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Christmas comes early on November November 20, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Angst, Distant Past, Family, Here and Now, Metaphors for Life, Musings, Visuals.
2 comments

For some, Christmas is associated to the mushy and melodramatic. It may be true but to most of us Christmas is the most joyful season of the year, and the longest celebration, in fact, for Pinoys. It is the object of sentimental editorials and essays and short stories. Yes, Virginia… Read O Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” and discover that Christmas is about making other people happy.

For a former Canossian like myself, Christmas meant acting out the Nativity during Christmas program or saving enough, to the point of having meager foods during Christmas Party, so we could give to the poor or the sick in the hospitals. That corporal work of mercy would earn us points in the form of putting hand-made poinsentia in a large branch of tree assembled by the good sisters in the school lobby. That early, we were taught that Christmas is being selfless and it could only be meaningful when shared to another.

As a grownup, when I began to earn my own money, Christmas would mean giving cash gifts to kids in the family and tokens to adults including my two sets of  parents and other elderlies. Still, it lives to its true meaning of sharing. I couldn’t remember any Christmas done without giving a part of myself to others.

This year, Christmas comes early in the house. God gave me early gifts of a good new work, healthy family members, happiness and comfort shared by friends, and the hope for the future that looms large in the horizon. I couldn’t ask for more.

Tonight I dropped by my fave woodcraft stall and bought a wooden cart, which looks so like a child toy, with some greens of the season sporadically splashed around it. There I put inside it, in the cart, old gold Christmas balls kept from the previous seasons. This reminds of my Christmas as a child when that season was nothing but a genuine act of giving and sharing without expecting anything in return. Best way to look at Christmas is to view it through the naive eyes of a kid. Enough said.

The colors of Christmas are gold, red, and green. On our center table now sits a native basket where lie balls, bells, and abaca angels in gold, red, and green. This is homegrown Christmas at its best. When you’re tired from a whole-day work gearing up and decorating for the season eases the pains. It is the spirit of sharing one’s creativity and flair for colors that works here.

Seasonal Release November 13, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Academe, Angst, Here and Now, Metaphors for Life, Musings, Work Life.
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Thing is I’m surviving. First few days were getting in, getting along. The honeymoon period is however almost over. I’m now on the last leg of my second week. I couldn’t reach this far without the synergy I get from those around me. Soon I know I’ll get accustomed to this new world and taking actions|making decisions will come out naturally.

Writing class. Ending one whole day of office work comes easy with the thought that I’ll face my lone writing class end of the day. This course [Comm II] is doubly exciting to teach this sem because we [Dr. Nina, Ma'am Dulz, and myself] will pilot test our third in the Smart Series books: Smart Writing. I’ll run it through my class along with another writing teacher’s class this sem. It’s good to use one’s own book in class, but it’s equally tough and challenging to get some unexpected feedback from initially using it. We’ll see.

Graduate school. Come tomorrow, I’ll attend my second-sem class [where I am the student] at College of DevCom, UPLB. It’s also exciting because this is the course I was supposed to take some two years ago, but wasn’t allowed to push through due to limited enrollees. This time around I hope it will finally go successfully. About time to take, finally, Environmental Comm.

You know it’s Christmas… When it gets cold on the road home. The cool air touches one’s skin while one is being preoccupied by lights viewed from the speed of a jeepney. And  then it leaves some awe or wonder, to others indifference, cold glance. But the lights are stronger than the melancholic mood. They change one’s view. Leads to an inevitable feeling of joy or silent celebration, because within one’s heart lies peace and forgiveness because it’s Christmas. Happiness isn’t far behind.

Signs of the time October 30, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Academe, Here and Now, Metaphors for Life, Visuals.
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And so I was back at the UPLB campus this afternoon.

This scene greeted me: leaves falling from the tall trees like it was fall in October. There was serene wind seemingly marking the end of the month or the demise of a semester. I don’t know. The environ was so silent, sacred, shutting off any words or noise from ruling the moment. And from that inspired moment lingered this image of green, speed, and serenity. Savor the sight of UPLB’s Thai Pavilion captured in the silence and peace of semestral break.

Proof of Change. Yesterday, as a way of marking my work transition, I was asked by the Human Resource Department to secure a new identification card. That took merely 15 minutes to process. It symbolically represents my passage from a fulltime faculty to a research administrator. The joy of teaching consumed eight years of my productive life in the academe (Letran setting). Now I’m going back to my research roots.

Giving Birth to Words October 21, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Angst, Here and Now, The Writing Life, Metaphors for Life, Musings.
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NOTES: Giving birth to this piece wasn’t easy. This was originally written late last night, but my Smartbro connection suddenly bogged down (got disconnected), leaving me no choice but to save it as a draft (in WordPress) and as a backup file in my MS Word documents. Tonight, again, when I was about to post or publish the piece, my laptop seemingly stopped from responding, giving me loops of commands pending on my screen. There may be ghost in this piece, hehehe, or simply, it is a piece so stubborn to be born, probably replete with texts too difficult to become real and alive. Whatever the reason may be, here it is, now finally born, angst and all.

What is it like making a career out of writing? If you get paid for it, nice. If it’s your passion, it’s nicer. If you can’t breathe without it because you find it so important and you always have time for it no matter how busy or tired you are, it’s the nicest thing that ever happened to your Writing Life. If you can’t live without it, because it’s like a second skin to you, then you are with me. We are living our vital writing lives, embracing the gift of words, and co-creating meanings with our perceived readers, our critiques (or critics), or with our own selves.

We get paid for writing language-skill books. Giving birth to a manual or a worktext is easier said than done. We know the energy, intellectual muse, discipline, and hardwork that go into the process. But that’s the nice part of writing: the labor, the sweat, and that certain high or exhilaration that wipes out all pain or angst.

Waking up to the thought of being able to write or compose your life on paper (or on computer screen or blogosphere) as it transpires or unfolds (“as it happens, where it happens” to borrow that popular journalistic mantra) is nicer. You wake up to the sounds of your chimes. Disturbing. But you imbibe the sounds, internalize the sense of it (the experience) all. You get inspired. You want to write a piece of poetry, some random splurge of inspirations that enables you to come in communion with texts. And there you are bringing the muse in the jeepney, on the road, at school, in the fastfood stop, in the company of your friends, amid the noise and frenzy of the outside world. Soon the writer and the words and the world become one. Again.

You can’t seem to end the day without writing something about life and anything that comes in between living and being (or becoming). You write on your journal. You blog. You send memo to yourself. You socialize your anxiety on paper or on a virtual site to an imaginary reader. You row on and move on until words flow easy, unstoppable, until they leave an impress, a mark, a trace, a pigment of imagination, a meaning, a streak of light from your mind (or from what it seemingly is). You create your world in, through, around words. That’s the nicest discovery you’ll ever discover out of life. It’s empowering; it is empowerment in itself.

And to me, that’s the ultimate goal of writing. That of finding your self in the process of weaving words and creating worlds. And getting empowered like one who just got out of his or her own restrictive shell. Free.

Figurative Language October 15, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Here and Now, Academe, Metaphors for Life.
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It’s kind of weird that I have to spend one-fourth of tonight typing this blog entry. Reason is I’m in my hell week beating deadlines both for my graduate requirements and undergraduate classes (where the due date for encoding grades is like a pendulum hanging over my head).

But I spent the whole day thinking, albeit ruminating still of what will turn out if I’ll not beat the rush, about my graduate projects and undergrad works: in the jeepney this morning, at the bank while lining up and waiting for my turn, at Paulo’s while enjoying my weekly massage, at the fastfood stop while eating Jolly Hotdog, at UPLB Main Lib, at the local mall, at my derma’s clinic, at Che and Chito’s house while being amused by their children Jeo and Lean, at my study sipping coffee–all these time I was thinking of my PDM requirements and CR 284 proposal and the papers to check and the grades to encode: they are like ghosts pestering, hovering over my waking and sleeping life, haunting me no end.

Exag. Hehehe. My Comm 1 students can readily spot the figure of speech here. Yeah right, 1BSN1 and 1BSA1 classes, it’s hyperbole. But it could also be understatement if you assume my persona or point of view. Hahaha! :-)

Ethnomethodology September 30, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Metaphors for Life.
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Ethnomethodology is the study of everyday life and living. Meanings are in the method, in the everyday routine, as it happens, where it happens (sort of journalistic or ethnographic). Here are images that give justice to my own ethnomethodology.

The case: my mundane reality.

The artifacts: (1) Lola‘s antique metal chair designed the old style but brought back to life and painted white by Dad (now a permanent fixture in our dirty kitchen along with other antiques like that mini console table, which we have also unearthed from Lola‘s collection); (2) the latest Poetika photo documentation compiled by my Org Comm student Arvien Medina; and (3) the newest to-do list I have posted on my cork board to remind me perpetually that I must deliver and the only thing I need is discipline (I know I’m getting there!).

These are all about myself, my here-and-now, my aspirations, my passport to the future.

Very me.

Life as an Adrenaline Aftershave May 22, 2008

Posted by bobbetrevilla in Metaphors for Life.
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Copy_of_litrato2453"I feel the intensity. The rush of cool. Turning thought into action. I feel: Fierce. Fearless. Free. My only wish: Make it last forever."

That may sound like what I feel at the moment, quite ironically in the heat of this afternoon, but you’re wrong: This quote comes fresh from an "exhilirating aftershave" I received from a balikbayan relative some two years ago. I found this hard-sell blurb on the box containing Adidas Adrenaline. The bottle of that aftershave has been there inside my closet for quite some time, but one afternoon fixing myself up for my summer class, I chanced upon the text on its box and it caught me, dumbstruck. The message is loud and clear. Its recall factor retains the poetic words more than its sense. Surge. Rush. Fierce. Thrill. The blurb still talks to me. Like poetry. Like prose.

Well, that’s the power of advertising. Challenge is, if we’d hypothetically advertise ourselves, our lives, or our persons, how would we do that? Just like the rhetorics of that aftershave blurb? Cool? Fearless? Free? I would love to advertise myself as that kind of person, minus the stressful struggle over deadlines, he-he-he, that would categorize me under that genus called  insomiacs, workaholics, midnight zombies, ha-ha.

I wish life would always be cooler, fierce, fearless, and free, but when reality bites and stares you in the eye, it isn’t always the case. Often, you meet blunders, rush of emotions, surge of pressures, bunch of difficult people, and a hell of critics and criticisms, on your road to that one "thrill" of your life. Indeed, our lives pale in comparison with that of the exhilarating texts used to sell Adrenaline aftershave. We endure more before bliss lands on our lap to enjoy life best. In the process, we bring our ego down, listen, and let go. These words are too familiar with my writing class who had just emerged fresh, probably cooler, from the workshop process. Life, after all, is one grand workshop session. Enough said.

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