Taro Rocks

I’m sitting in front of my laptop screen, happily fulfilling the role of being a personal DJ to my brother and his fiancé (my future sister). They're practicing their dance with their instructor, Mikee. And I’m their willing in-house DJ.

In between pausing the music and choosing the next song, I sit here with nothing but my thoughts. That’s why I just decided to write something for my blog.

For today, let’s talk about humanity.

Sometimes the best conversations in the world are those that are exchanged with complete strangers. Without knowing anything about the person, you just talk about things that you don’t even discuss with some friends just because you don’t find the reason to.

While tipsy and naturally high from rockeoke-ing, I had this friendly conversation with someone I just met the other night.

Upon knowing that I was a Psychology major and a Developmental Psychologist at that, he asked me if I believed that humans are innately good. I said with complete confidence that yes I believe that the human person is innately good.

And then he asked me what was the worst thing that anyone has done to me. I thought about it and said that the worst was probably being backstabbed.

He said, “That’s it?” Yes, that was it.

Then I asked him if he believed that the human person is innately good. He said that despite what he has experienced including betrayals and other things in life, yes he believes that people are innately good.

He was straightforward and his tone could have been considered curt by others when he said afterwards, “Your turn. Ask me.”

I didn’t point out that I just did. I took it that he meant I should ask a new question. And of course, that was what he meant.

And so I asked the first question that popped in my head not minding if it sounded trite or even beauty pageant-ish, “What’s the happiest moment in your life?”

Apparently, that was a hard one. He said he’d cheat.

Fine. Cheat away. There wasn’t any right or wrong answer for me. Besides, how can you cheat when there’s nothing to cheat on? The rules were as loose as loose can be. There weren’t any.

He answered that his happiest moment is an extended one. It would be the past three years and a half of his life as a father to his son. Cheating or no cheating, I was satisfied with his answer. It was beautiful.

Then he asked me back the same question.

Let me tell you something which I should have told you earlier on. During this entire conversation, we were both tipsy. We’ve been drinking free flowing beer the entire night. At least for me, the beer felt like free flowing. Music was blaring. My friends were all around. And this guy was just friendly to everyone.

So my tipsy answer to his question was: I try to make the present moment happier than the past. So now is my happiest. I’m happier this second compared to the last.

He thought it was good enough. But then again, as I said, we were tipsy. He was being agreeable.

Tipsy is a different feeling for everyone. It just so happened that we were both agreeable when tipsy.

So there… That was my answer. It was either bull or real. But it was most probably real. Without any inhibitions or any other thoughts in my head, that was what I said. And I thought about it only at the point he threw back my own question at me.

We were complete strangers and we discovered things in a few minutes of conversation. It started with a question he raised: If there were three wishes that you could have tomorrow, what would it be?

I learned that 1) he wanted to find a motherly figure but not a wife, 2) that he is fascinated by a particular lake (my semantic memory failed me and I can’t remember the name of the lake), and 3) he wanted to visit Turkey and experience their culture.

He learned 1) that I want to finish my thesis (he actually asked what it was and allowed me to finish saying its long title and showed genuine interest. That was when he learned about Developmental Psych), 2) that I want to earn good money, and 3) that I want to go to Africa. (I believe that we all came from that place until land masses moved and separated into seven continents through the years.)

Not minding how my answer sounded or how anyone would have thought of me with those answers, I just said the first things that entered my mind. Looking back, they make sense to me. They're short term wishes and not the ultimate wishes of my entire being so for me, they're important matters for now. Or at least for the next coming days/months. That's how vague "tomorrow" is.

Eventually, my boyfriend joined in the conversation. He also thought this guy was cool. Funny thing was that it was only in the end when I discovered his name because we were so engrossed in the conversation that our names seemed trivial.

His name, after playing it in my head, reminded me of a root crop in a marketplace. And until now I remember it well. Maybe it’s because of the connections I made when I heard it. Maybe that’s how my name-face recognition works.

Just like a little taro growing from underground, I think I got to the root of him with his three wishes, his ultimate happiness, and his main idea about humanity.

People should try getting tipsy every once in a while and see how they behave. With inhibitions gone, a lot of those little truths come out. I used to say that I need not be tipsy to speak my mind but I have to admit that sometimes I do stop myself from talking when I'm completely clear-headed. But that night, I didn't have any reason to. Let’s all rock like taros above the ground.

Wedding Bloggables

My brother is getting married in less than two weeks and I'll be having another older sister! :)

Theirs will be the first wedding in my immediate family and the 23rd wedding I'll be attending in general. (I'm one of those girls who counts all the weddings she has attended. Haha!) My mom was astonished not by the number of weddings I've attended but by the fact that I remember each one of them to the point of being able to count.

I do remember each and every one of those 23 weddings very vividly. In fact I remember each of the churches, receptions, invitations, color motifs, dresses, program hosts, performers, speeches, and the desserts. I also remember whether the guys were required to wear Barong Tagalog or coat-and-tie. Of course, I remember the brides' gowns and notice their makeup too which make them glow. Lovely! And if I were really struck by the arrangements, sometimes I even remember the flowers!

What can I say? My episodic memory is way much better than my semantic memory. Plus weddings are so happy that I can't help but remember all of them.

I'm getting sentimental and all happy, mushy, slushy. I've actually been watching videos by Jason Magbanua and have labeled my favorite in my head. I've been checking out his works since the day Kuya Pao and Ate Ria decided to get him for their wedding video. I've also been listening to songs that would suit the cocktails area for the reception and planning the songs with a good friend of mine who's as much of a romantic as I am. I think her love bug bit me too.

Here's my favorite (by far) Jason Magbanua video. I'm a sucker when it comes to good music, impressive cinematography, and real love put together. I hope Andrei and Minerva don't mind me linking their video HERE.

How to conduct better Psych Interviews

These are the things I gathered from experience and also through the help of one of my professors. Actually most of them were based on mistakes that I committed and were constructively criticized by my prof. I'm now ready to take that plunge into the recesses of more in-depth interviews.

Without particular sequence, here are the useful tips you could use in doing interviews for qualitative empirical studies:

1) Memorize the themes of your interview and ask questions as you naturally do. Don't read them. Reading the questions sound so fake. I can attest to this.

2) Listen like how you listen to a friend. It fosters open conversation.

3) Dead air is okay. This is not a television interview nor is it a radio interview. It's a personal one-on-one interview in Psychology. Pausing then is perfectly fine especially when you're reflecting on the answers that have been shared by your respondent and connecting these to the next question to be asked.

4) Follow the flow of thought of your respondents. Make him or her recall particular events by following his or her lead. But be able to discern if you're still tackling the themes of your study and knowing how to go back to the topic at hand.

5) Allow yourself some time to think, to pause, and to even shift from English to Tagalog and vice versa.

6) Be comfortable and your respondent will be comfortable.

7) Ask questions when you don't understand what your respondent is saying.

8) Learn to multi-task in a microlevel. Listen, analyze, compose questions, ask, and analyze again but do all these while listening constantly.

9) Write short notes if needed and return to particular topics that need more focus.

10) In order for interviews to be in-depth, you have to probe and prod but you can never ask leading questions. Leading questions are those pre-conceived questions that make respondents feel like they thought of particular ideas but they actually didn't because you just fed them these ideas. It's different from observations gathered during the interview with which you are encouraged to ask the respondents for confirmation.

10.5) Make sure your recorder works. And if it works, make sure that if it's digital, it completely "saves" your interview. No matter how good an interview has been, if it does not get documented verbatim, important data are lost. And all you're left with are the following: additional interview experience, a little hint of regret, an attempt to make a joke out of a dilemma, charging everything to experience, and scheduling another respondent to be interviewed in exchange for the lost data.

I hope you get to enjoy all your Psych interviews as much as I enjoy mine!

CHEERS :)

Walking the Walk

With gas prices rising, it's really time for us to save some gas. No, actually it's a reminder for us to just save. Period.

I've ridden the MRT several times for the past months and availed of the P100 value card because there are places in the metro that are easily reached by using the MRT. Never mind that I sometimes get squished and cramped in a corner, jabbed by elbows and big bags. I'm surrounded by women anyway.

So it's either take the MRT for me or if that's not possible, at least make sure that all my errands are done systematically. I make sure that I have multiple goals in an area so that when I bring a car there, it's not a total waste of gas and time.

For the past days and nights that I drove, what I've noticed was that less cars were on the road, making driving enjoyable again. Local traffic I encountered in EDSA for the past days wasn't because of the quantity of vehicles but because of closed roads/lanes. But that's another story.

Oil price rising. We're all feeling it, right? Oh yes, we are. It's a Wednesday which means two more nights and the prices will increase again. With this in mind, I'm trying to save in other little and simple ways.

If there's anything in my lifestyle that I want to continue despite all these, I still want to be able to traverse EDSA in the middle of a Tuesday or a Thursday night. With MRT stations closed by the time I return, I drive on 80kph which according to Shell is the optimum steady speed that saves gas. So yeah in a way, I'm walking the walk that we should all be walking.

Stirring Souls

I've been reading books the past few days and enjoying the time I have in my hands.

For today, I just want to share some photos from the reinvented Soulmix. Earlier in June, we went to Payatas A where I met the nice people from the Glorious Crucifix Chapel. The kids and mothers were all warm and game! ;) And I also had the chance to work with Bro. Ody without any of our usual scripts. I enjoyed having impromptu lines and interviews.

Here are some shots from the "work" that I love. :)
Photos taken by our director, Ernestine aka Derek Ernest.

Greetings from VJ Lala.


Happy kids of Payatas.


Interview with the kids.


Hanging in between takes and putting sungay on Michael, hehehe.


Interview with Brother Ody.


Soulmix airs every Saturday on TV 5 at 6:00-7:00 am. :)

Happy Halfie :)

"A good thesis proposal is half the thesis done." -words of one of my Titas when I was just starting my proposal.

Today at 9:30 am, I presented and defended my thesis proposal in front of a panel. All the anxious thoughts I had in my head last night, the moment I hit the pillow at 8:30pm until I fell asleep at 10:30 pm, just disappeared in the air of lightness and understanding.

I practiced my presentation over and over because I used to exceed the allotted 20 minutes, initially baffled as to how I could put months of work into a short presentation. I don't particularly remember how many times I practiced but I remember doing so for several days, editing my presentation until it fit the 20 minutes! My first challenge was to turn my 55 US Letter pages into 13 workable Powerpoint slides. My younger sisters and Franco could attest to this, slashing and deleting here and there until only the highlights were left behind. My second challenge was to speak with confidence and to be able to convey my ideas in a clear flowing manner. From jittery to confident, I've seen my own progress in presenting my thesis proposal. And now, it's all good! :)

Of course there's more work to be done but it's easier to see the end goal when you've surpassed the center of the road. I could see the end of this particular journey saying M.A. in Developmental Psychology in big bold letters. And from there, i shall go down the bus and find my own car to drive... So many things to do but I'm halfway there with the panel members' signatures as testament to my thesis proposal's approval. :)

I'M JUST SO HAPPY! I think I've made it obvious enough with all the happy faces :) I've typed, haha. Anything and everything just makes me smile and laugh today... With one part over, another part unfolds. Before heading back to work, I just have to write this feeling down.

There's a certain kind of feeling that bursts out of my chest, like an invisible gas, making everything around me happy and high. So this is how it feels... :) In the department, everyone was congratulating me until the moment I left, including Kuya Collins (security guard of the building) who I chatted with afterwards. I drove home with a smile literally plastered on my face.

I'm so thankful to everyone! To all my friends, my family, and Franco who all gave their support throughout the process, THANK YOU. :) Thank you for all those who have been leaving encouraging messages in my blog, talking to me in person, or sending me text messages before the big day. And of course I want to Thank God. :)

I'm just happy and I want to spread it to everyone! Catch some love, happiness, and sunshine because I'm throwing all those out to the world. Hard work pays off!!! :)

For now, I'll go back to that returned copy of my proposal for additional comments and suggestions because as I said, I'm still halfway through.. :)