when everything and everyone should be happy and bright.

We all have our little and big problems in life, but the enormity of this disaster brings out the good in all of us, sans the political spin. “To help” suddenly becomes an action phrase more than an infinitive command.

Beyond all these concrete attempts to help is the thought that we sincerely care for others shown in many different ways, more than shelling out material things or giving out money. A prayer before sleeping time addressed to a God who never falls asleep, day in, day out, is a touching gesture that we care and we do not forget to see how life could become better for us all : poor and rich alike, victims and survivors, heroes and losers.

It makes a difference.

Stories

You read a book. Watched a movie. The words, the characters, the scenes seemed familiar. You remembered people from your past. Then you began to long for them. But you cannot have them; they’re gone.

You started weaving memories. To paint pictures when life was happier because it was shared. But you knew soon they’ll get paler, washed out by blurred images you could no longer revisit and recall.

The urge to bring back the past to life was intense. But there you were undecided, couldn’t say the right word, restraining the spark to overempower you again.

And so you stood there. Regretful. Waiting.

Back again

Netopia, Vega, LB – Here I am in a public Internet shop again, after more than a year since Smartbro came into my life, writing on this site and uploading pictures on another site. Reason: I have to give in to a family pressure to post the pictures of our post-summer “gimmick” last weekend via my new and first-ever digicam.

Anyway, I began to discover blogging and cyber life through this Internet shop. So it’s like a reunion of sorts. But it’s different to do online writing right at the confines of your own physical space. There’s no built-in pressure. Here, I’m doing the act because I must do something while waiting for the uploads to finish. The speed is more manageable than the Net connection at home, but it still leaves much to be desired.

Anyway, my FS blog I closed and my entries there I imported and uploaded on this site sans the pictures accompanying the texts though. Better than losing the texts altogether. There’s another blogsite I keep at Multiply. I write differently there. More of the spur-of-the-moment type of writing. And it’s meant for fewer readers.

First Sem. This semester ushered in with a promise of work and and a host of responsibilities. I have 2 undergrad teaching assignments and 1 graduate class. And as a student, I have one graduate class to attend at UPD-CMC. It is always a full week. I must wake up at 6 a.m., report to work by 8 a.m., go home from school the earliest at 7 p.m., and sleep by 1 a.m. I don’t want to elaborate.

Yet I enjoy the stress and gain strength from the thought that a full life is worth living.

In retrospect

After two days of a tiring crossenrollment process, here I am back again as a Netizen, but with my legs aching after braving through lengthy walks and complicated turns.

In retrospect, I wish I could simplify things and emerge through the entire experience whole and peaceful. But things didn’t turn out that way. There could (and should) be a kinder and quicker registration process, I believe. Better than that.

I took me a day to process my request for crossreg, made difficult by sudden rush of rains that caused brownout and system failure. Then, another day to enlist and pay. But in between, I was made to go back and forth to my host college and the university library to get signatures and clearance, respectively, which to me, I suppose, can be forgone.

The distance of buildings where reg papers could be processed make the procedure doubly harder. (Jeepney rides could not help either.) Maybe putting office representatives housed in a reg area together can ease out the system and avoid unnecessary walks and transfer from one building to another.

Even in the paying center, I got overwhelmed by the loops of payers waiting, at the very least, for two hours to get their turn. Maybe I must not discount the fact that I was enrolling in the country’s largest university. Yet, maybe, too, given enough budget, the premier state university can automate the assessment of fees, which until now is done manually.

Yet, again, I admire the student volunteers, who from time to time get impatient too, who sacrificed and endured heat and stress assisting all enrollees, leading the way, and answering queries. They, to me, epitomize the real “Iskolar ng Bayan” whose main goal is “to serve the people.”

Overall, the experience, though rigorous, made me see systems and procedures that could better be improved and, on the side, made me realize, yes practice, that patience is still a virtue that can see you through at the end of the day. Amen to that.

What is the writer trying to do here?

In my writing class this summer, foremost of the questions that arise during our workshop sessions is the query “what is the writer trying to do here?”–clearly an attempt to get the point which the writer is trying to drive home in his/her piece.

Oftentimes the point is embedded in the maze of words, woven illogically or left in disarray. Then we’ll wait for the workshop session to end, so the writer could explain his/her point. So he/she could travel us back or tour us around the real end of the piece. Only then things could dawn upon us and we’ll say “this is what s/he’s trying to tell us after all.”

In the workshop we engage in as a writing community, waiting is a key part. The writer must learn the art of restraining himself/herself during the course of the session. S/he has to keep his/her ego down and listen, before s/he could finally react and bring to light his/her piece.

I wonder if we do the same act of waiting and listening in other areas of life. When we wait for someone to text us back, isn’t that an act of restraining ourselves from demanding a reply and listening to the message that such no-reply stance brings?

Or in perpetually waiting to an ending to a chat that simply popped out and vanished abruptly? There you were waiting for a closure but all you could get was silence and indifference. Maybe there should be ethics even in online conversations.

Yes, the question “what is the writer trying to do here?” goes far beyond writing. Because even in our daily lives, where we engage in waiting and making sense of things, people make us clueless until they arrive and explain.

Baguio, one rainy week

One thing I’ve learned from the UP Baguio (UPB) Training on Qualitative Research is the changing landscape of our “social world.”

Dr. Carol Brady, well renowned socio-anthropologist from the College of Social Sciences-UPB, triggered this phenomenon by asking a series of questions that, to most of us, had been, all this time, taken-for-granted patch of reality.

Consider:

• If soldiers are women, can you still call them soldiers?
• If your mother is your father, can you call him a mother?
• Is veggie meat veggie or meat?
• Is coffee bad because of its caffeine content? But why now it is being  heralded as an anti-oxidant?

Maybe these are contradictions of our times. Or simply, our social world is evolving. What may be taboo before are now taken as fact and part of life.

And this is something we can’t quantify. The sum total of behavior, emotions, angst, and wisdom that go with these can only be qualified. Numbers cannot fully characterize these paradigm shifts.

Yes, it is true then that our view of the world is only as good as our method or lens of seeing things. We must stop from mere quantifying. Because the world is also lost, maybe embedded, in words, reason, and values.

The senti face of Baguio

Coming to Baguio at a time when Summer was cut short brought about by the sudden, abrupt arrival of the rainy season, afforded us a view of the Pines City in its angst-ful sights of mist, fog, and sentiments.

It was a kind of clime where all you would want to do is to coil under the thick, cool blanket. And maybe read on the side, or dream on, ruminate, while being  swayed to sleep by the sound of raindrops falling on the roof above you. It was a moment that’s better left to the imagination.

Hot!

Fiery. Agonizing. Hot!

But now it’s raining. Stench from earth arose from the pavement. It’s still humid and hot. I don’t feel so well even after a late-morning visit to my fave spa-massage place. Couldn’t help but trace the source of all these stress: work!

By an unexpected turn of events, I saw myself going back to the classroom again the week that was. A writing class was assigned to me this summer. 5-7 p.m. Every day.

Tired from whole-day office work, this summer teaching load comes like a breather. Yes, no matter what, I am a teacher. And the classroom is my refuge. End of the day, despite the boiling temperature, there I am cool and complete.

This long break

Obviously, I’m enjoying my time, the one-week break that affords me respite and recluse from work life and “matters of consequence.” Look I only have two more days, including today, to savor the moments. Heck, I have a line-up of things to do this long break, but I set them aside, so, like a contemplative monk, I detach myself from grown-up concerns and outside world worries.

But I’ve read a lot. This lull gave me time to take stock of my reading materials now begging to be read or re-read. I’ve observed too that the limited space I’ve got for my books now get consumed and crowded by these works of lit I tend to accumulate every time the reader in me aches and itches to go and buy the texts. Maybe I should save for the next shelf.

I’ve slept a lot, too. But I’ve slept late in return. I cannot do this during regular work days when I need to wake up before 7 a.m. Yet it’s nice to wake up and travel early, then go home late to avoid the heat of Summer; but when you’re at home doing nothing, there’s no reason to get out of bed early. You spend the time ruminating at bed, stitching the short naps into a long sleep till the sun begins to hurt you from the sweaty back to a heavy head symptomatic of oversleeping.

We should have walked early this morning in the park. But the sudden rush of rains prevented us from doing so. Maybe sleep was so stubborn it prayed hard for the rain to come so it could bar us from breaking the routine. And sleep we did. Cancelling the walk and wake-up-early spree it connotes.

But end of it, we maximize the gift of this long break, of doing nothing and forgetting, if only this time, the real work that lies, or threatens, ahead.

“Thank You” Note

This blog entry brims of joy thanking those who never failed to remember me during my Day. You’re too many. Never realized I’ve gathered this much friends in the many years that I’ve been studying, working, and living the life of an “esoteric wanderer.”

Thanks, too, for the many gifts I’ve received: quote cards, book, drinks, food, crafts, valuable presence, fun, laughters, words of wisdom, time, and all those I cannot quantify. You made me realize that despite the busy-ness of our lives, we could stop for a while and make someone happy.

Just before this week ended, I received a psy testing questionnaire for validation, asking me to check on the grammatical flow of the items on “how we would like to be loved.” Very timely. There I was checking on questions that I could rightfully answer. Very simply I’d like to be loved “simply” without any cost entailed. Just a moment of remembering is enough. Just a small amount of time telling me I’m a part of your universe is gift enough to a well-rubbed heart like mine.

And so to all those who have remembered, my sincerest thanks. Can’t thank you enough.

Easy like a Sunday morning

You woke up after an eight-hour sleep and felt breezy. Spotted two wild birds resting on the fence just outside the screen of the dirty kitchen. Wasn’t that a good sign of things about to happen during the day?

Maybe yes. When you have all the time in this world, you can literally smell the flowers and blend the fruits. That I concretely did this morning, one Sunday when Summer began to unfold like a seasonal guest.

Went to LB after late mass this morning to pick up some fresh flowers Mommy asked me to buy for our altar. I bought some too for empty vessels waiting for fresh blooms. I love Summer! Because flowers bloom and smell extra good.

On my way home I dropped by a fruit stand and bought some fresh mangoes and bananas to have them processed as fruit shake, good sip while working this hot day. You know it’s summer…

Summer reminds us of good old days. When chimes get swayed by the wind. When we can literally eat lunch outside under natural canopy. When reading gets the best out of us in the lull of afternoon with nothing but your book, rocking chair, and pillow to transport you to the thrill and riveting flow of life.

And the day isn’t enough to read, frolic, and laze around because it’s Summer and to be idle is guilt-free.