Category: Nonfiction

Fiction Making and History in the Era of the Selfie, Part 1

Nonfiction by | June 12, 2016

I am told that I have all of 15 minutes to deliver my spiel, so I will self-indulge by sharing with you a Subanon masterpiece—a whole epic, including its contextual frame and a considerable amount of my commentary on it—all of which I will squeeze into 15 minutes.

First the narrative frame, before the epic itself:

A gutung ‘monkey’ was looking for someone with whom to share a jar of gasi ‘rice wine’, which he was carrying on his shoulder—in exchange for an inadung, which is the Subanon epic. He met a babuy, who assured him it could sing the inadung. So they drank wine, and when it was time for the pig to sing the inadung, naturally all that came out of its mouth was the squealing of a pig. What did he expect?

So then, when the monkey next met an usá, who said it could sing the inadung, the monkey was a bit more suspicious and had to ask, “Can you really sing the inadung?” The deer assured him yes, and so they drank the wine. But when the usá began to sing, what came out of its mouth was its natural deer squeak.

Next, came the lebuyu ‘chicken’, which could only crow—and only after it had drank some of the monkey’s wine.

Continue reading Fiction Making and History in the Era of the Selfie, Part 1

Of STEMIs, Sojourns, and Summonses

Nonfiction by | May 15, 2016

There is something transcendent in the arbitrariness of things that instigates in me a tacit appreciation that despite the hysteria and the bedlam of random life, there is a hand that steers my keel towards safe harbor.

Contrary to pervasive belief, Dubai can get really chilly during the winter months when the ambient temperature plummets to 14 degrees Centigrade. Despite the weather, the adrenaline rush of the Friday graveyard shift is on fever pitch. It is dark and cold outside. A fifty year old local complaining of severe chest pain has just been wheeled into the Emergency Department. Within the prescribed “golden hour,” nurses on duty should have taken the ECG, identified the critical rhythm (in his case, an ominous ST segment elevation), sent in the requisite labs, and prepared the gentleman for transfer to the Cath Lab. He is having an acute heart attack (in medical parlance, a STEMI – ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction). I am the Team Leader tonight and there is a collective whoop among nurses – Kabayans mostly – after the ED doctor complimented the group’s efficiency. The patient is in stable condition now. Still there is an unutterable twinge I could scarcely quench that takes the edge off the exhilaration of the moment.

This is one of the rare times when things sputter up out of my daily routine like fire out of ashes I’d thought were long since departed, and by the flickering, I envision things, or imagine I do, that for too fleeting a time may not count much in the ruse of events but just enough of a tug to linger in memory like a pleasant dream. And upon waking up, I begin to ask myself questions: Have you ever felt that there is something that you were supposed to be doing? Do you experience a nagging feeling deep inside you that you are not supposed to be in the time and place you are in now? Would you rather be the person receiving the patient at the Cath Lab and not the one endorsing him to further care?

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Interloping The Real And Surreal In Creating Fiction

Nonfiction by | April 24, 2016

The title of my talk seems awesome but I will avoid any heavy literary term and speak to you from the heart; and since you are young writers seeking to create masterpieces through your fiction or poetry, I will share with you my earliest attempt at short-story writing. Strangely enough, these attemps have become my most anthologized stories – “The Chieftest Mourner” and “Love in the Cornhusks”.

Soon after the war, my mother put me on a rice truck over dark mountains from Bacolod where my father was a retired judge to Silliman University in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental.

Silliman was a close-knit scholarly community with huge shady trees lining its avenues and the park with an ampitheatre where we held the first Shakespeare plays – in 1946 “The Taming of the Shrew” where I was Kate the Shrew; and in 1948 ”As You Like it” where I transform from Lady Rosalind to the page Ganymede in the Forest of Arden. Reuben Canoy played the princely Orlando.

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Over Unwashed Dishes

Nonfiction by | April 3, 2016

My mom sells home-cooked meals at Davao City Hall. She has been doing this ever since she had my eldest brother. This is the way our family has survived for almost 40 years now.

Mother taught my father how to cook and prepare the dishes in our menu. Every ten or eleven in the morning, they go off to sell the food. Our house would be left in a messy havoc. You see, the whole house is the kitchen. It would be my job to clean up. During the summer or if we had no classes, father would always remind me: “Panghugas ha? Bantay lang ka wala pa ka nahuman pagablik nako.” What a reminder as they took off on our Kawasaki motorcycle, the metal basket on the rear!

I hate washing dishes. When I was younger and lazier, I preferred to watch TV or play outside than wash two very large planggana full of the dishes, pots, and utensils they used that morning? Even now, I could waste my time cleaning when I could be doing more interesting things.

Continue reading Over Unwashed Dishes

Poetry is Alive!

Nonfiction by | March 27, 2016

Program Description: Poetry flirts with many forms and adapts novel “publishing” routes just to get itself out there. Where can the audience for poetry find the Filipino poem today?

Poet, Gemino Abad once said in a writers workshop, I believe that was a panel discussion about a poem, “all literary works must move towards poetry. Poetry is the finest language.” Poetry, therefore, is not flirting with other genres, but it is poetry that is being flirted with. True, there are experimental works that adapt poetry into other forms; say a novel in verses, or on the extreme side, a series of example phrases & sentences lifted directly from the Anvil-Macquarie Dictionary of Philippine English for High School as in “Philippine English: A Novel” by Angelo Suarez, which is, as a whole, a poem. Yet works like these are not for the goal of “putting poetry out there” but for creativity itself. Poetry in the Philippines has already grown and has adapted a lot of forms, and I am just going to discuss one that is very much prevalent these days.

Well, there will always be that assumption that poetry is the least popular of all literary genres. Most of my friends would turn down a page when they see that the words are written in lines (or verse), even the ones who read more often than usual. Writers already understand that there is not much money to expect from publishing a collection of poems. One would then assume that it would need a lot of effort for poetry to get noticed. But that is already an old thought. On the other hand; poetry is the easiest to market or the easiest to deliver. Since the start of slam poetry or spoken word, Poetry had become a well-liked form of entertainment. It has even become a sport in some parts of the world.

Poetry Slam or spoken word poetry is a technique that utilizes wordplay and story-telling. The poems are written for the purpose of being performed in front of an immediate audience. The technique originated from the poetry of African-Americans in Harlem (Marc Smith, 1984, Chicago). It often includes collaboration and experimentation with other art forms such as music, theater, and dance. And so, the poet will have to exhibit a certain degree of acting as well as some appropriate dynamics in public speaking and body language. Surely, schools have exposed us to the more complicated poems, there are even poets whom poets only understand. It is for these experiences that some of us believe that poetry is hard to understand and hard to write. But let’s leave those to academics; spoken word brings poetry to the people for making it simpler and the art accessible. A great tool is relativity. Human beings are sad by default. What also made spoken word famous is the subject matter that they discuss. But let us leave that for later. I have a paragraph or two for that. Moving on…

“Finding” poetry hasn’t been a problem in major cities and other parts of the Philippines. Let’s say for example in Manila, spoken word events are E V E R Y W H E R E. Seriously, a spoken word event can be as popular as a gig for rock bands. Listening to someone talk about his or her past, about the wounds opened and re-opened is now a trend. The most famous in the North, is Word Anonymous. One is even becoming a TV Star, Juan Miguel Severo, has a spot in “On the Wings of Love.” Haha. I always thought poetry can never be a profession in the Philippines, and here’s this guy making money out of it. And last February, well-known spoken word artists/poets came to the Philippines and did a sold out show, Sarah Kaye and Phil Kaye. Yeah, artists or poets, go on tour now. Before, we hold poetry readings where some people go to, now poetry readings are sold out shows.

In Cebu, just for poetry reading events, or just literature itself, there are four organizations that keep the wheel going; Bathalad, WILA (Women in Literary Arts), Nomads, and Tinta (UP Cebu’s lit org). These organizations team up to come up with poetry reading. Hearing this being told to me by a friend, Jona Bering, it was in full zest, “Yes, Dar! The poetry scene is growing. Mostly college students, gender issues are frequent topics, and yeah, some are not that good yet, but we are getting there.” When I was in Dumaguete, they were like holding a poetry reading every week, or it was just so timely that there were several authors who launched their book that time.

In Cagayan de Oro, Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa CDO and Bathalad (Mindanao Chapter) are having poetry readings from time to time. If not Spoken Word, it is Improv. We see that there is a growing interest in Poetry in various parts of the country. Poetry readings are everywhere. I suppose that culture, be it famous or not, will never die.

And of course, here in Davao, we have a LitOrgy. Young Davao Writers, we can say is the unofficial, younger version of Davao Writers Guild. Well, it was for Davao Writers’ Guild’s several poetry reading events that LitOrgy was born. In general, it is a biannual poetry reading event that is now being rebranded as a spoken word event. Angely Chi, or as we address her, the Patron Saint of Davao Arts, said in an essay, “I am reminded that LitOrgy was not only supposed to be a “literary orgy” of the writing and the reading public, but also a coming together of people from different disciplines whose texts are not found in pages but in their bodies, in their songs, and in their images.”

Bragging aside, last August, the Young Davao Writers organized the seventh LitOrgy, called it “Seventh Seers,” which tickets got sold out in about 2 hours when the ticket reservations were open. Because we wanted each poetry reading event to be an intimate one, else the purpose of the whole thing would be defeated, we had to make the goers reserve their slots. There were still a lot of people who were asking for passes, so we organized a second show. And August 30 and 31 packed the Red Rooster Bar along MacArthur Highway with an attentive crowd who went there not only to listen but brought with them their own poems to read in the open mic. As they say, the orgy happens in the open mic. Poetry reading events usually has only less than ten readers of performers, and the rest of the night, which expands to about two to three hours until the bar closes, is allotted to the open mic. And it is wonderful to discover gems among the audiences. So parang scouting din yung open mic, so we can find fresh blood to join the next LitOrgy events. So if I will be asked if poetry is alive? Yes, poetry in general, very much.

There will always be critics to a technique. Even I myself have reservations. Spoken word poetry had been a good outlet of self-expression. If you check out videos online, the usual topics would be pain, unsuccessful relationship, gender issues; these are one of the reasons that I have grown tired of checking out youtube videos. Spoken word, I suppose, is a detouring from the Philippine Literary tradition due to the utilization of certain techniques. Say for example, sentimentality, purple patches, and cliché in order to capture their attention and also to be relatable. You know the word, “hugot”?” It might be annoying to some but it is what sells. The lines, “these hands wrote your name on pages/ after blank pages then colored it with the brightest fireworks/ of January first and February fourteenth” borders to the cliché but hey, this works for audience who are just there for the “feels.”

Here’s the catch, spoken word poetry might not be the most brilliant technique in poetry for majority of people who know better, but it opens the opportunity for other techniques. In Young Davao Writers’ events, LitOrgy, there are always open mics. Anything goes; all kinds of poets, all kinds of technique. And when some of the people in the crowd become interested enough, they will start to look for other sources, for the purpose of quenching the thirst for literature (that is also the reason why some events are not the frequent, so that people will hunger for it) and also if they try to write themselves. And so the cycle begins or continues.

Whenever there is a poetry reading, there is a small BLTX; the zine culture continues. Poetry books are not likely to be the ones displayed on the glass windows of NBS, Fully Booked, etc., and the ratio of poets getting published to the poets is too less to many. Most publishers, in the name of profits, will not really prioritize poetry over the more popular genre. There are no longer shelves for poetry books in leading bookstore; more often than usual, they are just mixed up with other Filipino Literary books; but poetry will always find a way to get out. One effective example of this is the zine culture; independent publishing by single individuals or by organizations, say for example, LitSoc, the academic organization for Creative Writing Students in UP Mindanao, compiles their works in a bundle of bond papers stapled to become a coffee table book and sells it during a proper event; a BLTX or a poetry reading where the organizers were kind enough to set up a table for “merch.” Yeah, I had a friend, who’s a great poet; he won an international award for poetry last year, compiled five of his poems in a bond paper, folded it in a fancy way, and then sold the collection for 30php. Clearly, it was not for the profits but to get read.

Although there are constraints put up by the market for Poetry books, authors will always find a way to put their works out there. In the internet age, everything is possible. One can just start a blog to broadcast his or her works to the public. It’s as easy as signing up for a wordpress account or other free hosting sites that provides you a subdomain, or if you have the money, buy a domain name, a webhosting account, set up the site, and voila, you’ll have your own corner in the internet where you can post your poems or other works. There are a lot of young people today who are trying to write however they can and post it in social media sites. So Filipino poetry, in this time and age, is literally everywhere since you can just access them anytime you need to. You can just read on, say for example, authors featured in various sites, panitikan.com, dagmay.com, and the rest. Or someone can do that for you by posting a copy of your poem or a link to your site, or to a site where it is available. Restricting yourself to be read in free mediums will always be your prerogative. Some prefer to keep their poems to themselves until they are ready to be in physical pages, some would resort to express themselves in the open world of the internet. Nonetheless, this is how poetry copes up with the times.

I have always been told that a good poem is one that works great on stage and looks good on the page.  So therefore, a poet does not stop at spoken word. It is just a phase. The page is as wide as it can be for the many creative minds that we have in the country.

Darylle “Darsi” Rubino is a graduate of the Creative Writing program of the University of the Philippines Mindanao. This essay was first delivered in the 6th Philippine International Literary Festival on November 20–21, 2015 at Seda Abreeza, Davao City.

An Inescapable Pattern

Nonfiction by | March 13, 2016

“Mao lang man na iyang ginapalit,” Mama told Papa with a seemingly proud smile. “Mga libro.” I was already a teenager at that time when Papa asked why I had a lot of books. He did not know I loved—worshipped—books. What kind of father does not know his daughter’s hobbies? Well, I have a seafarer for a father.

He sounded like he was annoyed by the pile of books I had in my sister’s room. I had just bought more and that made him ask. Of course he would not know. He is basically a stranger, if you ask me. It would sound rude and it would surely hurt him but he is a stranger to me. As a seaman, he lives in a ship that travels around the world for nine months. That leaves him three months to spend with us at home.

I always remember the first time I met him. I was about four or five years old when we drove to the airport one day. Of course I did not know then that it was the airport or even what that place was for but I was with my mother and my sister. I remember holding Mama’s hand when a dark-skinned, tall, and buff man walked towards us. Mama enthusiastically asked “Sino yan?” The man wanted to give me a hug but I have always been afraid of strangers so I wailed and wanted to hide from him. It must have been embarrassing and painful for a father who was excited to meet his daughter for the first time after working overseas. I could have at least let him carry me or just stared at his face in wonder. Instead, I cried.

But he brought me chocolates and dolls. That was his bait. From then on, I learned the concept of wanting and needing a father. But my father always left. And I used to cry every time he did. Even at the age of seven, I wrote him a letter that asked him to work in the Philippines instead so our family would be always complete. I was willing to give up my toys and chocolates just to have him home.

Filipino TV shows and foreign movies told me that fathers should treat their kids like princes and princesses. I saw scenes where fathers carry their kids, tickle them, lift them up in the air and drop them just to catch them and hear them laugh. Fathers tuck their children in and they hush them when they cry. And when they grow up, fathers talk to them and they go home to more than one best friend. That was why I wanted my father to stay. I wanted what the books and the films showed to be real.

Since my mother was only one who took care of my elder sister for three years after they got married, the way she raised my sister was the same as how she raised me. We were guarded. I could only count the times when I was able to play at school after class because Mama always fetched me on time.

Most of the time, I stayed at home and I had no choice but to read. Well, I always spent time with my cousins who had a collection of Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High books and they were my first influences. The books were my obsession when I was not allowed to play. Instead of running around and getting sweaty and having asthma attacks, I sat down and read books. I knew how to write letters even before I went to kindergarten so I learned how to read early. Books were suddenly the most amazing thing in my small world. I could see Nancy Drew and her friends collecting clues and catching suspects in every mystery and I wanted to be like her.

Soon enough, I started writing my own Nancy Drew mysteries. I spent long hours in front of our computer, just typing and imagining. I did not make sense then, most probably. But that was when I started writing. That was when I started keeping diaries and journals. Writing became a normal part of my life, just as normal as my father’s absence had been.

It must have sucked not being able to always hang out with friends because five o’clock in the afternoon was already too late not to be at home yet. But it was the only life I knew, my mother always complaining about me not leaving school immediately after class because our house is a bit far from the center of the city and getting home late is dangerous. We were Christians and she did not even allow me stay for Bible studies in high school.

I was not—and am still not—very good with talking to people. I gossip with them and talk about emotional stuff but I can write better rather than talk. I could understand things better when I used metaphors—“I was blue when my father left again for the nth time.” or “My father’s presence is a Band-Aid.” I could calm myself down with similes and hyperboles. I could make sense out of everything when I see them on the page.

My father’s absence probably had me always looking for something that I think is missing, something that writing could help me identify. When I was in high school, I was fond of writing sappy love stories. Even now, I still even prefer reading romantic books. Maybe because I do not know how it feels like to have a man with me every day? That is why I watch films that could give me an idea of how it is like. I write stories that could make me feel like I know how it is like.

I think it is because I know there is something missing in me that keeps me looking for it, making me purge everything in me until I know what I want to find. Maybe because I hate the way I was put into this kind of life. A father leaving every now and then, going “home” to a family he does not know. And he cannot even apologize because he will never run out of absences to apologize for. I hate having to pretend that it still saddens me when he leaves. He could wake me up at four o’clock in the morning to kiss me goodbye before his early flight and I could be half-awake and hear him leave and still feel indifferent. I hate having to pretend that I am excited to spend time with him when he comes home.

I hate pretending to be the daughter he wants me to be. I hate pretending that hanging out with friends until late night does not excite me or that reading books is still the only thing I love doing. I wear clothes that are not just a simple shirt and a pair of pants, I curse, I could spend the whole day just being inside my room, and I have opinions that are different from theirs. And he does not get that. I hate not knowing how it is like to have a father. I hate not knowing how to be a daughter. And I cannot apologize.

“I cannot do anything,” he said, sounding angry. “My voice is like this.”

He always sounds angry and I kind of hate him for that. He sounds like he is resenting me and that makes me scared of talking to him. I refused to eat dinner one night when my parents and I had a fight. The cellular network failed when I was out with my high school friends and I could not contact my mother to update her of my whereabouts. I went home to two angry parents who did not even ask for me to explain myself.

I had plans for the next day after that night. I was going to take my dog to the park with my boyfriend, and because of what happened, they did not allow me to go out. We ended up not talking to each other. When my mother saw me crying inside my room, I could not help but explain to them how unfair they were. She blamed me for their quarrel and I just sat there with my unheard words drowning my brain. She called my father and made him sit down and listen. And in every sentence I blurt out, my father begins his own as his defense. “You’re always angry,” I said. “You never listen.”

It was not my fault that I could not call them. I tried to tell them that but they had to wait to catch me crying inside my room before I could be asked to talk. And I hoped that my father, for once, would realize how scared I was of him.

“Sige,” he said. “If that’s what you think, I will never talk again. Everything I say is wrong.”

He stood up and walked out of the room. I never wanted to talk to him again.

So I write. I write like I can control things and people. I can write the kinds of lives I want my characters to live. I write like I am in control, like I have all the choices and I will never run out of them. I write to see different situations, to see that I am not stuck in my own. I write to meet people I cannot meet in real life. I write to keep myself grounded, to remind me of my reality and make me accept it.

I sometimes look at him and wonder. Reality failed to be like the movies and books. I do not have a man who scares boys who would break my heart or a man who scares boys who would ask me out. There is nothing but inevitable anger. It is like I was born with it. This is just a part of the pattern that I have been following for nineteen years.

His constant absence is a big part of my existence. At the age of nineteen, I have gotten used to being a college girl who is away from home most of the time. My circle of friends has become wider than ever and my principles have changed. Aside from reading books, I have grown to love other hobbies such as getting drunk and smoking. And I have lost old beliefs too, like my old obsession of worshipping God and believing in His miracles. I have come to the point when I have seen the other side of life. The life I promised myself before not to live because my family made me believe that it will not take me anywhere.

My father tries. He knocks on my door and greets me good morning like he used to. He talks during dinner like he knows the people in our lives. He tells us jokes like he knows what is funny or what is not for us. He listens like he knows what happened or what was happening. He tries to act like he knows how our lives work. He tries to be a father who knows his family. He tries to fit in. Like the way I try to make sense out of everything through writing. I try to find the words that fit, the words that could make the vague things clear. That is all we have left to do for now.

___

Julienne San Jose Batingal is a third year BA English (Creative Writing) student of the University of the Philippines Mindanao.

Runaway

Nonfiction by | February 28, 2016

Slowly, the knob turned followed by the click of the lock. On the fifth of November, a familiar voice shouted, “happy monthsary”, but in front of me was nothing but a wall. When I took a peek at who was on the other side, the first thing I saw was your red leather shoelace, and my reality dawned: my phone never rang and the fifth was never ours to celebrate.

It all started when we swapped messages while I was on a weekend trip with my friends. Nothing was ever completely realized until we went on a date a week later to validate what we felt for each other. After two days, we became a couple. It was the tenth of August.

Fast forward to a month after a slew of cloud nine’s: you affirmed your love to me with the admission of falling for someone else. It happened on your birthday, but the surprise was on me. Anything unexpected catches your attention and just like a boy given a present on Christmas day, I believed great things would still unfold. Truly great it was because immeasurable pain after another plagued the relationship.

Continue reading Runaway

Looking for Words

Nonfiction by | February 21, 2016

  1. Mother (noun) – Ina

Growing up amidst small hills was a gift —flipping pages of books and getting wrapped with orchestras of words each time.  My mother told me once that she placed a souvenir of my first haircut inside an English- Tagalog dictionary, the sole book in the house three years before the world hit the millennium mark. A friend suggested that to her, so the baby would love books.

I remembered Papa in his school uniform, standing by the door. My brothers, Brandon and Patrick, ended their Pokemon card battle. The three of us raced toward him, placed his right hand on our foreheads one by one, and grabbed the bag of candies from his left hand.

“Let us eat first,” Mama said, gazing at us from the kitchen.

 

  1. abide (verb) – umalinsunod

Mama enrolled me at Calinan Central Elementary School since she worked there as a teacher in Edukasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan and Musika, Sining at Edukasyong Pampalakas. The class adviser greeted us with her kindly smile. She placed a Manila paper on the blackboard and asked us to repeat after her, pointing the stick on the first word, “ab-ide”.

“Make sure you’re at the top of the class.” Papa was kind and patient, but he expected much from us in terms of our studies. Despite the hardships he faced , he was an honor student all his academic life in Surigao del Sur. During meals, he would narrate how they needed to wake up at three in the morning, do chores and prepare for school, otherwise they would be forced to kneel on the floor with outstretched arms.  He also shared how fishing helped him with his studies until he became an educator. “You are provided with almost everything. All you have to do is to ask and study,” he would frequently tell us.

When the teacher posted the class ranking, I didn’t know what to say. I was second.

 

  1. page (noun) – pahina

“I’m disappointed. Your mother told me. ” Papa said.

“I’m sorry. I did what I could. But Troy was proficient in all subjects. I kept struggling with Math.”

“But the school sent both of you to the Math contest, right?”

“They did, because they knew you were my father.”

“What’s not to understand?”

“I tried. I was second.”

“You could’ve just asked for my help.”

“You were busy. ”

“Why were you afraid to approach me?”

“I asked you once about a word problem Papa. You taught me how, but I wasn’t able to get it. You got angry.”

“What? You know… all that I did and said was for your own good. I hoped you will see that one day.”

Papa went out of the room. I cried. It wasn’t 65 or 75 but having the grade made me feel like I was falling from a cliff. The fog blurred my sight.  The rocks pierced my back.

I opened the notebook and let fear and sadness scribble themselves. In writing, I never had to ace all tests.

 

  1. sea (noun) – dagat

Summer arrived in a flash. I woke up at seven, drank milk, and walked toward the living room, avoiding to create a sound.

“Good morning Ate,” Patrick said, holding the remote control, eyes glued on the scene where Batman was chasing a thief. I wanted to watch fairytales.  Should I exercise my power as the eldest child?  I thought.

Brandon came out of the bedroom, grabbed the object from Patrick and raised it in the air.  Patrick reached for it but he couldn’t, so he covered the television button instead.

“I want to watch Sineskwela, “ Brandon said.

“You too, stop. Brothers should not quarrel with each other. Give me that,” I said.

“But…”

“I’ll tell Mama and Papa about this.”

Brandon gave me the remote control.  He went back to bed. The show ended, and Patrick decided to play basketball next.

I watched Grimm’s fairytales on television. The episode was based on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Little Mermaid. Sirenetta exchanged her voice for a pair of legs since she wanted to be with the prince whom she  had rescued from a shipwreck. When the prince took her to the palace, she found out that he was already engaged. In her sorrow, she went to the shore, and there she heard her sisters’ voices, urging her to kill the prince with the dagger so she could return to her old self.  However, love and pity conquered her. She ran and let herself be one with the sea once more. Fairies saw her and they carried her body as they flew to the skies.

Tears formed bubbles around.  I wanted to give Sirenetta a happy ending she deserved.  Writing gave me power to change and create, to make the impossible possible.

 

  1. walk (verb) – maglakad

My parents enrolled me at Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School under the Engineering and Science Education Program (ESEP). I didn’t know of schools here in the city that offered Writing curriculums, so I obeyed my parents’ wishes. The first few weeks were fine, but learning science required the skill and precision in doing laboratory experiments, which I lacked.

“Class, I will divide you into five groups. You will present a chapter of Ibong Adarna,” the Filipino teacher said. That was the sweetest news I heard for the day. The teacher assigned the last chapters to us — the part where Don Juan chose Maria to be his wife and queen of Berbanya.

Writing helped me fare in the program.

 

  1. candle (noun) – kandila

I was confined at Brokenshire Hospital, the only place with vacant rooms during the outbreak of dengue around July 2010.  Every now and then, medical technologists would get blood samples. None of my fingers were spared.

“You were being prayed for. But you should also pray for yourself,” Papa said.

“But who could pray at this state?” I said in a low voice.

The next day, Mama left for home since my brother had a fever also. I was scheduled for a heart examination that afternoon. A medical technologist came into the room two hours earlier than he was supposed to.

“Her platelet count dropped to four and we need to get a blood sample right now.

We said our prayers. The schedule for blood transfusion was cancelled. People never had the ultimate control of their lives, I thought. No one knew when would death break in or knock on the door. I realized I had to make the most of every minute, and make the right choice.

 

  1. rose (noun) – rosas

The classroom seat plan changed by the time I came back to school. I was transferred to the fifth row. Ian, a tall lean guy who I met last year in a spelling bee contest, greeted  all of us at the back.

Antoine de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince was the next reading material for our English class. The teacher tasked us to read and perform a scene from the excerpt. Christine and Ann already had their partners, so I asked my seatmate Marie instead.

What is essential is invisible to the eye. I pondered on those words. This world needed peace, I thought.

“That was good,” Ian said.  He was a literary writer from the school paper. The way he used mundane objects — the leaves, for instance as metaphors for his thoughts fascinated us.

Ian would share his poems to me every lunch break. That started the bond only the two of us had then.

 

  1. detour (noun) – magditur

Classes in ESEP ended at six in the evening. Almost all jeepneys were filled with passengers. By the time I reached home, my family was already in their bedrooms.

“Are you all right?” Mama asked.

“We were thinking of transferring you to a nearer school.” Papa said.

 

  1. gift (noun) – regalo

Adjusting to a new environment in Davao City Special National High School was not that difficult since I had known some of my classmates there from elementary.

I joined the school publication in Filipino, and worked as a News writer. It paved the way for more writing opportunities for me. My Filipino teacher sent me as the school’s representative for the University of the Philippines Mindanao Communicator’s Guild First Mindanao-wide On-The-Spot-Essay-Writing-Competition in Filipino.

The topic was about our stand on the government’s decision to pardon suspects of the Maguindanao massacre . I said in the essay that I was against it because it was unjust, and I showed how the youth could take part in this issue by raising awareness, for instance. Results came out after a couple of days. I received a medal and a cash prize.  Being the champion made my parents happier, and proud of me once more.  God willed it, I was certain.

 

  1. face (verb)- harapin

“Take up Architecture.” Papa’s words made me think.  I sketched a little but I still doubted whether I could do it.  I feared contradicting him.

They enrolled me at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. From a distance, the building looked like an unfolded scroll. This was the start of my new journey —  the road to the future.

Being in the Architecture program made me feel like I was a fish out of the water. Orthographic projections, for instance, tormented me. Analyzing how a three-dimensional object’s top, front and side view would look like in two-dimension was hard for me.  The rest of my classmates were receiving A+s in their plates. My usual grades were B-s.

 

  1. zone (noun)- sona

It was about seven in the evening when I came home. The T-square, triangles and tracing papers waited for me. I stared at the  Bachelor’s pad plan for almost an hour. Perhaps I could add spaces like a bar or a library. I was crying inside. I lifted the technical pen and sketched a zoning diagram — similar to an outline of a piece.

Mama entered the room, bringing a cup of hot chocolate, biscuits, and storybooks. She placed these on the table by the bed.  The warmth of her palm soothed my shoulders.

“You should rest.”

“I just have to finish this.”

“Okay then. Please read this in your free time and write additional questions. I will give this as an activity to my pupils.”

I left the tracing paper by itself. I picked up the book Why the Town Is Sleepy. Reading it reminded me who I was, what I could and could not do.

 

  1. shift (noun) – turno

I gathered my courage and opened the door to my parent’s room. My chest was pounding. Mama was lying in bed, watching a television show.

“Mama, I have something to tell you. ”

“Yes?”

“Ma, you have seen the days when I am almost sleepless. I cannot draft fast and accurately at the same time. I want to shift.”

“You are already there. Your father would not want you to do that. Try to work faster, do not mind the pressure.”

“I can’t. I tried.”

“Did they fail you?”

“I did in Math. Almost in Drafting.”

“Why would you give up? All courses are difficult.”

“I know Ma and it seems harder for me because I lack the skills.”

“Did they kick you out?”

“No, Ma.”

“The expenses.”

“I cannot go on like this”

“What course are you planning to shift to?”

“Creative Writing.”

“I’ll tell your father about that.”

 

  1. voice (noun) – boses

“Why?” Papa asked.

“I’m sorry Papa. I did what I could.”

“I’m sorry I did not ask you.”

“I’m sorry I did not tell you. I was afraid to go against you.”

He embraced me tight. I felt I was a young girl once again.

 

  1. force (noun) – pwersa

I remembered making Newton’s cradle for our final project in Integrated Science in my first year in highschool. I asked Papa to buy me a piece of styrofoam and string. I picked up thin pieces of wood in the backyard and borrowed marbles from my brothers.

I attached the thread of the string on the hook at the top of the marble. Then, I glued it on the wooden horizontal bars, and placed it on the styrofoam. I pulled the first string and released it. The last ball was supposed to move but it did not. For several hours, I modified the length of the string and tried until the last ball swung, moving at least an inch. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Isaac Newton once said. The cradle taught me that one’s decisions lead to more of it, pulling and then releasing three balls meant that three balls would swing forward in return.

 

  1. flow (verb) – dumaloy

Carlos Angeles’s “Gabu” was one of the literary works that struck me most.  The poem depicted an image of a wave coming back to the sea as soon as it reached the shore. It reminded me of the moments when I had to return to where I came from, and to face, examine, and conquer the pains of the past, in order to find purpose in this life, and to move forward.

Joanna Paula M. Cagape majors in creative writing at the University of the Philippines Mindanao.