Bright lights ahead

First, I want to thank the people of Green Griffin. If you need anything transcribed, I highly recommend them. They make life easier for people like me who have let's see... roughly around 2,025 minutes of interviews to transcribe. With them helping me, I get to finish half of the bulk by myself and while doing so, I have some data coming in. It's more time efficient because they're several times faster than I am. You can email them through littlegreengriffin@yahoo.com
or ria.greengriffin@gmail.com

Second, I am so happy to learn about yousendit.com which allows people to send files up to 100mb for free!

Third, I am thankful for meeting wonderful Filipino women in different career fields who willingly and openly share their stories and insights to me. On a very lucky day, I encounter those who voluntarily help me further by recommending tons of friends for interviews.

Today is the last day of August and although I'm far away from my original target, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Despite the fact that I'm not earning a single centavo as a full-time student (now you see why I want piso for your thoughts? haha), I still get by. As the song goes, "Oh yes, I get by with the help of my friends."

Actually, I get by with the help of lots of people -- my parents, my siblings, Franco, my friends. They help in different ways of course, mostly being supportive about what I'm doing. And to augment my measly personal income, a few gigs and stuff come up and they're things that I enjoy doing so I feel more than okay.

I want to work full-time again after this year and eventually be more independent. I just have to be patient. It could even be sooner than I think. I'll let you know too what kind of work I'll be doing in the future when things are final. ;) So yes, the world is good.

Thank you, World!

Mobility in Metro Manila

Point A to Point B to Point C, D, E, F, G, H, I... and so on. That's how my day turned out to be. Four Malls. Two corporate buildings. Two food establishments. Three houses. From QC to Makati to Ortigas to QC to Annapolis to San Juan then back to QC. All in one day. But don't worry, guys! I tried to save gas by using the MRT. I also hitched with friends who were going to the same places. And then when it was time for me to drive a car, I made sure someone else was riding with me.

To be honest, I was sort of dreading getting up from my bed this morning because I didn't know how the day would turn out to be. I didn't know some of the places I was supposed to go to and I didn't know how to go about the entire schedule. But guess what? Everything went according to plan (which I devised after taking a shower). Sometimes the best ideas just pop in weird places.

Up until yesterday morning, I thought my Friday would only be comprised of a single interview and loads of transcribing plus a dear friend's 30th birthday bash at night. But when Thursday afternoon arrived, text messages and calls did too. And then all of a sudden, everything that could be scheduled today was scheduled today.

For the first time, I missed lunch at 12 noon. I ate around 3:00pm. I know other busy people are able to do that on a regular basis but for those who know me, that's already something.

At the end of the day (well almost), I'm amazed that I pulled it off. I was able to do all the errands, work, and thesis responsibilities that I needed to do. I even helped a friend with her little project along the way.

Now, I'm back home. But not for long because I'll be leaving again in a few minutes.

I just had to write this. For documentation purposes.

My eyes are beginning to droop but no. Go, go, go.
This is what we do in our mid-20s. We just go, go, go.

The Creatives

For the love of art, a friend of mine and I decided to shoot something today. He has the raw photos with him, which I'm hoping would turn out as incredible as his other artworks. I promise to post them once they're ready for the public eye.

It was a spontaneous kind of shoot. Just a few days ago, I saw his art and liked what I saw. He, on the other hand, saw my photos and I guess he liked my ka-artehan. Harhar. He asked me to become his subject and I said yes.

We are the founders of DADS. Desperate Artists and Desperate Subjects. He coined the term the other day when we realized that we didn't have an available SLR camera to use for our little project. We didn't have anything actually -- no exact location, no make-up artist (I miss you, Carmie! Come home!), no lights except the natural ones -- the sun and the moon. But we just had ideas and the belief that we'd be able to do it. And boy did he have determination! You see, we only had today to shoot because he'd be flying back to Spain for school soon. And so earlier today, right before the shoot, he got his own camera. Using his own words, it was "sweet timing".

But even with the equipment he needed, the weather just wasn't the type you'd want to have for an outdoor shoot. The entire QC was gloomy. There was hardly any sunshine. The sky was filled with one big dark cloud and there was continuous drizzling. I asked him earlier during the day how the weather was in the south as that was where we would shoot. He said it was the same as the one up north but it doesn't mean it's useless. (Told you he was determined.) I agreed that we could work with the weather. And so, that was what we did. Expect the photos to be bleak and gloomy when I post them next time.

Aside from the fact that I walked around familiar areas wearing a very long dress and looking like a girl who came from her prom (except that I was already 25 and with a guy not in tux but with black clothes, spiky hair, and piercings), I enjoyed this particular shoot. Surprisingly, it wasn't tiring. It even felt rejuvenating. Maybe it was the raindrops.

This is how much I believe in creativity. I muster the confidence to wear non-regular garments in familiar places. I traverse heavy traffic. I stand under the drizzling sky. All for the name of creativity.

I remember another good friend of mine when he said last night that he came from a family of dentists except that technically, it was no longer a family of dentists because he broke the record by not being one. He entered advertising, got deeply into writing, and had no inclination or whatsoever to become a dentist. We were in similar situations somehow. He labeled ourselves "the creatives". One can look at it as ruining family tradition. But maybe we just make things more diverse.

Personally, my family loves the idea of me trying out various things. I'm happy because they support me in all the activities I do -- whether finishing my masters, zipping, hosting, writing, or doing other creative activities. For instance, my dad has magazines in his clinic with my articles in them while my mom explains what "zipping" and "poi" is to all her friends who are not familiar with the art. ;) Yeah, I think they're fairly happy with all that I do because they see me enjoying them.

And so far, if you ask me, enjoyment is the no.1 reason why people stay in their jobs and do what they do, whatever it is that they do.

Okay, that's it for today.
I'll show you guys the artwork soon. I hope. :)

Pre-Kadayawan Weekend

The weekend before the Kadayawan festival in Davao, my older sister and I finally took our long-awaited vacation. It was filled with fun, food, and fresh air. :)

Flashback to 1993. Ate Monica and I were supposed to go with our dad to Davao City for a short vacation. But my very excited older sister got sick at the time and could no longer join. So my first trip to Davao was with my dad & my younger sister, Nikki.

I remember sleeping in a long car ride, seeing Mt. Apo, and finally seeing the very famous Philippine monkey-eating eagle, PAGASA. Those plus the fact that upon landing in the airport, people placed lei of orchids all around our necks. For those who still don't know, I am not fond of flowers. This quirk of mine started since the day my older sister chased me with one and thoughts of venus fly traps & pitcher plants ruled my head. So most of my life and especially during childhood, I really wasn't very fond of flowers.

Looking back to my Davao experience, I was a brave little girl for wearing those orchid necklaces. I wore them as long as Nikki did. (And that was a pretty long time because she was very fond of those lei as normal girls are). Besides, I couldn't get away from flowers even if I wanted as Davao is also known for its beautiful orchids. (If you ask me, "beautiful" is such a relative term).

In general, that was a very memorable trip with more stories to tell (and more images in my head) than photos to show.

One of the long weekends of August 2008. After so many years, I went back to Davao with Ate Monica. Because I'm about to go back to thesis work, I'll just let some of our photos speak for themselves. :D



Peak of Mt. Apo



Curious Eagle



A Page from Scrutineyes.


Happy Boat


Resting. Chema's by the Sea.


Davao Skies


Infinity Pool


Lights at Night


Droplets of Rain.

If Picasso and Da Vinci wrote instead of painted

Human emotions are best understood when set in action. Describing in words limits these emotions. But even if description limits the emotion, sometimes we need these descriptions to make people understand how we are feeling inside.

I remember a writing assignment for my Filipino class in college. My prof gave each one of us a single topic for our descriptive essays. Our topics varied from well-known persons, places, things, and events. The Who, Where, What, and When.

Challenging me more than anyone else, my prof decided to give me none of these tangibles.

I had to describe an emotion. I had to describe "awa".

In English, "awa" would be roughly translated to "pity" but if I wrote my essay in English, I wouldn't have grasped the emotion "awa". My essay would have been totally different as I feel "pity" as slightly different from "awa".

How do I write about an emotion? I have an abstract way of understanding how. I feel it then I write it. But I didn't know that when I was 17. In other words, my essay for that particular assignment sucked. Okay, it didn't suck as in below-passing-grade-suck but it was just okay.

If she gave the same assignment to me now, I would have done it much better. Somehow, I feel that I am better equipped in understanding a human emotion, cradling it in my arms as if tangible, and writing it down into words.

Maybe what I actually understand better now is what the emotion does to me. When contained, it feels like a bubble ready to burst inside. It could be triggered by an outside force but emotions usually arise even before we consciously think about it. The emotion jerks us but only inside. Sometimes it manifests itself physically and we could only hope to guard it and to tone it down just a little bit for self-preservation.

For instance, how many of us have experienced that fast beating of the heart that just occurs when we see images of particular persons? We sometimes hope that fast beating won't be as loud to others as it is to ourselves. We try to keep this information to ourselves because we don't want to be vulnerable to others.

I am not the type who blushes. I don't actually. It's just like that with my skin color. But a lot of other people do and their ability to blush betrays them no matter how much they try to keep their emotions in. But even if I'm lucky that blushing isn't part of my composition as a person, my face is so transparent that no matter how much my skin tone protects my emotions, my expressions just give them all away. In particular, my eyes give them all way.

But I've come to a point that I don't need to hide any emotions. I just want to share them and show them. I've shown real emotions to most of you.

Although I probably wrote in abstract and in codes again, this post has so much meaning for me. Bottom line is I'm one of the most emotional persons I've ever known. And I hope one day that I'd be able to write all these human emotions down in their full intensities and colors.

Amor. Prudencia. Felicitas.

A glimpse of Kuya Paolo and Ate Ria's Wedding
August 3, 2008
San Agustin Church, Intramuros


Video by Jason Magbanua